Last updated 22/01/2021
It’s more than likely you have agreements with your customers giving them a certain discount. Perhaps you sell a specific product to a customer at a negotiated price, or perhaps you’ve agreed that the customer receives a percentage discount off an entire category.
It's often difficult to remember what discounts were given to which customers; Cin7 helps automates this process using the Promotional Matrix.
In combination with Price Columns, you should be able to replicate any discount structures you currently have. This will make applying discounts to orders easy for you and your team.
This article outlines the different promotions you can create and explains how to apply them correctly as well as provides an FAQ section to address common questions.
With a customer promotion applied, choosing a specific customer in a sales order will apply a discount to the order, based on the given conditions. These are commonly used when you have negotiated a particular price for a customer.
To apply a promotion to a customer, first make sure the Promotional Matrix has been enabled for the CRM module.
To enable the promotional matrix:
Once this has been done, you can then apply a promotion to a customer by following the instructions below.
To add a promotion to a customer:
There are four different types of Customer Promotion:
| Type | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Percentage Off Price Column | This is a percentage discount off a particular product. |
| Category Discount | This is a percentage discount off a category of products. You must tag your categories too (see below). |
| Set Price below Price Column | This sets a specific dollar price for a product. |
| Contract Price | This sets a specific dollar price which is higher than the customer’s assigned price column. |
The screenshot below shows four different examples of promotions.
| Explanation | |
|---|---|
| Line 1 | In this example, a 20% discount is applied to two specific products. Note how the codes are enclosed in square brackets and separated by a comma. |
| Line 2 | In this example, a 10% discount is applied to the base level categories "TShirts". This will apply a 10% discount on any lowest level category that has been tagged as “TShirts” as a group name. See below for how to tag a category with a group name. |
| Line 3 | In this example, the customer has two products where the selling price is set to $2. Note that $2 is not the discount but is the final price of the product (even though the column is called Discount.) For all currencies, including GBP, the currency symbol "$" must precede the amount. |
| Line 4 | In this example, the default price of a product is $7 but the contract price has been applied here for $10 - more than the standard price. |
A product promotion will apply to all sales of a specific product. This is useful if you are selling a product at a specific price for a period of time.
To apply a promotion to a customer, first make sure the Promotional Matrix has been enabled for the CRM module.
To enable the promotional matrix:
Once this has been done, you can then apply a promotion to a customer by following the instructions below.
To add a promotion to a product:
The following screenshot shows seven different examples of promotions:
| Explanation | |
|---|---|
| Line 1 | This is a 20% discount on this product |
| Line 2 | This is a 20% discount with a date range |
| Line 3 | This uses the logic buy X amount of this product and get each product at the reduced price. The 'Discount' column is the price of each unit after the discount. For example, if there was a special "buy 3 blue shirts for $15", and shirts were normally $10 each, you would need to insert "3x" into the Qty Column and "$5" into the Discount column - which represents the price per shirt at the discounted price. In addition you can have this special cover multiple items. For example, if "BlueShirt" was put in the group then any other product with the same group name in the promotional matrix would be included in the promotion. So in this case, if another product was updated with exactly the same promotion and group name "BlueShirt" then that would be included in the Buy 3 Blue Shirts for $30 promotion. |
| Line 4 | This product will not be discounted, even if any other promotions, such as Customer or Category Promotions would otherwise apply to it. |
| Line 5 | This is a 20% discount which will apply to all products once the ordered quantity meets or exceeds the threshold quantity. |
| Line 6 | This POS-only promotion will apply when the multiples of the same product are purchased, one of the products will be discounted 100% |
| Line 7 | This POS-only promotion will apply in addition to any other promotion, including the Special Price column, that affects this product. Use the action DiscountOnPromotions. |
The following table outline the different field headings in the promotional matrix and their uses.
| Field Heading | Description |
|---|---|
| Threshold | This field is the quantity of products that must be purchased to qualify for the discount. |
| Discount | This field can be % or $ and refers to the discount off the normal price of the product or the final dollar price of the product, respectively. |
| Action | This field is always blank for standard promotions on products. |
| Group | This field is always blank for standard promotions on products. |
| Dates | This field is an optional field that specifies the start and end date for which the promotion is valid. Format is "DD MMM YYYY |DD MMM YYYY” where dates are separated by a pipe symbol "|". Dates are inclusive. |
| Description |
This field will display on the product page and on the shopping cart page on the website. Note: This field must be unique. |
When you apply a customer promotion that is to be applied to a whole category, you must first 'tag' a category with a group name.
