ChannelEngine: pricing

About this article

This article describes pricing on ChannelEngine and the main pricing attributes to map. 

Table of contents

Introduction

Price attributes in your product feed

Price attributes on channels

FAQs

Introduction

Before creating a product feed or adding products and channels on ChannelEngine, consider which price attributes you want to configure on your products. 

ChannelEngine offers several advanced features to manage your price offers, including price rules and repricing. Each feature requires you to define specific price attributes. In addition, each channel on which you sell has its own required price attributes that need mapping. At a minimum, you always define the base price and the minimum price of your products via ChannelEngine. Unless specifically stated, channels generally expect that the prices you submit include tax.

ChannelEngine supports two pricing versions: pricing v1, which will soon be deprecated, and pricing v2. To learn more about the features that are available in each version, check out the links below.

Pricing v1:

1. ChannelEngine: price rules v1
2. ChannelEngine: currency conversion
3. ChannelEngine: repricing v1
4. ChannelEngine: competition statistics

Pricing v2:

1. ChannelEngine: price rules v2
2. ChannelEngine: repricing v2
3. ChannelEngine: competitor history
4. ChannelEngine: marketplace fees
5. ChannelEngine: promotions

Price attributes in your product feed

In your product feed, you normally map the following price attributes:

• Price - required; your base selling price, which you use when the product is sold directly on your webstore. This should include your own profit margin, but it does not have to include the channel's commission or your own fees. Include tax.
• Catalog price - the manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP); not mandatory, but is useful if you want to use from-for prices on channels that support this feature.
• Purchase price - the price you pay your supplier for the product. This price is useful if you use ChannelEngine's repricing feature on your channels but want to keep a minimum margin on your products. This purchase price, if available, is also used to calculate a margin on ChannelEngine, which can be used in business rules. Exclude tax.
• Min. price - the minimum price at which you sell the product and are still profitable, including VAT.
• Max. price - the maximum price at which you can sell the product and still be competitive, including VAT.

While it is not mandatory to map all of these price attributes in your product feed, it is recommended. Mapping more attributes lets you better calibrate your exported price by offering precise inputs for price rules and repricing.

It is possible to store additional prices on a product. For example, if you want to use different prices on each Amazon EU marketplace, store them as separate attributes in your product feed or API request to ChannelEngine. 

Price attributes on channels

Offer mappings

Pricing v1

If you use pricing v1, map the channel's specific price attributes in Mappings, Offer mappings. 

Aside from the channel's specific price attributes, ChannelEngine may also require you to map dedicated price attributes in Offer mappings that support advanced price offers on the channel, including:

• Price before (re)price rules - define the selling price before any other price rules or repricing mutations take effect. To learn more about this attribute, check out ChannelEngine: why are my price rules not applied?.

Pricing v2

If you use pricing v2, map the following optional attributes, in addition to the channel-specific price attributes in Mappings, Offer mappings, if you use the promotions and/or repricing features:

• Allow promotion below min price - indicate if you allow discounts to fall below the minimum price that you define. 
• Flip protection time - define how long your price holds before repricing the offer, on channels that support repricing. 
• Repricer strategy - define which repricing strategy to use on channels that support repricing.

Pricing step

In the Pricing step on a channel, set up basic and advanced price offers.

Pricing v1

In Pricing, Price rules, configure rules to adjust the price of a product sent to a channel. E.g.: subtract a certain amount or convert to a different currency.

If using repricing, in Pricing, Reprice rules, configure rules to automatically adjust prices based on competitor prices.

Pricing v2

In Pricing, Price rules, map each channel-specific price attribute in separate tabs. Map the following to price values to each price attribute, at a minimum:

• Base price - this can be the Price from your product feeds or a price that you calculate with the built-in price rules. 
• Min. price - your minimum selling price, which you can define via your product feed or with the built-in price rules.  

If the channel supports repricing, configure reprice exclusion rules to create exceptions to your overall repricer strategy in Pricing, Reprice exclusion rules.

Additionally, set up time-bound promotions in Pricing, Promotions, and manage marketplace fees in Pricing, Marketplace fees.

FAQs

My prices are not being exported, or the wrong price attribute is exported, instead of the value from a custom attribute. What is wrong?
One of the most common causes of errors in price exports is typos in the attribute values. These types can range from a comma when the attribute expects a dot or spaces before or after the value. E.g.: "Value": "32.95 ".

When should I use the Min. price or the Commercial min. price?
Use the Min. price when you want to ensure profitability because it reflects the minimum amount needed to achieve your desired profit. Use the Commercial min. price when you need to adhere to supplier restrictions that forbid lowering the price below a certain point.

How does ChannelEngine determine when the marketplace fulfillment price is used, e.g. Quantity price 1- FBA on Amazon?
When ChannelEngine exports an offer as FBA, the FBA price is exported; when the offer is exported as FBM, your regular price is exported.

Is the Price before (re)price rules field completely gone?
If you use pricing v2 on the channel, Price before (re)price rules is no longer visible in Mappings; you do not map this attribute if you use pricing v2.