This is a guest post by Vijay Chelakkat. If you’d like to contribute to our blog, feel free to get in touch with us.
Customers tend to be loyal to a store or business when they consistently receive special treatment. For an eCommerce store, offering a personalized experience to their customers helps build long term relationships with their customer base.
If your eCommerce store is based on the WordPress WooCommerce platform, user roles can help in creating personalized discounting and pricing strategies. There are several ways to offer a personalized customer experience, unique pricing and custom discounts on your WooCommerce store.
In this article, we will discuss a few scenarios where you can take full advantage of role-based discounts and pricing in WooCommerce.
User roles in WordPress and WooCommerce
User roles help you manage users on your WordPress site. Basically, a user role will help you identify a particular group of users on your site. Each of these user groups will have different capabilities on your site as well. The store owner will have the freedom to assign users into different groups so that each will have different capabilities.
Common scenarios to offer role-based pricing and discounts
You can make use of user roles to offer a personalized experience to customers on your WooCommerce store. Here we will look into a few scenarios where you can make use of WordPress user roles to create unique experiences, pricing as well as discounts.
Unique pricing for membership-based stores
There are several WooCommerce stores that offer different membership levels. You might want to offer unique pricing to customers based on the membership level they are in.
For example, you have a website that offers memberships to a fitness club. There are three different membership levels. The same site has an eCommerce store that sells fitness supplements. Based on the membership level, you might want to set prices or price adjustments on the store. In such a scenario, role-based pricing could help you execute the pricing strategy easily as you can create user roles for each membership level and accordingly set prices.
Wholesale store with customers of different purchase patterns
Wholesale stores generally require to set different pricing approaches to their customers. This is because wholesale stores often have different business goals and choose their customers based on different parameters. The quantity range of a single purchase, how frequently they place an order, the customer base, etc., are some of the aspects they consider while signing in a new customer.
Each wholesale store will have a range of customers that will be segmented to different groups based on these parameters. And wholesale stores can easily configure a different pricing pattern to user segments with the help of role-based pricing.
Reward specific customer groups
Most eCommerce stores offer discount deals seasonally or based on some other promotional strategy. You might have observed these discounts are not always available to all users. Based on the specific strategy of that time, online stores offer discounts only to a specific user group.
For example, some stores will provide a discount deal only to new users, whereas another store is more interested in providing discounts to loyal customers. Or, you may want to offer a special discount to all your employees. You can assign any of these specific user groups into a user role and set a discount applicable only to that role.
Encourage customers to sign up on your store
Role-based pricing can be used as a strategy to encourage users to sign up on your store as well. You can offer different prices for guest users and registered users and encourage guest users to sign up on your site to avail discounted prices.
Popular role-based plugins and their unique features
There are different role-based pricing plugins, which you may require based on your unique store strategy. Here is a look at three different use cases where popular role-based plugins could help you:
WISDM Customer Specific Pricing plugin
Customers will love it if you are able to provide them a unique catalog page with special discounts. It will give them a feeling of being special on your store. You can use the Wisdm Customer Specific Pricing plugin to manage individual prices for every customer.
Basically, you need to create customer-specific pricing or discounts and then create a unique page to display those, making this plugin one-of-a-kind.
The plugin offers further customization to the user-specific catalog, where you can customize the layout and the number of products displayed on a page. You can also use a few other shortcodes to exclude specific products from being displayed on the user-specific catalog.
It allows you to make Users feel special by setting different prices for customers, groups and, user roles. It helps you offer a personalized buying experience for all customers as setting product discounts based on all kinds of user roles like a wholesaler, manager, customer, etc becomes easy for you.
WISDM Customer-specific Pricing plugin also lets you create pricing tiers for bulk purchases
Tiered pricing for these bulk purchases encourages buyers with user roles like ‘Distributors’, ‘Wholesalers’, ‘Retailers’, etc that often purchase products in bulk. Entice customers to buy more by having different pricing slabs for bulk purchases.
