We're wrapping up development on the Marketing Foundation Framework, which means that we're ready to move on to implementing some standard discounts for you guys to enjoy.
First a little background on how Marketing Foundation works. We came up with a model we call Advertise/Act/Award internally. The basic idea is that we went ahead and split the criteria for getting a discount ("targets") from the discount itself ("awards").
Targets are evaluated to figure out whether a customer is eligible for an award. If that is the case then each award is applied to the basket itself and/or relevant order lines on the basket.
Targets
Your basic targets are: A Product, a Category, a Catalog, a store, or a combination of targets, e.g. "buy specific products from a category" would be two targets combined: Product and Category.
Advanced targets are: Member group, customer is logged in, etc.. Combine these with the above and you're able to give discounts to registered members on a site based on which group they're in and whether they're logged in.
These are the targets we're working towards adding out of the box:
Voucher targets: Voucher code, voucher code + multi use, voucher code + single use.
Member targets: Customer must be in member group, member must be logged in.
Remember that each of these targets can be combined to support some very advanced targeting scenarios.
Awards
Whenever a customer fulfills the configured targets one or more awards are applied to the basket. An award might be a reduced unit price, an overall reduction of the order value, a reduction on shipping costs, or something else entirely like a membership to a special portion of the site (think moving the customer from Bronze status to Silver status), a digital download, whatever you can encapsulate in an award basically.
The most basic awards are: Amount off order total, percentage off order total, Amount off order line, percentage off order line, amount off shipping total, percentage off shipping total.
At the moment these are the discount types we're working towards supporting, but I'd like to hear input on the types you'd like to see.
Amount/percentage off order
Amount/percentage off order line (includes "buy two get one for free")
Amount/percentage off product bundle (discount applies to multiple order lines)
Volume discount (buy 10 get 1€ off, buy 20 get 2€ off)
Amount/percentage off shipping total (free shipping essentially)
Hope this gives you an idea of where we're headed with uCommerce Marketing Foundation. There's a twist in store for you: Remember that the model is called Advertise/Act/Award. The advertise portion is out of scope for this post and will be covered separately.
Here's my 2 cents, for a dynamic discount setup, besides the things you mentioned above:
Discount in % on total basket (excluding shipping, credit fees etc)
Discount - fixed amount in 10£, on orders with basket more than xx£
Validation period for all kinds of discounts
For all discounts: Choose singular/multiple Catalog or group/subgroup or items, for which discount is valid.
Different discounts for the same discount campaign, depending on customer type. Eg: Returning customer gets 15% off, new customer gets 10% off, advantage club customers gets 20% off...
VERY important for vouchers: EASY way to generate alot of one-time-use vouchers, for eg. e-mail marketing etc. Today this is VERY tricky with at markting base of 35.000 :o)
Thanks for the feedback. The scenarios you mention will all be supported.
We're working with the following terminology for Marketing Foundation: Campaign, Campaign Item, Target, and Award.
"Campaign" is a grouping of "campaign items" and specifies a period in time to expose the campaign items. Each campaign item is essentially a combination of targets and awards, which further qualify the campaign item to individual customers. Once all targets are met the award will be triggered and add itself to the basket.
We're aware of the fact that a lot of vouchers need to be generated for single use scenarios: To support this we're adding a UI to generate batches of vouchers, which can be downloaded and used in other e-mail marketing systems like Campaign Monitor, MailChimp, etc..
Not really a discount, but we have to deal with free gifts when a specific basket value is reached (e.g. "buy for 30 EUR, get a nice shirt for free"). Another approach could be: Buy 3 items, get the cheapest one for free. This is getting very popular in (real) stores over here.
Besides of that, I second the request for an easy way to generate and export lots of voucher codes. ;-)
Hi Søren. How exactly do you target a member group from a marketing item/campaign, i.e. a defined group called "myMemberGroup". Is there a razor tag like if (membershipUser != null) which can target if a user is logged in or not.
uCommerce 2.0 Feedback: Which Discounts Would You Like To See
We're wrapping up development on the Marketing Foundation Framework, which means that we're ready to move on to implementing some standard discounts for you guys to enjoy.
First a little background on how Marketing Foundation works. We came up with a model we call Advertise/Act/Award internally. The basic idea is that we went ahead and split the criteria for getting a discount ("targets") from the discount itself ("awards").
Targets are evaluated to figure out whether a customer is eligible for an award. If that is the case then each award is applied to the basket itself and/or relevant order lines on the basket.
Targets
Your basic targets are: A Product, a Category, a Catalog, a store, or a combination of targets, e.g. "buy specific products from a category" would be two targets combined: Product and Category.
Advanced targets are: Member group, customer is logged in, etc.. Combine these with the above and you're able to give discounts to registered members on a site based on which group they're in and whether they're logged in.
These are the targets we're working towards adding out of the box:
Remember that each of these targets can be combined to support some very advanced targeting scenarios.
Awards
Whenever a customer fulfills the configured targets one or more awards are applied to the basket. An award might be a reduced unit price, an overall reduction of the order value, a reduction on shipping costs, or something else entirely like a membership to a special portion of the site (think moving the customer from Bronze status to Silver status), a digital download, whatever you can encapsulate in an award basically.
The most basic awards are: Amount off order total, percentage off order total, Amount off order line, percentage off order line, amount off shipping total, percentage off shipping total.
At the moment these are the discount types we're working towards supporting, but I'd like to hear input on the types you'd like to see.
Hope this gives you an idea of where we're headed with uCommerce Marketing Foundation. There's a twist in store for you: Remember that the model is called Advertise/Act/Award. The advertise portion is out of scope for this post and will be covered separately.
Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Here's my 2 cents, for a dynamic discount setup, besides the things you mentioned above:
Hi Christian,
Thanks for the feedback. The scenarios you mention will all be supported.
We're working with the following terminology for Marketing Foundation: Campaign, Campaign Item, Target, and Award.
"Campaign" is a grouping of "campaign items" and specifies a period in time to expose the campaign items. Each campaign item is essentially a combination of targets and awards, which further qualify the campaign item to individual customers. Once all targets are met the award will be triggered and add itself to the basket.
We're aware of the fact that a lot of vouchers need to be generated for single use scenarios: To support this we're adding a UI to generate batches of vouchers, which can be downloaded and used in other e-mail marketing systems like Campaign Monitor, MailChimp, etc..
Not really a discount, but we have to deal with free gifts when a specific basket value is reached (e.g. "buy for 30 EUR, get a nice shirt for free"). Another approach could be: Buy 3 items, get the cheapest one for free. This is getting very popular in (real) stores over here.
Besides of that, I second the request for an easy way to generate and export lots of voucher codes. ;-)
+1 to Christian's Buy 3 items, get the cheapest one for free.
It's on the wish list for the next version. Thank you.
Me also, a client is now asking me for just this functionailty
uCommerce 2.6 introduces a new quantity target, which gets you halfway there. You'll just need a "Get cheapest for free" award from there :)
Hi Søren. How exactly do you target a member group from a marketing item/campaign, i.e. a defined group called "myMemberGroup". Is there a razor tag like if (membershipUser != null) which can target if a user is logged in or not.
// Lars
Hi Soren,
i would like to see a percentage off products or categories. i.e.: 20% off unit price off of specific products or a complete category
is working on a reply...