'Online it said I'd get ten per cent'
Your offer is simple: any twelve bottles, ten per cent off. A regular builds a mixed dozen online, including two bottles of Champagne, and gets the discount. The next week he does the same in the shop and the till gives a smaller discount, because the till excludes Champagne and the website does not. He asks, fairly, which is right.
Then there are club members, who get their own discount, and the question of whether the two stack. The shop staff say no. The website says yes.
Two systems, two rulebooks
Your EPOS and your web shop each have their own discount engine, set up at different times by different people, often using different features. Any change, such as a new exclusion for fine wine, has to be made twice, in two different ways, and one of them is usually forgotten.
- Exclusions (fine wine, sale items, spirits) are defined differently in each system.
- Club member and trade discounts interact with case discounts in different ways.
- Some systems count bottles, others count products, so magnums confuse them.
- Temporary promotions are added in one place only.
- Nobody has the full set of rules written in one document.
What inconsistency costs
The obvious cost is margin given away where the rule was too generous. The less obvious one is trust: a regular who gets a different price in the shop than online wonders what else is inconsistent. And staff overriding the till by hand to match the website introduces its own errors.
One rule set for both channels
- We write your discount rules down with you, in plain terms, including every exclusion and how discounts combine.
- Products carry the tags those rules need: fine wine, sale, spirits, format, so exclusions are based on data rather than lists typed into each system.
- The rules are applied in both channels, either by configuring each system identically from the same source, or through a single pricing service both call, depending on what your EPOS and web shop allow.
- Magnums and half bottles count by your chosen measure, for example a magnum as two bottles.
- Club and trade customers are recognised at the till and online, and their discounts combine only as you decide.
- A test basket screen lets staff check what a basket should cost before a promotion goes live.
| Rule question | Decided once, applied everywhere |
|---|---|
| Is Champagne included? | Tag-based exclusion, same in shop and online |
| Does a magnum count as two? | Format rule, same in both |
| Do club and case discounts stack? | Combination rule, same in both |
| Are sale items excluded? | Sale tag, same in both |
| Trade customers? | Account-based pricing, never the retail case offer |
What the discounts are and which wines they cover is entirely your commercial decision.
The same price wherever they buy
A regular building a mixed dozen gets the same total on the website and at the till. When you exclude a new category, the change is made once. Staff stop overriding the till. And the promotions you run for Christmas or the summer are set up once and checked with a test basket before they start.
Take a normal Christmas promotion. You decide that any twelve bottles earn fifteen per cent in December, except fine wine over a price you choose, and that club members get the better of their own discount or the case discount but not both. That is written once as a rule. Before the first of December, the manager builds three test baskets: a mixed dozen with two magnums, a club member's basket, and one with a bottle of Champagne. The totals match in the shop and online. On the first of the month the rule starts in both places at once, and on the first of January it stops in both places at once.
Does this sound familiar?
- Customers have noticed different discounts in the shop and online.
- Exclusions are set up separately in two systems.
- Staff override the till to match the website.
- Nobody is sure whether club and case discounts stack.
- Magnums and half bottles break the case count.