Understanding Structure, Priorities and Relationships of Price Groups

When creating multiple price groups, it may become difficult to decipher why an item was charged at a specific price for the customer. This is attributable to the fact that Price Groups can impact each other in various ways. Miva deals with different Discount Modules differently depending on the kind of discount each module provides. Additionally, the calculation of discounts involves effects from exclusions and diverse priorities. This guide will assist you in understanding some of the internal workings of Miva, particularly during the calculation of discounts based on Price Groups.

Architectural Layout of a Discount Module

Every Discount Module's capabilities inform Miva about the type of discount the module offers. They include:

• Pre-Items: Called before item-/basket-level discounts. Ideally used for modules that need to add/change items in the basket, like an Add-On Product Price Group.
• Item: Discounts applicable to individual items.
• Basket: Discounts applicable to individual baskets.
• Shipping: Discounts applicable to shipping charges.

Note: The other important capabilities include Eligibility, pre-calc and provision_settings, and qualifying.

Order of Operations

The sequence of operations is as follows:

1. Pre-Items
2. Items
3. Basket

Existing Discount Module Capabilities

The existing discount modules are:

• Add On Product - Pre-Item, Items
• Basket Discount - Basket
• Basket Discount (Specific Products) - Basket
• Buy X Get y - Items
• Markup from Cost - Items
• Customer Sale Pricing - Items
• Product Discount - Items
• Sale Price - Items
• Volume Discount - Items

Types of Exclusions

There are three types of exclusions:

• Exclude for Same Basket
• Exclude for Same Item Group
• Exclude for Same Item

Note: An Item Group is a group of multiple items that are essentially identical, except for their pricing, due to discounts (for instance, Buy X Get 1 Free). These are grouped together and represented as a single line item in the basket.

Understanding Exclusions

If there are no exclusions, each price group will be classified into one of the three assigned categories, and then applied based on the priority within those groups. However, in case there are exclusions:

• Price Group Qualifications are applied initially to verify eligibility (basket or qualifying weight, quantity, subtotal).
• Exclusions are then applied based on the highest priority.

Application of Priorities

Price Groups are applied to a basket based on their respective priorities. Here, a greater priority indicates its order of application. A priority of 10 will be applied before 1, and 1000 will precede 500. Notice that priorities can be zero or a negative value.

Recalculation of Discount Price

• Any modification to the basket that includes addition, removal, or update of an item will automatically trigger the recalculation of price groups applied to the basket.
• This cannot be prevented or altered.
• Miva examines all qualifying price groups and processes each discount individually in sequence based on pre-calc, items, and baskets - with groups and the highest priority within each group.
• The basket subtotal used for qualifications is updated as each price group is applied.