Advanced discount script... is there such a thing?

This might be a tall order, but I'll give it a go anyway.

I'm looking to do a store-wide sale for my shop's one year anniversary (though I haven't decided whether it's open to everyone or group only). But the thought of having to modify the prices for every single vendor (I have hundreds), and then having to change them back after the discount period sends a chill down my spine. And logistically I don't think I can afford the time to do so. So...

Is there a mighty intelligent script out there that would, for instance, apply discount (40%, 50% etc) to all vendors within a parcel? *stunned silence*

Or, if that's way beyond SL's capability, is there a discount script that would terminate itself after a certain period? which means it cuts out the work of removing the script or manually changing the prices back.

I'd appreciate your help.

I guess that's a... big fat no?

Ultra simplistic here but---- how about just a discount certificate? "this 50% off cert is good from ____ to ____ Please redeem by NC with trans info - tvm
Just a thought

Right, probably not.

I'm assuming these are scripted vendors--the kind where the customer does a "Pay", not a "Buy". If they are, then it really would all depend on the scripts that are in the vendor, so you might get some help from whomever supplies those scripts.

If these aren't "vendors" per se, but boxes with their contents set for sale, then scripts just have no control over nor even the ability to see those prices. Theoretically a bot (logged in as you ) could sweep through the parcel setting prices, but that's not likely to be an off-the-shelf bot, and the task of programming and testing one to do this would be harder than changing the prices of a few hundred boxes, twice.

Thanks for your advice guys. I wasn't holding my hopes up.

But I wonder how those large stores mange their sales events. Do they literally go through all their vendors, change their individual prices, then change them back afterwards? It simply doesn't sound like an intelligent use of our time.

(I use BUY content by the way)

Pain in the arse to start again but with Hippovend this would be a tad easier, you'd have to change all the prices but it's done from a website and is quicker than having to click on each item.

In theory, with a scripted vendor designed with this in mind, it would be rather easy.

Every time I release a product I pull my hair out because every step of the process is excruciatingly tedious and error-prone. Store-wide sale? Ain't gonna happen, even with my little shop.

I can't wait for Xstreet boxes to go away, though that's only a small part of the process.

If you're not using a script and use "buy" rather than "pay", you can now select a bunch of vendors and edit the price all at the same time. As long as you want them all the same price, of course. At least this works in the 1.22 Release Candidate. I haven't tried it in 1.21.

Thanks! This gives a glimmer of hope. I use RC Viewer but I didn't know I could add pricing to multiple items. A lot of my stuff come in sets so this could potentially cut down a lot of tedious work and errors.

That's very true. In fact, I was thinking about it after I posted, and even if the vending script weren't specifically designed for this, if it read the prices from a config notecard, one could imagine a script that would replace that notecard with one from an inventory of discounted price notecards. But if the config notecard contained anything item-specific besides the price, that approach gets ugly because scripts can't write notecards. So then we'd need some bot interaction to create revised notecards, and... well, so much for a simple solution.

But anyway I gather these are "Buy" boxes instead of scripted "Pay" vendors (otherwise the "mass repricing" approach wouldn't apply). So for those, the only thing I can think of that might help is to grab a copy of the Search results for the parcel, assuming each box is showing in that list, as a possible aid for finding boxes with the same pre-discounted price.

The more I think about it, the more I like Amaranthim's suggestion of making the discounting process completely manual. The downside is that the customers don't get the discount instantly, and it would take some effort to compare customer claims to transaction records, but on the upside, it's an opportunity to personalize the experience in a way that may draw the customers back to the store. Also, one could make the discount be quantity-sensitive, say 10% for the first L$100 of total purchases, 15% up to L$500, 20% up to L$1000, 25% above L$1000... or whatever.