How to Set Up WooCommerce Dynamic Pricing: Detailed Guide

Remember the first time you tried cycling as a kid?

Someone would always run along for support, in case you lost balance. But, eventually, you get hold of the grip and realize you’re good to go on your own.

Well, today I’m going to give you a similar ‘being-a kid-experience’! The only difference is – I’m going to run along with you through the entire setup process of Dynamic Pricing in your WooCommerce store.

Also, I understand using these dynamic pricing tactics will give you an edge over your competitors and bridge the gap with your customers. So, I’m going to try my best to make the setup process seem as simple as possible to get you started ASAP.

Now, without any further ado, let’s dive straight in!

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Step 1 : Select a WooCommerce Dynamic Pricing plugin (Make the right choice!)

The first step is always a crucial one! I remember going to the cycle shop with my dad to buy one. And, I kid you not, I spent hours trying to pick a cycle because they all seemed so good.

In the end, I chose the red cycle because it was my favorite color 😛

Now, things aren’t quite different when it comes to selecting a dynamic pricing plugin for your WooStore. There are tons of plugins available and lots of parameters to consider. But, selecting the right one can spiral you into confusion. 

And, while you’re free to choose the plugin that fits your needs the best, however, I’d recommend you go with the WISDM Customer Specific Pricing (CSP) plugin. The reason I recommend this is because:

• Apart from being the most popular, CSP comes packed with 30+ powerful features designed to suit the requirements of all businesses ranging from small to large.
• Developed by Certified WooExperts, CSP holds a great track record of support and services available at all times.
• With over 3500 downloads, the plugin has been rated at a near-perfect score of 4.8 on 5.

And, for the purpose of this article, I’m going to use the WISDM Customer Specific Pricing plugin to show you the dynamic pricing set up.

So, if you’ve decided to move ahead with CSP, here’s how you can go about installing the plugin:

• Once you’ve purchased the plugin, download and activate the plugin.
• Make sure to enter the license key for the proper functioning of the plugin

After you’ve installed the plugin, you’ll find the Customer Specific Pricing tab in your WordPress dashboard.

Having said that, you’re now set to explore and set pricing rules for your products and customers.

Step 2 : Create Pricing Rules for different sets of customers

The moment you’ve been waiting for is here 😛

Since your store is already set up, you can now begin creating pricing rules for different customers.

In doing so, you can make your customers feel special and thereby, give them that push to hit the purchase button.

To create pricing Rules, go to:

• WordPress > CSP button
• Click on the Product Pricing Menu

 

Upon clicking on the Product pricing menu, you’ll see two options:

• Set Rules
• Rule Log

Set Rules

With this option, you’ll be able to set pricing rules for Specific Customers, User Roles, and Groups as per your needs. 

As you can see in the above image, a drop-down menu appears that lets you select any value (Specific Customers, User Roles, and Groups) to create pricing rules. 

Once you select a particular value, a list containing all your logged in users and products from the store will be displayed to you like in the image below.

Here, you need to select the Customer Specific Pricing option from the drop-down menu. Now, I’ll show you how to create pricing rules using the same.

To create Pricing Rules for Specific Customers, follow

• Select the customer(s) from the ‘Select Customer’ dropdown list
• Similarly, click on the products name(s) from the ‘Select Product’ List
• Hit the Single Arrow button to select an individual product or hit the Double Arrow button to select all products at once

After you’re done, click the ‘Set Prices’ button at the bottom. This will bring up a table to help you set prices for the customers for the selected products.

From this table, you have options like the ‘Rule Title’ that enables you to name each of your rules. This makes it easier for you to identify each rule generated for the selected customer(s)/product(s). In the future, if needed, you can apply the same rules for a particular customer using the Rule titles.

