Promotion Validity Periods (Retail and Wholesale)
Retail Validity Periods
Normally, promotions run for a set period of time. In SAP Retail, you define starting and ending dates for the promotion; for example, sales period, purchasing period, listing window, last date for good receipt in stores, etc. Given this information, when procuring promotion merchandise for example, you can determine the exact date on which the promotional merchandise must be in the distribution center in order to be delivered to the stores in time. Shipping dates can vary for different stores; for example, a New York distribution center might ship sale merchandise to Connecticut two days before the start of a promotion, but to California a week before the promotion.
Listing rules govern which stores can sell (or reorder) which articles at which times. If Store X normally sells winter gloves only through the end of March and you create a promotion that runs into April, the system will issue a warning message. However, you can override the message, in which case Store X will be able to sell winter gloves in April.
You can have different validity period dates for different stores or store groups participating in the promotion. For example, a promotion on swimwear might start earlier and last longer for stores located in warmer climates than for those in colder ones. If you define different validity periods for different store groups, then the entire promotion period is considered to be between the earliest starting date and the latest ending date for all stores participating in the promotion.
The following validity periods are defined for retail promotions (see illustration below):
Promotional merchandise can be delivered prior to or during the promotion validity period, but not afterward. It also cannot be reordered after the listing period has elapsed.
Promotions may overlap. The same article can be assigned to the same store for two different promotions that overlap, provided that all the article data (including the promotion price) is identical in each case.
Winter gloves are assigned to both the "Winter Festival" promotion which runs from December to January and the "Christmas" promotion which runs from November to December. The "Winter Festival" price is $8 while the "Christmas" price is $7. The promotions overlap in December, but the gloves can only be sold at one price in the store. The system therefore shortens the period in which the gloves are assigned to the "Winter" promotion by a month, and the gloves will be sold for $7 in December. This will affect target sales for the "Winter Festival" promotion.
For reporting purposes in the Retail Information System (RIS), however, sales and purchasing volumes can only be assigned to one promotion at a time.
Wholesale Validity Periods
Promotions staged by wholesalers differ from retail promotions in the way in which the periods that apply to the promotion are defined.
For wholesale promotions, only three periods are defined (see illustration below):
When wholesalers create promotions and receive orders from participating retailers, the system checks that the pricing date is within the sales order period. The retailers’ promotion sales period has no influence on the wholesaler’s pricing, but if the wholesalers have stored that information in their promotion, they can use it to request orders from retailers or give them other timely support (for example, advertising materials or services).
See also:
Sales Orders with Promotion Determination