3rd Child Free

Applies to: IOS


Introduction

Many photographers offer discounts to parents with multiple children at the same school. This is often in the form of 'Second child orders at half price' or 'Third child order free'. While this is relatively easy to do for manual paper orders, automating the process for online ordering has always been difficult.

The Timestone Internet Ordering System now allows photogrpahers to offer this feature whether it be in a pre-order, identify ordering or post-photography scenario

Broadly the functionality involves two steps

  1. Creating a condition in the Control Panel to specify when the feature is invoked
  2. Applying the condition to a price list in the offer

The Condition

The condition is a 'Package' type condition. Either:

Package>Package Value>at least by total for n shoot/identities
Package>Package Value>at least by most expensive for n shoot/identities
Package>Package Count>at least by n shoot/identities

An example is shown in the screen grab here

With either of these variants the photographer sets the number of subjects who must have already ordered before the conditon is invoked and the number of subjects who have ordered after which the condition is 'switched off'. The latter value is an important safety mechanism that prevents abuse of the system where an unlimited number of subjects could take advantage of the condition.

In the example shown in the screen grab the values are set to 2 and 5. This means the condition is active after two subjects have been ordered for and deactive after five subjects have been ordered for.

Package Value or Package Count

The choice as to which to use depends on whether the photographer wishes the condition to apply only when all subjects order the same packages (package count) or iwhether the value of the packages ordered are to be considered (package value).

Package Count

The package count option applies the condition only when all subjects order the same packages. For example if Child1 and Child 2 have ordered Package B, only Package B will be free for Child 3.

Package Value

The package value option looks at the value of the packages ordered. Two conditions then apply:
- at least by most expensive for n shoot/identities - the most expensive package is the one that counts. If Child 1 and Child 2 have ordered a $40 and $20 package, any package of $40 or less will be free for Child 3.
- at least by total for n shoot/identities - the total of the value of the packages ordered is calculated. If Child 1 and Child 2 have ordered a $40 and $20 package for a total of $60, any package of $60 or less will be free for Child 3

Applying the condition to a Price List

Once the condition is created it is applied to a price list in the Timestone Administrator (tsAdmin). This is done in the Pricing tab of the Offer. An example can be seen here

End of article