Customer Groups

introduction the customers groups section is the heartbeat of your sparklayer integration and allows you to manage the ordering rules for your customers it's common for b2b customers to have terms agreed when they place orders with you for example, brand new customers may only be allowed to pay via credit/debit card, whereas long term customers may have more favourable payment terms the customer groups section lets you define specific rules for specific customer groups, giving you flexibility in how your b2b customers order online this includes setting which price lists they use setting which payment methods they can use setting order limit rules (e g minimum and maximum order totals) setting additional settings (such as blocking the ability to edit an address) the default customer group by default, sparklayer has a 'base' customer group that is a catch all for all your b2b customers if you're looking to have just a single b2b customer group then the 'base' group will be sufficient any changes you make will automatically apply to all your b2b customers unless you create new customer groups understanding 'inherit' and the 🔗 icon when you see the 🔗 icon in a customer group, it means it will inherit settings from another customer group, by default the "base" for example, if your base is set to a specific price list or has specific payment methods, any new customer groups you create will start off by using these same settings you can easily modify this by simply clicking the edit icon and changing them as you need are you using bigcommerce? if you're using bigcommerce docid 6zlph9x8 qeuitchs2obe as your ecommerce platform, we've a installing sparklayer on bigcommerce docid\ x6xahbj 9kyjthd80 1qh on how to configure your b2b customer groups what can be configured it's possible to configure the following rules rule type description order limits you can set order limit rules for your customers, such as the minimum order total or minimum quantity of items they must reach before being able to place an order (and conversely, the maximum of these) payment methods the payment methods that the customer will see when they checkout for example, "payment on account" and "payment by invoice" see also payment methods docid\ ibikczvhm085bkejiffyv price lists the price lists docid\ s8xcbzgxqpgdeigwtxset that are assigned to that customer group for example, you may have different price lists per customer group address management if activated, your customers will be able to edit and add addresses via the my account interface docid\ lqxani7ivdqna09d9soap and the my cart interface docid\ efevur a3ycjxuhvrr7t credit settings if you have credit, net terms, & invoicing docid\ ywm70oquosykooiqb4z4g set up, you can optionally choose to prevent customers from being able to checkout if they exceed their credit limit stock display settings configure if stock levels and units are displayes ans your max, low and last stock values stock locations if you're store is set up with multiple stock locations ("inventory locations"), you can specific which location the b2b customer orders from order limits there are two types of order limits you can set for your b2b customers order limit type details order limits by order total set rules based on the customers order total, e g the customer must spend more than $100 order limits by order quantity set rules based on the number of items in the customers order, e g the customer must have at least 50 items combination set rules based on both an order total and the order quantity order limits by order total to configure order limits by order total, click the edit icon next to a customer group and navigating to the order limits section if the customer group doesn't already have an order limit set, click overwrite order total limits and then the order limit values you want limit type details example minimum this is the minimum order total the customer must have before being able to checkout the customer must have an order total of at least $200 00 maximum this is the maximum order total the customer must have before being able to checkout the customer must have an order total of no more than $400 00 please note all order values are in net pricing (i e excluding tax calculations) once you've set this, when you access the quick order on the frontend, you'll then see corresponding messaging show on the my cart interface docid\ efevur a3ycjxuhvrr7t if you'd prefer to change the default language that is shown, you can use the below language strings updating language and text you can update the default text by adding code to your frontend integration guide docid\ qwxsym9x5 pviogutekcp languages & international docid\ klrs7wtxn3wncdy8z5zvu about how to update text on sparklayer / add the below code into the sparklayer core script / / please refer to our help guide on how to do this / translations { en { "cart validation message minimum order totals" "your order must be more than {amount} to meet the order requirements ", "cart validation message maximum order totals" "your order must be less than {amount} to meet the order requirements ", } }, / end of code / order limits by order quantity to configure order limits by order quantity, click the edit icon next to a customer group and navigating to the order limits section if the customer group doesn't already have an order limit set, click overwrite order quantity limits and then the order limit values you want limit type details example minimum this is the minimum order quantity the customer must have before being able to checkout the customer must have an order quantity of at least 12 items maximum this is the maximum order quantity the customer must have before being able to checkout the customer must have an order quantity of no more than 40 items once you've set this, when you access the quick order on the frontend, you'll then see corresponding messaging show on the my cart interface docid\ efevur a3ycjxuhvrr7t if you'd prefer to change the default language that is shown, you can use the below language strings updating language and text you can update