Originally written by John Hardwick, last updated Oct 24, 2023, on the Swan Retail knowledge base (FRS).

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Overview

As part of price management, SwanFRS uses a promotion engine allowing different prices to be pre-set, where applicable, against products and / or locations. This document detail how SwanFRS processes promotions.

The label ‘promotion’ is perhaps a little misleading in that it may be used for a standard trading, sales activities or as a basis for cost control in use always.  The promotion as used by SwanFRS could be referred to as a period in which the cost and or selling price of an item has a pre-specified value. 

The promotion becomes active for a fixed period, this may be one day, number of days, perhaps even extending to several years. 

From a sales perspective the promotion may be used as a tool to assist the salesperson in the form of an electronic catalogue of prices.  From the purchasing perspective a control to ensure the supplier charges the negotiated price.

Configuration

This section details how to set up SwanFRS

Promotions

SwanFRS has two variants of promotion

The two promotion types recommended within this document are-

•      Selling promotion

A selling promotion has a start and an end date and may be linked to all locations within the company or a specific location, thus providing branch specific pricing.

•     Base line promotion

A base line promotion is a promotion without an end date and is used as a back stop should there be no active selling promotions for the SKU / location combination. It is only possible to set one base line promotion.

New Promotions

Creating a new promotion produces a screen like that shown below –

Field	Details
Promotion Name	Specify the name of this trading period.
Location	Select one, some or all locations from the list available. Selecting All Locations generates a company wide promotion. Selecting individual locations generates a series of separate promotions (sharing the same name) which need to be on-wards managed individually.
Effective Date	Specify the date this promotion will become active.
End Date	For non-base line promotions, specify the date the promotion will expire.
Base Line Promotion	It is only possible to generate one base line promotion per company. This promotion acts as the buffer at the end of the track, ensuring SwanFRS has a price to change should there be no ‘active’ promotions at time of ordering / sale. Base line promotions need to be maintained with price changes being modified as appropriate – it is also recommended that new products are added to this base line when created.
Ticket Style	Subject to permission, it is possible to link a label / ticket style to the promotion. SwanFRS will then automatically print the specified ticket design when producing display tickets for items within the promotion.

Cloning a Promotion

This option allows the contents (SKUs) of one promotion to be copied to another.

Field	Details
Destination Promotion – Location List	Choose a location or All locations which will be used to filter the list of promotions available.
Destination Promotion – Promotion List	Choose the destination promotion (filtered by the Destination Location choice) which will have its contents updated with the source promotion contents.
Source Promotion – Location List	Choose a location or All locations which will be used to filter the list of promotions available.
Source Promotion – Promotion List	Choose the source promotion (filtered by the Source Location choice) which will be used to ‘send’ SKU pricing data to the destination promotion.
Show Active Only	This check box allows the operator to choose a source promotion with an historic end date.

Pressing START CLONE generates the following confirmation message

Product Pricing

Having created the promotion, the next step is to populate it with prices.  This is achieved via the setup product pricing routine (or via the import catalogue if using a third-party product maintenance package)

Step 1

Choose the source promotion

Step 2

 The first step is to choose the source promotion, pick the supplier and range prior to clicking FIND button.

This will present a list of prices in a data grid like that shown below –

Step 3 (optional)

Make any changes to the prices using the PRICE EDIT MODE button ensuring the prices are saved prior to leaving the edit option.

Click UPDATE to ensure changes are saved.

Step 4

Tick the SKUs to be copied to the selected promotion.

Step 5

Select the destination promotion from the drop-down and choose which costs / selling prices are to be used to populate the destination promotion.

Use the cost and price control to tell the system which prices to send over to the selected promotion and then select the COPY PRICES TO SELECTED PROMOTION button.

This process instructs the system that if a SKU is sold against the chosen promotion the cost and selling prices stipulated should be charged.

Options available –

•          Cost prices - select either

	Cost	The cost of the SKU when sold within the selected promotion will be that held in the cost column
	Alt. cost	The cost price charged for the promotion will be that held in the alt. Cost column

•         Selling prices - select either

	Sell	The price charged when selling the SKU will be taken from the sell column
	Sell 2	The price charged will be the lowest price from the sell or sell 2 column (excluding zeros)
	Sell 3	The price charged will be the lowest price from the sell, sell 2 or sell 3 column (excluding zeros)

MRP price are obtained from the MRP Column.

