[SOLVED] CBSubs: Negative promotion on free subscriptions?

Hi,

I have generally free subscription plans to which surcharges must be added during registration, upgrades and renewals, for which promotions with negative fixed amounts seem ideal.

However, promotions with negative fixed amounts do not apply to free plans:
During registration no basket appears, no payment must be made, and the subscription is getting activated free of charge, no matter what settings I choose... which doesn't make good sense, obviously.

You can easily reproduce it: simply create a free subscription plan, and a promotion with a fixed negative amount applying "to all purchases" and this plan, then register a user for it. You should then see that there won't be a basket coming up, all will go through as "free", still.

Could you please take a look at this and, as soon as somehow possible , do the needful for it to function as could be expected? Many thanks in advance!

CB 2.0.13+build.2016.02.16.21.47.49.80a7a7bf2
CBSubs 4.0.1

I just notice that if a user selects multiple non-exclusive subscription plans, e.g.

• one or more free plans with surcharge from a negative promotion
• plus at least one plan that's NOT free but has a regular price

then the basket appears and - good to know - the surcharge is correctly added to free plans, too.

So, the issue "no basket despite surcharge" occurs only if one or more FREE plans are being selected.

Thanks for a fix for that case!

Free plans will completely bypass the basket. I'm not sure you can workaround that beyond bundling it with something else. Another option is to set the plan to charge the user your free then use a promotion to make it free as needed.

Hi Kyle,

Thanks for your response.

krileon wrote: Free plans will completely bypass the basket.

Yes, that works fine and is appreciated if a plan is entirely free.
But you'd expect that if a plan which is de facto not free anymore due to a negative promotion does not bypass the basket anymore. Which is the issue...

krileon wrote: I'm not sure you can workaround that beyond bundling it with something else.

What do you mean, "bundling it with something else"?
I've tried some tricks, e.g. setting the regular price to $0.00001, which leads to the basket not being bypassed anymore (ever), but then the trouble is that even though the rounded price in basket and elsewhere shows $0.00, and even without a negative promotion applying, the payment gateway gets in the way and wants to process a $0.00 "payment"...

krileon wrote: Another option is to set the plan to charge the user your free then use a promotion to make it free as needed.

I guess you mean turning the conditions around: setting prices for the plans, and using positive amounts for the promotions, so that the bottom line price is zero when certain conditions are met.
I've also looked into this, but unfortunately it isn't the same, neither from a "marketing perspective", nor from the appearance of pricing, promotions, etc in basket and invoice - even when attempting to alter the appearances in the "Display" tab of the promotions.


Sorry, but it all leads back to it not being logical that a chargeable object or amount bypasses the basket, especially if the chargeable amount is generated by the system. Once charges are due, the basket should work, no?

The basic math does work, as explained in my second post #278397 here above. It feels like only a missing trigger for the basket under such condition.

Please review the logic in the code; obviously the basket should be coming to use as soon as a charge is due and a payment is to be made.

If you have a different, equally marketable and effective way to get the same result, I'd be happy to learn about it and give it a try, of course.
And since a solution is required within the not so distant future, I'd also appreciate a code snippet for a "hack" here at my end.

Thanks again!

What do you mean, "bundling it with something else"?

Having it subscribed with another plan that costs something.

I guess you mean turning the conditions around: setting prices for the plans, and using positive amounts for the promotions, so that the bottom line price is zero when certain conditions are met.

Correct.

I've also looked into this, but unfortunately it isn't the same, neither from a "marketing perspective", nor from the appearance of pricing, promotions, etc in basket and invoice - even when attempting to alter the appearances in the "Display" tab of the promotions.

You could suppress the price display entirely on the Presentation tab of your plan.

I agree when a negative promotion causes a free plan to no longer be free it should present the basket. This would be a bug and have added a bug ticket for it. However, until that's fixed it's worth brainstorming and trying workarounds for now.

#5820

Another option could be to have 2 plans. 1 paid and 1 free. Next under the workflows tab you condition it to display based off same/similar criteria you're applying to the promotion. This way they'll get either the free or the paid plan displayed as needed.

krileon wrote: I agree when a negative promotion causes a free plan to no longer be free it should present the basket. This would be a bug and have added a bug ticket for it.

I very much appreciate this - thanks a ton!

I'd appreciate even more, of course, if it got "fixed" within the next few days or a week. Please don't take it as a "threat" or so, but it could be a deal breaker if this essential function (or a fully equivalent alternative way or workaround) weren't working, eventually forcing me to make use of the money-back offer.

But again, so far no threat - I'll happily continue to look into workarounds as well.

Yet, as a newbie to CB and CBSubs, I'm mostly still into configuration, but I foresee that I'll need some overrides for language and template/layouts anyway; so, as usual, hiding or disguising elements are always valid options - unless it ends up being overkill only to cover up missing basics...

Another option could be to have 2 plans. 1 paid and 1 free. Next under the workflows tab you condition it to display based off same/similar criteria you're applying to the promotion. This way they'll get either the free or the paid plan displayed as needed.

Hmmm... right now the plans on offer are sitting at the beginning of the registration form, which is where they should be, but as far as I understand this wouldn't be the case anymore if I had to follow your suggestion.

Anyway, I'll keep looking... and trusting that you guys will be "fixing the bug" within a reasonable period of time...

Thanks!