A promotion is an event or activity, such as a sales or advertising campaign, designed to increase visibility or sales of a product.
The Promotion system in Item & Cost enables you to configure special costs and deals for your subscribers (retailers) in the form of an event. The promotion-event information is sent to the retailer's systems, and the interested parties are notified via e-mail or other method.
You can think of the Promotion system as a work pad for entering special prices on merchandise. You can add-to, change, or delete-from a promotion until you get exactly the right items and prices you want to promote. Once you are satisfied with the promotion, you activate it. When a promotion is activated, Item & Cost generates real costs for the promotion, and then exports the cost changes to your authorized subscribers.
Setting up a promotion through the Promotion system is most helpful when there are a large number of items with varying degrees of complexity in cost. For example, in a promotion where a 15% discount will be applied to many items, the Promotion system will apply the discount to the items you select and perform the calculations for you.
Another advantage of using the Promotion system is that a promotion notification can automatically be sent to your subscribers. A notification provides detailed information about your promotion, including the name of the promotion, the effective dates, and all of the deals that are available. The Park City Group service agreement between you and your trading partners determine whether a notification is sent. Automatic notifications are not available for temporary costs.
|
Promotions consist of:
The promotion from start to finish. The event has "effective on" and "ends on" dates. All deals fall within the event.
Determines who will receive the promotion. Can be managed by cost zones or individual subscribers (retailers).
The deals define the items and savings being promoted. Each deal has conditions, an effective date, and an end date. |
|
Entering a promotion is performed as three main tasks:
Add the promotion event and areas.
Add one or more deals to the promotion.
Activate the promotion.
Click here to view a graphic of this task flow. See Add a promotion for the steps to enter a new promotion.
The online system uses a Next Step bar to lead you through the most common tasks.
For example, when you click Manage Promotions, the Next Step bar displays Add Promotion. To add a promotion, simply click Proceed and it will prompt you to set up the promotion Event, manage the promotion Areas, add a Deal, and Activate the promotion.
The suggested steps on the Next Step bar are intuitive, and you can use the bar's drop-down list to quickly perform all kinds of tasks, such as updating your promotion and deal dates or adding a deal to a new promotion.
If the task displayed on the Next Step bar is not the task you want, simply select another one. If you get stuck, you can always use the Back link to return to a previous window.
Most of the time, the Next Step bar will display Proceed to proceed to the next task. However some windows, such as the ones used to enter deal information, list Save and Proceed. If you do not wish to save your entries, simply click the Back link, choose your task from the Next Step bar, and click Proceed.
For example, you've added one deal and started to add another. If you decide not to enter the second deal and click Save and Proceed to go to another task, Item & Cost will prompt you to enter the missing deal information. Instead of using the Next Step bar, you can click Back to leave the window without saving.
A promotion can be managed by:
Cost Zones – One or more of your cost zones can be selected. All of your subscribers (retailers) within the cost zones will receive and be authorized to your promotion. You can choose from your regular zones or your store zones.
Subscribers – One or more of your subscribers (retailers) can be selected. The promotion’s deals will apply in all cost zones that are associated with the subscribers.
Most types of promotion deals generate promotional costs that are sent to either individual subscribers or to all of the subscribers within a cost zone.
Promotion deals define the actual pricing structures within the promotion. In simpler terms, a deal is used to describe what is being offered and at what price. Normally, actual costs are generated from the deal within Item & Cost. Some deal types, such as Free Goods and Free Form, do not generate costs.
A promotion must have at least one deal, but you can add as many deals as needed. The effective dates for all deals are set up by default to match the promotion. However, specific beginning and ending dates can be set up for each deal – as long as they fall within or on the promotion’s beginning and ending dates.
Most deals are made up of three types of criteria.
Deal Conditions – Deal conditions include such things as the effective dates, the sizes of the items, the purchase quantities required, and the actual discount or offer.
Deal Items – The deal items are the items a subscriber can receive or purchase if the conditions of the deal are met.
Purchase Items – The purchase items are any items that must be bought to receive the offer on the deal items. Often the purchase items and the deal items are the same.
Important Note: Any deal or purchase items that are included in a promotion must have been authorized to (offered to) the subscriber and/or cost zone.
Each deal must be assigned a Deal ID. This can be any combination of letters or numbers, and must be unique to the promotion event. (Each deal must have a separate deal number within the promotion.) Many people simply enter the words Deal 1, Deal 2, and so on.
Deal numbers can be re-used in other promotions.
Note: Item & Cost automatically assigns each deal an ID of "1, 2, 3," and so on. You can use this Deal ID if you choose, or you can enter an ID that is relevant to your company.
The following deal types are available. See Overview - Adding Deals for more information.
Amount Off
Percent Off
Special Price
Quantity Discount with Allowance
Quantity Discount with Net Price
Feature Product with Allowance
Feature Product with Net Price
Free Goods
Volume Purchase
The following are some of the actions you can take on existing promotions.
Certain parts of a promotion can be updated. The actions you can take are based on business rules set by the Status of the promotion. For more information, see Update a Promotion.
