In the Inventory Items Price and Discounts configuration, you can select the Price Group.

When you click the Price Group dropdown, the selection menu is populated with what appears to be Associate Types.

So, what’s the difference between Associate Types and Price Groups?

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When you are first initialized, you only have three Base Associate Types. Typically, these are:

1. Distributor Associate - Customer who has signed up to sell for your company.

2. Retail Associate - Customer that shops in a Distributor Associate’s eCommerce Shop.

3. Preferred Customer - Customer that has signed up for an account to shop or an autoShip.

   Note: Preferred Customer is better suited as an Associate Type, but it’s usually setup as a Base Associate Type.

Each are assigned an ID number. The three above are 1, 2, and 3. Any more types that you add are assigned 4, 5, 6, etc.

In the eCommerce Shop, these IDs are displayed in the URL:

https://[CLIENTID].shop.directscale.com/samspace/Checkout?type=1

You can add more types in Corporate Office Associate Types page. To find the Associate Types page, in Corporate Office, navigate to Administration > Advanced Settings > Associate Types.

https://[CLIENT].corpadmin.directscale.com/Settings/AssociateTypes

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In the system, associates are assigned three different values:

1. Base Associate Type - the associate type that is chosen when an associate enrolls and typically these do not change. They can change in special cases such as when a customer upgrades to a Distributor Associate.

2. Associate Type - Derived associate types that augment the Base Associate Type based upon the state of the associate. Shown in the UI and in reports.

   For example: A Retail Associate signs up for an autoShip. The Retail Associate is then upgraded/changed to a Preferred Customer. If they cancel their autoShip, then they are downgraded back to a Retail Associate.
   In this example, the customer’s Base Associate Type of Retail Associate doesn’t change, but their Associate Type is changed to Preferred Customer.

3. Price Group - Exactly like Associate Types except the associate is not considered a different type of associate. How the system treats them differently is all in the configuration; usually, this is in inventory to give them a different product line or different prices.

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Scenarios

So, we have our three Base Associate Types:

1. Distributor Associate
2. Retail Associate
3. Preferred Customer

Let’s say you wanted an additional, custom Price Group:

4. First 500 Club

In this scenario, you want to have the first 500 associates that enroll in the system to get special pricing.

Important: How the system checks for a Price Group is custom code and can check any data point in the system. In this case, it checks the the associate ID to see if they are within the first 500. If so, it changes just the associate’s Price Group to First 500 Club.

Note: Technically, you can set First 500 Club as a Base Associate Type and new associates could enroll as that type; however, when the system is configured with Base Associate Type Distributor Associates, then new associates wouldn’t be a part of that type.
It’s better to have a hierarchy in place where the first 500 enrollees are configured both as Distributor Associates and First 500 Club, in order to not lose other distributor configurations.

With the above example configuration, here are some more scenarios:

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Scenario 1

• Associate enrolls as a Distributor Associate
• Associate IS one of the first 500 associates to enroll
  • Base Associate Type = 1. Distributor Associate
  • Associate Type = 1. Distributor Associate
  • Price Group = 4. First 500 Club

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Scenario 2

• Associate enrolls as a Distributor Associate
• Associate IS NOT one of the first 500 associates to enroll
  • Base Associate Type = 1. Distributor Associate
  • Associate Type = 1. Distributor Associate
  • Price Group = 1. Distributor Associate

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Scenario 3

• Customer is a Retail Associate
• Customer signs up for autoShip
• Customer IS one of the first 500 associates to enroll
  • Base Associate Type = 2. Retail Associate
  • Associate Type = 3. Preferred Customer
  • Price Group = 4. First 500 Club

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Scenario 4

• Customer is a Retail Associate
• Customer DOES NOT signs up for autoShip
• Customer IS one of the first 500 associates to enroll
  • Base Associate Type = 2. Retail Associate
  • Associate Type = 2. Retail Associate
  • Price Group = 4. First 500 Club

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Scenario 5

• Customer is a Retail Associate
• Customer signs up for autoShip
• Customer IS NOT one of the first 500 associates to enroll
  • Base Associate Type = 2. Retail Associate
  • Associate Type = 3. Preferred Customer
  • Price Group = 3. Preferred Customer

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