Exclusive Items for VIP Customers
Company A is a wholesale company selling home decor items such as wall art, cushions, and glassware. The Company A website uses commerce categories to structure its navigation menu and users can browse through the items in the Wall Art, Cushions, and Glassware categories.
Company A wants to start a VIP program that provides certain customers with exclusive access to premium items. Customers who participate in the VIP program must first sign a contract with Company A.
Layout
First, Company A must decide how to segment their items and customers. Let’s look at how their answers to some important questions helps to layout PCV:
|
Question |
Answer |
Layout Input |
|
What are the customer groups I need? |
VIP customers and All Users |
Customer groups to be created - VIP Customers |
|
On what basis will I assign a customer to one group or the other? |
The Sales Operation Manager will add customers to the VIP group after they sign a contract. |
VIP Customers customer group is a static customer group |
|
Do I want any of my customers to be in more than one customer group? |
All Users includes VIP customers. |
None |
|
What item segments do I need? |
VIP Items is a group of items that spans all the commerce categories. These items will be visible to all customers but only VIP Customers can buy them. Also, we are launching a new line of items called Designer Carpets, which should be available only to VIP Customers to start with, though we may later make it available to all customers. |
Item segments needed - VIP Items and Designer Carpets. |
|
On what basis do I want to assign an item to one segment or another? |
The Marketing Manager will add all VIP items to the VIP Items segment and the Designer Carpets segment. |
None |
|
Do the item segments correspond to the sections in my website navigation or are they different? |
VIP Items is different and contains items from all the sections of my navigation menu. Designer Carpets is intended to be a top-level section in the navigation menu. |
VIP Items is not a Commerce Category. It is an item collection. Designer Carpets is a Commerce Category since it appears in the navigation menu. |
|
Which item segments should be visible and purchasable to my customer segments? Which item segments should be visible but not purchasable? Can all customer segments view item prices? |
VIP customers can see and buy all items. Recognized and logged in users cannot see Designer Carpets. They can see VIP items but they cannot see the prices and they cannot buy them. They can see and buy all other items Anonymous users cannot see Designer Carpets or VIP Items. They can see and buy all other items. |
The Website Visibility Level for VIP Items is:
The Website Visibility Level for Designer Carpets is:
|
|
Who should be able to view any items that are not in item segments mapped to a customer segment? Should they be able to view the prices? |
All users can see items not mapped to VIP Customers. |
The Website Visibility Level for Unmapped Items is:
|
Implementation
From the layout inputs, Company A creates the following in NetSuite:
-
Customer Group (static): VIP Customers
-
Item Collection: VIP Items
-
Commerce Category: Designer Carpets
-
Personalized Catalog View Setup:
-
VIP Items set to Display Fully for VIP Customers
-
VIP Items set to Disable Purchase and Hide Price for Recognized and Logged In Customers
-
Designer Carpets set to Display Fully for VIP Customers
-
Unmapped Items set to Display Fully for All Users
-
In this example, Designer Carpets does not have any subcategories. If it did, the subcategories would be selected separately. Only items included directly in the category are included in the item segment.
The Designer Carpets Commerce Category is, at present, exclusive to VIP users so other users do not see this category in the navigation menu at all. For more information, see Exclude Empty Commerce Categories. Later, if Company A decides to make Designer Carpets visible and purchasable to all users, they can remove the mapping from the Customer Segments Manager. This makes all items within it “unmapped” and therefore visible to all users. The Designer Carpets category then appears in the navigation menu for all users.