ChannelEngine: price rules v2

About this article

This article describes price mapping and price rules on ChannelEngine and how to use them.

Table of contents

Introduction

Prerequisites

Price mapping

Price mapping logic

Price rules

Export calculated prices

Price rule example

FAQs

Introduction

ChannelEngine offers control over your pricing, allowing you to easily set and adjust prices with price rules and align prices across channels.

Using price rules, you can perform different manipulations with a price, such as adding or subtracting a certain amount, rounding up the price, or doing the currency conversion.

Prerequisites

If you currently use pricing v1, you must activate pricing v2 before proceeding.

1. Reach out to your ChannelEngine contact to activate Product pricing v2 setting.
2. Once activated, go to the Setup page of the channel and locate the New beta pricing setting. The options are:
   • Fully activated - adds the new pricing tabs and removes the pricing v1 tabs. This option is recommended for a go-live with the feature.
   • Only screens for configuration - adds the new pricing tabs while keeping the pricing v1 tabs. This option is recommended for migration as it allows you to compare the old and new pricing setups.
   • Off - pricing v2 is disabled.

Price mapping

To manage the price rules for a specific channel, go to Pricing in the top menu of the chosen channel and select the Price rules tab.

The Price rules tab presents a set of price attributes, both required and optional, that a marketplace expects. Each of these attributes has a dedicated tab you can switch to for configuration. You can provide multiple inputs for the attribute, which helps ChannelEngine to select the most optimal price for your products.

• Marketplace price attributes - price attributes expected by the marketplace. These attributes differ per marketplace and depend on whether the marketplace supports specific functionality, such as marketplace fulfillment, business-to-business sales, and setting up volume discounts.
• Price fields - standard price attributes on ChannelEngine. Based on these attributes, ChannelEngine can work out the optimal price for your products. It is required to at least submit Min. price and Base price attributes under the Price fields section. This ensures that in case the Base price is set up incorrectly, your price does not fall below the Min. price. Besides, the Min. price is the lower boundary for the repricing engine to work with. You can set up the following price fields:
  • Min. price* - the product’s minimum price for the selected marketplace attribute. This is the minimal price that you can sell the product at and still be profitable.
  • Max. price - the product’s maximum price for the selected marketplace attribute. This is the maximum price that you can sell the product at and still be competitive.
  • Min. commercial price - the product’s minimum commercial price for the selected marketplace attribute. This is the minimum price defined by the brand, supplier, or manufacturer.
  • Max. commercial price - the product’s maximum commercial price for the selected marketplace attribute. This is the maximum price defined by the brand, supplier, or manufacturer.
  • Base price* - the product’s regular price for the selected attribute. This is the price that you would normally sell your product at.
  • Min. bound - the product’s minimum price boundary as dictated by the marketplace. For bol, this is connected to bol’s price stars.
  • Max. bound - the product’s maximum price boundary as dictated by the marketplace. For bol, this is connected to bol’s price stars.

• • Price link - the link to an existing price calculation from another marketplace or the same marketplace in a different country. If the linked price attribute is subject to repricing, you can use the repricer of another marketplace. This is especially useful for marketplaces that do not support repricing per se. E.g.: you can use Amazon's B2C price as your price link on OTTO Market. Be aware that the price link simply allows using the final price of the source marketplace, and does not adjust the VAT or commissions of the target marketplace. Nor does it do currency conversions. E.g.: if you grab the price from Amazon NL, e.g.: 20 EUR, and link it to Allegro PL, VAT amounts or marketplace commissions are not adjusted, and the value applied is 20. To convert it to a different currency (e.g.: PLN) or include the corresponding Allegro marketplace fees, you need to apply a price rule afterwards. To gain hands-on experience with the price link feature, check out the microlearning ChannelEngine: price link.
• Price field input - the input for the price field. You can choose from the list of all attributes imported from your system or product feed as well as custom attributes. Your Price input field is the price value before any other rules are applied.

Price mapping logic

ChannelEngine uses a specific logic to ensure the most optimal price value is exported to the marketplace.

• Among all of your minimum prices (Min. bound, Min. price, Min. commercial price), the highest value is considered as your final minimum price. The opposite applies to your maximum prices – among your maximum prices (Max. bound, Max. price, Max. commercial price) the lowest value is considered as your final maximum price.
• ChannelEngine uses all the provided price field inputs to calculate the optimal price. Importantly, it ensures that the exported price value does not go above the maximum price or below the minimum price. This creates a safety net for you in case you apply incorrect price rules to your Base price.
  The only exception to the above rule is when you select that the promotion price that can go below the minimum price in the Offer mappings. To learn more, check out the article ChannelEngine: promotions.
• If you use the Price link as a field, your price link overrides Base price. However, if the value in the Price link field is below your minimum price, the minimum price is used instead.
• If the Price link field has no value, ChannelEngine automatically uses Base price as a fallback.

