Exclude “Specials” Category from Sitewide Sale

[birdwaves]

Hi all,

I’m setting up a sitewide discount (Product Discount price group applied to all products), but I need to exclude items in our “Specials” category so they don’t get double-discounted.

I’ve tried:
- Collections → only see “Canonical Category,” not all assigned categories
- Price Groups → no clear way to exclude by category dynamically

Right now the only working option seems to be:
- manually removing Specials from the discounted product list

Is there a way to automatically exclude products by category assignment from a price group in Miva 10?

Thanks!

[Nick]

birdwaves is there a way that you can create a collection of the Specials products using another method aside from category assigned? For example, is there a product custom field that can be used to group the products, or is there something consistent within the name of these products that you can use to group them in a collection? If the products can be added to a collection you can have the price group add all products unless excluded then you can use the Exclude Collection option to exclude all the products assigned to the collection.

[birdwaves]

I needed to run a storewide promotion (Earth Day sale) while excluding products already in the Specials category. Since Miva does not allow category-based exclusions in Price Groups, I implemented a custom-field–driven solution.

Approach:

1. Created a product custom field
- Code: exclude_from_promotions
- Type: Checkbox (Yes/No)
- Purpose: Flag products that should not receive additional discounts (e.g., Specials)

2. Bulk assigned the field
- Used Advanced Search + Bulk Edit to ensure all products have the field available
- Staff now checks this field for any product added to Specials

3. Created an automatic collection
- Includes products where:
- exclude_from_promotions = No
- AND product is Active
- This becomes the “Sale Eligible” collection

4. Configured the Price Group
- Discount Type: Basket Discount → Specific Products
- Assigned:
- Qualifying Collection = Sale Eligible collection
- This ensures only eligible products receive the discount

Result:
- Products marked with exclude_from_promotions = Yes (i.e., Specials) are automatically excluded
- No need to manually maintain product lists for the promotion
- System remains dynamic as products are added/updated

Key takeaway:
Since category cannot be used for exclusion logic, a custom field + collection provides a scalable workaround.