Clearance plan settings reference
A clearance plan marks a product's price down in steps until it sells out. This page lists every setting on a plan's Settings tab, what each one does and the messages you see when a step is held. To create a plan, see Create a clearance plan. To approve, edit or skip steps, see Review and approve clearance markdowns.
The same settings appear when you create a plan from PIM → Clearance Plans and on an existing plan's Settings tab.
Where it applies
| Setting | What it does | If you leave it empty |
|---|---|---|
| Price levels | The price levels whose prices the steps change. Prices on other price levels are never touched. | The default price level. |
| Channels | The channels the new prices are pushed to. | Every channel the products are listed on. |
| Target sell-out date | The date you want the stock gone by. The When sell-through is behind plan and When stock will outlast the target date triggers measure against it. | Those two triggers have no date to compare with. |
Each product's original price is its price on each of the plan's price levels when it joined the plan. Percentages in the steps and in the floor are worked out from that price.
Price floor
The lowest price the plan may suggest. A step that would go lower is held on the Review tab with the reason, and you can't apply it until you edit its price.
| Option | What it does | Extra field |
|---|---|---|
| Never below landed cost (the default) | Steps that would sell below what the product cost you are held. | — |
| Never below a % of the original | Sets the lowest price as a share of the original price. | Lowest price, in % of original. |
| Liquidate from a step | Landed cost protects the early steps. From the step you choose, prices may go below cost. | Below cost allowed from step. |
The two extra fields are required when you pick those options: "Enter the lowest % of the original price this plan may go to." and "Enter the step from which prices may go below cost."
The Floor column on PIM → Clearance Plans shows the floor in short form: ≥ landed cost, ≥ 40% of original or Below cost from step 3.
Why a step is held by the floor
| Message on the Review tab | What it means |
|---|---|
| "Below landed cost (amount)" | The step's price is below the product's landed cost. Under Liquidate from a step, it adds "; this plan allows below-cost prices from step N". |
| "Below the plan floor of N% of the original price (amount)" | The step's price is below your Never below a % of the original floor. |
| "No landed cost on record, so the landed-cost floor cannot be checked" | The product has neither an average cost nor a unit cost above zero, so SKU.io can't prove the price is above it. Stock received at no cost leaves an average cost of 0; the product's unit cost is used instead. |
| "The landed-cost floor cannot be checked: …" | The price level is in another currency and there's no usable exchange rate to convert the cost. |
Landed cost is kept in your default currency. When a price level uses another currency, SKU.io converts the cost into that currency before comparing. If it can't convert it, the step is held rather than risk a below-cost price.
Pricing guardrails
The guardrails in your pricing sync profiles still apply on top of the plan's floor. For each product, SKU.io checks its own profile and the default profiles of the plan's channels. A step that breaks one is held with the profile's name:
| Message | What it means |
|---|---|
| "Pricing guardrail “name”: below its floor of amount" | The price is below the profile's floor. |
| "Pricing guardrail “name”: a N% change exceeds its M% maximum change" | The step cuts the price by more than the profile's Maximum change. |
| "Pricing guardrail “name”: its floor cannot be checked: …" | The floor needs a currency conversion that isn't possible right now. |
Margin and price-level floors are compared in the step's own currency. See Use pricing sync profiles.
"Was" price (compare-at)
A strikethrough "was" price is only legal when the shopper could really have paid it. SKU.io keeps a history of every price it sets or imports and picks the "was" price by one of these rules:
| Rule | How the "was" price is chosen |
|---|---|
| US — bona fide prior price (the default) | Shows the regular price as the "was" price only if it was charged for the Substantial period before the first reduction. The period is 90 days by default and can be 1 to 730 days. |
| EU / UK — 30-day lowest | The "was" price is the lowest price of the 30 days before the first reduction, and stays fixed for later steps. |
| No "was" price | Only the new price is sent. Channels show no strikethrough. |
How the rule is applied:
- It's picked once, at the first reduction, then locked. Later steps keep the same "was" price, even though the price keeps falling.
- If no compliant price exists, the strikethrough is left off. The product shows "No bona fide prior price; strikethrough suppressed" under the US rule, or "No price history for the 30 days before the first reduction; strikethrough suppressed" under the EU / UK rule.
- With no price history, the US rule only accepts the product's creation date as proof. A product created recently can't show a "was" price yet.
- This isn't legal advice. The app says so too. Check the rules for the markets you sell in.
Rules by currency
You can fix the rule for a currency across every plan on the Clearance tab of Settings → Products → Product Lifecycle, under Rules by currency. Click Add currency, choose the Currency and its "Was" price rule, then click Save Changes. For example, set EU / UK — 30-day lowest for EUR and GBP.
A currency rule wins over each plan's own rule for price levels in that currency. A plan's settings then show which currencies are overridden, for example "EUR → EU/UK 30-day lowest". Currencies with no rule use each plan's own rule. A currency rule only changes how the "was" price is picked when a plan first marks a product down. Prices a plan already applied keep their "was" price.
How prices reach each channel
| Channel | What it receives |
|---|---|
| Shopify | The new price, and the "was" price as the compare-at price. |
| WooCommerce | The new price as a sale price, with the regular price kept. |
| Other channels | Only the new price. Channels without a compare-at field show no strikethrough. |
Only listings priced from one of the plan's price levels get a compare-at price, and only once that price level has been marked down. When a product leaves a plan, because the plan ended or you removed the product, SKU.io clears the compare-at price it set on each channel. It keeps retrying until each channel confirms, even when the price itself doesn't change.
Applying steps
SKU.io checks the plan every morning and works out which steps are due.
| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| Review each step (the default) | Due steps wait on the Review tab until someone approves them. |
| Apply steps automatically | Due steps apply on the morning check, and the new prices are pushed to the plan's channels. Held steps (floor or guardrail) still wait for review. |
The Steps column on PIM → Clearance Plans shows Review each step or Apply automatically for each plan.
Prices never go up within a plan. Each step must discount more than the one before. If you edit a suggested price upwards, you see "Prices never go up within a clearance plan. End the plan (or remove the product from it) to raise this price." To raise a price, end the plan or take the product out of it.
Open-to-buy link
Optional. Pick a Merchandise plan to link the clearance plan to open-to-buy. The plan's projected markdown cost, (original − clearance price) × units left, is written to the merchandise plan's Planned markdown for that period. It's kept up to date every day and replaces what was typed there.
While the plans are linked, the open-to-buy grid shows that cell read-only, with the clearance plan's name. The link doesn't change budgets or purchase orders by itself. See How open-to-buy works.
Price history on the product
Every product has a Price history card in the Pricing section of its page. It lists every price SKU.io set or imported for the product, per price level and per channel. Clearance plans use it to prove a compliant "was" price.
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Effective | When the price took effect. |
| Price level / channel | The price level or channel the price belongs to. |
| Price | The price, with the compare-at price struck through next to it when one was sent. |
| Source | Where the price came from: Edited in SKU.io, Import, Pushed to channel or Clearance plan. |
Use All, Price levels or Channels at the top of the card to narrow the list.
History starts when SKU.io first records a price for the product. A product with no recorded price shows "No prices recorded yet. SKU.io starts recording when a price is next set, imported or pushed to a channel." That's why a product added recently may not have a "was" price under the US rule.
Next steps
- Create a clearance plan: choose products, steps and these settings.
- Review and approve clearance markdowns: approve, edit, skip and end.
- Set a product's price: the price levels a plan changes.