Rounding

Rounding turns the price a strategy calculates into the price a shopper reads, and it only applies when the rounded result still fits your limits.

A strategy calculates a price out of other numbers: what a competitor is charging, the cent you undercut them by, the profit you want on top of your cost. What comes out is a number like 14.27. Rounding is what turns that into 13.99 before it goes to the sales channel.

You use it because a price ending in .99, .95 or a whole unit reads as a price somebody chose. Every other setting on a strategy decides what your price should be. This one decides what it looks like, and it happens after all of them.

Rounding only goes down, so the price a shopper reads is always at or under the one your strategy calculated. You set it on the Rounding step of the strategy wizard, which you open from Strategies in the left sidebar. It starts on No rounding, so a strategy nobody has changed publishes the exact price it calculated.

Before you start

What your role lets you do

Roles are set in team, roles and permissions.

Saving reprices every listing on the strategy

How to round your prices

1. 1

   Open the strategy

   Click Strategies in the left sidebar, then click the row of the strategy you want. The wizard opens on it.

2. 2

   Go to the Rounding step

   The steps run across the top of the dialog as a numbered row. Click Rounding in that row, or click Next at the bottom right until you get there.

3. 3

   Pick an ending

   Five cards are under the heading Price rounding. Click End in .99, or whichever of the five you want. No rounding is the one already picked.

4. 4

   Type your own step

   Custom step is the only card that needs this. A field called Round to nearest appears under the cards, and it takes a number between 0.01 and 0.99.

5. 5

   Read the preview

   Click Next until you get to Preview, the last step. The Target column is the price each sample listing would get, rounding included.

6. 6

   Save the strategy

   Click Update at the bottom right. On a new strategy the button reads Create.

That is the whole flow. Every listing on the strategy is priced with the new ending the next time the Repricer looks at it. You read what came out in the Price column of your listings table, under Listings in the left sidebar.

Everything below takes the five cards one at a time, then covers what rounding does to your profit and which prices it leaves alone. You do not need any of it to pick an ending.

Every option in detail

The Rounding step asks one question, and one of the five answers opens a field under it.

Choose an ending for your prices

Price rounding is the heading at the top of the step, with five cards under it. Click one and it is picked.

Pick Custom step with a small step when the last cent matters. A step of 0.05 takes at most 0.04 off your price. A step of 0.25 takes at most 0.24.

Pick End in .99 or End in .95 when the ending matters more than the last cent. Those two are the ones that can take a whole unit off your price.

A line appears under the cards as soon as you pick anything except No rounding. It names your pricing mode, and your cost-based floor, your MAP and your MSRP where you have those switched on, with what each one does to a rounded price.

There is nothing you have to fill in here, so Next is on when you get to the step. Custom step is the exception, and a step outside 0.01 to 0.99 keeps Next off until you fix it.

Set a step of your own

Custom step opens one field under the cards, called Round to nearest. The number you type is your step, and your price is dropped to the multiple of it below.

A step of 0.25 gives you prices ending in .00, .25, .50 and .75. A step of 0.10 gives you prices ending in .00, .10, .20 and so on.

Your step is in the currency of the region the strategy is on, and it goes from 0.01 to 0.99, so it can never be a whole unit or more. Whole unit is the card for that.

Despite the label on the field, your price does not go to the nearest multiple. It goes to the one below, the same as every other card on this step.

Limits

What rounding cannot do

What rounding does to your price

Rounding always goes down

Whatever ending you pick, your price is dropped to the closest number below it that has that ending. A calculated 14.27 with End in .99 publishes 13.99.

The case worth knowing is a price that already has your ending on it. End in .99 on a calculated 19.99 publishes 18.99, because the closest .99 below 19.99 is a whole unit down. A strategy that matches a competitor whose prices all end in .99 gives that unit away on every listing.

The example printed on each card shows you the ending, not the direction. The ones on End in .99 and End in .95 show a price going up. Yours goes the other way.

What rounding costs you

Rounding lowers your price, so it lowers what you make on the sale. The most it can take is 1.00 on End in .99 and End in .95, 0.99 on Whole unit, and a cent under your step on Custom step.

On a strategy that builds the price out of your cost, that comes off the profit you asked for, so what you actually make is a little under your target. Pick No rounding where the target has to be exact.

When rounding is thrown away

Your floors and your caps are checked once more after rounding. If the rounded price is under any of your floors, or over any of your caps, the whole rounding is dropped. What goes out instead is the price from the moment before.

Say your floor is 19.00 and your strategy calculated 19.98. End in .99 would take that to 18.99, which is under your floor, so your listing gets 19.98, odd cents and all. Rounding never breaks a limit, and what you give up when it would is the ending.

Because rounding only goes down, your floor is the limit that does this in practice. See the price floor and ceiling for where each of your floors and caps comes from.

Which prices come out unrounded

Rounding is applied to a price a strategy calculated. Some prices are never calculated by a strategy at all, and those go out exactly as they are.

When something goes wrong

Why your price is not the one you expected

What stops you leaving the step

Where to go next