Setting up quantity rules and volume pricing

You can use quantity rules and volume pricing to set certain quantity requirements or price breaks for your B2B on Shopify orders.

For example, if you want to sell a product in certain increments to your B2B customers, or need to limit the amount of product that a customer can purchase at the same time, then you can set quantity rules.

If you want to offer price breaks to your customers who purchase a certain amount of a product, then you can set volume pricing for your products. Volume pricing and quantity rules are managed together, but can be used independently.

Set quantity rules for your products

Quantity rules let you set restrictions on the number of items that a B2B customer can purchase in an order. You might use quantity rules to require your customers to purchase in certain increments, set a minimum order quantity for a product, or set a maximum order quantity to limit the number of products a customer can purchase.

When you create quantity rules, the increment and minimum are required, whereas the maximum is optional. By default, the increment and minimum are set to 1, and can be changed. You can set a quantity rule on its own for a variant, or combined with volume pricing.

Review the following table for more information for a description and requirements for each value:

Descriptions and requirements for quantity rule values.
ValueDescriptionRequirements
IncrementThe number of items by which a product variant can be purchased, when the variant only sells in multiples of a set quantity. The default for this field is 1.An increment must be a positive whole number of 1 or greater.
Minimum (or minimum order quantity) The fewest number of items of a product variant that a customer can purchase at the same time. The default for this field is 1.A minimum order quantity must be a positive whole number that is equal to or greater than the increment, and must be a multiple of the increment.
Maximum (or maximum order quantity) The maximum number of items of a product variant that a customer can purchase at the same time. The default for this field is null, or a blank field.A maximum order quantity can be blank, or a positive whole number that’s equal to or greater than the minimum, and is in multiples of the increment.

You can set quantity rules in the Catalogs section of your Shopify admin, or by importing a CSV.

Steps:

  1. From your Shopify admin, go to Products > Catalogs.
  2. Click the catalog that you want to edit.
  3. In the Products and pricing section, click Manage > Manage products and pricing.
  4. Do either of the following:
    • To set quantity rules for all variants of a product, hover over the product that you want to edit.
    • To set quantity rules for a specific product variant, click the link to the variants underneath the product name, and then hover over the product variant that you want to edit.
  5. In the Quantity rules column, click + Add. When the Edit quantity rules and volume pricing dialog displays, do the following:
    1. Update the Increment and Minimum fields from their default values if needed.
    2. Optional: Fill in the Maximum field to limit the amount of the variant that a customer can purchase in one order.
    3. Review the displayed values. The values might autocorrect when the quantity rules entered are invalid.
  6. Click Done.

Set volume pricing for your products

Volume pricing lets you offer price breaks to customers when they purchase a certain quantity of a product in the same order. Volume pricing is set on a variant level for each product. After you set volume pricing, the price for that variant automatically converts to a fixed price, and overall adjustments aren't applied to that variant's price. You can add up to 10 price breaks per variant.

You can set volume pricing in the Catalogs section of your Shopify admin, or by importing a CSV.

Steps:

  1. From your Shopify admin, go to Products > Catalogs.
  2. Click the catalog that you want to edit.
  3. In the Products and pricing section, click Manage > Manage products and pricing.
  4. Do either of the following:
    • To set volume pricing for all variants of a product, hover over the product that you want to edit.
    • To set volume pricing for a specific product variant, click the link to the variants underneath the product name, and then hover over the product variant that you want to edit.
  5. In the Volume pricing column, click + Add, and when the Edit quantity rules and volume pricing dialog displays, fill in the Quantity and Price fields for Break 1. Price break quantities must be greater than the minimum order quantity, as well as a multiple of the increment that you set in your quantity rules.
  6. Optional: To add multiple price breaks on the same product, click Add break, and then fill in the Price and Quantity fields for each break.
  7. Click Done.

Limitations with volume pricing, quantity rules, and scripts

Review the following to understand when scripts are applied alongside quantity rules and volume pricing, so that you can avoid preventing customers from checking out or adding further discounts to orders.

Quantity rules and scripts

Quantity rules apply to line items before scripts, and are re-validated in checkout. This means that customers can only add and purchase quantities that are above the minimum, below the maximum, and multiples of the increments defined in quantity rules.

If a script is used to adjust line item quantities, such as by splitting and then deleting lines, then it's possible to generate carts that have invalid quantities and therefore prevent customers from checking out.

Volume pricing and scripts

Volume pricing is applied before script discounts, which can further reduce prices. For example, a script that applies a fixed amount discount would be added after any volume-based pricing discount.

If a script discount uses a line item price to determine the discount amount, then the discount is based on the price break that it was eligible for before any script operations were applied.

If a script changes the line item quantity, then the script won't re-run to re-calculate the volume pricing based on the new quantity.

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