We are a small manufacturing company in which we are creating an ecommerce solution that will service to our multiple wholesale/resale customer groups as well as retail.
We are having difficulties finding a core system that will fit most of our needs realizing that we may need additional 3rd part extensions and/or custom work.
We have started on a Magento 1.9.3.6 based on a template and then have added in several extensions in hopes to help with our requirements. The main problem we are encountering is the pricing of product strategy. We have multiple wholesale distributor levels and retail of which will receive different pricing based on the group to which they belong. We like to run our product pricing on a ‘List Price’ X ‘Discount’ strategy. Not a ‘fixed price’ strategy. It makes it much easier for future price updates. Simply change the ‘List Price’ and all pricing is automatically figured out for the customer groups based on their discount for that product. Magento 1 core pricing does not offer a % discount for group or tier pricing i.e. only fixed prices. Therefore, we added a 3rd party extension to allow us to setup group/tier pricing as a matter of % of the ‘price’. This takes a % of the ‘price’. It worked out great. BUT…..Magento core, nor this extension apply the same discounts to the product options. Whaaaat? Seriously? For example, if I have a product priced for $100 and an option for $10, the total ‘List Price’ is $110. This is fine if you are selling a quantity of 1 product to 1 type of retail customer. But what about group discounts and tier pricing? If I have a group that gets 10% discount (90% multiplier) , right now it takes ($100x.9)+$10 = $100 which is WRONG. It should take the complete base list price of ($100+10) x .9 = $99 – CORRECT. The same discounts should be applied to the products options just as they are applied to the products base/list price. How often does a wholesale customer order a product and get a discount on the base product and then add in list price options? Never. We should be able to establish a total product list price that includes base price and all options added in and a discount applied to that total price based on customer group and tier quantity.
So, completely frustrated with this, we are back on the hunt for a core platform that can handle what we feel is a very basic pricing strategy. We are not sure we want to continue to cobble up a Magento 1 installation only to find out that there is a core platform that can already perform this basic requirement.
We are not curious if any of this pricing strategy was built into Magento 2.X CC ??
Out of the Box WishList
- Operate multi-channel with retail and multiple wholesale groups. Therefore, it needs to support multiple customer groups.
- We need to be able to setup custom pricing on products per customer group (even better if we can drill down to per customer).
- Product discounts for customer groups need to be % discount, not a fixed price. We can therefore, make product price updates throughout the year and customer group pricing will be automatic based on % discounts.
- We need to be able to add product options that may or may not vary the product total price.
- Customer group/tier discounts need to be applied to the products ‘total price’ including options, not just the product base price. This is one of the major problems that we have been trying to overcome.
- Customer group specific pricing should only be able to be viewed by those that are logged in and a member of that group. Non-logged in customers will see ‘List Price’.
Possible add/ons extensions
- Quote package for those customers who do not fit into a group discount template strategy. i.e. they have special pricing. We are looking at Cart2Quote.
- Need an extension so that we can establish which customers have specific payment requirements i.e. credit card, check, PO. We do not anticipate processing any orders on submission of orders. All payments will be made off-line, but we want the customer to supply credit card info, PO #, etc.
- Setup specific shipping for customer groups i.e. retail will be flat rate shipping, wholesale customers will be added at time of shipment. (in order for us to determine actual charges).
Thank you in advance for your opinion.
Best Regards,
Mike
