Dynamic MSRP for BigCommerce Variants: A Guide for Wholesale & Retail Pricing

Navigating Dynamic MSRP Display for BigCommerce Product Variants

For e-commerce businesses serving diverse customer segments like wholesale and retail, managing complex pricing structures, including Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price (MSRP), is a common challenge. A recent discussion in the BigCommerce community highlighted a specific pain point: how to display variant-specific MSRPs when the platform's native functionality primarily ties MSRP to the base product price. This insight delves into the problem and explores actionable solutions for BigCommerce merchants and developers.

The Challenge: MSRP Disappearing with Variant Selection

The core issue, as raised by Niki Mallinak, stems from BigCommerce's default behavior regarding MSRP. When a product has multiple options or variants, and these variants have prices different from the product's default price, the MSRP field — which is set at the product level — ceases to display. This creates a significant hurdle for businesses, especially those catering to wholesale clients who need to see the MSRP for each variant alongside their special wholesale pricing.

Consider a scenario: a single coaster has an MSRP of $10.00 and wholesales for $5.00. A pack of four coasters, a variant, retails for $40.00 and wholesales for $20.00. When a wholesale customer selects the "pack of 4" variant, the expected MSRP of $40.00 disappears because it doesn't align with the base product's default MSRP. This limitation prevents a clear price comparison for the wholesale buyer.

BigCommerce's Native MSRP Functionality

Experts in the BigCommerce community confirmed that the platform's built-in MSRP field is indeed applied at the product level and is intrinsically linked to the default or base price. Consequently, it does not natively support assigning a distinct MSRP to each individual product variant. This design choice, while simplifying basic product setups, necessitates workarounds for more intricate pricing models.

Actionable Solutions and Workarounds

The community discussion yielded several practical strategies to overcome this limitation, ranging from clever utilization of existing features to custom development:

• Leveraging Custom Fields or Metafields for Variant-Specific MSRPs:

  One of the most robust solutions involves storing the MSRP for each variant as a custom field or metafield. This approach allows merchants to define a unique MSRP value for every option. However, merely storing the data isn't enough; a small theme update is required to dynamically retrieve and display this custom field value whenever a different product variant is selected by the customer. This ensures the MSRP updates in real-time on the product page, providing accurate information for all variants.

• Strategic Use of Price Lists for Wholesale Customers:

  If your retail price is effectively the MSRP, and wholesale customers are managed via BigCommerce's Price Lists, a simpler approach might be suitable. By setting the base product price as the MSRP, and then using price lists to apply the lower wholesale pricing, the native strike-through display for MSRP can function correctly across all variants. This method works well when the "MSRP" is synonymous with the standard retail price.

• Custom Coding for Advanced Control:

  For highly specific requirements, such as displaying MSRP only to wholesale customers or implementing more complex dynamic MSRP logic, custom coding offers the ultimate flexibility. Developers can create scripts that fetch and display MSRP based on customer group, selected variant, or even other product attributes, providing a tailored user experience.

Key Takeaways for BigCommerce Merchants

While BigCommerce provides a solid foundation for e-commerce, complex pricing scenarios like variant-specific MSRPs often require a combination of strategic platform feature utilization and targeted theme development. Merchants dealing with wholesale and retail segments, those with extensive product variants, should consider these workarounds to ensure transparent and accurate pricing information for all their customers. Evaluating your specific catalog and pricing structure will help determine the best approach, whether it's a simple custom field implementation or a more comprehensive custom-coded solution.

At Big Migration, we understand these nuances are critical for a seamless e-commerce experience. Addressing such specific display and pricing requirements is a common part of optimizing BigCommerce stores, especially during or after a platform migration.