For example – 2 books at 10% off; 3 books at 15%; 5 books at 40% off and so on. Use tiered prices to auto-apply discounts based on purchase quantity.
WISDM Customer Specific Pricing plugin for WooCommerce benefits you to set User or a Role-specific product quantity based discounts on product or categories as well.
Besides, the primary advantage the plugin brings is an easy way to customize prices for a user role – you can set multiple discounts by role, product, or category. The Customer Specific Pricing plugin also allows you to set cart discounts at the time of checkout for certain user roles.
Additional features of the plugin
Here are some of the additional features of this plugin that you may find useful:
- Set product prices specific to every customer or user role.
- Offer discounts to products based on user roles.
- Provide bulk discounts and tiered pricing based on purchase quantity.
- Offer role based discounts based on product categories or items added to the cart.
- Create BOGO offers.
- Hide or show product prices based on different requirements and even hide out-of-stock products.
- Add custom messages and notifications to let customers know about discounts and personalized pricing
- Effortless price management options.
ELEX Role-based pricing plugin
Personalized pricing can be especially useful for wholesale stores. Most wholesale stores offer different prices for their customers (who will be mostly retailers purchasing in bulk). Based on the average order quantity, the frequency of purchase, etc., you may have to set a pricing pattern. It could be really useful if you can segment different customer groups based on user roles and assign a different price for each of your products.
You can use the ELEX Role-based pricing plugin to set up different prices for the same product based on user roles. Once you install the plugin, you can go to the product data settings of a product, and specify a suitable price for each user role.
This can be done for simple products as well as for individual variations of a variable product.
Additional features
Here is a list of some of the additional features of this plugin:
- Remove the add-to-cart button and turn your eCommerce store into catalog mode for all users or only to guest users or specific user roles.
- Customize the add-to-cart button and redirect users to a specific page.
- Configure fixed price or percentage discounts for individual products or globally across the store based on user roles.
- Set a price suffix based on user roles.
- Set up a unique pricing pattern or store access for guest users.
- Assign tax class and modify tax display options based on user roles.
- Create custom user roles
- Supports multiple languages.
ELEX Dynamic Pricing and Discounts plugin
Discounts could be a recurring theme on your WooCommerce. You might need to consider a lot of scenarios for offering discounts to your products. A dynamic pricing plugin could be the answer to set up discounts at different levels.
ELEX Dynamic Pricing and Discounts plugin could be a great option to set up different types of discounts. The plugin lets you create discounts at a product, category, cart or combinational level. You will be able to configure unique discount conditions using this plugin while applying restrictions based on user roles. So a unique discount that you configure specifically for a product can be made applicable only to a specific user role. The discount will be applicable to the user role only when the other conditions are also met.
You can easily create a discount rule for a segment of customers easily. For example, if you want to create a product level discount only for loyal customers, you can simply select the applicable user role while configuring the rule.
Additional features
The plugin is feature-rich and will help you with the following aspects as well:
- Configure discount rules at product, category, cart, and combinational levels.
- Set up discounts on the basis of price, quantity or weight.
- Configure flat rate, percentage discounts or assign a fixed price to a product.
- Offer discounts based on product tags.
- Create buy one get one (BOGO) offers.
- Offer discounts to a specific user based on their purchase history.
- Apply discounts based on different conditions like the choice of payment gateway or shipping method.
- Display pricing table and information on offers on the product page.
- Exclude specific products or categories from a discount rule.
YITH WooCommerce Role Based Prices
This plugin will help you a lot in setting up unique prices for various customer groups in your store. You can easily manage prices for specific users as well as hide prices and add to cart buttons for them. It will be quite easy to reward loyal customers as well as those who purchase in large quantities consistently. Please note, this plugin will not help you to create new user roles. You will have to use the existing user roles on your store, or use another plugin that helps you create new user roles.
