Markdown Optimizer capabilities for Shopify clearance pricing

Schedule markdowns by how long a product has been listed

Markdown ladders

A markdown ladder is a schedule of price reductions. Each step has a waiting period and a discount: after 30 days, 5% off; after 60 days, 10% off; after 6 months, 25% off. Waiting periods can be written in days, months or years, and steps entered in any order are sorted into the order they will fire.

Every product on its own clock

The app reads each product's listing date from Shopify and counts from it. A product listed today and one listed last winter sit on different steps of the same ladder on the same day. You do not choose products by hand or keep a list up to date: new products join automatically and start at the top.

Steps that only deepen, and a final step that stops

A later step can never discount less than an earlier one, so a product's price only moves down the ladder. Mark any step as final and products stop there: "25% off, and no further reductions" is something you can actually say.

Every step taken from the original price

Each step is a percentage off the product's original price, never off the previous step's price, so the discount a shopper sees is the one you wrote. A struck-through original price is shown only where the product's recorded price history proves it, because showing one claims the product really sold at that price; otherwise the price is simply lowered. You can turn the original-price display off in Settings, under Markdown rules.

See every markdown before it happens

Preview before you start

Before a ladder runs, the preview lists which products it applies to, the step each one would reach today and the price that step would give. The preview downloads as a CSV, so it can be checked in a spreadsheet or shared with a buyer before anything changes.

The week ahead

An upcoming view shows which products will be marked down and on which day over the coming week. A weekly digest arrives by email, and you can switch on a short note the day before prices change.

Products, read back from Shopify

The Products page lists every product with its picture, the step it has reached, its discount and its status. A step is shown as live only once its price has been read back from Shopify, not merely because it was sent.

Keep a person in charge

Approval before a step applies

Any step can be set to wait for approval. Shallow steps often run on their own while deep ones wait; that choice is yours, step by step. Decisions that need you are grouped into one email rather than one message per product.

Roles and permissions

Drafting a ladder and starting one are separate permissions, as are changing billing and managing the team. Approval chains let you choose which roles must sign off before a ladder starts or a step applies.

Every version kept, every action recorded

Each change to a ladder creates a new version that records who made it and why; an earlier version is never rewritten. The activity trail records every step applied, skipped or refused, with the reason in plain words.

Exports

Every product a ladder applies to exports to CSV with its listing date, the step it has reached, the discount and the new price.

Guardrails that protect your prices

• Below-cost check: where a product has a cost per item in Shopify, a step that would sell it below cost is refused and the reason is shown.
• Unknown costs are disclosed: products without a cost per item are counted before your ladder starts, and you decide whether they may be marked down or excluded. Nothing is guessed.
• Existing sale prices wait for review: a product already showing a sale price is held on the Pricing reviews page rather than discounted on top of its sale.
• Live-price check: a step carries the price it was worked out from, and is refused if the price in Shopify has changed since, so a manual edit is never silently overwritten.
• Conflicts are held, not fought: if another Sparande app is already pricing a product, the step is held and checked again the next day.
• Checkout-discount warnings: when a checkout discount may stack on a markdown, the product is flagged so you can decide.
• Safe restore: Remove active markdown changes puts original prices back product by product, leaves alone any product whose price moved after the markdown, and reports a product as restored only once the platform confirms it.
• Unreadable dates are skipped: a product whose listing date cannot be read is not marked down, rather than being treated as old.

On your storefront

Theme app embeds show a sale badge on product pages and on collection and search results, positioned where you choose. They are switched on from your theme editor, and the app checks your theme to tell you whether they are on.

AI that finds and explains, maths that verifies

AI finds the possibilities. Our maths verifies what is safe to launch. Where suggestions are switched on for a store, Sparande's AI looks across the catalogue and recent sales for places a ladder could work harder. The Sparande platform's Decision Science then checks the candidate across every product in the shop. A candidate that passes is shown as Suggested, with what was verified; accepting it saves a draft, and your current ladder keeps running until you preview the draft and activate it.

The "Why?" button on a product asks for a plain-language explanation of the step it reached or the reason a step was refused. The explanation is words about a decision already made; it never changes a price.

For larger teams: Enterprise

Enterprise is the plan for catalogues of 10,001 products or more, and it is not offered yet. Markdown Optimizer currently supports catalogues of up to 10,000 variants. When it is, it adds the following on top of every feature above.

• Access from your identity provider: Connect Microsoft Entra ID and your directory decides who on your team can use the app. Shopify stays the login.
• Roles from your directory: Entra ID groups map to app roles. Someone in several mapped groups gets the highest of their roles.
• Automatic provisioning: Add people when your directory provisions them, and revoke their app access on their next request after a deactivation is received.
• Custom approval chains: Choose which roles must sign off, stage by stage, before a ladder starts or a step applies.
• Priority support: An agreed response time, and onboarding shaped around your catalogue with us.

Data and privacy

The app requests no customer scope. It reads products, variants, listing dates, prices, costs and stock. Order access is optional; if granted, the Sparande platform counts units ordered per variant over the last 30 days and only that count reaches the app.

Not available yet

• Per-market pricing is not available yet. Every ladder runs on your base prices in every market.
• A separate margin floor for each step is not available. One margin floor applies to every step: cost, or cost plus a percentage you choose.
• A Shopify Flow trigger when a product reaches its final step is not available yet.