In order for the promotional matrix to appear against category the Promotional Matrix needs to be switched on for the products module - see above.
To tag a category with a group name:
A promotion will only work when it is applied to the lowest level category, which could be thought of as the 'bottom-most level' or the 'sub-sub-category'.
For example, if a category "Computers" has two sub-categories "Accessories" and "Hardware", the promotional matrix will need to be applied to the two sub-categories for the promotion to take effect.
If there are two further sub-categories under "Accessories", then the promotional matrix would need to be applied to those lowest level sub-categories instead of applying it to "Accessories".
Inserting a promotion line into top level categories will not have any effect.
You can also tag multiple categories with the same tag. You could, for instance, tag a number of categories with "All" so that a promotion applies to each product in these categories.
See the screenshot below for an example of a category tagged with two groups "Accessories" and "All".
You can apply Promotions to a whole category which will discount items for all sales of products in a particular category.
To add a promotion to a category of products:
A promotion will only work when it is applied to the lowest level category; see Category Tagging above for an explanation of how this works.
Category promotions follow the same logic as product promotions.
Certain Promotions do not work in all areas of Cin7. The table below explains in which module each promotion works.
Please note promotions are not currently compatible with Cin7 API.
| Type | Sales Order | POS | B2B Website |
|---|---|---|---|
| Product Promotions | |||
| 20% off an item for all products | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Buy X get X% off from same product | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Buy X for $X for the same product | Yes | Yes | Yes* |
| Buy X get X free for the same product | No | Yes | No |
| Customer Promotions | |||
| Percentage Off Price Column | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Category Discount | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Set Price Below Price Column | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Contract Price | Yes | No | No |
| Category Promotions | |||
| % off all products under category | Yes | Yes | Yes† |
| Buy X get X% off the whole category | Yes‡ | Yes^ | Yes^ |
| Buy X for $X | No | Yes^ | Yes^ |
| Buy X get X free | No | Yes^ | Yes^ |
| Exempt from Promotions | Yes | Yes | Yes |
* This only works in lots of three. If you buy four, it does not split into a lot of three and one by itself.
† This works but does not show on list page; only in the product details page.
‡ This only works at an individual level; it does not combine separate products within the same category.
^ This works even with a combination of products within same category.
The answer is it depends on the situation. Price Columns are very useful when a customer receives a negotiated price across every product you sell. However, remember that you can have a maximum of 10 price columns, so you need to use these sparingly. If, for instance, you trade with Walmart, you may feel justified using a whole Price Column for just Walmart, as they make up a considerable proportion of your sales.
For an infrequent customer, on the other hand, it may be better to give them a percentage off the standard wholesale price column via the promotional matrix.
No, but the Special Price column functions in a similar way. If you are having a sale across all your products, it is far easier to update the special price column than to add a promotion to each product.
No. The ability to import promotions in bulk is not supported at this time.
Yes. In the bottom right-hand corner of each Promotional Matrix area, there is a box. If you select the contents of this box, you can edit it by pasting it into Microsoft Excel, or paste it into other products, customers, or categories.
If multiple promotions are in effect, the promotion that gives the customer the lowest price will apply.
It's important to note that if you find a promotion is not working, check to ensure that there are not already active promotions that are overriding your most recent one.
Absolutely! Contact your Cin7 Customer Success Manager or Cin7 Support outlining your desired discount structure and they'd be happy to provide additional guidance and feedback on a recommended implementation.
