Why the promotion does not apply to the product: non-obvious reasons

Marketing tools, in particular promotions and discounts, are critically important for stimulating sales, attracting new customers, increasing their loyalty, and raising the average receipt amount. 

The promotion mode in the inventory management software — is a flexible mechanism that helps automate these processes by creating different scenarios: from gifts with a purchase to progressive discounts on every second or third item. Since setting up such mechanisms requires taking many variables into account, entrepreneurs regularly face non-obvious nuances in how they work. 

Accordingly, the most common questions entrepreneurs ask technical support specialists are: «Why did the promotion not apply to a certain product?», «Why was the discount applied to the wrong item in the receipt?», «Why does the program ignore the promotion if the customer has their own discount card?» or «Why is the promotional price not pulled up when selecting the product?»

The answers to these questions are most often not related to technical failures, but to deeper settings of filters, priorities, and program algorithms. Below is a complete list of non-obvious reasons why a promotion may not apply to a product.

1. Conflicts in product group settings

The basis of any promotion is the promotion product group, which defines the list of products to which the discount will apply. Mistakes when creating it are one of the most common reasons why a promotion does not work.

• Seasonal and manufacturer restrictions. A product group may be limited not only by product type, but also by a specific season, manufacturer, or supplier. If a certain season is selected in the product group settings, for example, «Summer», and a product of the same type but with another season, or without any season at all, is added to the sale, the promotion will not apply to it.

• Type of trade. In the promotion settings, the type of trade must be specified: «Retail», «Wholesale», or «Wholesale and retail». If «Retail» is selected, the promotion will apply only to retail prices. It will not apply to wholesale sales or to prices that are already set as «Discounted price».

2. Discount priorities and their competition

The program has a hierarchy, or priority order, for applying discounts. The system always automatically selects the most important or most beneficial discount.

• Overriding by a customer or product discount. By default, a Product discount has the highest priority, level 0, and overrides all other discounts. If the product has a product discount or the customer has a fixed discount card with a higher priority, or with the same priority but a larger discount percentage, the promotion will be ignored.

• Zero product discount. Even if a 0% product discount is set for the product, but it has a higher priority, the system will apply it and block the promotion.

• For a promotion to override other restrictions, it must be moved higher in the «Discount priority» table, or the setting «Has priority over discount restrictions» must be enabled for it.

3. Incorrectly configured activating products

Complex promotions, for example, «every third item as a gift», require configuration on the «For one product» tab.

• Separate discount for each product. If the «Separate discount for each product» setting is enabled in the promotion, it is necessary to clearly specify the discount percentage for each product number in the receipt, for example, 1st product — 10%, 2nd — 20%. If there are more products covered by the promotion in the receipt than there are discounts specified in the settings table, all «extra» products will receive a zero discount.

• Mixing products in the receipt. If the promotion is configured based on the number of products from the activating group, and activating products are added to the receipt first, then regular products, and then activating products again, this may «break» the order. The algorithm may partially reset discounts on previous products or move them to other items due to a change in the total number of products that meet the conditions.

• Sorting by price. If the promotion applies to the «cheapest product», and products are added to the sale in ascending price order, from the cheapest to the most expensive, discount percentages may be calculated unexpectedly if arithmetic summation of several different discounts is configured.

4. Maximum discount restrictions

The program helps protect the business from selling at a loss.

• Limits in the product card or season. A «Maximum discount» may be set in the product type directory or for a specific season. If the promotion offers a 50% discount, but the maximum discount for this season is limited to 15%, the promotion will not be able to give more than 15% unless the switch for ignoring restrictions is enabled in its settings.

5. Customer restrictions

Promotions can be segmented for certain groups of customers.

• Customer filter. On the «Customers» tab, the restriction «Only for selected» or «Excluding selected» may be enabled. If the seller selects a customer who is not included in the allowed list, the promotion will not apply.

• Empty list error. Sometimes entrepreneurs enable customer-based promotion restrictions, but forget to add the customers themselves to the list. In this case, the promotion will not apply to any receipt at all.

• Customer discount and activating group. If the switches «Customer discount does not apply to products of the activating group» are enabled in the promotion, then when promotional products are added, cumulative bonuses or discounts for these products will be reset to zero.

6. Control barcodes and Accounting Centers

• Control barcodes. If their use is enabled in the promotion settings, the promotion will not be activated until the cashier physically scans the special promotion barcode. Moreover, if there is another active promotion in the database that does not require a control barcode and applies to all products, it may automatically override the target promotion.

• Sales location (Accounting Center). A promotion may be configured to apply «Only at specified retail locations». If the product is sold at the cash register of a store that is not included in this list, the promotion will not apply. Even in the «Trade with invoice issuance» mode, if the product is added from the store warehouse where the promotion is active, but the actual sale is processed at an Accounting Center where it is disabled, the discount will not be applied.

• Time frames. A promotion may be limited to specific days of the week or hours, for example, "Happy Hours" from 10:00 to 12:00. If the receipt is processed outside this time, the discount will not be calculated.