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Price Lists

Managing Pricing

Introduction

Generally speaking, SparkLayer works by creating price lists that are then assigned to customers (via Customer Groups). Once the customer then logs into your website, they then see the pricing rules you've set for them. When setting up your pricing, SparkLayer supports the following methods:

Type

Details

Manually uploaded

You can upload pricing into SparkLayer via our built-in CSV file import. It works by assigning prices to your product SKUs

Automatic

Automatic pricing works by letting you select a "pricing source" which you can then apply rules, e.g. a percentage increase or decrease. For example, if you're using Shopify, you can automatically use your Shopify pricing and apply a discount (e.g. 50% off Shopify prices)

Integration

If you're connecting a backend system to SparkLayer (e.g. an ERP, PIM, or CRM) you can automatically send pricing data through to SparkLayer

Key concepts

  • Pricing types can be combined. For example, you can have an automatic price list (50% off retail prices) and then manually upload pricing for a specific range of products
  • Pricing is always shown as "net pricing" on your store. Depending on how you have tax set up, tax is then added during the checkout process






Creating a new price list

When you first sign up to SparkLayer, you'll be asked to create a price list. You can even choose from 'ready-made' price lists that will automatically setup pre-defined rules for you. When you click "Create Price List" you'll then be presented with the following window:

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You'll then be prompted to complete the following information:

Item

Details

Price List Name

The price list name as displayed in SparkLayer. You'll use this name to assign it to a customer group.

Price List Handle

The unique handle (i.e. ID) of the price list. This is used for internal purposes and relevant if you're connecting your backend system to SparkLayer

Price List Currency

The default currency, e.g. GBP

Price List Automation

Enabling this will allow you to select another pricing source in which to apply your pricing rules (e.g. 50% off Shopify prices)

Manual price upload

At any point, you can additionally upload a manual price list, even if you've set the price list to be automated

Finally, when you click the Create price list button, the newly created price list will then show in the list of available price lists and you can then perform actions against it.

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Please note, if you're connecting your backend system to SparkLayer, price lists should only be manually added if they aren't automatically imported via your backend system.






Automatic price lists

Automatic price lists are a great way to set up pricing rules that are automatically applied to your B2B customers. This differs from manual price lists (see below) that let you set the exact prices your customer see.

How automatic price lists work

Automatic price lists work by selecting where you want the pricing to come from (called a "pricing source") and then applying rules against it, such as a percentage variation. Pricing sources are grouped by the pricing type (e.g. manual, automatic, or integration).

Configuring an automatic price list

To get started, tick the "Enable automatic pricing" checkbox.

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From the Pricing Source menu, you can then select which pricing source you want to use.

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🛍️ Using Shopify
🌐 Other platforms

If you're using Shopify, SparkLayer will automatically synchronise pricing from your Shopify store. Each time you update your pricing in your Shopify admin, this will reflect in the pricing rules you've set up in SparkLayer.

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From SparkLayer, you can select from the following pricing sources when creating a price list:

Shopify Price

Details

Shopify Price

This is the price your regular customers see on your store

Shopify Compare-at Price

This is the 'Compare-at price' you set against products, sometimes referred to as RRP or MSRP

Within your Shopify admin, these correspond to the pricing fields you see when editing a product.

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No configurations applicable or necessary

Applying a percentage variation

Once you've selected your pricing source, you can then choose how you want to apply discounts using a feature called "Percentage Variation".

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Based on the pricing source chosen, you can then enter a percentage variation that either decreases or increases the pricing. For example, if you want to apply a 50% discount against a pricing source (e.g. your default B2B pricing), simply enter "50".

🛍️ Using Shopify
🌐 Other platforms

Please note the following Due to limitations in Shopify, the resulting B2B pricing must not be higher than the pricing set in your eCommerce platform. For example if you're using Shopify and your Shopify price for a product is $20, the resulting B2B price must not exceed $20.

No configurations applicable or necessary

Setting a currency conversion

If you're setting up a new price in a different currency to your pricing source, you can optionally choose to set a manual exchange rate. For example, if your pricing source is set in GBP (£) and you want your new price list to be in EUR (Euros), you can set a fixed curency conversion rate.

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Please note If the currency of the new price list is the same as the pricing source, you won't be able to set a currency conversion.

Accounting for tax

One of the important things to note about SparkLayer pricing is that pricing will always be shown to customers exclusive of tax (i.e. net pricing). If you have tax configured on your store, tax will subsequently be added during the checkout as a separate calculation.

