Setting Up Pricing on the RealTimeDesigner
The RealTimeDesigner can handle many pricing models. When you create a new product, the pricing tables are empty, and need to have their structure defined to match the product you are working with. You should have a price chart nearby when you begin building your pricing tables. Study the table closely to understand all the variables that go into your pricing. The RealTimeDesigner can handle nearly unlimited combinations of the following pricing variables:
PRODUCT
DESIGN SIZE
QUANTITY ORDERED
NUMBER OF COLORS
PROCESS COLOR
The RealTimeDesigner also allows you to defin many pricing add-ons that are based on the order itself, then number of spot colors, process color charges or the quantity of items ordered. Each add-on can be set to optional. Some examples of pricing add-ons are a PROCESS COLOR SEPARATION CHARGE, a SCREEN CHARGE, SPECIAL PACKAGING, or OPTIONAL WIRE SIGN FRAMES.
From within the CONFIGURE PRODUCTS screen you can click on CONFIGURE PRICING STRUCTURE to set up the pricing for your products. Each PRODUCT has its own pricing tables. Be sure you have selected the correct PRODUCT CATEGORY and PRODUCT at the top of the CONFIGURE PRODUCTS screen. Ignore the 2 boxes titled "ENABLE PRICING" and "DEFINE PRICING ADD-ONS HERE" - we'll get to them later. Skip to the bottom of the page. There you will see a box labeled "MATRIX FOR W x H button = 0.0000 & Up". We will first define the structure of your pricing tables then fill them with the pricing numbers.
Click the ADD NEW COLORS ROW button. The screen will refresh and you will now have a line in the table for 1 COLOR designs. If your product has only 1 size and you do not give price breaks for quantity, you pricing table structure is complete. Simply enter the price for 1 item in 1 color, the price for each additional color and the price for full color. If the price is the same regardless of the number of colors, enter the same value in both the 1 color and full color lines. Click on the SAVE THIS MATRIX button and you are done.
Now lets talk about all the other options available because seldom is pricing this simple.
Price based on Colors in the Design: You can enter per color charges in the ADD 1 COLOR row. If you have a set price for a full color design, the value in the FULL COLOR row will be used. If you prefer to price your products as 1 color, 2 color, 3 color, then use the ADD NEW COLORS ROW button to create a new row.
Quantity Discounts: If you give discounts based on the quantity ordered, you will need to enter each quantity next to the button labeled ADD NEW PRICE BREAK COLUMN, then press the button. You will see that a new column is added to your matrix. Do this for each quantity for which you give price breaks.
Set Minimum Quantity: Once you've created a column for your minimum order quantity, you can delete the column titled FROM 1 PCS - the user will now be required to order at least the minimum quantity.
Pricing Add-Ons: As mentioned earlier, The RealTimeDesigner also allows you to define many pricing add-ons that are based on the order itself, then number of spot colors, process color charges or the quantity of items ordered. Each addon can be set to be optional or required. Some examples of pricing add-ons are a PROCESS COLOR SEPARATION CHARGE, a SCREEN CHARGE, SPECIAL PACKAGING, or OPTIONAL WIRE SIGN FRAMES. In the "DEFINE PRICING ADD-ONS HERE" box, define any price add-ons that apply to your product.
Price based on Size: so far we've only defined 1 pricing matrix. The product pricing table can contain several pricing matrices. Each matrix refers to a size or group of sizes of product that have the same price. The RealTimeDesigner calculates the WIDTH times HEIGHT to determine the size, then does a look-up to find the price in the pricing matrix that corresponds to that size. For products where the size of the artwork does not affect the price of the product, you need only 1 pricing matrix. However for products which are available in various sizes, and the price varies based on the size, you will need to create a new matrix for each size. The matrix we already have will apply to the smallest size product you offer. Enter the size of the second smallest product in the box next to the ADD ANOTHER MATRIX FOR WxH button and click the button. You will now see another matrix at the bottom of the screen labeled MATRIX FOR W x H button = 100.0000 & Up assuming you entered 100 as your next size.
