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Defining Stand-Alone or Campaign Discounts
This topic contains basic information about discounts as they are used in the BEA E-Business Control Center. This information includes a conceptual description of a discount, an explanation about how you might want to use discounts, and step-by-step instructions for defining a new discount or modifying existing discounts within the E-Business Control Center.
This topic includes the following sections:
What Is a Discount?
As you might expect, a discount is a reduction in the price charged for a product item, an order, or the shipping cost associated with an order. The E-Business Control Center allows you to define the discounts that you might later decide to offer to your online customers.
Uses of Discounts
This section is intended to provide you with an overview of how you can use discounts once you define them. Since there are two ways to use discounts, this section contains the following subsections:
Note: If your product license is for the BEA WebLogic Personalization Server only, discounts will not be available to you in E-Business Control Center. Depending upon whether you have the BEA WebLogic Commerce Server version or the BEA Campaign Manager for WebLogic version of the E-Business Control Center, you may be able to use discounts in one or both of the ways described in this section. For more information about the different versions of the E-Business Control Center that are packaged with the Campaign Manager for WebLogic, the WebLogic Commerce Server, and the WebLogic Personalization Server, see About the E-Business Control Center or the Product Family Overview documentation at http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13210_01/wlcs/docs35/index.htm.
Using Discounts as Stand-Alone Discounts
Stand-alone discounts are discounts that are not based on a customer's behavior or controlled by campaigns. Rather, stand-alone discounts are offered to everyone shopping at your Web site and as such, are available in all versions of the E-Business Control Center. An example of a discount used as a stand-alone discount would be, "give everyone 10% off books."
As you are defining a stand-alone discount, you may want to provide a discount explanation and a discount description. A discount explanation identifies the discount to your customers while they are checking out, or at some other time during their shopping experience. A discount description will help you identify the discount when you are trying to distinguish it from others listed in the E-Business Control Center.
Using Discounts in Promotional Campaigns
As their name implies, campaign discounts are discounts that are intended to be used within campaigns and awarded to specific customers under certain conditions, such as membership in a customer segment, a specific customer behavior, and so on. An example of a discount used in a promotional campaign would be, "if a Gold Customer clicks the Take-Advantage-of-This-Special-Offer ad banner, give them a 20% discount off books." Discounts can be incorporated into your promotional campaigns like ads and e-mails (as actions), and used in conjunction with these promotional messages to entice customers.
Since one predefined campaign discount can be applied within multiple campaigns, campaign discounts can have multiple discount explanations. A discount explanation identifies the discount to your customers while they are checking out, or at some other time during their shopping experience. Having multiple discount explanations allows you to tailor the text to the specific application of the discount. For campaign discounts, you supply the discount explanation as you are creating the discount scenario action (rather than during the discount definition, as is the case with stand-alone discounts).
As with stand-alone discounts, a discount description helps you identify the discount when you are trying to distinguish it from others listed in the E-Business Control Center.
Note: If you have the version of the E-Business Control Center that comes with the Campaign Manager for WebLogic and want detailed information about how to use discounts within promotional campaigns, see the "Add Scenarios to the Campaign" section in the Working With Campaigns documentation.
About Discount Definitions
Regardless of how you intend to use discounts, you need to define discounts using the E-Business Control Center to make them meaningful for your marketing efforts. In addition to the discount usage (stand-alone or campaign), discount definitions also include the following information:
Discount Duration
The discount duration is simply the start date and time for the discount (that is, the date/time in which the discount will begin to be offered to customers) and the stop date and time for the discount (that is, the date/time in which the discount will no longer be offered).
Warning: If you have the version of the E-Business Control Center that comes with the Campaign Manager for WebLogic and plan to use the discounts you define within campaigns, keep in mind that if the discount expires before the campaign has ended, the discount may not be awarded at check out time. Stop/start dates on discounts and campaigns are completely independent, and using a discount within a campaign does not cause the discount to inherit the campaign's scheduled dates, or visa versa. BEA recommends that you closely monitor the schedules of these objects when assembling campaigns.
Discount Types
The E-Business Control Center allows you to define your discount offerings by choosing from three discount types. To take advantage of the E-Business Control Center's discount service, you need to decide which discount type to use, identify the items that cause the discount to be offered (called trigger items), the items to which the discount should be applied (called target items), and consider the discount value (the percentage or dollar amount of the discount) that you may be required to supply for that discount type. The three discount types available for use and discussed in this section are:
Per Item Discounts
Per item discounts are discounts that apply to individual items in your product catalog. Per item discounts can be offered to customers (that is, triggered) based on a customer's purchase of:
Per item discounts can apply to (that is, target):
As their name implies, per item discounts will be applied per item. For example, you may specify that for every item purchased from the product category Sports Equipment, customers will receive $5 off a baseball cap. When customers purchase baseball, a glove, and a bat (all items belonging to the Sporting Equipment category), customers can receive $5 off three baseball caps, for a total discount of $15.
