Metafield-Based Product Targeting: Let Your ERP Drive Shopify Discounts

Short Answer

If your ERP already classifies which products may receive which pricing, sync that classification to a Shopify variant metafield (for example pricing_group) and point the campaign at a rule such as pricing_group equals dealer. You stop rebuilding product lists by hand. Three limits shape the design: Discount Prime's metafield rule reads variant metafields only (not product metafields); it is offered on Tiered Quantity Discount, Product Spend Discount, Tiered Unit Pricing, Wholesale / B2B Pricing, and Dropshipping Pricing; and matching is computed by a background job, not live at checkout, so changes take effect minutes after a sync, not instantly.

Merchant Scenario

Atlas Industrial Group is a fictional wholesale distributor of industrial equipment on Shopify Plus. Its catalog and every commercial classification come from the ERP: names, inventory, cost, supplier, and a pricing group that decides how each product may be sold.

The marketing team mirrored ERP eligibility inside Shopify by hand: collections rebuilt, tags added, campaigns edited. When thousands of products changed pricing group in one ERP update, the Shopify side lagged for days. The pricing was not the problem; keeping two copies of the same rule in sync was.

Fits and Does Not Fit

Metafield targeting fits when:

• a reliable upstream system (ERP or PIM) already holds the classification;
• eligibility changes often or affects many products at once;
• the campaign type you need offers the metafield rule (see below).

It does not fit, or is unnecessary, when:

• eligibility is a short, stable product list (pick products or a collection);
• the classification lives only on products, not variants, and your integration cannot write variant metafields;
• you need it on a campaign type that does not offer the rule, such as Bulk Price Update or Flat Product Discount.

Alternatives Compared

Is native Shopify enough?

On Shopify Plus, Shopify B2B (companies, company locations, and catalogs with price lists) can give each company its own prices natively. If your dealer and government pricing are per company and your ERP integration already writes B2B catalogs, that may be all you need. Discount Prime does not use Shopify B2B companies or catalogs: its "B2B" eligibility means customer segments, specific customers, or logged-in customers. Choose Discount Prime's Wholesale / B2B Pricing when you want tiered quantity or spend pricing, margin floors, and storefront tier tables driven by a rule rather than per-company price lists.

How the Metafield Rule Works

The missing-metafield behavior matters. A rule like pricing_group not equals contract also includes every variant that has no pricing_group at all, including new products the ERP has not classified yet. Prefer positive rules (equals dealer) for anything you must never discount by accident.

The Architecture

Overlaps. If two price-changing campaigns target the same variant, Discount Prime keeps the variant with the campaign that already holds it, and a conflict resolver lets you keep it there or move it. There is no priority setting. Review conflicts when a reclassification moves products between groups, because the first campaign keeps them until you move them.

Customers. Dealer eligibility comes from a customer segment, specific customers, or logged-in customers. Segments are synced to a customer metafield by a frequent background job and are capped at 50,000 members per segment. A restricted campaign requires the customer to be logged in at checkout.

Plan limits. A large catalog can mean many live variants. Each plan has a live-variant limit; a campaign that exceeds it is held with a "need upgrade" status. Check the current limits on the pricing page before sizing campaigns for a whole catalog.

Dealer Pricing Example

Illustrative assumptions: Wholesale / B2B Pricing with price-based tiers; the 25+ unit tier gives 17% off the selling price; profit protection off; cost comes from Shopify's unit cost.

This gross profit excludes payment fees, freight, fulfillment, and returns. Per unit, the dealer tier gives up $25.16 of the $51.80 list-price gross profit. To adapt: replace list price, cost, and tier percentage with your own, and if your agreements require a minimum profit, turn on Wholesale profit protection, which sets a floor of cost plus a minimum markup (fixed or percentage of cost) and caps the discount at that floor.

Profit protection depends on cost data. If a variant has no Shopify unit cost, the missing-cost setting decides whether it is skipped or discounted without a floor; check that setting explicitly, because the defaults are not consistent between screens.

What Happens When the ERP Changes

1. The ERP reclassifies a product from standard to dealer.
2. The nightly sync writes the new variant metafield value to Shopify.
3. With auto-update on, the next background run adds the variant to the dealer campaign and writes its dealer price. Expect a delay of minutes after the sync, plus queue time on large updates.
4. A logged-in dealer sees the dealer price on the next cart change.

If the sync fails or writes the value to the product instead of the variant, nothing errors; the product simply does not match. That is why the monitoring below checks counts, not only prices.

Pre-Launch Tests

Measurement

• Operational: variants matched per campaign after each sync, compared with the ERP's count for that pricing group (a gap signals a mapping problem); time from ERP change to price change; conflicts raised per month.
• Financial: gross profit and gross margin per campaign in Discount Prime's profit analytics (lines without cost are left out of both revenue and cost there), next to dealer revenue.
• Next decision: if matched counts drift from the ERP, fix the integration before touching the campaign; if dealer margin falls toward your floor, revisit tiers or turn on profit protection.

Common Mistakes

• Writing the classification to product metafields when the rule reads variant metafields.
• Using "not equals" rules that silently include unclassified variants.
• Expecting changes to apply the instant the ERP updates; matching runs in the background.
• Assuming a later campaign overrides an earlier one on the same variant; the first holder keeps it until you move it.
• Planning metafield targeting on Bulk Price Update or other types that do not offer the rule.
• Treating Discount Prime "B2B" as Shopify B2B companies; it uses segments, specific customers, or logged-in customers.