ChannelEngine: pricing v2 migration guide

About this article

This article explains the benefits of moving from pricing v1 to pricing v2, and how to configure and fully activate pricing v2 on your channels.

Table of contents

Introduction

Benefits of pricing v2

Activating a channel step by step

Checklist: activating pricing v2

• Price rules
• Repricing (if applicable)
• Verify prices to be exported

Introduction

Pricing v2 is the enhanced way to handle your prices on ChannelEngine. It includes an updated user interface (the Pricing step on each channel) and new capabilities: simpler setup and management of price rules, clear repricer strategies, and the ability to factor marketplace fees and taxes into your prices.

If you still use pricing v1, note that it will be deprecated soon. To keep managing your prices on ChannelEngine, move to pricing v2.

Benefits of pricing v2

Pricing v2 unlocks the following features:

• Price rules with a safety net: ChannelEngine keeps your exported price between your minimum and maximum price, so an incorrect rule cannot push the price too high or too low.
• Repricing: automatically adjust your prices on a marketplace based on your selected strategy, for example to win and hold the buy box.
• Repricer exclusion rules: use custom rules to avoid competing with the marketplace itself, or to handle cases where you are the only seller.
• Marketplace fees and taxes: factor marketplace commissions and taxes into your prices.
• Price changes: review a detailed history of price changes per price attribute.
• Price link: use the repriced price from one marketplace as the input for another. This keeps prices equal and lets you apply repricing on a marketplace that does not support it.
• Timeboxed promotions: set up promotions with a clear start and end date.
• Price review: get insight into pricing trends, applied repricer strategies, and buy box wins.

Activating a channel step by step

All channels on ChannelEngine are compatible with pricing v2. To activate pricing v2 on a channel, follow the steps below.

1. In the Pricing step of a channel, click Configuration mode to start configuring pricing v2. In this mode, v1 still calculates and exports prices, so you can configure v2 side by side.

   

2. After enabling pricing v2, check the Price rules tab. If it does not show any price attributes, contact your customer success manager or the Support team so they can trigger the task that fetches price attributes for this channel.

   

3. If the channel supports repricing and you intend to use it, contact your customer success manager or the Support team to confirm that the Import competition prices from channel task is scheduled for your tenant.
4. If you want to factor marketplace commission fees into your prices, contact your customer success manager or the Support team to confirm that the Import commission fees from channel task is scheduled for your tenant.
5. Complete the steps in the Checklist: activating pricing v2 to make sure your attributes are correctly mapped and any price rules are set up before activation.
6. When you are ready to fully switch to pricing v2, choose one the following options:
   • Click Request support activation and submit a request. Our Support team will verify your pricing v2 configuration before activating it.
   • Click Activate pricing v2 (self-service) and activate pricing v2 yourself on the selected channel. Only choose this if you are confident in the accuracy of your pricing v2 configuration.
7. After full activation, the v1 tabs are removed from the Pricing step of that channel.
8. Once your prices are exported to the channel, check the final calculated values at Pricing, Price review. Confirm they align with your pricing strategy and what you want to communicate to the marketplace.

Checklist: activating pricing v2

Before you fully activate pricing v2, review your setup.

Price rules

Access price rules at Pricing, Price rules. Verify that the required attributes are mapped correctly (price fields move from the Offer mappings tab to the Pricing tab) and that any specific price rules work as expected.

1. Verify required price attributes. Each tab containing a required price attribute must have both a Min. price and a Base price set. ChannelEngine needs these inputs to export your prices correctly to the channel and to run repricing. If a required price attribute is not mapped at all, the product fails marketplace validation and cannot be exported. To learn more about mapping your price attributes, check out ChannelEngine: price rules v2.
2. Check optional price attributes. Confirm that attributes such as Discount price (the name differs per channel) also have both a Min. price and a Base price set, if you want to offer a discount on that channel.
3. Fulfillment by marketplace. If you use marketplace fulfillment, make sure the related price attributes appear as tabs in Price rules, for example Price - LVB for bol or B2C - FBA for Amazon.
4. Check commission and VAT price rules (if applicable). If you want to factor marketplace fees and VAT into your prices, confirm that marketplace fees are loaded and default fees are set up correctly at Pricing, Marketplace fees. To learn more about how to set up fees and assign them to your products, check out ChannelEngine: marketplace fees.
5. Recreate price rules from pricing v1 (if applicable). If you used price rules in pricing v1 to tweak your prices by rounding them, converting them to a different currency, or increasing or reducing them by a set amount, manually recreate those rules in your pricing v2 setup. For a complete guide on configuring price rules in pricing v2, check out ChannelEngine: price rules v2.
6. Review the price rule example. To see how the price rules you set up are applied to products, click the Price rule example on the right and verify that the output is correct.

Repricing (if applicable)

If you use repricing and the channel supports it, set up your repricer strategy in Offer mappings.

1. Set your repricer strategy. Choose the strategy you want to follow when competing for the buy box on the marketplace. Go to Mappings, Offer mappings, and locate the Repricer strategy field. Set it to one of the available options: Offensive, Defensive, Aggressive, or Base price. To learn more about repricer strategies and which one suits your needs best, check out ChannelEngine: repricing v2.
2. Make sure the required price attribute is mapped. Go to Pricing, Price rules and double-check that the tab containing the required price attribute has both a Min. price and a Base price set. In addition, set a Max. price or Max. bound so repricing does not push prices too high, where marketplaces may suppress them.

3. Create reprice exclusion rules (if applicable). To create exceptions to your overall repricer strategy and target specific competitors, set up reprice exclusion rules. To learn more about reprice exclusion rules and when to use them, check out ChannelEngine: repricing v2.

   

Verify prices to be exported

Once you finish the initial configuration on the Price rules tab and in Mappings, export your price values to a file to double-check them.

1. In Pricing, Price rules, click Export calculated prices on the right.

   

2. This exports a CSV file to your login email address. The file gives an overview of all price values, along with the final calculated price, so you can check that your setup is correct.
3. Open the file in Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel and sort by Min. price and by Base price. Many identical price values may indicate missing mappings.
4. Double-check that required price attributes are correctly set in the Price rules tab.

After you have completed all the steps in this checklist, proceed to activating pricing v2 on this channel.