creating discounts & promotions with hitachi solutions ecommerce

© Hitachi Solutions. 2015. All rights reserved.

Creating discounts & promotions with Hitachi Solutions Ecommerce


Contents

1. Feature Overview

2. Set up manual coupon restrictions at channel level

3. Types of promotions available in the Manager Panel

• Manual and Automatic Promotions

• Customer specific and whole order discounts

• SKU based discounts

• Item and shipping discounts

• Bundled promotions

4. Applying promotions

5. Avail discounts on web store

6. Display promotions on social media

2


Feature overview

• Increase Sales - The Manager Panel allows the CSR to create various types of attractive discounts and

promotions , and display them prominently on the web store. This helps entice shoppers into buying and increases

sales on your web store.

• Offer Wide Variety of Promotions - It is possible to create a variety of promotions such as item, shipping, whole

order, and bundled promotions via the Manager Panel. This helps reach a wider shopper base and cater to their

individual tastes and preferences.

• Manual and Automatic Discounts - Depending upon his business needs, the Store Manager can choose to

create both manual as well as automatic discounts. While manual discounts require coupon codes to be entered

by the customer, automatic discounts are applied directly if the promotion criteria are met.


The CSR determines if shoppers can use manual coupons on a particular web store. It is possible to apply single or multiple coupons during checkout or in the shopping cart as well. With consideration to customer loyalty, validations are in place to ensure that more privileges are not granted to guest customers over registered customers in terms of applying the number of coupons to an order.

Set up manual coupon restrictions at channel level


• Item Promotions -These promotions are on specific categories and SKUs only. To set it up, a CSR must select one or more categories/SKUs and choose between taking a certain percentage, or a fixed amount off, or a set item at a fixed price.

• Shipping Promotions - Shipping promotions are discounts on shipping and handling fees of an order. They can either be done by offering a certain percentage off or a fixed amount off. Example: Free ground shipping on any order over $50.

• Order Promotions - Order promotions are discounts on whole orders. Usually, the discount (percentage or fixed amount) is taken off the total order amount before shipping, handling, and taxes. Example: $20 off any order of $100 or more.

• Bundled Promotion - The marketing manager has the facility to set up bundled promotions where with the purchase of an item, other items are offered free or at discounted rates. E.g., An offer like ‘Logitech Speakers free with Sony Home Theater’. The shopper has the flexibility to not buy the deal. E.g., ‘Buy Urban Apparel Jacket and get Urban Apparel Cap at 40% off’. The shopper may not want to pay 60% for the cap and hence not buy the deal. The display of bundled promotions on the web store is as per the HTML template. The bundled HTML template gets assigned dynamically to any product having the bundled promotion, and the theme-specific CSS is automatically applied.

Types of promotions available in the Manager Panel


Manual and Automatic Promotions

Manual Promotions Automatic Promotions When creating promotions in the Manager Panel, the CSR specifies if it requires a manual coupon code to be provided by the customer. The coupon code is also specified by the CSR, along with conditions under which the coupon can be used. These coupon codes may be emailed to customers or displayed as content blocks on the web store.

When creating automatic promotions, the ‘Require Coupon Code’ box is unchecked in the Manager Panel. A coupon code should be specified by the CSR to help track the performance of various coupons. The discount is automatically applied to an order before the taxes are calculated.


General Discount Information

• Make discounts SEO friendly - The meta keywords and description ensure that the discounts created in the Manager Panel are easily searchable by search engines.

• Restrict customer access - The CSR can choose to provide the discounts to particular customer classes by selecting the same while creating the discount. Selecting ‘All’ makes the discount available to all customers.

• Choose discount requirement - The CSR sets the requirement which must be fulfilled to apply the discount. Discounts may be assigned to specific customers, or particular SKUs as required.


Create customer specific and whole order discounts

Create customer specific discounts Whole order discountsTo restrict discounts to a particular group of customers, the CSR selects the customer class applicable. To assign the discount to an individual customer, the CSR must choose ‘Discount must be assigned to customer’ under Step 2. An option is then provided to select the individual customer.

Whole order discounts can be used to give discounts on an order, irrespective of the items purchased. The discount is applied during checkout. If multi-channel browsing is enabled, then the discount must be enabled for all relevant stores.


The CSR creates discounts for particular SKUs or group of SKUs according to his business needs. The CSR can determine if the customer is required to purchase all or a particular SKU for the discount to be available. A variety of options are available in ‘Step 3’, where the CSR also chooses the SKUs for which the discount is applicable. Similarly, he can exclude particular SKUs if the excluded SKUs are relatively less. The selected SKUs can be edited/ removed at any time via the Manager Panel.

SKU based discounts


Create item and shipping discounts

Set up shipping discountItem discounts may be manual or automatic and are available on individual items in the catalog. The CSR decides if he wishes to provide a fixed price discount (e.g. $25 off) or a percentage discount (e.g. 10% off) on the various items chosen.

Similar to item discounts, shipping discounts are also manual or automatic depending upon the CSR’s discretion. Instead of individual categories or products, the discount is applicable to shipping methods and applied to the order during checkout.

Set up item discount


The marketing manager has the facility to set up bundled promotions where with the purchase of an item, other items are offered free or at discounted rates. The shopper has the flexibility to not buy the deal. The display of bundled promotions on the web store is as per the HTML template. The bundled HTML template gets assigned dynamically to any product having the bundled promotion, and the theme-specific CSS is automatically applied.

Attract shoppers with bundled promotions


CSRs can choose to apply the discount coupons manually, giving them full freedom to service shoppers on a case-by-case basis or use the discount engine to calculate discounts. Once the CSR selects the method for applying promotions, the option is frozen and cannot be edited at any stage of the sales order process. In case the promotion expires within the time the customer places the order and calls the support center to make amendments to it, the store manager or the CSR can still apply these expired coupons. Complex promotions such as bundled discounts can be applied using the in-store edit option.

Apply promotions manually or using discount engine


Based upon the type of discount applicable on an item, the discounts are either applied automatically to the shopping cart or upon providing a coupon code by the customer. In case the shopper makes any modifications to his order after applying the coupon, the coupon will be removed and re-evaluated. This is performed in an intuitive fashion to keep the end user informed about the changes being made to his order. Shipping-related coupons can be applied only after the shopper selects his shipping method.

Avail discounts in shopping cart or during checkout


The CSR can use the ‘Share’ option from the Manager Panel to post the latest discount offerings on major social networks like Facebook and Twitter. To share a promotion on Facebook or Twitter, click on the coupon row that needs to be shared, enter the landing page URL, title, caption, and a brief description to ‘Post’ on Facebook or ‘Tweet’ on Twitter.

Display promotions on social media


Thank You.

15

creating discounts & promotions with hitachi solutions ecommerce

Software