Marketing, Promotions, and Merchandising
What to know
Promotions split into catalog price rules (pre-cart, attribute/category-driven, no coupon) and cart price rules (in-cart, coupon or automatic, condition/action based). Know rule components: conditions (product attribute, cart quantity, customer group, coupon), actions (percent/fixed discount, buy-X-get-Y, free shipping), stop further rules processing, and priority. Understand coupons (auto-generated, multi-code, usage limits, expiration).
Merchandising: related/up-sell/cross-sell, category merchandising (sort, anchor categories), search terms and synonyms, visual merchandiser for category rules. Marketing tools: email/newsletter, cart price rule–driven banners, dynamic blocks, content staging, and SEO (URL rewrites, meta). Understand price rule priority and the stop flag - the first matching rule with stop processing halts later rules.
Traps
Questions test whether a rule applies at catalog vs. cart stage and whether a coupon is required. A common error is expecting catalog price rules to combine with coupon logic. Another trap: stop further rules processing means later rules are ignored even if they would also match. Also watch coupon usage limits (per coupon vs. per customer) and whether a rule applies to a customer group.
Rule of thumb
If the discount must show on the product page before the cart, use a catalog price rule; if it depends on cart contents, coupon, or shipping, use a cart price rule - and set priority and stop flags deliberately.
Worked example
"Buy 2 get 1 free on category X, coupon required, max 3 uses per customer." Build a cart price rule with a coupon, action buy-X-get-Y, and usage limits set per customer.