Hello everybody, the merchant price relation feature seems to fit to a marketplace scenario. So the

UPWG9AYH2

Hello everybody,
the merchant price relation feature seems to fit to a marketplace scenario. So the owner of the b2b shop is the marketplace provider. A buyer is any registered company. The merchant is also any another different company. So basically 3 roles involved here.
If we want to use customer specific prices but we don’t have that marketplace situation (no other companies selling items, b2b-shop owner = seller) … is it intended to use the marketplace feature for this situation anyway just with the difference, that only one merchant (the b2b owner) exists? Or is this additional layer of merchants not required? At the moment I don’t see any other solution to use customer specific prices without using merchant relationships here … or do i miss something in this concept? Any experiences?
Best regards

Eugenia Poidenko

Hello Ingo!

spryker/merchant is both b2b and marketplace module. You can use merchant prices without marketplace features (like merchant selling stuff).

Are there any problems you are facing now with only having the merchant module for the merchant prices?

UPWG9AYH2

Hi Eugenia,
i think i have a misunderstanding of the roles/concept here. What should i create if i just want to have my. b2b customer buying on my shop with specific prices each? So for me, there is no need to create a merchant since me as the shop is the only one that sells products to the customers … but to have specific prices i have to select a merchant relation in the product edit page, which just is between a merchant and a company … i am sure, i miss something here^^
Best

Eugenia Poidenko

merchant in the past (before marketplace started) was created as a MP-independent concept. B2b used it for this prices feature and order threshold. Maybe there are other b2b features using it too, I’m not sure I have the overview.

When MP appeared they used the existing merchant concept and developed it further. But that’s something that should not be required for the b2b usage of the module.

UPWG9AYH2

Maybe its more undestandable with a scenario: I am company ABC and i am selling office stuff to other b2b companies. With each of my registered b2b customers i have a contract in which i defined special prices for each of them. Some of them has no special prices and should see default prices instead. When i want to represent that behaviour in spryker, i just create one new merchant. This is fittingly named as me (because i am the only one that is selling in this case) and i create for each a relation between this merchant and my b2b customer that have specialized prices … in the product edit page, i can select this relation now and give them a specialized price …

If this is true i don’t understand why it is not possible to just select a company on the product page where i want to have the special price for. instead i have to select the merchant relation …

Thats the point i
a) don’t understand or
b) i think the merchant relation feature is intended to be so general to represent this use case also by just adding a single merchant

best

Eugenia Poidenko

I think in your case it’s just that the merchant and the seller are the same person (the shop owner) which makes the situation complicated.

In a b2b scenario, I think the intentions was to enable the shop owner provide different price from different merchants to companies. Here the seller is still the shop owner, not the merchant. Merchant relationship just affected the price resolution.

Like in the case when you (shop owner) have contracts with merchants/suppliers (companies selling stuff to you) and you want to sell your goods to your shop’s b2b customers at special prices. You can now create a merchant-2-bu relation and assign prices to it. One BU can have special prices from several merchants and vice versa.

I feel I’m not answering the question want. Please ask more 😊

UPWG9AYH2

Hi Eugenia,
i am a bit unsure now of the use case since i thought that this is a standard case in b2b to sell stuff from my b2b company to another b2b company without maintaining different merchants on my shop but having different prices for each of my customers anyway …
Like already mentioned, I don’t know if i misunderstand the roles here, but as a conclusion for the main question: it is not possible to set customized prices for a customer of my shop page without setting up a merchant first, since the prices are based on the relation between merchant and customers

Eugenia Poidenko

Hey Ingo. I contacted a PO of b2b features, but only now noticed he is on vacation. Hope he returns and can help here.

Is this a blocking matter for you?

Eugenia Poidenko

if it is, I’m sure we can find someone else who knows more

UPWG9AYH2

Hi Eugenia, thanks for forwarding. No, its actually not a blocker, i just wanted to dive deeper into customized prices for b2b customers and want to understand the basic principles using them. Best regards 🙂

Eugenia Poidenko

Have a nice weekend now Ingo 😊

UPWG9AYH2

Thanks, you too Eugenia 🙂

Andrew Chekanov

Hi @UPWG9AYH2 Nice to meet you
I’m a product manager that owns b2b topic in Spryker
To built a common ground I want to share the typical b2b use case. It will require:
1. to create a one merchant
2. create company and business unit
3. create a merchant relation (contract between seller and specific business unit of a b2b customer)
4. fullfill the contract details (Customer specific prices, Minimum order value, list of Business units that can use the same prices, etc)

Andrew Chekanov

Why the relation between Merchant and Business unit, instead of a Company?
• one company can have multiple different prices for the same product, for the different departments
Why do we need Merchant in typical b2b?
• it’s a platform approach where with creation of a Merchant entity we covered b2b and created a fundament for the Marketplace.
• downside of it that that it can be confusing 😞
So you are absolutely right here - b) i think the merchant relation feature is intended to be so general to represent this use case also by just adding a single merchant

UPWG9AYH2

Hi Andrew,
thanks for the extensive explanation. I would do the step with the single merchant intuitively if i am the platform owner and also the only seller of any products, so its not that confusing at all but i just wanted to avoid a general conceptual mistake which can’t be compensated in a later project state. However, a note in the documentation about that would be fine 🙂

One question just for interest: Having customer specific prices was not available before introducing the marketplace approach?

Best regards

Andrew Chekanov

Hi Ingo
Sorry for the late response, I was on vacation.
Customer-specific prices came up together with a Merchant, simultaneously