Features
- Create pricing and discount rules specific to different user roles.
- Can apply a rule to specific products, or to products belonging to specific categories or tags.
- Combine multiple rules so that they will be applied simultaneously in specific cases.
- Optionally display the difference between the regular price and role-based prices, as well as the price difference between different user roles.
- Disable prices or purchase options from specific customers and show a custom message instead.
Discount Rules for WooCommerce
This plugin is a comprehensive option to create diverse discounts including role-based ones. It is feature-rich, as well as offers a simple, user-friendly interface to help even new users to set it up easily. You can easily set up discounts or special pricing for specific customers or user roles using this plugin. This will be quite useful if you want to offer discounts for wholesale customers or even loyal customers who purchase consistently from you.
Features
- Diverse options to set up dynamic pricing including product price specific and cart specific discounts.
- Set up discounts based on categories, or purchase quantity.
- Easily configure buy one get one offer.
- Create coupons and associate them with one or more discount rules you have configured.
- Apply discounts based on the shipping address.
Price by User Role for WooCommerce
You can set up unique product prices based on user roles as well as adjust shipping charges based on user roles using this plugin. It also allows you to hide product prices from specific user roles. The plugin will help you configure per product pricing for products without any limits.
It works with all your products including variable products as well as comply with GDPR.
Features
- Set up unique prices for your products based on WooCommerce user roles as well as based on custom user roles created by third-party plugins.
- Make price adjustments to specific user roles globally across the shop.
- Set up specific pricing for different user roles for individual products.
- Hide prices for particular user roles.
- Modify shipping charges based on user roles.
WooCommerce Price based on User Role
With the Booster for WooCommerce plugin, you can extend a range of features to your online store. It offers a module to set up role-based pricing on your store as well. Moreover, you will find an option to create custom user roles using this plugin as well. You can set up personalized prices for user roles globally on the entire site as well as set it up on individual product settings.
Additional features of the plugin
- Display shipping methods based on order quantity, date/time, location, etc.
- Modify the visibility of products or the Add-to-Cart button based on user roles.
- Generate discount coupons as well as URL coupons.
- Option to let customers suggest a price for your products.
- Set different price formats for varied currencies.
WooCommerce Role Based Pricing Pro
This plugin will help you create a multi-price and multi-currency marketplace on your WooCommerce store. You can create custom user roles and configure unique prices for these roles for your products. The plugin will help you set up role-based pricing for simple as well as variable products on your store. It also helps you hide the price or Add-to-cart button for particular user roles. Moreover, you will be able to bulk edit role-based prices so that you can save time while configuring prices for multiple products.
Features
- Easily configure role-based pricing on your WooCommerce store.
- Shortcodes to display user role specific pricing.
- An intuitive user interface to configure pricing easily.
- Flexible for developer-level customization.
- Integrations with various popular third-party plugins.
WooCommerce Dynamic Pricing
If you want to set up simple role-based pricing on your store, this plugin could help. In addition, it will help you set up several complex pricing rules based on products, categories as well as based on items in the cart. The plugin offers seven modes to set up different levels of discounts on your store.
Features
- Set up quantity-based discounts for each of your products.
- Create category-wide price adjustments and restrict it by quantity or user roles.
- Configure special offers that apply only to an amount that you specify in the rule.
- Quantity values can be specified for product, variation, category or line item.
- Set up ‘Buy One Get One’ offers.
Hopefully, this article has familiarized you with some of the common scenarios where you can create and execute role-based pricing with the listed WooCommerce add-ons like WISDM Customer Specific Pricing plugin, ELEX Role-based pricing plugin, etc. Leave us a comment if you have a query.
Author Bio
Vijay is the founder of ELEXtensions.com & LearnWoo.com, in charge of Business Development & Marketing. He is passionate about product development and solving various problems that e-commerce customers face. He is a connoisseur of food and likes to travel, go for long drives, and spend time with his family & friends. Follow on Twitter.
