Markdowns and Open Price
A markdown lowers the price of one line, and an open price replaces an item's price outright, both within the limits you set for the operator. These are the changes an operator makes by hand, as opposed to the automatic promotions the store's system applies on its own. Each is priced by the store's system, and each is bounded by a value on the operator's own record.
A markdown on one line
A markdown is a percentage off a single line's list price. When you open the markdown control on a line, you will see a set of preset percentages and a box to type your own. You can reach it from the basket and from the line editor, and both routes act on the same line.
- Within the operator's own ceiling, the markdown simply applies. The store's system prices it and the line updates.
- The percentage is always off the list price. The preset buttons, the manager request, and the check at the moment it applies all measure against the same list price, so the number you see is the number that applies.
- A markdown never raises a price. When a promotion has already priced the line lower than your markdown would, the deeper of the two prices is kept. You cannot use a markdown to mark a promoted line back up.
When a line is already discounted below every step on the ladder, the markdown sheet tells you so before you tap, and it shows "no change" against a percentage that would not lower the price any further. This is on purpose, so you can see that the line is at its price rather than being blocked by your limit.
Where your store records reasons for price changes, you will be asked to pick a reason at this point, and a reason may itself ask you to add a note.
The operator's ceiling
The most important thing to understand about the ceiling is that it is a value, a percentage set on the operator's own record in the back office. It is not a role and not simply the permission to discount.
- No value means no discretion. When the record has no markdown value, the ceiling is zero, and every markdown that operator tries goes to a manager. A person with no record at all is in the same position.
- A zero you set on purpose is respected as zero. When you deliberately set a ceiling to zero, it stays zero rather than reverting to a wider default.
- The permission and the value are separate. Granting the permission to discount while leaving the value unset gives that operator the screen and no authority. Both have to be set.
When a markdown goes beyond the ceiling, the phone refuses it and offers to send a request to a manager. That path is covered in The Approval Ladder.
An open price
An open price replaces an item's price outright, rather than taking a percentage off it. It is a separate capability, and it works only where you allow it.
- It needs its own permission, on top of the permission to sell.
- It works only on items you have flagged for it in the back office. On any other item, the phone tells you the item's price is set by the store, and points you to a markdown instead if the operator's ceiling allows one.
- The permitted range is a window around the list price. A lower limit and an upper limit on the operator's record set how far below and how far above the list price the operator may go.
- An item with no list price uses a store-wide ceiling instead. This one is a currency amount, not a percentage.
Take care with the two window limits: they are percentages of the list price, and their labels do not show a percent sign. Entering 50 as the lower limit does not mean fifty in your currency. It means the operator may go as far as list price less fifty percent. When the limits are left unset, the window closes onto the list price, so every open price goes to a manager.
When you set an open price below the list price, it counts toward the store's total give-away on the sale, the same as any other discount. See The Approval Ladder for how that total is checked.
You can take an applied open price off again. The remove control appears only on a line that has one, so a line that never carried an open price shows nothing to remove.
An open price beyond the permitted window follows the same path as a markdown beyond the ceiling: the phone refuses it, names the limit it broke, and offers to send a request to a manager.