Per item discounts are specified as a percentage off, an amount off, or a fixed price. Table 8-1 lists some possible per item discounts.
If you would like to examine other, more complex examples about how per item discount definitions affect customer orders, see Discount Examples.
Warning: If you want to specify individual product items by SKU, be certain that you have the correct SKU number from your product catalog, and that you enter the SKU carefully. If you are specifying discounts on items within a given product category, be certain that you have the correct category name and that you enter this category carefully. Additionally, be sure that the items you want to discount are actually members of the product category. You may need to coordinate with the person(s) responsible for maintaining your product catalog. Failure to do so could result in discounts that are associated with incorrect product items or categories.
As these examples show, you should be very careful when specifying fixed price discounts.
Set-Based Discounts
Set-based discounts are useful when you want to offer a single discount based on the customer having a specified set of product items in their shopping cart. Set-based discounts can be offered to customers (that is, triggered) based on a customer's purchase of:
Set-based discounts can apply to (that is, target):
As their name implies, set-based discounts will be applied per set. For example, you may specify that for every set of three items purchased from the product category Sporting Equipment, customers will receive $5 off a baseball cap. When customers purchase a baseball, a glove, and a bat (all items belonging to the Sporting Equipment category), customers can receive $5 off one baseball cap, for a total discount of $5.
Set-based discounts are also specified as a percentage off, an amount off, or a fixed price.
Note: Under set-based discounts, if the target items are the same as the trigger items, and you specify a fixed amount off or a fixed price discount, then the discount will be applied to each item in the set, rather than the set as a whole.
Table 8-2 lists some possible set-based discounts.
If you would like to examine other, more complex examples about how set-based discount definitions affect customer orders, see Discount Examples.
Warning: Again, if you want to specify individual product items by SKU, be certain that you have the correct SKU number from your product catalog, and that you enter the SKU carefully. If you are specifying discounts on items within a given product category, be certain that you have the correct category name and that you enter this category carefully. Additionally, be sure that the items you want to discount are actually members of the product category. You may need to coordinate with the person(s) responsible for maintaining your product catalog. Failure to do so could result in discounts that are associated with incorrect product items or categories.
As these examples show, you should be very careful when specifying fixed price discounts.
Order Discounts
Order discounts are discounts that can apply to a customer's entire order. Order discounts can be offered to customers (that is, triggered) based on:
Order discounts can apply to (that is, target):
Note: For order discounts, there can be only one target. In other words, you can apply the order discount to either the order total or the shipping cost.
As their name implies, order discounts will be applied per order. For example, you may specify that a $5 order discount should apply to orders with subtotals greater than $100. When customers place orders with subtotals that are greater than $100, customers will receive $5 off their order, for a total discount of $5.
Order discounts are also specified as a percentage off, an amount off, or a fixed price. Table 8-3 lists some possible order discounts.
Warning: As these examples show, you should be very careful when specifying fixed price discounts.
Discount Limits
The E-Business Control Center provides you with several ways to limit the application of discounts as you are defining them. This section describes the following discount limitations:
Overall Limit
An overall limit is a limit on the number of orders to which the discount can be applied for a given customer. The overall limit can be a value equal to or greater than 1.
Say your store offers a 10% discount off books with an overall limit of 2. This means that customers can receive the 10% discount for no more than 2 orders containing books. If there were no overall limit, customers could return to the Web site and place separate orders to receive more discounts.
Order Limit
As their name implies, order limits limit how many times the discount can be used per order. You can specify order limits based on the items that triggered the discount, or on the target items to which the discount is applied (which may or may not be the same items). For example, you may want to give away 2 DVD movies with the purchase of every DVD player you sell, with a limit of one giveaway per order. In this case, you would impose the order limit of 1 on the trigger item, the single DVD player. Any additional DVD players in the order would not trigger additional discounts; the customer would receive only 2 DVD movies free.
Limitations on the items that trigger the discount can be specified as:
Note: Order limits on items that trigger discounts are specified in different places in the E-Business Control Center, depending on whether you are working with a per item discount or a set-based discount. This is because per item order limits apply to each individual item that triggered the discount, while set-based order limits apply to a set of items that triggered the discount.
