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How to set up price promotions

Run a temporary sale price on an item without changing its regular price.

Acenda Price Promotions let you run a temporary fixed sale price on an item — for a specific sales channel, or with a blank subscription for channels that accept that — without changing its regular price. There is no percent-off or amount-off option. Use this for a flash sale, a seasonal markdown, or any limited-time discount. You can set one up by hand on a single item, or schedule many at once with a spreadsheet import.

Before you start: an item needs a base price before you can add a promotion to it. If it doesn’t have one yet, set it first on the item’s Pricing tab (see How to update pricing manually or in bulk) — otherwise both the form below and the bulk import will fail with “no pricing_item found.” Promotions are set per item variant; a product (group) has no Pricing tab of its own.

Add a promotion to one item

Use this for a single item, or your very first promotion.

  1. Click CATALOG > Items in the sidebar.

  2. Find the item (searching by SKU is quickest) and click the eye icon to open it.

  3. Click the Pricing tab.

  4. Click + Add promotional price in the Promotional Prices section.

  5. Fill in Price (the fixed sale price), Start Date, and End Date (all required). Subscription is optional — the dropdown lists every subscription in the account (including fulfillment providers), not only channels this item is mapped to. Leave it blank for a base-level promo; Walmart and TikTok Shop ignore blank-subscription promos, so prefer a named subscription for those channels.

  6. Click Add.

Tip: Promotion dates on the form use your organization's time zone, and the field shows which zone that is. Bulk import dates without a timezone offset are still read as fixed UTC-8 year-round (so during PDT a typed 20:00 goes live at 21:00 PDT). Prefer dates with an explicit offset in imports when timing matters. Start and end dates are both required — there are no open-ended promotions. The end date must be after the start date, and the promotional price must be above 0.

Add promotions in bulk

Bulk import is faster for seasonal sales or markdowns across many SKUs. For the general mechanics of imports and exports, see How to import product data into Acenda and How to export data from Acenda.

Step 1: Export the template

  1. Click DATA TRANSFERS > Exports in the sidebar.

  2. Set Export Type to Promotion and click Export.

  3. When the file appears under Generated Files, download it.

Step 2: Prepare the file

  • Save the file as .xlsx, UTF-8 CSV, or .xlsm — older .xls files aren’t accepted. The Export screen marks XLSX as “Experimental”; it still works, it’s a newer option. Only the first sheet of the file is read, so keep all your rows on sheet one.

  • Delete the five record-history columns at the start of the export — id, created_at, created_by, updated_at and updated_by. Acenda matches each row by SKU, so you don’t need them.

  • Keep and fill in: sku, subscription_id, date_start, date_end, price.amount and price.currency.

What goes in each column:

  • sku: the item’s SKU, exactly as it appears in Acenda.

  • subscription_id: the sales channel’s Subscription ID, found under CHANNELS > Integrations. Leave it blank for a base-level promo. Target Plus and Mirakl marketplaces can use a blank subscription; Walmart and TikTok Shop only apply promos that name their subscription. Acenda doesn’t validate this ID against your channels during import, so double-check it — a mistyped ID quietly saves a promotion that no channel ever sees.

  • date_start and date_end: use yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss, for example 2026-12-01 20:00:00. Without a timezone offset, imports read these as fixed UTC-8 (Pacific Standard Time) all year, while the manual form uses your organization's time zone (shown on the form). Add an offset when timing matters.

  • price.amount: the numeric sale price only — no currency symbol.

  • price.currency: the three-letter currency code, for example USD.

Step 3: Import the file

  1. Click DATA TRANSFERS > Imports in the sidebar, then + New Import.

  2. Set Import Type to Promotion. The form shows Skip Rows and the file drop area.

  3. Drop your file in the file drop area. The screen switches to a preview with an Import options panel and a Map and verify your data step.

  4. Optional: in Import options, tick Only update existing records to change only promos that already exist, or tick Delete Mode to delete the promos that match your file by SKU, subscription ID and overlapping dates. Leave both unticked to create or update promos (the default).

  5. Check the column mappings.

  6. Click Start Import.

Change or remove a promotion

  • Manually: open the item’s Pricing tab, click the promotion row in the Promotional Prices section to expand it, then edit Price, Start Date or End Date and click Update, or click Delete and confirm. You can’t change the subscription in place — delete and re-add for that.

  • By import: a row that overlaps an existing promo for the same SKU and same subscription_id replaces that promo’s price and dates. Rows with dates that don’t overlap are kept as separate promotions, so you can schedule several upcoming sales on the same item at once.

  • Avoid having two promotions both live at the same time on the same item and channel — which price wins depends on the channel and is unpredictable. The form does not warn on overlaps; the import overwrites an overlapping same-SKU + same-subscription promo. Delete or shorten the one you don’t want before its start date arrives.

Check that it’s live

Acenda saves a new promotion as soon as you add it or the import finishes, but each sales channel updates its own listing on its own schedule — some refresh within minutes, others can take longer. A promotion is only sent to channels where the item is mapped and listed.

  1. Click CATALOG > Items in the sidebar.

  2. Open the item and check its Pricing tab — the Promotional Prices section should show your price and dates.

  3. For channels that log catalog updates, such as Target Plus, Walmart, TikTok Shop and Mirakl marketplaces, check How to track marketplace updates with Channel Events to confirm the price update was sent.

A promotion can exist alongside a channel-specific custom price (see How to update pricing manually or in bulk) on the same item. While a promotion is live, it overrides both the custom price and the base price for that channel. Once it ends, the price automatically falls back to the custom price (if there is one) or the base price — the channel’s next scheduled update picks this up on its own, with no action needed from you.

Troubleshooting & FAQ

  • Why isn't the promotion showing on the marketplace? confirm the current time falls strictly after the start and before the end, that the item is mapped and listed on that channel, that Walmart promos run 14–180 days, and give it time for the channel’s next scheduled price update (not instant).

  • What does the import error “no pricing_item found” mean? the item has no base price yet, or the SKU doesn’t match an item in Acenda. Set a base price on the item’s Pricing tab, then import again.

  • Why did the promotion apply to the wrong channel, or to none? check the subscription_id against CHANNELS > Integrations. Acenda doesn’t validate this ID during import, so a wrong one silently saves a promotion nothing picks up. Prefer a named subscription_id for Walmart and TikTok Shop; blank only works on some channels (for example Target Plus and Mirakl).

  • Why did the promotion start or end at the wrong time? import dates without an offset use fixed UTC-8 year-round; the manual form uses your organization's time zone (the field names the zone). For imports, write dates with an explicit offset when timing matters.

  • Why doesn't the price match what I expect? a live promotion always takes priority over both the custom price and the base price for that channel. Once it ends, the custom price takes over if one exists; otherwise the base price applies. A promo at or above the regular price is ignored on Mirakl and Walmart, but can raise the price on Target Plus and TikTok Shop. MAPP is not enforced on promotional prices.

  • Why did Walmart reject the promotion? Walmart requires the promo duration to be between 14 and 180 days. Shorten or lengthen the dates and re-save.

  • Why is the Add promotional price button missing? the item needs a base price first. If every subscription already has a custom price, the button can also be hidden with “There are no available subscriptions.”

  • Which currency does a promotion use? the manual form always saves USD. Import accepts any valid 3-letter currency code, but channels receive the amount as their own currency with no conversion — keep currency aligned with the channel.

Related articles

Still stuck? Contact Acenda Support and tell Acenda support the SKU and the sales channel involved.

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