Account-Specific Pricing Components
Account-Specific Pricing Components
Seller organizations can use Elastic Path Commerce features, such as, price list and price list assignment to configure account specific pricing. Each account in a buyer organization might have specific pricing depending on contract agreements, initial negotiations, or initial terms and conditions. For example, the buyer associate of Austin Hardware Inc gets a different pricing and the buyer associate of ABB Corp gets a different pricing in the same store. The following scenario describes how account-specific pricing works for different accounts:
- A seller administrator creates separate accounts for all customers, which are the buyer organizations, of a store in Account Management service.
- The seller administrator creates a top-level account for the buyer organization and creates multiple sub-account depending on the stores, regions, departments, or divisions within the top-level account.
- The seller administrator assigns associates to each sub-account.
- The customer service representative uses Elastic Path Commerce Manager to configure account-specific pricing. For more information about the components, see the Elastic Path Commerce section.
- The buyer associate1 shops on behalf of the different sub-accounts that are part of the buyer organization1. For example, Jhon is a buyer associate and can shop on behalf of the north, east, and west regions stores, which are part of the ABB Corp.
- The seller administrator adds an account for the buyer organization2, who is a wholesale buyer, such as, Austin Hardware Inc.
- The customer service representative uses Elastic Path Commerce Manager to configure wholesale pricing for buyer organization2.
- The buyer associate2 purchases products with exclusive pricing for the buyer organization2.
Account-Specific Pricing Components
Account Management Service
Following are the account-specific pricing components in Account Management service:
- Buyer organization and buyer
- In a B2B transaction, a representative of an organization shops on a commerce website for an account within the organization. This account is the buying organization account and the representative is the buyer associate.
- Accounts
- In B2B Commerce, seller administrators create the account hierarchy for a buyer organization depending on the organization’s structural requirements.
- Each department, region, or premise that is a part of a buyer organization can be represented by a sub-account within the organization account.
- Individual shopper who has the buyer role permission can shop on behalf of each account.
Elastic Path Commerce
Following are account-specific pricing components in Elastic Path Commerce:
- Price list
- Each store is configured with catalogs and products. Prices for the products in the catalogs are stored in price lists, and a price list is associated to a catalog and a currency.
- The product code or SKU code in the price list associates the product or SKU in a catalog to corresponding price.
- Price list assignments
- Determines the price list from which the product price is retrieved for the shoppers. Price list assignment links each product in a category to a price in the price list.
- Provides each customer segment the corresponding pricing for each product.
- Customer segment
- Customer segment is a grouping of customers. In B2B, each account or the sub-accounts within an account in a specific organization is considered a specific customer segment for account-specific pricing.
For more information, see the Elastic Path Commerce Manager User Guide.
Account-Specific Pricing Workflow
In B2B, each buyer organization might have specific pricing depending on contract agreements, initial negotiations, or initial terms and conditions. Elastic Path supports account-specific pricing that enables specific pricing for various buyer accounts in a seller organization. The seller organization can provide account and sub account-specific pricing for various entities across organizations. The following diagram illustrates account-specific pricing in a seller organization that has a B2B online store, Store 1:
The buyer organizations, Buyer organization 1, Buyer organization 2, can purchase products from Store 1. However, Buyer organization 1 gets the pricing in the Price List 1 and Buyer organization 2 gets the pricing in the Price List 2.
The account for Buyer organization 1 has three sub-accounts, such as Sub-Account 1, Sub-Account 2, and Sub-Account 3. In this example, each sub-account can purchase products from Store 1. However, each sub-account gets the account-specific pricing corresponding to that account. Sub-Account 1 gets the pricing in the Price List 1, Sub-Account 2 gets the pricing in the Price List 2, and Sub-Account 3 gets the pricing in the Price List 3.
The following workflow describes how Elastic Path Commerce Manager and Account Management services operate together:
- A new account is added in Account Management service.
- A customer segment for the account is added in Elastic Path Commerce Manager.
- The price list containing the account-specific prices is created in Elastic Path Commerce Manager.
- A price list assignment for the customer segment that contains the selected account is created in Elastic Path Commerce Manager.
- A customer is assigned to the customer segment.
- Shopping cart is updated with account-specific pricing.
- When the associate shops, the account-specific pricing is applied automatically. The pricing is provided by the price list assignment.