Limitations on the target items to which the discount is applied can be specified as:
where N is a value equal to or greater than 1.
Note: For more information about discount types, see Discount Types.
Minimum Purchase Requirement
For per-item discounts, you can use the E-Business Control Center to specify a minimum purchase requirement. The minimum purchase requirement can be a value equal to or greater than 1. Once the minimum requirement has been met in a given order, the discount will be earned for each item. For example, if the minimum purchase requirement is 3 items, customers who buy 5 items will receive 5 discounts.
Note: Minimum purchase requirements do not apply to other discount types. For more information about discount types, see Discount Types.
Discount Priorities
A discount priority is a setting within the E-Business Control Center that allows you to specify the relative importance of a discount. The discount priority is a value in the range of 1-20, with 1 being the highest priority. In the event that two or more discounts are applicable to a given item, the priority associated with each discount helps resolve the conflict by indicating the discount to be applied. (Although no more than one discount can be applied to a given item, the remaining discounts may still be eligible for application.) This process also applies to discounts on entire orders. Therefore, you should consider the priority with which each discount will be assigned during discount definition time.
Note: If two or more discounts have the same priority, the order in which the discounts are applied is random. Be sure to follow your organization's established policy for assigning discount priorities if you wish to avoid this situation.
Defining a New Discount
Initially, you will probably want to spend some time defining new discounts for use in the E-Business Control Center. This section provides step-by-step instructions you can follow to accomplish this task. If you have already defined discounts and need to edit them, see Modifying an Existing Discount.
Note: Before you can define a new discount, you must connect the E-Business Control Center to a server. For more information on connecting to a server, see Connecting the BEA E-Business Control Center to a Server.
To define a new discount, follow these steps:
Tip: You can also click the New icon in the Explorer window and then select Discount to open the Discount Editor window, as shown in Figure 8-1.
Figure 8-1 New Icon, Discount Selection
Specify General Discount Information
Figure 8-2 General Pane
Note: If you do not have the Campaign Manager for WebLogic version of the E-Business Control Center, you will not be provided with this option. By default, the discount usage will be Stand-Alone, so just continue to step 4. For an explanation of the different discount usages, see Uses of Discounts. Note: A priority of 1 is the highest priority you can assign to a discount. For more information about how discount priorities are used, see Discount Priorities.
Establish the Discount Duration and Overall Limit
Figure 8-3 Start/Stop Pane
Tip: For the start and stop date, you can either type in the date, or click the drop-down list to select the date from a calendar, as shown in Figure 8-4. Just click a date to select it. Figure 8-4 Start/Stop Date Calendar
Note: Recall that the overall limit is a limit on the number of orders to which the discount can be applied.
Note: You may use the Deploy This Discount and Deactivate This Discount check boxes at a later time. For now, just skip over these options.
Specify Discount Terms
Figure 8-5 Discount Terms Pane
Warning: After you select a discount type, you cannot switch to a different type without losing your discount terms. Be sure to select the correct discount type. For more information about the available discount types, see Discount Types.
Per Item Discounts
If you selected the Per Item discount type, follow these steps to provide the specifics of the discount:
Figure 8-6 Specify Trigger Items Window
For example, if you select the Any Items option, customers having any product items in their shopping cart (regardless of what these items are) would qualify for the discount. If you select the Specific Items option, customers having only the items you specify (by SKU number or product category) in their shopping cart would qualify for the discount. Note: If you specify more than one trigger item in the Specify Trigger Items window (by SKU or category), this means that any of the items you specify must be present in a customer's shopping cart in order for the customer to qualify for the discount. (In other words, multiple trigger items—those shown on the same line in the Discount Terms list—are treated as alternates.) Warning: Be sure you obtain the exact SKU or product category from those who maintain your product catalog and enter them correctly. You do not want to offer the discount for the wrong item. Note: The order limit specifies how many times per order the discount can be applied. Note: The order limit must be greater than or equal to the minimum purchase requirement. Note: If desired, you can repeat steps 1 through 6 to specify additional triggers. If you do specify additional triggers, this means that each item must be present in a customer's shopping cart for the customer to qualify for the discount. (In other words, multiple triggers—those shown on separate lines in the Discount Terms list—are all required.) Figure 8-7 Specify Discount Value Window
Note: You do not need to type the % or currency symbols into the fields. For the Amount Off or Fixed Price field, select a currency type. Tip: To indicate that an item should be given away as free, choose Percentage Off and specify 100. Figure 8-8 Specify Target Items Window
Note: If you specify more than one target item in the Specify Target Items window (by SKU or category), this means that any of the items you specify that are present in a customer's shopping cart will be discounted. (In other words, multiple target items—those shown on the same line in the Discount Terms list—are treated as alternates.) Warning: Be sure you obtain the exact SKU or product category from those who maintain your product catalog and enter them correctly. You do not want to offer the discount for the wrong item. Note: If you make a mistake, click the target item shown in the text area to highlight it, then click Remove. Note: If desired, you can repeat steps 10 through 14 to specify additional targets. If you do specify additional targets, this means that each item present in a customer's shopping cart will be discounted. (In other words, multiple targets -- those shown on separate lines in the Discount Terms list -- are all required.)