For promotions with a Status of New:
Deals can be added or deleted.
Areas can be added or removed.
Promotion and Deal Dates can be changed.
The promotion Description can be changed.
Other dates can be changed, such as the First Order Date.
For promotions with a Status of Activated:
Deals can be cancelled.
Areas can be added.
Promotion and Deal Dates can be changed (if a date has not already passed).
Other dates can be changed, such as the First Order Date (if a date has not already passed).
Promotions with the Status of Cancelled cannot be updated.
You can update a promotion's deals using the Manage Deals utility. You can update existing deals, add new deals, and perform other tasks from this window.
The actions you can take, such as adding or updating, are based on logical business rules. For example, you can only add deals when the promotion's Status is New. Deal Conditions can not be changed in an Activated promotion, but any dates that have not passed can be adjusted forward or backward.
For more information, see Manage Deals.
You can change the dates on New and Activated promotions. This includes both promotion dates and deal dates. If the promotion has begun, any dates that have not passed can be adjusted forward or backward. For more information, see Overview - Managing Promotion Dates and Deal Dates.
A promotion will automatically expire when the Ends On date is reached. However, you may want to end a promotion early or cancel a promotion that has not yet begun.
How you cancel or end a promotion depends on its Status.
If a promotion's Status is New, it can be Cancelled.
If a promotion's Status is Activated and the Effective Date is in the future (the promotion has not begun), it can be Cancelled.
If a promotion's Status is Activated and the promotion is in effect (the Effective Date is today or earlier), you can end the promotion by clicking Manage Promotion / Deal Dates.
Set the End Date to today's date or a future date. Click Preview, then Save and Proceed. The promotion will expire at the end of the day on that date.
Note: Park City Group does not allow a promotion that is in effect to be "cancelled."
For more information, see End or Cancel a Promotion.
You can cancel or delete a single deal within a promotion. Certain rules apply.
For more information, see Cancel or Delete a Deal.
Subscribers (retailers) want to be alerted when a promotion that affects them is set up. You, of course, also want to notify them. The Promotion system provides two methods for relaying promotion information to subscribers.
Subscribers can be notified when a promotion is "Activated." See Overview - Activating a Promotion for more information on promotion activation.
A link is available to Notify Subscribers from the Promotion Maintenance window. Click this link to send a notification to all subscribers associated with the promotion.
Subscribers choose whether to receive each type of notification when they are matched with the provider in Item & Cost. This is set up internally by Park City Group Notifications are sent with an RTF file attachment that describes the promotion in detail.
Interested third-parties can also receive e-mailed promotions notifications. For more information, see Overview - Third Party Notifications.
We can modify your promotion defaults in the following ways.
When a percentage-off promotion is applied on a regular cost, the resulting number is not always an even dollar amount. For example, 15% of $4.99 is $0.7485.
We can set your default calculations to automatically round up ($0.75), round down ($0.74), or use true rounding where 0 through 4 is rounded down and 5 through 9 is rounded up ($0.75). The decimal place to apply the rounding can also be set.
We can modify your service agreement so that you receive a copy (via e-mail) of the promotion information sent to your subscribers through Item & Cost. This configuration may have already been set during your implementation.
Within many promotions, a deal allowance will contain multiple components. For example, a $.50 amount-off deal may be composed of a $.30 chain allowance and a $.20 distributor allowance. This information can be included in a promotion through Item & Cost’s “Allowance Component” feature.
Through Allowance Components and Third Party roles, a provider can share allowance component information with subscribers and third parties. Both subscribers and Third Parties can be restricted from viewing specific components, such as a distributor’s share.
Together with the ability to include third party notifications, this utility enables:
Deal allowance components to be set up in a promotion.
Component information to be listed in a promotion notification or report.
Interested third parties to be notified of promotions and deal components.
Third party viewing restrictions for specific components.
A “sum” feature that determines whether a component's allowance is included in the total allowance.
For more information, see Overview - Deal Allowance Components.
Use Item & Cost's Third Party utility to allow those outside of the direct supplier/retailer (provider/subscriber) trading relationship to view a promotion. Third parties can include brokers, distributors, wholesalers, and other interested parties.
Third parties can:
Receive e-mailed promotion notifications.
Log on and view the promotion online.
Log on and run a promotion report.
Third parties are based on specific trading partnerships, such as the one between a provider and a subscriber, and are associated with the provider. For example:
Cathy’s Cupcakes has a trading partnership with Ron's Groceries.
Drew’s Distributing is a third party to Cathy's Cupcakes.
Cathy's Cupcakes determines that Drew's Distributing should be notified of promotions sent to Ron's Groceries, and includes them as a third party.
For more information, see Overview - Third-Party Roles in Promotions.
We are glad to assist you with any questions you may have about promotions. Please contact us using the information below.
Advanced Commerce Support
Telephone: 1-888-842-5465, option 1
Our hours are 7:30 am – 5:30 pm CST Monday through Friday.
E-mail can be sent to ACSupport@prescient.com.
Updated 7/1/2009 (minor)