the default text by adding code to your frontend integration guide docid\ qwxsym9x5 pviogutekcp languages & international docid\ klrs7wtxn3wncdy8z5zvu about how to update text on sparklayer / add the below code into the sparklayer core script / / please refer to our help guide on how to do this / translations { en { "cart validation message minimum order item quantity" "your order must have at least {minimum} items to meet the order requirements ", "cart validation message maximum order item quantity" "your order must not exceed {maximum} items to meet the order requirements ", } }, / end of code / payment methods you can specify what payment methods are shown for each customer group by clicking the edit icon next to a customer group and navigating to the payment methods section you'll then see the following options payment methods in shopify by default, when you set up sparklayer on your shopify store, unless you're using 'upfront payment', all orders created by customers will be generated as draft orders within shopify (learn about shopify draft orders https //help shopify com/en/manual/online sales channels/wholesale/channel/orders/process orders ) one of the big benefits of using draft orders is the ability to make changes before you then take payment and fulfil payment method description payment by invoice the order will be submitted as a "draft" order which can subsequently be edited orders can automatically be converted into "completed" orders if required see settings docid\ gznstztqcrfflfzstaw0n payment on account the order will be submitted as a "draft" order which can subsequently be edited orders can automatically be converted into "completed" orders if required see settings docid\ gznstztqcrfflfzstaw0n upfront payment customers will be taken through the shopify checkout request for quote the order will be submitted as a "draft" order which can subsequently be edited when customers reach the payment step, they'll see a variety of available payment methods and can select their preference payment method description payment on account 👪 for the b2b customer this will allow the customer to checkout without needing to enter any payment details payment by invoice 👪 for the b2b customer this will allow the customer to checkout without having to enter in payment details pay online by card 👪 for the b2b customer the customer will be directed to your standard checkout process and will be required to make payment right away (e g by card or via another payment processor) this is sometimes referred to as "pro forma payment" request for quote 👪 for the b2b customer the customer can submit their order without choosing a payment method how orders arrive into wix depending on which payment methods docid\ ibikczvhm085bkejiffyv you've selected, orders will arrive into wix in the following ways payment method flow pay by invoice the order will be created within sales > orders with a payment status of "unpaid" you can then manually mark the order as paid once you have received payment (e g via offline means) pay on account the order will be created within sales > orders with a payment status of "unpaid" you can then manually mark the order as paid once you have received payment (e g via offline means) pay online by card the order will be created within sales > orders with a payment status of "paid" you can then proceed to fulfil the order note this is termed "upfront payment" within the customer groups docid 5 lwmnohhjbjjppg9e6vh area of the sparklayer dashboard request for quote the order will be created within sales > orders with a payment status of "unpaid" you can then manually mark the order as paid once you have received payment (e g via offline means) "unpaid" orders and "paid" orders by default all payment methods other than upfront payment will be generated as "unpaid" orders wix checkout payment methods if a customer selects "pay online by card" (i e "upfront payment"), they'll be directed to the wix checkout by default, they will see all wix payment methods you have set up (e g card payment, paypal, etc) payment method description payment by invoice this will allow the customer to place an order without having to enter payment details payment on account similar to above, the customer can place an order without needing to enter any payment details upfront payment the customer will be required to enter credit/debit card details and will see the payment methods you have set up during the checkout process this is sometimes referred to as proforma payment within wholesale operations request for quote the customer can submit their order without choosing a payment method the order will be marked as a 'draft' order and can subsequently be edited when the customer activates the quick order interface docid\ lx4 omchj6req4hiw fqn , they'll see whichever payment methods are allowed and can then select as appropriate you can also edit how these are named in quick order interface docid\ lx4 omchj6req4hiw fqn price lists depending on which price lists you have set up in the price lists docid\ ldepanhogqwegnf jhz6l section, you can assign specific price lists to customer groups click the edit icon next to a customer group and navigating to the price lists section if the customer group doesn't already have a price list set, click overwrite price lists and then choose the available price list from those shown you can also assign multiple price lists to a customer group if you want to set up more sophisticated pricing from the "update price lists" screen, simply click "add new" to select a price list please note in terms of pricing, if a product sku exists in multiple price lists, sparklayer will search through all available price lists and use the first one it finds for example product abc 123 exists in 3 price lists in price list 1 , it is $10 in price list 2 , it is $8 in price list 3 , it is $12 sparklayer will select the first price it finds in this case, product abc 123 will be shown to the customer at a price of $10 , using price list 1 address management if activated, your customers will be able to edit and add addresses via