Set-Based Discounts
If you selected the set-based discount type, follow these steps to provide the specifics of the discount:
Note: The order limit specifies how many times per order a set of trigger items can be used to qualify for the discount.
Figure 8-9 Specify Trigger Sets Window
Note: If you specify more than one trigger item in the Specify Trigger Items window (by SKU or category), this means that any of the items you specify must be present in a customer's shopping cart in order for the customer to qualify for the discount. (In other words, multiple trigger items -- those shown on the same line in the Discount Terms list -- are treated as alternates.) Warning: Be sure you obtain the exact SKU or product category from those who maintain your product catalog and enter them correctly. You do not want to trigger the discount incorrectly. Note: If you make a mistake, click the trigger item shown in the text area to highlight it, then click Remove. Note: If desired, you can repeat steps 2 through 6 to specify additional triggers. If you do specify additional triggers, this means that each item must be present in a customer's shopping cart for the customer to qualify for the discount. (In other words, multiple triggers -- those shown on separate lines in the Discount Terms list -- are all required.) Figure 8-10 Specify Discount Value Window
Note: You do not need to type the % or currency symbols into the fields. For the Amount Off or Fixed Price field, select a currency type. Tip: To indicate that an item should be given away as free, choose Percentage Off and specify 100. Figure 8-11 Specify Target Items Window
Note: If you specify more than one target item in the Specify Target Items window (by SKU or category), this means that any of the items you specify that are present in a customer's shopping cart will be discounted. (In other words, multiple target items—those shown on the same line in the Discount Terms list—are treated as alternates.) Warning: Be sure you obtain the exact SKU or product category from those who maintain your product catalog and enter them correctly. You do not want to target the discount incorrectly. Note: If you make a mistake, click the target item shown in the text area to highlight it, then click Remove. Note: If desired, you can repeat steps 10 through 14 to specify additional targets. If you do specify additional targets, this means that each item present in a customer's shopping cart will be discounted. (In other words, multiple targets—those shown on separate lines in the Discount Terms list—are all required.)
Order Discounts
If you selected the Order discount type, follow these steps to provide the specifics of the discount:
Figure 8-12 Specify Trigger Subtotal Window
Note: You do not need to type the $ symbol into the field. Figure 8-13 Specify Discount Value Window
Note: You do not need to type the % or currency symbols into the fields. For the Amount Off or Fixed Price field, select a currency type. Tip: To indicate that an item should be given away as free, choose Percentage Off and specify 100. Figure 8-14 Specify Order Discount Target Window
Save and Deploy the Discount
Warning: Do not check the Deploy This Discount box unless you are absolutely positive that the discount you are defining will be exactly as you want it. After discount definitions are deployed, modifications to the discount are extremely restrictive. (See Modifying an Existing Discount for more information about the items you will be permitted to change after deploying the discount.) Remember, you can always return to the Start/Stop pane and deploy the discount at another time.
Tip: You can also click the Save icon (
) shown on the BEA E-Business Control Center toolbar to save the discount.
The name of the new discount appears in the Discounts list of the Explorer window, as shown in Figure 8-15.
Note: If you do not see the discounts, click 
in the Explorer window to enable the Discounts view.
