Customer Groups
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.
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' When you see Inherit in a customer group you create, it means it will inherit the Base defaults. 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 as your eCommerce platform, we've a tailored guide here on how to configure your B2B customer groups.
It's possible to configure the following rules
Rule type | Description |
Order Limit | 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 |
Price lists | The Price Lists that are assigned to that customer group. For example, you may have different price lists per customer group |
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. they 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 in the Order Limits column. If the customer group doesn't already have an order limit set, click Add order total limit, select a currency 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 Order Interface.
If you'd prefer to change the default language that is shown, you can use the below language strings.
Order limits by order quantity
To configure order limits by order quantity, click the Edit icon in the Order Limits column. If the customer group doesn't already have an order limit set, click Add order quantity limit 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 Order Interface.
If you'd prefer to change the default language that is shown, you can use the below language strings.
You can specify what payment methods are shown for each customer group by clicking the Edit icon in the Payment Methods column. 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). 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 Configurations |
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 Configurations |
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 the customer activates the Quick Order Interface, 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.
Depending on which price lists you have set up in the Price Lists section, you can assign specific price lists to customer groups. Click the Edit icon in the Price Lists column 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-123exists 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
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).
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. e.g. b2b b2b-vip
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 configuring price lists.
🚀 See our full launch check list You can see our full launch checklist guide here which covers the key steps to testing and then launching SparkLayer to your B2B customers.
Please refer to Data Sync to diagnose customer data.