Price Breaks at Ten and Fifty That the Cart Cannot Show

One price per product

A supplier sells the same item at three prices: one for a single unit, a lower one from ten, and lower again from fifty. Counter staff know the tiers by heart.

The online store does not. Its cart holds one price per product, so the breaks have ended up written into the description, set up as a separate product, or left out entirely.

Each choice sends buyers the wrong way. Some order at the single price and email asking for the difference back, some buy a pack they did not want, and some simply phone.

Where the price breaks end up

Look at how the breaks are handled now. Most stores fall into one of these:

• In the description, where buyers read a lower price the cart never charges.
• As a separate product, such as a pack of ten, with its own stock count to manage.
• In a coupon code, which buyers have to know about and remember to enter.
• Only by phone or email, so every large order becomes a conversation.
• Nowhere at all, so large buyers pay the single price or go elsewhere.

Each costs something: refunds to process, stock counts that do not add up, or staff time on orders the website should have taken by itself.

Letting the cart apply the price

Most shopping carts can hold quantity prices, either built in or through an extension your developer adds. You enter the tiers once, and the cart picks the right price as the quantity changes.

Decide the rule before setting it up. Usually the lower price applies to every unit once the buyer passes the break, so fifty units all cost the fifty price, not just the units above it.

Decide too whether mixed items count together: thirty of one size and twenty of another may or may not earn the fifty price, and the cart can count either way.

Showing the tiers beside the quantity box

A price break nobody sees changes nothing. Show the tiers beside the quantity box, in text: one to nine at one price, ten to forty-nine at the next, fifty and up at the lowest.

If the cart allows it, update a line as the quantity changes: the price each, the total, and how many more units would reach the next tier.

Show the applied price in the cart and at checkout too, with the saving on its own line, so the buyer stops wondering whether to phone.

Checking that the total matches

Test orders at the edges of each break: nine and ten, forty-nine and fifty, and one well above. Check the unit price, the line total, the tax and the shipping on each.

Then check the paperwork. The order email, the invoice and any export to your accounts should all show the lower price the buyer saw.

Try a coupon on top of a break. Decide whether the two combine, and make sure the cart does what you decided, not something in between.

A worked example

A tree nursery in the Comox Valley grows hedging cedars, fruit trees and native shrubs, sells at its gate, and ships young plants around the province through its online store.

Hedging is sold by the plant, cheaper from ten and cheaper again from fifty. The cart showed only the single price, with the breaks in a sentence under the photo.

Homeowners planting a dozen paid the single price and then asked for the difference back. Landscapers needing eighty phoned rather than trust the total.

The developer set three tiers in the cart for each hedging plant, counting all sizes of a variety together, and added a line under the quantity box showing the tiers.

Test orders at nine, ten, forty-nine and fifty were checked against the invoice and the order email. The sentence under the photo came out, since the cart now said it better.

Rounding and tax

A tier price found by dividing a case price can run to fractions of a cent. Carts round each unit or each line, and the totals can differ.

Set tier prices in whole cents, and check the tax on a large order against your own calculation before the first real one arrives.

Shipping and stock at larger quantities

Larger orders change more than the price. Fifty plants or fifty cases weigh more and need bigger boxes, so check that the shipping quote still makes sense at each tier.

Make sure stock can cover a full order at the top tier. A buyer who reaches fifty and then finds thirty in stock is worse off than one who phoned.

If very large orders go by freight rather than parcel, say so beside the top tier, so the buyer is not surprised at checkout.

Trade accounts are a different thing

Quantity prices are open to anyone who buys enough. Trade prices, for landscapers, contractors or resellers, belong to particular customers whatever they order.

Keep the two separate. Trade prices belong in customer accounts behind a login, set up by your developer, not in tiers every visitor can see.

When a trade customer also reaches a quantity break, decide which price wins, usually the lower one, and test that case too.

The counter-case

Some large orders need a conversation: custom work, delivery by truck or credit terms. For those, a line such as two hundred or more, ask for a quote, serves better than a tier.

And a store where nobody buys more than a few units does not need tiers at all. The cart's one price is then the right price.

But where the breaks already exist at the counter, the online store should charge them too. A price given in person and hidden online sends buyers to the phone.

Setting up quantity prices

1. List every product with price breaks, and its tiers.
2. Decide the rule for whole orders and mixed items.
3. Set the tiers in the cart, not the description.
4. Show the tiers beside the quantity box.
5. Test orders on either side of each break.
6. Match the invoice, emails and exports to the cart.
7. Remove the old workarounds once the cart works.

Step five is where problems show. A cart that charges the ten price at nine, or the single price at fifty, is worse than none, because buyers trust it.

Shipping quotes at the higher tiers are only as good as the weight and box size entered for each product, as products without weights and the shipping quotes they make explains.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.