Price rules

The price rules section allows you to configure one or multiple rules and apply them to your price field input. The price rules allow you to add or subtract a certain amount or percentage of the price, round up or down the price, add marketplace commission and VAT to it, and do currency conversion.

You can apply price rules on two levels:

• Default - applies to all products on the channel.
• Product selection - applies to a specific product selection on the channel.

Default level

To add a price rule:

1. In the Price rules section, click Add rule.
   
2. From the Price rule type dropdown, select the desired type. Options are:
   • Add fixed amount - the fixed amount you want to add to or subtract from the input price. To subtract, add a minus before the value. E.g.: -4.85. Use a period as the decimal separator.
   • Add percentage - the percentage you want to add to or subtract from the input price. To subtract, add a minus before the value. E.g.: -20.
   • Add commission and VAT - the commission and sales tax you want to add to the input price. Ensure your marketplace commission and VAT settings are correctly configured on ChannelEngine. To learn more, check out the articles ChannelEngine: marketplace fees and ChannelEngine: VAT settings.
   • Use field - used to introduce a different field. You can add to, subtract from, multiply, or divide by this field. E.g.: add shipping costs or inventory fees.
   • Rounding - used to round the output of a price rule to a commercially friendly value. E.g.: by using Round UP to the nearest .99, you change a price of EUR 19.84 to EUR 19.99.
   • Currency conversion - used to convert your default currency to the currency of a marketplace or country-based currency of a marketplace. The exchange rates for all currencies are retrieved once a day from the European Central Bank (ECB).
     
     NB: if you plan to use Add commission and VAT and Currency conversion rules simultaneously, ensure that currency conversion is performed first. This way, VAT and commission are calculated using the correct currency.
3. Provide a suitable name for the price rule, and click Save.

Keep in mind that:

• If you use multiple rules, the order does change the result. Rule 1 is applied first, followed by rule 2, then rule 3, etc. To change the order of the rules, drag and drop them using the six-square icon.
• It is not recommended to add the same product to multiple product selections. If you use a product selection override, then that price is exported even if it is lower.

Product selection level

If you want to create an override, you can do so for a specific product selection. In the Product selection price overrides section, select Add product selection, and go through the exact same steps to create a price rule as outlined above.

Creating a product selection override can be useful when products have different pricing strategies. E.g.: one group of products may have a significantly different profit margin, or their production and shipping costs might be much higher than others. In this situation, first create a product selection that fits your needs, such as grouping products by brand, package size, or price, and then create a product selection price override to factor in price differences.

Export calculated prices

To check the calculated prices according to your price rules, promotions, and repricer suggestions, click the Export calculated prices button on the right. This exports a CSV file to your login email address. The CSV file provides an overview of all price values, along with the final calculated price, so that you can check the correctness of your setup.

Price rule example

To see how the price rules you set up are applied to products, click the Price rule example button on the right. This opens a modal.

ChannelEngine randomly selects a product to show the applied price rules. To view the price rules for a specific product, enter its name or Merchant product number in the search bar.

In the Show as in section, choose whether to view the price rules at the default level or the product selection level.

In the example above, the price rules for Min price are applied as follows:

1. The value of the Purchase price field is taken as the input. I.e.: 288.6.
2. It is increased by the given percentage. I.e.: 288.6 + 288.6*0.15 = 331.89.
3. It is then increased by a fixed amount. I.e.: 321.89 + 10 = 341.89
4. The commission and VAT are added on top. ChannelEngine applies a sophisticated calculation mechanism, which factors in the product’s marketplace fee and checks whether it is fixed, variable,  or both, and the configured sales tax calculation.
5. The final value is rounded up to the nearest .99. I.e. 460.77 → 460.99

FAQs

What price is exported if I enable pricing v2 without mapping prices?

If you do not map a price, your product fails marketplace validation. As a result, your product cannot be exported or updated.

Can I create multiple currency conversions?

You can only create one currency conversion within a price rule – from your default currency to a new currency. E.g.: if your default currency is EUR, you can set a currency conversion to PLN. However, further converting that to a different currency is not possible because the starting point is always your default currency.

What is the difference between Min. price under Price fields and the dropdown option Min. price under Price field input?

The options in the Price field input dropdown are attributes imported from your system or product feed. These attributes are needed to map your pricing data. E.g.: you can use your attribute Min. price as price field input for Base price and build up the price using price rules, by adding shipping costs and VAT rate on top.

In contrast, the options under Price field specify the minimum, maximum, and regular selling prices used for repricing. These attributes help ChannelEngine choose the optimal price within your specified range. E.g.: ChannelEngine uses the Min. price you set to beat the competition. 

In summary:

• Price fields are the ChannelEngine attributes you need to set for the marketplace.
• Price field input is the actual input you provide for each ChannelEngine attribute – the data from your own system.