You can also choose to display a Flat or a % discounting rate, set Minimum quantities, and Value for the selected product and customer as per your convenience. With that being said, when your customer (Dan) visits your shop, he’ll be able to view the discount price/conditions available for him on that particular product. (refer to the image above)

Also, if you wish to edit the user or products chosen earlier, you can do so by using the ‘Change customers or products selection’ tab. And, make sure to Save Rules before going ahead. Don’t want your hard work to go in vain, do you? 😛

Similarly, you can repeat the steps for setting pricing rules for User Role or Groups. Just select the required option from the dropdown menu and go ahead.

Creating pricing rules for different customers has never been so simpler and straightforward.

Rule Log

The second tab under the Products Pricing is Rule Log. In this option, you can view all the pricing rules that you’ve created so far.

This is a great option as it gives you a quick glance at all the Active and Inactive Rules. You can also delete the inactive rules if needed. Just check the box against the rules and hit the Delete button.

Moreover, if you wish to know all the details of the rules, you can simply click on Rule No. It will redirect you to the Rules Page and you can check out all the details relating to a particular Customer/Role/Group.

Note: Prices set directly on the Products page will not appear in the Rule Log.

Awesome! Now that you’re familiar with creating pricing rules, you’ve successfully cleared this step. I already feel you’ve become a pro at creating pricing rules 😛 

On that note, let’s move ahead to……..

Step 3 : Edit or Delete Pricing Rules with ease

Since you know how to create pricing rules, it’s equally important to understand how to edit or delete those pricing rules swiftly.

To do that, go to:

• CSP > Search By & Delete tab

Under this tab, you can select the option to search or delete the prices for a Customer, User Role, or a Group.

 

Depending on the option you choose, you can select a particular customer’s name to edit/delete their pricing rules. After selecting the customer’s name, a list of rules created for that customer will be displayed in front of you.

Go ahead and select the product name. In case, if there are too many rules that you’d like to delete, you can search, tick them all, and press ‘Delete’ as shown in the above image.

However, if you’d like to edit a particular rule, you can click on the ‘Rule No.’ that will redirect you to the Rules page where you can change the pricing rules as per your requirements.

Also, remember – When a ‘Role’ or a ‘Group’ specific pricing is removed, then the Pricing is removed for all users belonging to that Role or Group.

With that being said, this option makes it super easy for you to search for a user and the rules attached to that user. It saves you loads of time and makes editing and deleting pricing rules quicker.

Step 4 : Add Category Discounts to increase Inventory Turnover

If you’ve got a huge store with a variety of products to offer then, adding individual product discounts can suck the life out of you!

To avoid all of that, you can take the easy way out by simply adding discounts to the entire product category. You can even apply this rule to a specific User Role, Customer, or Group.

Oh, by the way, remember when I mentioned earlier about going to the cycle shop? Well, the shopkeeper there asked my dad if he was interested in rubber tubes since there was 20% off on all cycles with rubber tubes. Category Pricing was pretty much a thing back in the day as well 😛

The thing with category pricing is – it’s a beautiful feature that helps in churning your inventory at a faster rate and also improves customer retention.

Now, before moving ahead, ensure that you’ve identified your products under specific categories. For e.g: If you’re selling blue denim jeans, your category could be ‘Men’, ‘Women’, etc.

Once you have product categories in place, you can go ahead with the set up:

• Go to Dashboard > CSP > Category Pricing tab

Now, your first job is to activate the Category-Specific pricing option as shown in the above image.

And, before setting pricing rules for product categories, refer to the ‘Notes’ section. This will give you an idea of the special pricing rules and the priorities you’ve set for the customer, roles, or groups earlier.

Again, you can set category pricing based on Customer, User Role, and Groups as per your convenience.

Based on your selection, you can start adding details like Name (Customer), Role (User Role based), Group (Group-based), product category, discount type (flat or %), minimum quantity, and the value.

Do remember to hit the Save Pricing button once you’re done setting up category-specific discounts.

 Also, whenever you wish to remove the applied category discount, you can easily do so by deactivating the category pricing option.

