What Are the Components of a Discount?
For the latest version of Commerce Server 2007 Help, see the Microsoft Web site.
A discount has the following components: base properties, definition, eligibility, coupons, discount target, interaction, and display. You use the Marketing Manager to define these components when you create the discount.
Base Properties
Discount base properties are the discount ID, the name of the campaign to which this discount is a part of, the name of the discount, start date, end date, display type—such as Non-Clickable Image or Left Vignette, and the basket display—which explains the discount to the customer. For example, you may have a basket display such as "Congratulations! You have received the back-to-school discount!", and language.
Note
Commerce Server supports multiple languages. If you want Commerce Server to support a particular language, a basket display must be specified in that language.
Definition
The discount definition is a specification of what you are discounting, how much, and what must be purchased for the discount to apply. A discount definition has the following parts: Buy (product), Receive (award), Minimum, Award Limit, and Basket Limit.
Buy (product) specifies what the user must purchase in order for the award to be offered. The Buy condition must be true for the discount to apply. The condition is evaluated for each item in the order form. The Buy condition includes a buy any product, buy product/category condition, discount specific expression, and a global expression.
Minimum determines the type of buy condition. There are two types of buy conditions: Quantity and Value. You can apply discounts based on the quantity that users purchase, or on the value of the purchase. For example, you can create a discount that applies when a user buys three cases of juice (quantity), or a discount that applies when a user buys $20.00 worth of juice (value). Condition Value specifies the dollar or unit value of the condition.
Note
Commerce Server does not support fractional quantity values.
Receive (award) identifies what the user receives, for example, a 10 percent discount or free shipping. The award types are any product, a discount specific expression, order subtotal, product/category, global expression, and shipping cost.
Get determines the type of award condition: Percentage off or Amount off.
Award Limit determines the number of award items the user receives if the discount is applied. If the user basket contains fewer items than the award maximum, only those items in the basket will receive the award.
Basket Limit determines the maximum number of times the discount can be applied to a basket. If the basket limit has a value of zero (0), discounts are unlimited: the discount can apply multiple times, assuming the condition for the discount is met multiple times in the basket. The discount limit is a basket limit and does not apply across baskets. For example, if a user checks out, returns to the site, and buys the same discounted items then the user will receive the same discount again.
Eligibility
Eligibility specifies to whom the discount applies. Eligibility requirements are also referred to as target expressions. If the target expression evaluates to "True" the discount may be applied according to the discount definition.
Coupons
You can create promotion codes, also know as a coupon codes, and associate them with a marketing discount. For example, a retailer might tell frequent customers to enter the promotion code "FX43B" to receive a 10% discount on their whole order. One or more unique promotion codes (may be numbers or strings) may be associated with the discount.
Targeting
The discount target identifies the pages on which the discount will be advertised, and to which target groups.
Interaction
Discount interaction policies determine whether an item can receive multiple discounts or multiple awards. Commerce Server supports four different discount interaction policies:
Conditions items of this discount can be reused as condition items for other discounts.
Conditions items of this discount can be reused as award items for other discounts.
Award items of this discount can be reused as condition items for other discounts.
Awards items of this discount can be reused as award items for other discounts.
Note
This property is relevant only if there are multiple qualifying discounts to be applied to the user basket. These are also valid if there is a single qualifying discount and that discount can be applied to the basket multiple times (basket limit > 1).
Display
The discount display identifies how many times you will display the discount to a user, the image and/or URL that the user clicks to get the discount, the image display size—such as a full banner or a half banner, and the alternate text for the image.