Promotion type and priority dictate the order in which Commerce evaluates promotions during a pricing operation; however, Commerce must also take into account stacking rule definitions as it evaluates each individual promotion. Stacking rules allow you to create groups of promotions and then define which groups may be used together and which may not. For example, Commerce Reference Store has a Gift With Purchase (GWP) Promotions stacking rule that includes the Free Scarf With All Orders Over $200 and Get 2 Free Gifts With Any Woman’s Jacket promotions. It also has an Apparel Promotions stacking rule that includes the 25% Off Women’s Apparel promotion. These two stacking rules are defined as mutually exclusive in the stacking rule definitions. This means that, if a GWP Promotions promotion has already been applied to an order, an Apparel Promotions promotion may not be applied to that order and vice versa.
You can create overrides to stacking rule exclusions within the definitions of individual promotions. For example, the Hubbard Chair Tiered Price Break promotion explicitly excludes the $10 Off Orders Over $100 promotion. This means that, regardless of how the stacking rules interact with each other, if the Hubbard Chair Tiered Price Break promotion has been applied to an order, the $10 Off Orders Over $100 promotion may not be applied. In another example, the $10 Off Orders Over $100 promotion explicitly includes the ATG Home – Free Shipping promotion. Again, regardless of the fact that order promotions and shipping promotions cannot be applied together due to stacking rule exclusions, if the $10 Off Orders Over $100 promotion is applied to an order, the ATG Home – Free Shipping promotion may also be applied if the order qualifies for it.
Finally, stacking rules can be used to define limits on promotions that have been grouped together. For example, Commerce Reference Store defines a limit of 1 on the GWP Promotions stacking rule. This means that if one of the free gift promotions has been applied to an order, the other free gift promotion may not be.
The following table shows the stacking rule definitions for Commerce Reference Store along with any explicit overrides defined for individual promotions:
Stacking Rule Name and Limit | Groups These Promotions | Exclusions Due to Stacking Rules | Explicitly Excluded Promotions | Explicitly Included Promotions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Item Promotions | Registered Users – Save 15% On Home Accents | N/A | N/A | N/A |
Hubbard Chair Tiered Price Break | N/A | $10 Off Orders Over $100 | N/A | |
Save 20% On Any ATG Home Item Excluding Home Accents | N/A | N/A | N/A | |
Apparel Promotions | 25% Off Women’s Apparel | Excludes GWP Promotions | N/A | N/A |
GWP Promotions | Get 2 Free Gifts With Any Woman’s Jacket | Excludes Apparel Promotions | N/A | N/A |
Free Scarf With All Orders Over $200 | Excludes Apparel Promotions | N/A | N/A | |
Order Promotions | 10LIEFERUNG Coupon – 10% Off Order | Excludes Shipping Promotions | N/A | 10LIEFERUNG Coupon – Free Shipping |
TENSHIP Coupon – 10% Off Order | Excludes Shipping Promotions | N/A | TENSHIP Coupon – Free Shipping | |
$10 Off Orders Over $100 | Excludes Shipping Promotions | N/A | ATG Home – Free Shipping | |
Shipping Promotions | TENSHIP Coupon – Free Shipping | Excludes Order Promotions | N/A | N/A |
10LIEFERUNG Coupon – Free Shipping | Excludes Order Promotions | N/A | N/A | |
ATG Home – Free Shipping | Excludes Order Promotions | N/A | N/A |
Because stacking rules can cause promotions to be excluded, the stacking rules implementation uses the Commerce messaging API to inform the customer if a promotion has not been applied and why. In such instances, Commerce Reference Store displays a message on the shopping cart page that says “Where did my promotion go?” Clicking this link displays a separate window with the promotion exclusion details. The link on the shopping cart page is included in the store.war/checkout/gadgets/checkoutOrderSummary.jsp gadget and the “Where did my promotion go” page is rendered by store.war/global/gadgets/promotionDetailsPopup.jsp. For more details on the messaging API, see the ATG Commerce Programming Guide.
Notes:
Stacking rules are designed to always be mutually exclusive, so in Commerce Reference Store, the Order Promotions stacking rule excludes the Shipping Promotions stacking rule and the Shipping Promotions stacking rule excludes the Order Promotions stacking rule. The reality, however, is that order promotions are evaluated and applied to an order before shipping promotions are, so the Shipping Promotions stacking rule will never actually prevent an order promotion from being applied. The same would be true of any order promotion stacking rules that exclude item promotions because item promotions are evaluated before order promotions are.
If a promotion has been excluded due to a stacking rule exclusion or an explicit exclusion, any associated promotion upsell will also not be evaluated.
A promotion can be associated with only one stacking rule at any given time.
For more details on creating stacking rules, see the ATG Merchandising Guide for Business Users.
