If you’ve ever thought of ways on how to apply different tax rates, rules or discounts to a selective group of customers and didn’t find the answer – look no further! Here is an all-you-can-ever-need article on Magento 2’s Customer Group feature!
Wait. What is a Customer Group?
To say the least, a customer group in Magento is a feature that helps with store customization and gives more control to merchants to enhance user experiences and cater each user individually. This may just be the simplest feature Magento 2 has to offer when it comes to targeted customer management and marketing customer groups.
By default Magento 2 happens to come with a few customer groups, such as; General, Not Logged In, Retailers, and Wholesale (Read below for more information). If you’re new to this feature, you most definitely must be thinking “Why would I need this?”. In short, for store owners; your life has been made easier as it allows you to assign your customers to different customer groups determined by discounts or tax classes that are associated with those groups.
What can you do with the different groups?
This feature is not restricted to just control over minor options, like everything else in Magento there are many more possibilities with one feature! You can also extend those options and add new behaviors to your groups.
There are a countless number of options to be added in order to extend their functionality. For instance, you can restrict the visibility of a certain set of products to the specified customer group or even just one customer – this is ideal for that exclusive VIP list you have.
Additionally, you can add minor features for more ease such as; custom error messages, redirects, maybe even use different payment or shipping methods to cater to different groups of customers which could make B2B workflows more effective and efficient.
No matter what you do, it’s an absolute win for all as the possibilities are endless and your customers will praise you for making every minute worth their while!
Default Customer Groups
As mentioned above, Magento offers a basic set of four customer groups: General, Not Logged In, Retailer and Wholesale. Whenever a customer registers they will automatically be enlisted into a default group; General. This can be changed as well in the admin panel in the settings; it allows you to alter the default group that will be assigned to the newly registered customers on your website.
How can I assign a custom group to new customers?
To change the default group head over to the admin panel:
Click on Stores>Configuration
You will find Customer Configuration in the list right under Customers. To the right side you’ll find a list of new options which will include Create New Account Options which will have the Default Group section that has changeable values. Whichever group you select there is going to be saved as the default group after the changes have been saved – given you Enable the Automatic Assignment to Customer Group option above this one and opt Yes.
The best part is you don’t have to use the default groups and you can create your own with fully customized options according to your ease!
Steps to adding a new Customer Group
Magento (2.3) is super simple and easy for users to work with. Here are the steps to add customer groups on the current version:
Look over to the admin panel and you will find the Customers tab which will further show a list with the option Customer Groups. This will help you in editing or deleting the default four groups.
To create a new group, click on Add New Customer Group. Lastly, enter the group name, select a tax class and hit save. Just like that you are all set and good to go!
How do I assign Customers to a Customer Group?
The process is pretty simple. When a customer registers their group can be assigned through the admin panel. For this all you need to do is: click Customer>All Customers. Locate the customer you wish to assign to a specific group and mark the checkbox in the first column.
Click Actions and select the Assign to a Customer Group. Other than the group that is Not Logged in you will have the option to assign them to groups as this feature is only available to those that are registered to the website.
Can you tell me a bit about ‘Group Pricing’?
Another feature Magento offers is the accessibility to set a discounted price on any product with the extension to restrict the discount to members of a specific group (or even multiple groups).
How can I set a group price to a product?
Switch over to the admin panel and open the product in edit mode. There will be an Advanced Pricing right below the Price Field.
Click Add in the Customer Group Price section and you will find multiple customizable fields listed. These will range from choosing website, customer group, quantity (also to be used for tiered pricing), and price (Fixed or Discount). After you have selected all your changes, click Done and your product is ready to have a special price for logged in users that have been assigned to that group!
That sums it up for all the features in Magento’s Customer Grouping. With a wide set of possibilities, they have been proven to be highly useful to both customers and merchants, especially if you tweak the way they work to ensure a smooth experience for your users!
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