Discount based on payment option

[yggdrasil]

I know this might sound strange. But is it possible (maybe with a hook before payment is applied on invoice) or some other way to discount a product if or only if a specific payment method is used? Example, paid with account credits.

I guess this has to be applied before payment and only when that the specific payment method is detected.

Ideas are welcome on how to potentially achieve this.

[brian!]

3 hours ago, yggdrasil said:

I know this might sound strange...

be wary of people approaching you who start with that disclaimer! 😲

3 hours ago, yggdrasil said:

But is it possible (maybe with a hook before payment is applied on invoice) or some other way to discount a product if or only if a specific payment method is used?

are you thinking along the lines of a Gateway Charges module, e.g by ModulesGarden, where if you set a negative value, it becomes a discount and can be applied on a per gateway and/or per product basis ? if so, there are other gateway charge/fees addons in Marketplace, but many have much lower ratings and reviews.

haven't checked, but I doubt these gateway charges addons would handle credits in the same way... if you're thinking of doing something specifically for those paying with a credit balance.

[yggdrasil]

1 hour ago, brian! said:

be wary of people approaching you who start with that disclaimer! 😲

are you thinking along the lines of a Gateway Charges module, e.g by ModulesGarden, where if you set a negative value, it becomes a discount and can be applied on a per gateway and/or per product basis ? if so, there are other gateway charge/fees addons in Marketplace, but many have much lower ratings and reviews.

haven't checked, but I doubt these gateway charges addons would handle credits in the same way... if you're thinking of doing something specifically for those paying with a credit balance.

Yes, that was my idea. Pay with credits a specific product and you get a small discount since credits means no merchant fees for each payment. It's the opposite to gateway charges. You pass the savings to the users instead of adding the extra fee on top of the payment.

The problem with giving a wide permanent discount to some users for specific products is that you can't do this if they use a different payment method. Hence, it should be restricted to a specific payment method.

Edited July 20, 2020 by yggdrasil

[brian!]

18 hours ago, yggdrasil said:

Yes, that was my idea. Pay with credits a specific product and you get a small discount since credits means no merchant fees for each payment. It's the opposite to gateway charges. You pass the savings to the users instead of adding the extra fee on top of the payment.

hmm... I believe the old Reward Points addon could have given points for specific payment methods, including credits, with those points later being converted back to credit - but I don't think the addon has been updated for the last few years, so not really an option.

I can't think of another existing addon that can do what you want, though there might be one in Marketplace...

On 20/07/2020 at 15:50, yggdrasil said:

I guess this has to be applied before payment and only when that the specific payment method is detected.

are you thinking of using credit from an existing credits balance, or some mythical payment gateway that the user can choose to add credit funds with ?

[yggdrasil]

6 hours ago, brian! said:

hmm... I believe the old Reward Points addon could have given points for specific payment methods, including credits, with those points later being converted back to credit - but I don't think the addon has been updated for the last few years, so not really an option.

I can't think of another existing addon that can do what you want, though there might be one in Marketplace...

are you thinking of using credit from an existing credits balance, or some mythical payment gateway that the user can choose to add credit funds with ?

Well that addon sounds interesting but it might be an accounting nightmare because invoices paid with credits on WHMCS are internally 0, WHMCS counts instead the upload credit invoice for the total value. And unless you add credits with an invoice on WHMCS, they will not be accounted and you will end up with ghost balances or missing numbers.

Said that, giving users back credit in a reward sort of system seems really messy once you need to close your yearly books.

My idea was more simple. Invoice X is paid with X payment method (apply discount). If this is before or after payment is irrelevant, the idea is just to give a discount based on the payment method used. I consider credits just one method, but this could be PayPal or anything else.