XML Importing

When importing an external catalogue, it is important to ensure the catalogue contains the correct prices prior to loading as the load process does not allow the operator to choose which prices to use.

Promotional Use

There are three methods of cost /selling price control within SwanFRS. 

Basic

This method best suits the operation whereby prices are changed infrequently.  No great emphasis is places on promotional activity in that the best prices are offered all year and discounted at point of sale when necessary.

Prices are not adjusted to entice customers with no requirement to show a ‘high’ or MRP price.

To control this type of scenario the base line promotion is recommended. 

The base line promotion does not have a finish date therefore once built it will run forever.

It only uses the MRP and cost price, therefore the MRP column is usually switched off / not displayed, effectively event cost, sell, sell2, sell3 become notional work zones not used within SwanFRS.

Where prices change alterations are made immediately either allowing the overnight update to make them active or forced into live immediately via the ‘rebuild price book’ button within SwanFRS.

Using this model there is no necessity to stipulate start and end dates as the promotion lives forever and any discounting is a point-of-sale discount rather than via promotional advertising etc.

Simple Planned Price Changes

This approach offers the retailer the ability to display both an MRP price (renamed where applicable) and a current selling price.

Price changes, as in the basic method, are immediate and any discounting is done at point of sale.

To facilitate this form of control a single promotion is created (selling promotion) which will run for several years.  It is then populated with all the suppliers using a choice of several source controls.

The selling promotion automatically becomes a current promotion on it start date and from that point forward is updated with changes on an immediate basis (now via the rebuild price book or alternatively overnight).

 When updating the promotion, the operator may choose data from the following columns.

• Cost from either cost only or lowest value from Alt. cost or cost columns.

•  Sell price from either the sell column only or lowest value (excluding null values) from sell / sell2 or sell / sell2 / sell3.

The base line promotion may be ignored using this scenario and assumes that all SKUs have a price within the ‘selling promotion’.

With this method it is not possible to pre-date price changes.  As a price changes then either the alteration must be applied the day before thus allowing SwanFRS to automatically rebuild the promotion overnight or the price change is published, and price rebuilt immediately via the rebuild prices button.

Multiple Promotions

This concept should be used wherever prices are set in advance and / or where promotional activities are tracked and monitored with different prices potentially on every trading day.

The concept uses the stacking of multiple promotions each once becoming live on its start date and being replaced by another promotion once the trading period of the promotion ends.

As per the single promotion method, prices can be selected from various sources and have varying active durations perhaps even overlapping where necessary.

Since the model uses multiple promotions each with its own start date it is possible to set a future go-live date and thus have the system re-price goods unattended.

This method also allows for version control whereby price changes occur within a ‘promotional period’.

Explanation of how SwanFRS Stacks Up and Uses Promotions

There are no limits to the number of promotions created and exported to FRS.   FRS will default to the most recent promotion using the following criteria.

1^st pass

Find all CURRENT promotions for the selected SKU

If the promotion is branch specific and not for the operators branch it is ignored

If the promotion is for the operator’s branch it will be used

If branch specific promotions will be used in preference to company wide promotions

2nd pass

Sequence branch specific promotions first

Sequence using the effective date, place in descending date order i.e., the latest start date first

If more than one promotion has the same start date, then use the load date to sequence using load date sequence with the newest load date first.

If no current promotions are available find any suitable standard promotions – i.e., base line promotions

The same sequencing applies. E.g.

Promotion	Effective Date	Load date	End date
A	01/01/09	12/12/08	05/01/09
B	04/01/09	13/12/08	05/01/09
C	04/01/09	14/12/08	06/01/09
D	03/01/09	15/12/08	06/01/09

•       On 02/01/09 the system would only offer promotion A

•       On 05/01/09 the system would offer C then B then D then A

•       On 06/01/09 the system would offer promotion C then D

Revising the content of the promotion only changes the load date which is only considered when multiple promotions share the same effective date.

In the example above (fig 1) the green lines indicate promotions with differing start dates but a common end date.  The length of the line indicates the time in which the promotion will be active.