Sub-Category Pricing

Before moving on, there’s another feature that you can use in case you’ve divided your product categories into Parent and Child categories.

You have the power to enable the option to apply the pricing rules you’ve created for a Parent category to be applied to all of its Child categories.

For e.g: ‘If you’re offering a 10% discount on ‘Furniture’ (Parent Category) and a 20% discount on ‘Chairs’ (Child Category) then this dynamic pricing tactic will pick up and apply the best discount available i.e, 20%

To enable discounts on parent category, head to:

• CSP > Settings > Enable Discounts on Parent Categories

Having done this, you can now move on to set up the other dynamic pricing tactic for your WooCommerce store……..

Step 5 : Set up exclusive Cart Discounts to push for higher purchase orders

Firstly, congratulations if you’ve made it so far! 

Remember the stage when you thought, you were almost ready to cycle without any support?

Well, when it comes to setting up dynamic pricing – you’re almost there 🙂

Too often, people add products to their cart while shopping but never really get around to purchasing it. In such cases, offering a personalized discount on items added in the cart can entice buyers to actually buy the product.

With Cart discounts, the good part is you can even play it psychologically. It lets you push your buyers to place higher purchase orders as you increase the discount amount. This helps you sell more products in one go. 

Now, to set up Cart Discounts, go to:

• Dashboard > CSP > Cart Discounts tab

Similar to category pricing, the first step here also involves – Activating Cart Discounts so that you can begin setting up personalized rules.

As you can see in the above image, you have the option to set Cart Discounts for three types of users – First Time Buyers, Existing Buyers, and Guest Users.

Now, here’s an interesting fact – The configuration for all three types of Users is the same. However, the difference lies in the benefits of the nature of these Users. Let’s see:

• First Time Buyer – Offering a personalized Cart discount of 10% as a welcome offer to a buyer who’s just signed up on your store and is about to make his very first purchase will encourage the first time buyer to purchase more often thereby, increasing customer retention.
• Existing Buyer – Setting a personalized cart discount for a regular or an existing buyer ensures their loyalty and induces the feeling of privilege among the customer.
• Guest User – For someone who hasn’t signed up on your store yet, offering cart discounts on their purchase may encourage them to register on your store or become a member as well.

Having said that, let’s move on to the configurations for the options available under First Time Buyer.

Note: The configuration process for Existing and Guest Users is the same.

a. Cart Value Ranges

With this option, you can create a range and set a cart discount rule based on the values inside the range.

For e.g: If you want to offer a 20% discount on a cart value of $50 then you can set the minimum value as $50. And, if needed, you can also set an upper limit by adding the maximum cart value. 

In case, you want to push for a higher purchase order, you can offer higher discounts of 30% on orders above $151.

Minimum Cart Value	Maximum Cart Value	% Discount Value
$50	$150	20
$151		30

b. Maximum Discount Value Allowed

This is a field you can use to limit the Maximum Discount a User can avail per order.

For e.g: If you set the maximum discount value at $50, it means that your First-time buyer will be able to avail of a maximum discount of $50 during his purchase.

c. Shop More Button Text and Link

You can use this option to allow your customers to quickly go back to your products page and continue shopping. You can do this by adding a link to your products page and displaying the button on your Cart page.

d. Message before Discount Application

This is a very useful prompt. You can use this to make your customers aware of the discounts or savings that await them.

Moreover, with an influencing message, you can even push your customers to buy more in order to avail of the discounts.

For drafting a custom message, you can use two placeholders here:

• [Difference Amount] – The amount of additional purchase they’d have to make to qualify for a discount.
• [Percentage Discount] – The percentage discount applicable.

For e.g: Your messaging could be – ‘You’re just $10 away from grabbing your hands on 20% discount!’

e. Message After Discount Application

The need to display a message when the cart total is eligible for the discount and once it is applied holds a lot of importance. Doing this will give your buyer the satisfaction of the savings he’s made thereby, boosting their happiness. Plus, it will also encourage the buyer to visit again.

