Promotions

Promotion groups

Promotion groups, as the name implies, group promotions according to their type. These groups have no hierarchical structure, or priority. By default, each store has the following promotion groups:

• Product Level Promotions
  • Percentage off per item
  • Fixed amount off per item
  • Fixed amount off for all
  • Buy X, get one or more items at a discount
  • Free gift with purchase
    Note: If the price of a free gift exceeds the minimum qualification price of the promotion, customers may be able to order the gift item without buying anything else. This is working as designed, but may lead to unexpected behavior in some circumstances.
• Order Level Promotions
  • Percentage off
  • Fixed amount off
  • Free gift with purchase
    Note: If the price of a free gift exceeds the minimum qualification price of the promotion, customers may be able to order the gift item without buying anything else. This is working as designed, but may lead to unexpected behavior in some circumstances.
• Shipping Promotions
  • Free shipping
  • Discounted shipping for an order using a selected ship mode
  • Discounted shipping for all items using a selected ship mode
  • Discounted shipping per item using a selected ship mode

Exclusivity

Each promotion has an exclusivity setting. This governs how the promotion should be evaluated with respect to other promotions. For instance, you can configure a promotion so that it is exclusive within the selected group, that is, its own promotion group. This setting means that if the promotion is applied, no other promotions from the same group can be applied. Alternatively, you can configure the promotion so that it is exclusive within all groups. This setting means that the promotion is globally exclusive, so that if the promotion is applied, no other promotion can be applied to the order. Finally, the promotion can be combined with any other promotions, which means that it is not exclusive. Promotion exclusivity is governed by a set of promotion policies, which define how promotions should be handled, particularly when multiple promotions apply.

Note that specifying an order level or shipping promotion as exclusive within the selected group effectively does nothing. By default, both of these promotion groups only allow a single promotion within the group to be applied to a single order. However, promotions in the order group are not exclusive of promotions in the shipping group, by default. The same is true for shipping promotions; they are not exclusive of promotions in the order group. This means that a customer can receive both an order level promotion, and a shipping promotion, if they qualify. This behavior is explained further in the next section on promotion policies.

The topic of promotion policies is covered in more detail in promotion evaluation sequence.

Promotion status

Promotions that are current may be in one of two states; namely Active or Inactive. New promotions are inactive by default when created. Promotions can be activated, or deployed, at any time. Likewise, an active promotion may be withdrawn at any time.

Availability

To determine whether a promotion is available, the system checks its status. If the promotion is currently in the Active state, then the evaluation continues. If the promotion is Inactive, it is considered unavailable, and is not evaluated.

The next consideration is a promotion's schedule. When you create a promotion you must define availability dates, which act as boundaries. Furthermore, when you create a promotion, you might optionally specify that the promotion is only available on one or more specific days of the week. In the same manner, you have the ability to define a promotion such that it is only available within a certain time period, such as between noon and 5:00 PM. If the current timestamp (according to the WebSphere Commerce Server) falls between the two availability dates, and meets the other optional scheduling criteria, it is considered available. Otherwise, the promotion is considered unavailable, and the promotion is not evaluated further.

Applicability

Once a promotion is determined to be available, it is evaluated to determine whether it is applicable to the current shopping cart. You may target specific customers by selecting one or more customer segments to either target or exclude during promotion creation. If the current customer is not a member of the target segment, or is a member of an excluded customer segment, then the promotion is not applicable.

You must define purchase conditions during promotion creation. These conditions may be at either the product level, or the order level. For instance, if you want to offer a 10% price reduction on a product, the purchase condition would require that the customer's shopping cart contains the specific product. In the same manner, if you wanted to offer free shipping on orders totaling over $100, the purchase condition would require that the shopping cart total exceed $100.

Applicability limits

You can impose limits on your promotions' applicability in three different ways:

• Maximum number of times that the promotion can be applied. This limits the total number of times the promotion can be applied by all registered customers. For example, if you wanted to reduce inventory on some item, you might set this application limit to match the amount of the item that you have in inventory, to ensure that no one can use the promotion once the item has been cleared out.
• Maximum number of times that the promotion can be applied by a particular registered customer. If you define a value for this, it limits the total number of times that a customer can take advantage of a promotional offer.
• Maximum number of times that the promotion can be applied to a particular qualifying order. If you define a value for this, it limits the total number of times that a registered customer can take advantage of a promotional offer at one time. For example, if you had a gift with purchase promotion that offered a free tie when a customer buys two dress shirts, you might only want to allow a customer to apply this promotion once on any given order. Otherwise, a customer buying ten shirts might qualify for 5 ties. Note that by default, this application limit has no effect on order level and shipping promotions.

Applicability limits are often communicated to customers so that there are no surprises. For example, some promotions are communicated as being in effect, "while supplies last", while other limits are communicated directly, such as "Limit, two per customer". If you impose application limits on a promotion, consider including this information in any advertising messages to ensure accurate customer expectations.

Discount ranges

A single promotion can have multiple ranges defined, which increase the amount, or percentage of a discount as the volume of the order grows. For example, when creating a percentage discount on a total order, you might create a promotion that offers a 5% discount on an order that totals less than $100, but offers a 10% discount on orders that total $100 or more. Another example might give $5 off shipping on orders that total $50, $10 off shipping for orders between $50 and $100, and free shipping on orders that total $50 or more. There is no limit on the number of ranges that can be defined for a given promotion.

Advertising your promotions

You can advertise promotions using the marketing tools in the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator. To do so, create content which supports the promotion, and select the content when you are assigning the advertisement to a particular e-Marketing Spot. The content you create can range from simple flat text describing the promotion, to images with actions defined for how to respond when a customer clicks on them.

You can also surface information about the promotions in your store pages. For example, you could surface the promotion name, or description if necessary, by including the CalculationCodeListDatabean on your JSP, and then using the methods on that data bean to access the information directly.