Like many rental business's, you may want to offer promotional prices on your rental products for certain holidays or seasons.
You may even want to apply certain surcharges on certain days of the week, or allow customers to receive a free rental day if they pick up or return items before a certain time.
Thankfully, you can use Booqable's advanced pricing rules to adjust your individual product prices if an order should fall on a certain day of the week, date of the year, time of the day.
How it works
You can apply advanced pricing rules on top of a product's existing rates, and create different rules for different products or apply the same rule to your entire inventory to achieve the following adjustments.
Create a discount or surcharge for a certain date of the year, like the holidays or summer.
Create a discount or surcharge for certain days of the week, like weekends.
Create a free pickup or return day.
Create a free pickup or return day if an item is picked up or returned before a certain time of the day.
💡Note: Advanced pricing can not be applied to consumable products. Pricing rules can only be applied to rental products, and service items.
1. Create an advanced pricing ruleset
In your Booqable main menu, click into your Settings.
In the lefthand sidebar, click Pricing.
In the Advanced pricing section, click New pricing ruleset.
First, give the ruleset a unique name, so it can be identified easily. This name will not be visible to customers.
2. Create individual pricing rules
Now, it's time to add your rules to this ruleset. You can include multiple rules within one ruleset. This is helpful so that one product can be adjusted with weekend pricing and seasonal pricing at the same time, with just one ruleset.
There are two types of rules you can apply to your products.
Adjust charge period. This rule adjusts the period of an order that is charged, without changing the product's price.
Adjust product price. This rule adjust a product's price based on certain day of the week, and/or dates of the year.
💡Note: If you use both types of rules within the same ruleset, the charge period is adjusted first, and any product price adjustments will apply to the adjusted charge period.
💡For example: If you create a charge period adjustment of a free pickup day, and the order price comes down from $30 to $20, the results of creating a weekend discount of 20% in the next step will be based off the discount already created from the first step (meaning the final order price will be $16).
2. Adjust a product's charge period
This step will show you how you can change the period of an order that is charged, without adjusting the product's specific price.
This is helpful if you deliver and pickup your items the day before and after an order, common with event rentals who only wish to charge for the actual day of the event. For this, you can make the pickup and return day free by adjusting the charge period.
There are four ways you can adjust the charge period of a products order.
Option 1: Charge full pickup day
This is if you do want to charge the full pickup day price, if the customer collects their items before a certain time.
For example, you can charge the full pickup day price, if the order is collected before 10.00am.
Option 2: Do not charge pickup day
This is if you do not want to charge the pickup day, if the customer collects their items after a certain time.
For example, you can forgive the price of the entire pickup day if the order is collected after 4.00pm.
Option 3: Charge full return day
This is if you do want to charge the full return day rate, if the customer returns their items before a certain time.
For example, you can charge the full return day price, if the order is returned after 4.00pm.
Option 4: Do not charge return day
This is if you do not want to charge the full return day rate, if the customer returns their items before a certain time.
For example, you can forgive the price of the entire return day if the order is returned before 10.00am.
💡Note: For example, we use a product that uses per-day pricing rates (for example, $50 per day).
If an order's charge period is from Sat 4:30 PM - Mon 2:00 PM, the original charge period is 3 days.
If you create an adjusted charge period to Sun 12:00 AM - Mon 2:00 PM, the new charge period is now only 2 days.
If an order's charge period is from Sat 10:00 AM - Mon 9:00 AM, the original charge period is 2 days.
If you create an adjusted charge period from Sun 12:00 AM - Mon 9:00 AM, the adjusted charge period is 3 days.
3. Adjust product prices
Increase or decrease a product's price for specific dates or date ranges (like seasons or holidays), or on certain days of the week (like weekends). The period that you adjust the products price for will be called the rule period.
The product's price is adjusted for the part of the rental period that matches this rule period.
1. Choose to adjust the price for a range of dates, or range of days. The method below is the same regardless of which pricing rule type you choose.
2. Choose the date/day, and time, that this pricing rule will start and end, in the From and Till fields.
3. Name your adjusted price rule with an easily memorized label, such as 'Summer Season Increase'.
4. In the Adjustment field, add in the percentage of how the one or multiple product's price will increase or decrease for this time.
If it is a price decrease, remember to include the minus symbol before the number
(e.g: -20%).
Check the text in the rule period box to double check the rule is correct.
5. Set the Apply When field with the correct pricing rule application.
You can read below for descriptions of how each application works with your pricing rule period.
Option 1: Rule overlaps order.
The rule is only applied when the rule period overlaps with the order period.
💡For example:
Your pricing rule applies a 20% increase between Saturday 0:00 AM, and Mon 00:00 AM.
A customer places an order from Fri 4:00 PM until Mon 11:00 AM.
The increase in price will only be applied on the rates of Sat 0:00 AM until Mon 0:00 AM.
Both Fri 4:00 PM until Sat 0:00 AM, and Mon 0:00 AM until Mon 11:00 AM will receive a normal rate.
The exact same method applies for a range of dates pricing rule.
Option 2: Rule fits within order.
The rule is only applied when the order period fits exactly within the rule period.
💡For example:
Your price rule applies a 50% discount between Sat 0:00 AM and Mon 00:00 AM.
If an order's rental period is from Fri 4:00 PM until Mon 11:00 AM, the rule is applied.
But when an order's rental period is from Saturday 4:00 PM until Sunday 4:00 PM, the rule is not applied to any of the days.
