Get started with pricing

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Optimizely Configured Commerce has several options to control product pricing. There are also options for complex pricing structures, such as pricing at different quantity breaks or pricing for different customers.

Consider how pricing is displayed to guest users. The Website AccessWebsiteNavigation setting controls what users can access before signing into the website. See Manage guest access for information.

Basic and list pricing

Basic and list pricing is one price for all customers. This involves setting a price directly within the Admin Console or through an integration. 

Price filtering is only available when using basic or list pricing.

Use the following steps to configure the basic list price within the Admin Console: 

  1. Go to Admin Console > Catalog > Products.
  2. Search for the product.
  3. Click the Edit icon on the product record.
  4. Find the Basic List Price field under Details. The basic list price is often set during ERP integration with Configured Commerce. To modify the price, edit the existing value.
  5. Click Save.

Sales pricing

Sale pricing, often used with Basic PricingList Price, can be set for a product on the Product Details page of the Admin Console. The value of the Basic Sale Price field supersedes the Basic List Price. The sale price is controlled by setting a schedule for the sale price using the Basic Sale Start Date and Basic Sale End Date fields. The website displays the sale price and basic price, along with the amount and percentage saved in italics. You can configure these settings with the Show Savings Amount and Show Savings Percent settings.

Use the following steps to set the sales price for a product.

  1. Go to Admin Console > Catalog > Products.
  2. Search for the product record you want to modify.
  3. Click the Edit icon on the product record.
  4. Edit the Basic Sale Price under Details with the new price.
  5. Click the Calendar and Time icons to set the Basic Sale Start Date and Basic Sale End Date.
  6. Click Save.

There are two ways to change the basic price of a product to a sale price:

You can change a product's basic price to a sale price through the Basic Sale Price or with a Promotion. The Basic Sale Price field can be useful for clearance items or special purchases from a vendor. Promotions allow sale prices and can also track spending patterns and habits. Neither choice is mandatory and depends upon your needs.

Price matrix

The price matrix lets you create flexible pricing options based on customers and products. It uses logic to create a hierarchical pricing structure, which can be used by many ERPs.

The price matrix is a generic construct that can store complex pricing information across various ERP systems. It is intentionally non-normalized data to create a data structure that can perform the calculations with minimal latency. It does have its limitations, such as a maximum of 10 price breaks.

Each ERP or custom application of the matrix can use different data in specific fields (RecordType, CustomerKeyPart, ProductKeyPart, CalculationFlags) as needed to accommodate the pricing functions.

Price filtering is not available when using Price Matrix.

Processing steps

The pricing matrix uses a methodical procedure to determine product costs. It applies a universal strategy to set prices, making modifications based on the specific ERP in use.

The general process flow for pricing is as follows:

  1. Gather appropriate records from the Configured Commerce Price Matrix Table.
  2. Organize potential price records into a hierarchy, from most specific to most general (also applies to warehouse, currency, and unit of measure).
  3. Identify the first record within the hierarchy that matches the specific pricing scenario.
  4. Calculate pricing with the price record identified above.
  5. Compare the calculated price to the sales price.
  6. Return the lowest value between the calculated or sales price.

Quantity-break pricing

Configured Commerce provides the option to display quantity-break pricing on the website.

Quantity-based pricing is available for both price matrix and real-time implementation. For the Quantity-Based Pricing table to display on the website for real-time implementation, quantity breakpoints and pricing are required as a part of the real-time call response data. For price matrix, the Quantity-Based Pricing table displays on the website if the quantity breakpoints and pricing are found within the Configured Commerce Price Matrix table.

Quantity-break pricing set up

Several conditions must be set in the Admin Console to use Quantity-Break Pricing for the price matrix. The steps are listed below.

  1. Go to Admin Console > Administration > Application Settings.
  2. Set AutoCalculatePrice to True.
  3. Set UseBasicPricing to False.
  4. Set ERP_PricingStoredProcedure to PriceCalculator_Generic.
  5. Set PriceCalculator to Generic.
  6. Go to Admin Console > Administration > Settings.
  7. Search for Pricing Service.
  8. Select any choice except List Price to use the price matrix.
    Price Break data must be available for it to display on the website.

Along with these settings, you must set up a price matrix record for the product. Price matrix records are typically created through integration. See Configure the price matrix for information.

Quantity-break pricing display

Items set with Quantity-Break Pricing display a link for Quantity Pricing. Hovering over the link displays a box showing the quantity pricing breaks and the savings percentage.

Real-time pricing

Ecommerce websites often must provide customers with pricing and inventory information in real-time. Use real-time pricing or inventory for any pricing or inventory changes made in the ERP throughout the day, rather than waiting for the next refresh. You can configure Configured Commerce to enable real-time integration jobs. Rather than running the pricing refresh or inventory refresh job on a recurring schedule, you can configure the platform to run the integration jobs every 500 milliseconds. Configured Commerce has a real-time pricing plug-in architecture that developers can use to call any pricing service or API. Real-time pricing calls are made as users go through the website but are cached to improve performance. Pricing information is loaded asynchronously from the rest of the page, letting users quickly navigate the website and not wait for pricing information to load.

If using real-time pricing, the maximum value for the Price Sort Maximum setting is 100. Any greater value prevents price sorting.

For Classic CMS, the number of products in the results must also be less than or equal to the value of the setting for the Sort by Price option to display. If a user selects Sort by Price, the server calculates the prices and sorts the results.

$0 pricing

When product pricing is set to $0, you can make that pricing valid for a product in Configured Commerce. This prevents an error message from displaying when the product is added to the cart. To enable $0 pricing, follow these steps in the Admin Console:

  1. Go to Admin Console > Catalog > Products.
  2. Search for the product for which you want to allow $0 pricing.
  3. Click Edit on the product record.
  4. Find the Pricing section under the Details finger tab.
  5. Set Allow 0 Value Pricing to Yes.

Configured Commerce handles promotional items with $0 pricing differently from regular items with $0 pricing. If a website user adds a promotional item with $0 pricing to the cart, the user can still complete the order successfully. This is true even if $0 pricing is not enabled for the product.

Cache $0 pricing

You can set Configured Commerce to cache $0 pricing.

  1. Go to Admin Console > Settings > Performance.
  2. Toggle Cache 0 value pricing to On. The default is Off.

When Cache 0 value pricing is Off, products with UnitListPrice, UniteRegularPrice, UnitListPriceWithVat, and UnitRegularPriceWithVat as 0 will not be cached. This is useful if you want to offer $0 on items for specific orders but have the item return to regular price.

Site messaging for invalid pricing

Configured Commerce lets you configure a site message for products with invalid pricing (rather than using the default message).

  1. Go to Admin Console > Administration > Site Messages.
  2. Click Edit beside Cart_InvalidPrice.
  3. Enter a site message in the Message field.
  4. Select the Website Target. The default is All Websites.
  5. Click Save.