My idea is trying to pass some savings back to users trying to promote more the credit use. The reasons behind that are simple. Every payment takes a fee per transaction, if the user can instead make a bigger one time payment, he can save the fees instead of paying every single item with a unique transaction fee. Hence, I was trying to give them a discount if they pay with credits but now that I think about it, the add-ons that add the extra fees on before payment probably have the similar result. If people realize they have to pay extra fees for each payment, they might just as well start using credits but I never liked the idea of passing the payment fees back to the users, I have them included in the price, hence I absorb them. I'm not even sure if that is legal. As far as I'm aware, PayPal or credit cards for example don't allow that, to pass the fees back to the user and prices have to be advertised with them included. Except if the payment involves just credits for future use, I think only in those cases companies are allowed to calculate the fees as separated before payment. The reason I say this is that some companies do this.

To make it more simple. Another easy way would be to restrict a discount coupon per payment method. I guess this is not possible today. I guess I will have to make a hook or API page. Example: users enter coupon code on cart. Discount is applied if X payment method is selected. If the user the switches the payment method, coupon is invalided or deleted.

I guess there are multiple approaches but I always found this a bit lacking with WHMCS when it comes to payment methods. Like restricting a product to only X payment method, or a customer banned from using specific payment method, or discounts per payment methods. I think you get the idea. WHMCS should be more granular on how it can manage payment methods, as they all have different costs structure and are processed different. It would make a huge difference on mixing things and creating different business scenarios.

Edited July 21, 2020 by yggdrasil

[brian!]

9 hours ago, yggdrasil said:

My idea was more simple. Invoice X is paid with X payment method (apply discount). If this is before or after payment is irrelevant, the idea is just to give a discount based on the payment method used. I consider credits just one method, but this could be PayPal or anything else.

beware of "simple" ideas - as they can often need complicated solutions once WHMCS gets in the equation.

I wouldn't consider credits the same as a payment gateway, and neither does WHMCS I think, that's the complicating factor in all this - if that was the case, you could just go down the gateway charger path, give them a negative value and you're good to go... but credits are handled slightly differently.

9 hours ago, yggdrasil said:

I'm not even sure if that is legal.

I think it depends on the country and the gateway...

9 hours ago, yggdrasil said:

To make it more simple. Another easy way would be to restrict a discount coupon per payment method. I guess this is not possible today. I guess I will have to make a hook or API page. Example: users enter coupon code on cart. Discount is applied if X payment method is selected. If the user the switches the payment method, coupon is invalided or deleted.

doable, but as you say, it would have to be coded.

9 hours ago, yggdrasil said:

I guess there are multiple approaches but I always found this a bit lacking with WHMCS when it comes to payment methods. Like restricting a product to only X payment method

natively, you might have to put it in it's own product group, and then assign applicable gateway(s) to that group.... though I don't know if pay methods overrule that on recent releases (must test that one day).

9 hours ago, yggdrasil said:

I think you get the idea. WHMCS should be more granular on how it can manage payment methods, as they all have different costs structure and are processed different. It would make a huge difference on mixing things and creating different business scenarios.

I wouldn't argue with that - little things like this that WHMCS could easily do would make a huge difference to the flexibility of the cart... as you know, they can all be coded one way or another externally, but such simple things should be available by derfault... and ideally not added 7 years after someone requests them.

10 hours ago, yggdrasil said:

My idea is trying to pass some savings back to users trying to promote more the credit use.

one thought I had last night on this, and you might think it has similar faults to the deprecated Reward Points idea, would be to use the "Bonus For Funds" addon that adds a percentage or fixed amount of credit when someone prefunds their account with credit.

there's a 7 day free trial version available on their site, so you could try it on a dev install to see if it suits your requirements...

the advantage of this idea is that a) you're removing the need to adjust the invoices, b) you're encouraging use of the credits system and effectively giving them a discount for doing so (e.g their buck can buy more).

the disadvantage might be that you are creating credit from nothing and that could have accountancy issues (though I assume the bonus is at least added to the invoice as a separate line item - dev testing should confirm whether that's the case).

[yggdrasil]

Thank you. I will look into that module. I'm not sure in terms of accounting how this works since as you mentioned, you are creating extra income out of air which does not really exist but still I think in general there are good ideas here about different approaches.