Now, to display the custom message, you can use the placeholder [percent value] to show the percentage amount saved.

For e.g: ‘Congratulations! You have received a 20% discount!!!’

Once you’ve set the message, you can use it as a trigger and display it on the cart page.

f. Discount Exclusions

Sometimes, you may want to exclude certain products or product categories from the Cart discount rules. The reasons could be plenty – to maintain exclusivity, limited edition products, etc. 

At times, you may also want to exclude specific Users, Roles, or Groups from Cart discount rules for various reasons.

Under the Discount Exclusions tab, you have the option to easily exclude a specific product, category, user, role, group, etc. from the Cart Discount rules. Just Select and Save.

Step 6 : Set Global Discounts and focus on other aspects of your business

This part of dynamic pricing can come in handy especially during holiday seasons when your WooCommerce store is jam-packed.

During such times, you may not get enough time to set special pricing rules for individual products or customers. Plus, you may want to focus on other aspects and strategies of your business just before the holiday season. 

For all such times, you can bank on WISDM Customer Specific Pricing plugin’s feature of Global Discounts.

Instead of setting individual discounts, you can simply turn on site-wide discounts on all products and categories for Customers, User Roles, and Groups.

And, to do this, you can go to:

• WordPress Dashboard > CSP > Global Discounts
• Activate Global Discounts by switching on the option

Having done that, you’ll now be able to add the Global discount rules for Users, Roles, or Groups.

Again, the rules and configuration settings for all three User options are the same.

Note – These rules will be applied to all the products on your site. And, the global discounts will be prioritized after Product discounts and Category discounts – if you’ve already set a rule for a particular product or category with a specific quantity then, the global discount rule will be ignored since the rule for the same quantity already exists.

So, keeping this thought in mind, you can go ahead and create a global discount rule for a Specific User, add a discounting method (Flat or %), Quantity, and Value.

For e.g: Dan will get flat $10 off when he buys any product on the site with a quantity of 5 or more. For more context, refer to the above image.

You can add multiple rules but make sure to save all the rules.

Step 7 : Configure Dynamic Pricing Settings and start selling your products

Well, this is the final step and component of the WooCommerce Dynamic Pricing plugin setup! Wooohoooo 😛

And, I’m pretty confident, you won’t need any support after this step! You can ride this cycle on your own 🙂

Import & Export

Before talking about the settings, bear with me as I quickly cover this part. 

This section gives you the ability to quickly Import/Export the pricing data for Customers/Roles/Groups at your convenience using CSV files.

You can even make use of the Product ID or SKU to search and import/export the data.

To do so, head to CSP > Import/Export.

Settings

This is the section that allows you to control and manage the visibility of the prices on the products.

You can access the settings by going to CSP > Settings

Under the Settings tab, you can play around with various options such as:

• Strikethrough Price

• Show Regular Price

• Regular Price display text

• Price description text

• Hide Price Total, etc.

You can choose to explore these options and accordingly enable/disable them on your WooStore. Remember these options are valid only for pricing rules created with the WISDM Customer Specific Pricing plugin.

Finally, on that note, I’m happy to announce that this brings us to the end of the dynamic pricing plugin set up for WooCommerce. (Yaaaaay!)

Over to you,

Well, I’m pretty sure you won’t be needing my support any longer after going through this hardcore WooCommerce Dynamic Pricing set up. I can already see you riding dynamic pricing tactics on your WooStore like a boss 🙂

And, I genuinely hope this article has given you valuable insights and has helped in setting up the plugin. After all, it’s as simple as learning a cycle 🙂

So, go out there, win your customers, and shoot up your sales and revenues with Dynamic Pricing strategies.

And, in case, you have any other queries, feel free to let me know in the comments section 🙂