Odd discounts

[Jemski]

I've been having problems with inappropriate discounting - I have defined a product group and set up a discount of 100% off the cheapest product when 4 products are ordered (4 for the price of 3). I've also set up one reward per order.

If I order 4 different products everything is fine. It is multiple orders of single products that seem to throw a spanner in the works. E.g., if I order 4 x product A valued at £1.95 each and 4 x product B valued at £3.95 each I get a discount of £3.95!?! If I add an order of 4 x product C valued at £8.95 each my discount goes up to £8.95

It is very difficult for me to pin down what exactly what is causing the problem but it seems basically that you get 100% off a single unit of the most expensive product you order in a multiple of 4 or more. This isn't strictly true as you also seem to get inappropriate discounts pretty much whenever you order multiple units of 3 or more products.

When I originally set this up I didn't want just the 1 reward per order I wanted people to get 1 item free for every 4 they ordered - but luckily I bug tested and the discounts were all over the place when products were ordered in multiples. I can't even begin to describe what it was doing when I didn't restrict to 1 reward per order!

[Jemski]

BTW this doesn't seem like a new problem

I found an old thread that seems to be describing a very similar problem
http://community.actinic.com/showthr...t=discount+bug
anybody know if it was reported to Actinic as suggested and then if it was resolved?

[Robert_Taylor]

I have tested this and did find out that the most expensive product is what gets the discount. Seems like its designed that way but not sure as to the reason behind it. I have put this across to the development team and will post once I get an update from them.

Regards,
Robert.

[BevS97]

that makes sense to me, if you order 4 x 8.95 then you would get an 8.95 discount - if you order that, plus more goods, then you wouldn't expect to be penalised for buying extra stuff.

so an order for 4x 8.95 gets you and 8.95 discountbut order even more,

4x 8.95 plus 4 x item B plus 4 x item A and you only get a 1.95 discount - that's not fair.

[Duncan Rounding]

...4x 8.95 plus 4 x item B plus 4 x item A and you only get a 1.95 discount - that's not fair.

I don't think it's a bug - it can only really work when someone only purchases 4 items and no more.

If I saw 4 for 3 offered I would expect at worst to have the cheapest of the four items for free. It's when you accept additional multiple combinations such as 4x3 A + 4x3 B that it gets difficult because there are many ways you might wish to calculate the result. Marketing the offer so it would correctly understood would be difficult if not impossible. Discounts have got to be kept simple to be effective (just the opposite of a BT phone bill).

[Robert_Taylor]

Received an update from the Actinic development team and was informed that its designed to work the way it is. The reason being, by giving the customers the best deal it prevents them from placing multiple individual orders and getting a higher discount than they would have, by placing a single consolidated order.

Regards,
Robert

[jont]

Have just found a similar issue with a buy 4 get cheapest 1 free.

Works fine if just buying 4 items.

If the user buys only 3 of an item across 4 differently priced products it takes a discount from each of the different cheapest products.

If the user buys 4 of a product a discount is always taken from that product regardless of whether it the cheapest or most expensive.

This does not make much sense from a marketing point of view - the cheapest product should always be the one the discount is applied to ... this is certainly how it works in B&M stores.

As I obviously don't want to restrict users to buying only 4 products if they want to buy 8, 12, 20 or whatever I can't tick the "allow only one reward per order" option ... times are difficult enough without telling customers they can only buy a restricted amount of products