If you're using automatic price lists and you're looking to apply a percentage variation (e.g. 20% off your prices), the pricing the customer sees may not necessarily correspond to this when they see pricing on the product page. This is because pricing is being adjusted off a price that may already include tax.

🛍️ Using Shopify
🌐 Other platforms

If you're using Shopify, you can review how tax is set up here. Providing "Include tax in prices" is enabled in Shopify and you've configured sales tax for applicable countries, you'll then be able to use the tax adjustment feature below.

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When configuring an automatic price list, you can account for tax variation by using the built in tax adjustment feature.

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When this is clicked, it will adjust your original percentage (e.g. 20%) to factor in the necessary tax calculation. The end result is your customers can place orders and will be charged at the exact percentage intended.

No configurations applicable or necessary






Manual price lists

Manual price lists differ to automatic ones in that you can upload the exact pricing you want for a price list. Perhaps you require very specific pricing for a customer group and you need to have control over the exact pricing they see.

Combining pricing types It's possible to combine manual price lists and automatic price lists! This is a great way to automate your pricing and give you the flexibility to manually specify pricing for specific products.

To get started, click Upload prices on the Price list you want to add prices to. You'll then be prompted with the following screen and asked to upload a CSV file.

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How CSV files work

A CSV file (or comma-separated values file) is a common format that is used to quickly import structured data. All software systems used for creating spreadsheets will allow you to save a file as a CSV and typically you can do this from the "File" menu. In our example below, we've illustrated how this works in Google Sheets

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Use our template CSV file

You can save time and use our ready-made template CSV file and then adapt for your specific pricing structure:

Download a CSV template Use our example CSV file as a starting point.

Google Sheets Example Use our example Google sheet as a starting point.

The structure of a price list is very simple and simply comprises of two columns:

  • a sku
  • a price
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In order for the CSV file to import successfully, you simply need to set up the following columns:

Column

Details

Required

sku

The product SKU as set up in your eCommerce platform or backend system

Yes

price

The unit price for the SKU (e.g. 14.99). Note: this must not include a currency symbol (e.g. $, £)

Yes

If you're looking to apply quantity pricing (e.g. Buy 1 for $10.00, Buy 5 for $8.00), please see Quantity Pricing & Rules

Time-saving tip if you only need to upload prices for certain products, you can do this with 'partial CSV uploads'. Simply create a CSV file with the product SKU and price (as noted above) and this will update any existing pricing SparkLayer holds. You can also use The Price Editor tool to edit prices rapidly.

Having issues? Please see our troubleshooting guide for ways to solve common issues.

Validating the CSV file

When you upload the CSV file, you'll then be shown validation messages based on the content of the file. If the CSV file successfully passes validation, you'll be notified and shown a sample of what has been imported.

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Clicking Save Price List will then import the file into SparkLayer and customers will then see these prices when logged in.

Validation notices & warnings

If the file cannot be imported, e.g. missing prices or an incorrectly formatted file, you'll be notified with relevant details.

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It's important to note that a file can be successfully imported but include missing data, e.g. perhaps a product SKU has been listed multiple times in your price list. You'll be notified of affected SKUs and notes on how to remedy the issue.

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Synchronising price lists via the API

If you're looking to import your price lists into SparkLayer automatically from your backend system (e.g. ERP), you'll need to send price list data via the SparkLayer API






Assigning price lists to customers

Once you've created and uploaded prices for your Price list(s), you can then assign these to different Customer Groups. This means you can control which customers see which prices when they sign into your website. Learn more in our Customer Groups guide.






Applying customer-specific discounts

Once you've created a price list and assigned it to a customer group, it's also possible to set up customer-specific discounts on top of the price list giving you even more flexibility in the prices your customers see. Learn more in Customer Pricing






Price lists and tax

Please refer to our guide here.






Frequently Asked Questions

Automatic Price Lists

How do I set up automatic price lists (based off my DTC pricing with a discount)?

Please refer to our guide here.

How can I override pricing for some products if I'm using an automatic price list?

It's possible to combine manual price lists and automatic price lists! This is a great way to automate your pricing and give you the flexibility to manually specify pricing for specific products. Once you've created your price list using "automatic" rules, simply click "Options" and then "Upload CSV" and you can manually upload any additional prices you want to assign to the price list.

You can then easily check these via the Price Editor.

If I change a product's price in my admin, how long will it take to automatically update in SparkLayer?

If you're using automatic pricng, this will update instantaneously from your platform into SparkLayer

Manual Price Lists

How do I remove a price for a product for manually uploaded price lists?

