Ordinal Based Rotating Products

What are Ordinal Based Rotating Products

Ordinal Rotation allows merchants to establish an ordered list of products for delivery within a subscription plan. This list dictates the specific product a customer receives at each delivery interval.

How Ordinal Based Rotating Products Work

To create an Ordinal Rotation Subscription program, a series of selection rules will need to be defined using the Ordergroove API. Each selection rule consists of a product, a starting_ordinal, and a public_id.

• product: This identifies the specific product that will be delivered at a designated point in the sequence.
• starting_ordinal: This is a non-negative whole number that represents the first delivery "position" for the product in the planned sequence. See the Additional Considerations section below for more details on how
  starting_ordinal works.
  • The starting_ordinal is a natural number that represents the first delivery "position" for the product in the planned sequence. The sequencing is zero-based, and as such at least a starting_ordinal of 0 is required. This zeroth ordinal represents the customer's first product delivery - the one that will be generated as part of the checkout order. The first renewal order will have a starting_ordinal of 1, and so on. For example, if a product has a starting_ordinal of 2, it means the customer will receive that product on their third delivery (second renewal order). If there are no starting_ordinals with a number greater than 2, they will also receive that product on all subsequent renewal orders.
• The public_id is a random ID generated and assigned to the Selection Rule.

Additional Considerations for starting_ordinal

• Repeating Products: If a product has no Selection Rules with a starting_ordinal greater than a specific value (e.g., no rules with starting_ordinal greater than 2), the customer will continue to receive that product on all subsequent renewal orders.
• Gaps in the Sequence: Selection Rules can have gaps in the starting_ordinal sequence. For example, if there are rules for starting_ordinal values of 0, 1, 2, and 5. In this case, deliveries for renewal orders between starting_ordinal 2 and 5 (not inclusive) wouldn't have an explicitly defined rule associated with them. all receive the product associated with the selection rule with a starting_ordinal of 2. In this scenario, the system would deliver the product associated with the previously defined rule in the sequence (i.e., the product with a starting_ordinal of 2 in this example).
• Zeroth Ordinal Required: Ordinal rotations require a selection rule with a starting_ordinal of 0. This zeroth ordinal signifies the customer's first delivery product - the one that will be generated as part of the checkout order. The first renewal order will have a position associated with a starting_ordinal of 1, and so on. For example, if a Selection Rule has a starting_ordinal of 2, it means the customer will receive the product associated with that Selection Rule on their third delivery (second renewal order).

Product Selection

The delivery product in an Ordinal Rotation Subscription depends on the customer's position within the pre-defined delivery sequence. This sequence dictates which product is delivered at each renewal order. As the customer progresses through the subscription program, the system automatically references their order position to determine the corresponding delivery product.

1. Identifying the Customer's Order Position
   1. Checkout Order: The checkout order will always use the Selection Rule with a starting_ordinal of 0.
   2. Renewal Order: The system identifies the current order position for the customer's subscription. This order position is incremented by one for every order.
2. Find Selection Rule
   1. Exact Match: The system searches for a selection rule that where the starting_ordinal matches the customer's order position.
   2. No Exact Match: If no matching selection rule is found (i.e., there's no rule with a starting_ordinal equal to the order position), the system will default to the selection rule that was used for the previous order.
3. Delivery Product Selection: The product associated with the chose Selection Rule will become the delivery product that the customer will receive with their order.

In simpler terms, the system follows the planned sequence defined by the Selection Rules to determine the delivery product for each order. If there's a gap in the Selection Rules for a specific order position (no rule with a matching starting_ordinal), the system defaults to the Selection Rule used in the previous order.

Example

Consider the following configuration for Selection Rules associated with an Ordinal Based subscription program:

In this example:

1. Your customer goes through initial checkout and receives the Light Roast Blend.
2. On their first renewal order, the starting_ordinal increments to 1 and the customer is sent the Medium Roast Blend.
3. The customer will receive the Medium Roast Blend on the second and third renewal orders because there are no explicitly defined rules with a starting_ordinal of 2 or 3.
4. The customer receives the Dark Roast Blend from the 4th renewal order.
5. The customer is sent Coffee of the Month for the 5th renewal order and all subsequent renewals until a Selection Rule associated with a higher starting_ordinal is defined.