The discount system software on…
If you are buying a cow, make sure that the price of the tail is included
Today, any entrepreneur working in the field of wholesale and wholesale-retail trade has to pay attention to the computerization of their own business. As a rule, the basis of the infrastructure of such a business is an online store built on the basis of one or another specialized CMS. The website of such a store, as a rule, performs a wide variety of functions, both in terms of customer service and in terms of sales management functions from the side of staff. Unfortunately, the diversity of the function of the online store itself ends where the preparation of data for such a store begins, as well as when it becomes necessary to implement specific functions, such as a discount system or prompt scaling of prices for certain groups of products. Of course, this article is not about expensive software packages, but about an ordinary site built on a standard free "engine" such as Wordpress/Woocommerce.
Of course, there are many free and paid plugins for free CMS that allow you to set up a discount system. However, as they say, the very diversity of life does not allow it to be implemented in one or another popular theme. That is why for the complex automation of the accounting of production and trade processes, it is necessary to use specialized software, made according to a project for a specific customer. One such project has been implemented by the programmers of our web studio. The description of this project contains the technology for product importing. Within the framework of this article, we will show how the problem of implementing a multi-level discount system for a trade enterprise was solved.
Problem Statement
The basis of the discount system are categories of buyers and a system of differentiated prices for each product and for each category of buyers. In addition, a pricing scheme is established for each product, in the form of a constant in the national currency or in the form of a number of conventional units.
The categories of buyers are as follows:
- retail buyer;
- drop shipper, or dropshipping buyer;
- wholesaler;
- dealer.
A corresponding column is reserved for each category of buyers in the import table:
In addition to the data in the import file, the information can be edited in the admin panel of the site. The administrator also has the ability to assign a particular status to any customer. In order to receive preferential status, the buyer needs to go through the online check-in procedure.
After the buyer is granted preferential status, he gets the opportunity to place an order at reduced prices for all products for which preferential prices are set. Information about the preferential status is contained in emails that are generated automatically in order to notify the buyer about the relevant online store events. In addition, after completing the login procedure, an information panel about the presence or absence of preferential status appears in the upper right corner of the browser window.
The task implementation
The sign-up algorithm is built on the basis of the standard Woocommerce functionality. However, this algorithm has been significantly improved by our programmers, by creating such additional features:
- the Google Recaptcha algorithm integration;
- lost password recovery;
- resending a letter to recover a lost password;
- restriction on the frequency of sending a letter to recover a lost password;
- the procedure for account activation by sending an activation link to the user, or manually, by an operator from the admin panel of the site;
User registration form looks like this:
After the user has entered the site and confirmed their mailing address, they can submit a request for special status. The status can be requested in a modal window that opens either on the product page or in the information panel, in the upper right:
The site administrator examines the user‘s application and assigns him one or another status, based on information about the user, the amount of his orders for a certain period of time, etc. You can change the status in the site control panel. Here, if necessary, you can activate a user account for those cases when a letter with a confirmation link does not arrive in the client‘s mailbox.
As soon as the user is assigned a preferential status, he will be able to purchase products at the preferential prices that are provided for his category of buyers.
The administrator can influence selling prices by using the import algorithm, and also by directly adjusting the preferential prices of the goods. Additional fields for prices corresponding to different categories of buyers are implemented in the admin panel.The fields are located in the “Pricing Scheme” additional tab:
The system implements the possibility of not only selective, but also global price changes. A special site dialog contains:
- field for changing the exchange rate of a conventional unit;
- a button to perform a global recalculation of prices in hryvnia for products, the price of which is set in conventional units;
- statistics of products with a discount;
- statistics of users who have been granted the benefit.
In this article, we have given a description of just one of the possible options for organizing the pricing process in a medium and large wholesale and retail company. If necessary, the programmers of our studio will adapt the algorithm to any specific customer requirements.
Please contact us, we are always glad to cooperate!