There are a variety of ways to remove pricing from a product:

  • From the Price Editor, search for a SKU and then remove any entries you see
  • From Price Lists, under "Options" next to a price list, click the "Clear" button. This will remove all pricing for all products
  • From Price Lists, upload a CSV file with just the SKU(s) you want to remove. In the "price" column, leave this blank

How do I clear (empty) a price list for manually uploaded price lists?

From Price Lists, under "Options" next to a price list, click the "Clear" button. This will remove all pricing for all products

How do I see prices I’ve already uploaded?

When you upload pricing via the SparkLayer Dashboard, there are a variety of ways you can see the pricing you've uploaded:

  • You can download the contents of your price list as a CSV file. Simply click "Options" then "Download CSV"
  • You can log into your website and view the product page you need to check. You'll need to follow this guide to ensure you are logged in correctly as a B2B customer.
  • Use the Price Editor within the SparkLayer Dashboard to quickly search by SKU. Learn more about the Price Editor

Quantity pricing

How do I set up quantity (tiered) pricing?

Please refer to our guide here

Do I need to specify a price for a single unit if using quantity pricing?

Yes. When importing a price list that includes tiered pricing, please ensure that you include a tier for the price for a single unit, as demonstrated in the example below.

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Price configuration

Do I need product SKUs when uploading pricing?

In terms of product SKUs, SparkLayer relies on these being added to your products within Shopify so that we can display the correct B2B pricing when your customers log in. Without a unique SKU, there's no way for SparkLayer to do this.

Why isn't my B2B pricing showing on my website?

If you're not able to see the B2B pricing, this could be due to one of the following:

  • Check that you've imported a price list and assigned to a customer group
  • Check that all your products have unique SKUs assigned
  • Check that the product in your website admin has been set to Product Status "Active". Currently SparkLayer will only import prices for products that are active (versus in "Draft" status)
  • Check the SKU exists within your product catalogue

How do I show the gross price?

In the context of SparkLayer, SparkLayer will always output the prices in the Net amounts, regardless of the tax status you set on your website. In effect, when you upload your B2B pricing via SparkLayer, the customer will see the exactly the same prices on your website.

If there are circumstances where you do want to show Gross pricing to your B2B customers, there is a potential way around this.

  • It's possible to set a customer within your eCommerce platform (e.g. Shopify) to be 'Tax exempt'. This would mean their order would be zero tax rated.
  • In the price lists you upload to SparkLayer, set the prices to be the "gross" amounts (even though they don't technically include tax).
  • As to reporting, you would need to report on the tax amounts after the fact (e.g. via your accounting system)

How do I show RRP (MSRP) pricing?

Please refer to our guide here.

How do I setup and manage multiple currencies?

SparkLayer supports multiple currencies by default and you can easily configure different currencies for your customer. To learn more about how to set this up, please refer to our platform-specific guides:

  • Shopify Markets & Currencies

Can I set B2B pricing to be higher than my DTC prices

In this scenario, you may be looking to set up B2B pricing that is higher than the pricing you have set up for your regular (DTC) customers. Depending on the platform you are using, this may not be supported and we recommend referring to our guide below:

Shopify - Not supported When the customer adds items to the order, they will see the B2B pricing you've set up, but at the point of us doing the 'final calculations' (i.e. tax, shipping), it will have to default to the Shopify retail price if this is lower than the B2B pricing. The way to solve this is to ensure the pricing in Shopify is higher than the B2B pricing



Can I set up different automatic pricing rules based on product collections?

SparkLayer has no built in way to automatically selection which collections (or categories) to apply B2B pricing to, however we do have a suggested workaround if this is a requirement:

  • Create a separate price list for each collection you require (Collection A, Collection B, etc)
  • In your customer groups, assign each price list you want to show for your specific customer groups and you can even assign multiple price lists to a customer group



Customer configuration

Can I assign multiple price lists to one customer group and/or customer?



From the SparkLayer Dashboard, you can 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. 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.

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How do I assign a price list to a specific customer?

Please refer to our guide here.







Updated 04 Sep 2023
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Creating a new price list
Automatic price lists
How automatic price lists work
Configuring an automatic price list
Applying a percentage variation
Setting a currency conversion
Accounting for tax
Manual price lists
How CSV files work
Use our template CSV file
Validating the CSV file
Validation notices & warnings
Synchronising price lists via the API
Assigning price lists to customers
Applying customer-specific discounts
Price lists and tax
Frequently Asked Questions
Automatic Price Lists
Manual Price Lists
Quantity pricing
Price configuration
Customer configuration
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