the my account interface docid\ lqxani7ivdqna09d9soap and the my cart interface docid\ efevur a3ycjxuhvrr7t you can also optionally choose to prevent billing address editing by unticking "allow customers to add and edit billing addresses" please note if you've set up sparklayer to automatically synchronise addresses from another system (e g an erp), these may override updates your customers make please contact us if you're unsure credit settings if you have credit, net terms, & invoicing docid\ ywm70oquosykooiqb4z4g set up, you can optionally choose to prevent customers from being able to checkout if they exceed their credit limit stock display settings please note this feature requires upgrading your store to the latest version of the frontend integration guide docid\ qwxsym9x5 pviogutekcp if you'd like to display stock levels to your b2b customers, you can activate the stock display settings and customise how this works when a customer visits a product page on your store, they'll then see their specific stock display settings as detailed in stock display docid\ gj ao gq6oa jx0d27hys to get started, click the overwrite stock display settings button on the customer group you'd like to apply this to applying this to all customers if you want to apply this to all customer groups, simply apply the setting to the base customer group and all others will 'inherit' the settings once activated, you can then configure how the stock display works configuration details show stock availability to customers when enabled, customers can see the stock status of the product (and individual sku) show number of units of stock when enabled, customers can see the availability of the product (e g 50 in stock) max when show number of units of stock is enabled, this will show to the customer in green anything above will show as 50+ low when show number of units of stock is enabled, this will show to the customer in amber and denotes low levels of stock last when show number of units of stock is enabled, this will show to the customer in red and denotes the last remaining stock looking to enable pre ordering? you can enable pre orders and back orders in stock display docid\ gj ao gq6oa jx0d27hys stock locations ("inventory locations") please note the stock locations feature is only available on the sparklayer growth, pro, and enterprise plan you can change your plan here or learn more about our how pricing works stock locations allow you to specify which stock (or "inventory") locations you want specific customer groups to see stock display settings from if your b2b store is set up with multiple stock locations (e g by geography), it's a great way to ensure your b2b customers are viewing stock dispaly settings from the relevant location for example, your store may be set up with 4 stock locations across the world using this feature, you can easily assign b2b customers to a specific geographic location, so that they can only see stock display from their specific region to begin using stock locations, click the edit button next to a customer group and you'll see the option from within the edit view default stock location please note, if stock locations are not specifically set, sparklayer will assume that stock will be taken across all locations setup within your store please note currently, it's only possible to select one stock location per customer group please note sparklayer's stock location feature is for stock display purposes only and will not affect which stock location is used to fulfill orders in your ecommerce platform using stock locations requires configuration within your specific ecommerce platform and we've detailed how it works below to get started, you'll nee to ensure that locations are enabled within your shopify store you can learn more about how locations work in this shopify guide any active locations will then be automatically synchronised to sparklayer there are a number of configurations that need to be reviewed when setting up your locations in the context of your b2b customers fulfilment details you'll need to ensure any locations that you want to use for your b2b customers have the "fulfill online orders from this location" checkbox ticked order routing you may also want to review how shopify prioritises your stock locations using order routing, allowing you to customise the workflow rules for your stock control store setup (hybrid b2b and dtc) if you're store is set up to "share" b2b and dtc on the same store, it's important to note the following if you're using stock locations logged in b2b customers will be able to purchase products from the stock locations you've assigned to them for example, if a customer has the "london warehouse" assigned to their customer group and product a has 100 available from this warehouse, they can order a maximum of 100 setting up stock locations for your b2b customers will not prevent your regular (dtc) customers from purchasing the same stock depending on how your shopify store is configured, regular customers can still access the same stock and place orders sparklayer does support the ability to reserve stock and set minimum stock levels and you can stock display docid\ gj ao gq6oa jx0d27hys please refer to our technical documentation, stock locations docid\ who9uqj6zldp88g2xwdau creating new customer groups new customer groups allow you to create different rules for different customers when you create a new customer group, you'll see the following screen where you can enter a display name and a handle the handle is a unique identifier that you can then use in your ecommerce platform (e g shopify) to match with (see below for more details) synchronising customer data please note you need to always tag a customer with b2b even if you are assigning them to an additional customer group customers cannot have more than two b2b related tags assigned to their customer record in shopify for example ✅ this is correct b2b b2b vip ❌ this is incorrect b2b b2b vip b2b user for your shopify store to recognise the customer rules you set up in sparklayer, it uses the customer tag feature within