To illustrate how the pricing look-up will function when you have a matrix titled "MATRIX FOR W x H button = 0.0000 & Up" and another titled "MATRIX FOR W x H button = 100.0000 & Up". If the user selects a size that is less than 100 square inches, his price will be pulled from the first matrix. If his size is 100 square inches or greater, the price will be pulled from the second matrix. If your pricing then again increases for 150 square inches or greater, enter "150" next to the ADD ANOTHER MATRIX FOR W x H button and click the button. Do this for however many price-break divisions you have for the various sizes of that particular product.
If pricing for two or more sizes does not change, do not create a matrix for those sizes. The look-up function does not need an exact match. It will use the pricing from the first matrix it finds LARGER than the size of the product they have chosen. It will be much easier to maintain if you limit the number of entries within your pricing tables.
Pricing Options: Let's now talk about some tools within the RealTimeDesigner which make building and maintaining your pricing tables much easier. In the top box on the CONFIGURE PRICING STRUCTURE screen (the one that starts off with "ENABLE PRICING") there are 2 other features you may find helpful.
The QUANTITY PRICE CHECKING feature has 4 options. The first, "No Quantity Price Checking" turns the feature off. The second, "Set Price Capping" will compare price for the quantity selected and the price for the next higher price-break quantity and give the user the lower of the 2. For instance if you sell widgets for $100 each, but discount them to $75 for orders of 5 or more and someone orders 4 of them, the price will cap at $375 instead of $400 (5 times $75 is less than 4 times $100). The third option, "Round Quantity Up" would cap the price at $375 and also round the order up to 5 pieces. The fourth option, "Allow Only Fixed Quantities" will display a pull down with only the price break quantities shown instead of the normal text entry box.
The CALCULATED PRICE CHECKING feature again has 4 options. Instead of the look-up finding the matrix according to the size of the product, the CALCULATED PRICE CHECKING feature allows you do to "linear interpolation" - in simple terms, it adjusts the price to a percentage between the values in the next lower and next higher tables. An example of this could be this: You sell banners for $35 plus $5 per square foot. Your largest banner is 5x20 which is 100 square feet. The price for this banner would be $535. To replicate this type of pricing in the RealTimeDesigner, you would enter "35.00" in the "MATRIX FOR W x H button = 0.0000 & Up" matrix. Then create a matrix for "14400" (100 square feet converted to square inches). Enter 535.00 in that matrix. If the INTERPOLATE COLORS or INTERPOLATE COLORS & CLIPART options are chosen, the price for any size within the range up to 100 square feet will be calculated as the linear interpolated value just like your pricing rule of $35 plus $5 per square foot.
Pricing Trick: In the fixed size product configuration you may remember the column labeled PRICING FAKESIZE. If a value is entered in this field, this value will override the width times height value used for pricing look-ups. This is useful when a product has several fixed sizes but many different sizes have the same pricing. Rather than trying to calculate what values you should establish for your tables, you can instead assign all products with a PRICING FAKESIZE. Use the value of "1" for all the fixed sizes in one group. Use the value "2" for the second group and so on. Another use for the FAKESIZE is when your pricing is not consistent based on height times width. If for some reason a slightly smaller size product is more expensive than a larger one, use the PRICING FAKESIZE value to cause the look-up to use the appropriate matrix.
You may have noticed that when you click "DUPLICATE THIS PRICING MATRIX IN" button, the structure of the next matrix matches the one being duplicated. It is much quicker to completely define one matrix before duplicating it. If you change the pricing structure after the matrix is created, you will need to change each matrix individually. Once you have defined the pricing structure, you should use the "Configure Pricing" link rather than the "Configure Pricing Structure" link. This will prevent you from accidentally altering your pricing matrix structure.
Finally, on the CONFIGURE PRODUCT screen, you will find a link for "Clone Pricing Structure". Use this to copy the pricing structure from one product to another. If you have a large array of products with lots of similarities between them, you can save a great amount of time using this feature.