Option 3: Rule spans over order
The rule is only applied when the order period spans over at least one part of the rule period.
💡For example:
Your price rule applies a 20% increase between Tue 0:00 AM and Thu 00:00 AM.
If a customers order falls anywhere inside those times, the rule is applied.
This means that an order from Mon 0.00 AM and Fri 0.00 AM receives the increase for the entire order in full, even though only two of the days are within the pricing rule.
4. Choose a stacking method
A ruleset may consists of multiple rules that adjust the product price, for example one rule that effects weekend pricing, and one rule that effects the seasonal pricing.
You can use the stack option to choose whether these rules should interact with each other, and how.
Stacking off: the pricing rules are added on top of one another.
Stacking on: the bottom rule's price is compounded from the top rule's price.
💡For example: You have created a ruleset that applies the below rules to the same products:
10% price increase for the summer season (01 June 0.00 AM to 31 Aug 0.00 AM)
20% price increase on weekends (Sat 0.00 AM to Mon 0.00 AM).
Without these rules, for a product that's charged at $10 per day, the original charge for 7 days would be $70.
Option 1. Stacking off:
To turn off stacking for a rule, click the button behind the bottom rule's name.
It will show a "-" symbol, and the rule will be separated from the previous rule with a line:
Original Charge: $10 per day x 7 days = $70.
This means that the added charge for 'Summer Season Increase' is:
10% of $70 = $7
The added charge for 'Weekend Pricing': 20% of $20 ($10 per day x 2) = $4
Resulting price: $70 + $7 + $4 = $81
💡Note: Each rule period calculation remains seperate, and is simply added on top of one another, not compounded.
Option 2: Stacking on:
To turn on stacking for a rule, click the button behind the rule's name. It will show a "+" symbol, and the rule won't be separated from the previous rule with a line:
Original Charge of $10 per day x 7 days = $70.
Added charge for 'Summer Seasons Increase': 10% of $70 = $7
New price per day: ($70 + $7) = 7 days at $11 per day.
Added charge for Weekend Pricing: 20% added to ($11 per day x two days) $22 = $4.40
Resulting price: $70 + $7 + $4.40= $81.40
You can now see with stacking turned off, the weekend price is calculated based on the original charge.
With stacking turned on, the Weekend pricing is compounded on the adjusted price per day for the 'Summer Seasons Increase'.
💡Note: the order of the rules is important when stacking; rules are calculated from the top downward.
💡Tip: Giving individual rules within a ruleset descriptive names like "weekend pricing" or "high season" helps you identify which rules apply applied to products on an order.
5. Apply a ruleset to an individual product
Rulesets are applied to individual products. This way, you can apply different rulesets to different products (you may want to exclude services from weekend discounts, for example).
A product can only have one ruleset applied to it, so make sure to create your rulesets from many different rules you want to apply!
View the product to which you want to apply a ruleset.
Click the Pricing tab.
Select a ruleset in the section "Advanced pricing rules".
6. Apply a ruleset to multiple products
1. In your Booqable Products page, select the tick box next to the Name column to select all products, or select individual products by selecting the tickbox of each individual product.
2. Select the Actions drop down menu, and choose Edit Products.
3. In Edit Products, select Advanced pricing.
4. In the dropdown menu that reads No Ruleset, select the ruleset you wish to apply to these products.
5. Click Edit all, and your brand new ruleset has now adjusted the price of these selected products!
Best practices
1. Set a ruleset that makes the pickup and return day free
You may only want to charge for the day that your customers will use your equipment, and not for the day before when the items are handed to the customer, and the day after when the items are returned to your store.
For this, follow the instructions below.
1. In a new or current pricing ruleset, under adjust charge period, you can choose Do not charge pickup day and Do not charge return day as your active rules.
When you enable these rules, a box will appear allowing you to adjust the terms of when this rule will come into effect.
2. You can set the rule Do not charge day if pickup is after, which you can set a time for like below. If you do not want to set a time for this, click the x button in the right hand side of the box.
3. You can also set the rule Apply when the order is longer than. You can also set the rule Apply when order is shorter than, for which both options you can set in hours, days, weeks, months, or years.
💡Note: This method is the exact same for the Do not charge return day rule.
4. After saving these rules, you can continue creating the rest of your ruleset, and remember to apply it to your product in the product pricing panel.
2. Set a discount for the off-peak season
For many seasonal rental businesses, a rule that creates a store-wide or product-specific discount that rewards customers for ordering in the off-peak season is a popular choice when pricing your inventory.
You can achieve this by setting up a Range of dates pricing rule, by following the instructions below.
1. In a new or current pricing ruleset, under adjust price rules, you can choose the option Range of dates.
2. A box like below will open up, allowing you to set the following parameters:
Name: Name this rule after the season or date range that it will come into effect.
From and Till: The dates and times of the year that this rule will come in and out of effect.
Apply when: To set what terms this adjustment will come into effect.
Adjustment: The percentage amount of the price you want to discount or increase. For discounts, make sure to set the minus symbol (-) before the number.
3. You can also set the minimum or maximum duration of the orders that will be effected by this rule, with the Apply when the order is longer than and Apply when the order is shorter than rules.
4. When you are complete with this rule, hit save and remember to assign this ruleset to all the products you wish in the product pricing panel.
💡Note: This method works the exact same way for creating a rule for a range of days, like weekends.
Thats a wrap!
You have successfully adjusted your products prices to suit your unique business's needs, to attract even more customers, and complete even more bookings.