shopify once a customer in shopify is tagged, when they sign into your shopify store they will see their unique b2b ordering rules such as pricing and payment methods for the most simple set up, if you're using just the base customer group, you can synchronise your customer rules with shopify by simply tagging customers with b2b as shown below if you've set up additional customer groups, the process works as follows first, within sparklayer create your customer group and give it a unique handle, e g vip under the shopify tag column, make a note of tags that are shown you'll note there is an additional tag to b2b, so in our example, the tags we want to note are b2b and b2b vip find the customer record in shopify and assign it the tags shown so for our example below, if you wanted to assign them to the vip group, you would tag them in shopify with b2b and b2b vip if the tag doesn't already exist in shopify, you can simply create is as a new tag which can then be assigned to other customers assigning customer groups please note, a customer can only be assigned to one b2b customer group if you're looking to assign multiple price lists to a customer, you can do so by customer groups docid 5 lwmnohhjbjjppg9e6vh to get started, please following the below steps within wix, go to customers & leads and click contacts you can either create a new customer or edit an existing one please note please ensure that a valid address is added and all address fields are populated make a note of the email address you’ve added as you will need to access this to login to synchronise to sparklayer, the customer must have a label of b2b assigned to them and be a site member you can set this up by clicking the add label button when editing a customer please note the following on customer groups sparklayer will only synchronise customers that have a label of b2b assigned if you have created additional customer groups within sparklayer, please ensure that the labels are added to the contact record in wix exactly as shown e g b2b b2b additional group customers must be set up as site members to be able to sign in to your online store when adding a new label in wix, please ensure that it is not subsequently edited once your customers have been set up in wix (i e those with a label of b2b ), and you've assigned the customer group to at least one customer, you can then manage specific rules within the customer groups area you'll see a default base customer group that you can use for your b2b customers if you want to set up additional rules, you can simply click create customer group and configure accordingly for any additional customer groups you create, you'll need to update the labels on the customer record in wix to match (e g b2b and b2b account ) to simulate logging in as a b2b customer, please see ✅ testing & launching below you can also check if your customer record is syncing by using the customer sync area of sparklayer within wix, navigate to a contact record that has a label of b2b within the url, you'll see a unique id at the end of the url in the example below, the unique id is 66b4c99a 3431 47d6 995d 309e4e8c5908 with this unique id, you can then paste this into the customer sync area of sparklayer if the search results show the customer details, this confirms the customer is synchronosing correctly no configurations applicable or necessary testing a customer 🚀 see our full launch check list you can see our full launch checklist docid\ yufghegoxe h7ujfcshna which covers the key steps to testing and then launching sparklayer to your b2b customers to simulate a b2b customer on your store, you can configure a sample customer within your ecommerce store edit or create a customer record first, within your shopify customers admin, find an existing customer record or add a new one fill in all the form fields, including the address it's important that an address is specified otherwise sparklayer won't find the customer record tag the customer next, tag the customer with b2b from within the customer record in shopify, go to the tags section and type b2b into the field you can either choose from an existing tag, or add it as a new tag invite the customer if you're creating a brand new customer record, you'll need to click 'send account invite' and then confirm the account once you've received the activation email ( learn more here ) you'll then receive an email asking you to confirm your account by setting a password login as a customer finally, return to your website and visit the login page (e g www yourstore com/account ) and enter your customer email and password if you can't access this page, make sure you have customer accounts enabled ( learn more here ) you'll then see sparklayer load and you can browse your store as a b2b customer! inviting customers when you're ready to begin inviting your b2b customers to your shopify store, you can easily manage this via the shopify admin by following the process above just as with a regular (dtc) customer, you simply need to create a customer record with their details or, if the customer already exists, you'll just need to update their information if you're looking to invite a set of b2b customers in one go, you can use third party shopify apps to streamline this for you a popular option is matrixify which has built in tools to quickly create customer records and invite them if you're looking to bulk invite customers but want to skip sending them emails, you can also try bais bulk account invite automating the approval process to further automate the process, it's possible to allow customers to "apply for access" on your store that you can then moderate before granting them the ability to place b2b orders we've detailed some great options in shopify customisations docid\ ddiv5tdancaywtoj0vyb7 please refer to your platform for details checking a b2b customer you can also check that a b2b customer has successfully synchronised to sparklayer in the customer sync tool within the sparklayer dashboard diagnosing customer data please refer to data sync docid 8xclbafeyxhtt5begkm58 to diagnose customer data