Figure 8-15 Explorer Window: Discounts View
Now, single-clicking the discount name will cause its description to appear at the bottom of the Explorer window. Tip: Holding the mouse over the discount name will also show you the discount description. Saving Versus Deploying Discounts The E-Business Control Center allows you to save the discounts you define like any other software program (with a File —>Save option) so you can access them later. However, deploying discounts is what puts discounts into action on your Web site, causing them to be associated with customer orders. Note: When deployed and saved, stand-alone discounts are unconditionally offered to customers on your Web site. However, in the case of campaign discounts, deploying and saving discounts means that the discount will be offered only to your customers who meet certain conditions. Thus, once a discount is deployed, its definition cannot be modified because doing so may affect customers currently in line to receive the discount. As you can see, it is very important that you define your discounts carefully and not deploy discounts until they are 100% correct. The E-Business Control Center provides you with a Deploy this Discount check box that allows you to specify whether to deploy a given discount. If you check this box, the discount will be deployed the next time you save it, and you will not be able to modify much about discount definition once this is done. If you leave this box unchecked, you will still be able to deploy the discount at a later time. Note: For more information about modifying discounts after they are deployed, see Modifying an Existing Discount. The only information you need to specify to save a discount is a unique name. To deploy a discount, however, you must be sure to specify each of the following:
Locating an Existing Discount
If you have defined many discounts, it can be time consuming to locate a particular discount by simply looking in the Discounts list. Therefore, the E-Business Control Center provides you with a mechanism to filter existing discounts by name.
To locate an existing discount using the name filter, follow these steps:
(located on the left side of the Explorer window) to enable the
Discounts view. A list of discounts appears in the Discounts list.
Figure 8-16 Name Filter Field
Note: You can type full or partial names into the Name Filter field. Discount names are case sensitive. Therefore, filtering based on the text "Sale" will not locate discounts with names that start with "sale."
) to filter the discounts shown in the Discounts list.
The discounts that have names beginning with the text you entered appear in the
Discounts list.
Note: To return to the full list of discounts, click the Show All Objects icon (
).
Modifying an Existing Discount
The E-Business Control Center also allows you to view and modify existing discounts. If a discount has not yet been deployed, you can modify any information about the discount. If the discount has been deployed, you can only modify the following:
Note: For more information about activation state, see Deactivating and Reactivating Discounts.
Regardless of whether the discount has been deployed, you will need to open the discount for modification. To open an existing discount for modification, follow these steps:
(located on the
left side of the Explorer window) to enable the Discounts view. A list of discounts
appears in the Discounts list.
Tip: If there is a long list of discount names, you might want to use the name filter to locate the discount you want to modify. For more information about the name filter, see Locating an Existing Discount.
) shown on the Explorer toolbar. The Discount Editor
opens.
Tip: You can also open the discount by double-clicking on the discount name.
Tip: For the stop date, you can either type in the date, or click the drop-down list to select the date from a calendar. Just click a date to select it.
Note: For more information about deactivating discounts, see Deactivating and Reactivating Discounts.
Tip: You can also click the Save icon (
) shown on the BEA E-Business Control Center toolbar to save the discount.
Warning: If the discount you modify is in use by a promotional campaign, saving modifications to the discount will affect every scenario action that refers to that discount. Be certain that the modifications you make are in line with your organization's established policies and that you entered the modifications correctly in the E-Business Control Center.
Deactivating and Reactivating Discounts
Once discounts are deployed, they are considered active. In other words, deployed discounts are working on your Web site. If for some reason you want to stop offering a discount, check the Deactivate This Discount check box located in the Start/Stop pane. The next time you save the discount, it will be deactivated. If a customer order was already associated with the discount you just deactivated, the system will still honor the discount. However, no new offers of the discount will be made.
If at any time you want to reactivate a discount, simply return to the Start/Stop pane and click the Deactivate This Discount check box to remove the check mark. Once you save, this will reactivate the discount, allowing it to once again be associated with customer orders.
Note: Deactivating a deployed discount will not release the modifications restrictions placed on deployed discounts.
Deleting an Existing Discount
If there are no pending offers or customer orders associated with a discount, you can also delete existing discounts using the E-Business Control Center.
Warning: BEA recommends that you do not attempt to delete discounts until the discount has expired (that is, the end date associated with the discount is reached) and until any orders associated with the discount have cleared. And, as with any deletion you make, be absolutely certain that you select the correct discount and that you are sure you want to delete it. Deleted discounts cannot be retrieved.
To delete an existing discount, follow these steps:
(located on the
left side of the Explorer window) to enable the Discounts view. A list of discounts
appears in the Discounts list.
Tip: If there is a long list of discount names, you might want to use the name filter to locate the discount you want to delete. For more information about the name filter, see Locating an Existing Discount.
) shown on the Explorer
toolbar.
Note: If the discount you are trying to delete is currently associated with a pending offer or a customer order, a message indicating this will be displayed and you will not be able to delete the discount. This is because the deletion of discounts may cause errors in the system if the discount is still in use.
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