Product core statuses apply to all non-lot billed and "other charge" products in your Eclipse system, and work much like Eclipse product ranks. Strategic Pricing Associates analyzes your sales transaction data and applies this measurement to your products based on the frequency of sale and the likelihood that your customers will shop for better pricing. Products are measured using the following core statuses:
Core A
Core B
Non-Core C
Non-Core D
Core statuses are assigned to products at the top of each customers market segment, and are typically the highest in sales amount, highest in visibility, and are products that the customer has a high incentive to shop for price competitors. For example, in a hotel environment, the room rate would be a Core A or Core B product. Non-Core statuses are assigned to products lower in the customers market segment, and are typically low in sales, low in visibility, and there is low incentive for the customer to price shop. Competitors often overlook non-core products, and customers buy them infrequently. For example, in a hotel environment, internet access, room service, and faxing services would be Non-Core C and Non-Core D products.
Your service tier determines how your core statuses are defined:
Strategic Costing tier - Core statuses are based on product sales for all branches and customers, and are assigned at the product level.
Silver Data Services tier - Core statuses are based on product sales for all branches and customers, and are assigned at the product level.
Gold Data Services tier - Core statuses are based on product sales for all branches and customer categories, and are assigned at the customer category level and product level.
Platinum Data Services tier - Core statuses are based on product sales for all branches for a customer and product and are assigned at the customer level, category level, and the product level.
Note: If your Data Services contract has expired, the system processes all products as Core A, regardless of their setting in the import file or the system. You can check your service level and the expiration date in the Strategic Pricing System Settings window.
For all service tiers, you can also assign a default core status at the sell group level. If the product does not have a core status defined in the locations listed above, the system uses the default core status defined in the product's sell group. Defining a default product core status assigns the core status to products added to the system and the sell group outside the normal Strategic Pricing analysis process. A default core status allows the system to use a strategic price for new products that do not yet have a core status assignment.
Note: If a default core status is not available, the system uses Non-Core D for all products. If your Data Services contract has expired, the system processes all products as Core A, regardless of their setting in the import file or the system. You can check your service level and the expiration date in the Strategic Pricing System Settings window.
After you import the core status into the system, you can edit the status only if are assigned the SPRC.CORE.STATUS.EDIT authorization key and your Data Services contract has not expired.
For all service tiers, you can also assign individual products to a core status family. Use core status families to help ensure that you are using a consistent core status across related products, such as wire, that might not have the same amount of sales, even though the individual products are priced the same.
When pricing a product on an order, the system first determines if the product is part of a core product family to determine its core status assignment. If the product is part of a core status family, the system uses the highest core status of the items in the family for the product's strategic price calculation.
For all service tiers, you can also assign individual products a coreness score. The coreness score at the product level creates an addition factor that, in conjunction with the core status value, makes the sell price calculation more precise. Strategic Pricing Associates provide the ideal coreness score for your products and these scores upload with the SPA information file.
See Also:
Product Core Status Assignments File
Viewing and Editing Product Core Statuses