If you consider the bottom line as promotion 1 with promotion 2 above, it and promotion 5 on top this will help with further clarification.

The red dotted line indicates the sequence in which promotions were created, newest promotion is added to the top of the stack.

The blue dotted line indicates the sequence in which SwanFRS checks for prices. 

If prices are revised for a previously created promotion the load date is changed but not the start / end date therefore the sequence in which SwanFRS searches for promotions is not affected unless more than one promotion started on the same date.  Only in these scenarios is the load date considered.

As time moves on the blue dotted line effectively moves across the page (from left to right), in the previous example (fig 1) no promotions are active.  In the example below (fig 2), the first two promotions are ‘active’, SwanFRS would check promotion 2 for matching content before checking promotion 1.  Promotions 3 through 5 have not become live yet and are therefore ignored.

When checking for content the system is searching for a specific stock keeping unit (SKU).  If the SKU exists in an active promotion searching stops and the prices are taken from it.  If the promotion does not contain the searched for SKU, then the system drops down to the next oldest promotion and checks its content.  If none of the current promotions contain the SKU, then the system uses the ‘standard promotion’ as a last resort using the cost / MRP from it.  Failing this a zero price is presented to the operator.

In the example below (fig 3) SwanFRS would check promotion 4, 3, 2 then 1 for matching content.  Promotion 5 is not live and therefore ignored.

In the example below (fig 4) SwanFRS would check promotions 4, 3 and then 2 for matching content but not promotion 1 as this has already expired.

As new promotions are added to the system these sit on top of the ‘stack’ and once active supersede all those created before it.

With careful construction it is therefore possible to operate version control for promotions.

In the example above (Fig 5) a series of promotions have been stacked up all finish on the same date.

Promotion is the base or backstop for the sales period – it would typically contain all items for all suppliers. It is common to call this promotion the name of the event, perhaps ‘summer sale’ or ‘standard trading’. It is recommended that promotion names are kept short for ease of visibility. There is a temptation to add the year however the start and end date somewhat negates the need for this. Let us name this promotion ‘Std.Trading’.

Promotions  onwards are effectively revisions or iterations of the back-stop promotion.  As cost / selling price change there is a need to revise the values presented to the operators. If the changes are immediate there is no need to create a revision promotion, simply update the original or currently active promotion. If the changes are to take effect at some time in the future, then a new ‘current’ promotion is required. In each case the revision promotion starts after the back-stop promotion in that the price change is instigated sometime after the main promotional activity begins. These promotions typically follow the backstop promotion with a version suffix e.g., ‘Std.Trading 1’ etc.

As the system date progresses revision 1 supersedes the backstop, revision 2 supersedes revision 1 and so on.

Using this method, it is possible to report on prices charged historically whilst plan and manage future price changes.

The revision promotions need only contain suppliers, ranges, items that vary from the backstop promotion thus reducing the volume of data exported and such the time take to update and find costings.

If the promotion is standard trading the prices, then the promotion could run for a complete year, with revisions occurring throughout the year and intermingled with true promotional activities.  This may appear as shown below (Fig 5)

The green lines indicate standard trading (bottom line being the back stop all others being iterations of the back stop and containing one or more suppliers/ranges)

The blue lines indicate special trading times (summer sale for example) again with iterations which may be necessary should a charge change during the promotion.

The recommendation to limit promotional activity to a yearly cycle allows for a clean start each new year (financial or calendar) and when viewed over several years the following type of chart would appear (fig 6).

The red dotted lines indicate the change of ‘year’ and therefore a clean start.

The green lines standard trading, blue promotional activity both with revisions.

The yellow lines indicate promotional activity which spans the ‘year’. 

Note the new year backstop (green line) has been created with a start date equal to or before the start of the end of year spanning promotion. This ensures there is a price presented for all items, even those not in the end of year sale, is correct and that then end of year promotion is offered first in the promotion drop down list.

Care should also be taken when creating new promotions with start dates, in the example the green revision 1 line of year 2 (shown above the yellow lines) starts prior to the year end promotion (yellow lines) has ended.  Items in this green line will supersede any matching items in the yellow line for the last days of the promotion.

 

Files from the Confluence page

• Use of Promotions Guide.pdf