You can add a time or number limit to increase interest in a product or promotion. There are two types of limits:
Time — period when users can buy an item or use a promotion.
Number of sales — limited quantity of items or promotions that user can buy.
Note
For unauthorized users, the maximum number of items they can buy is always displayed. To display the remaining number of items to the user (subject to the current limit), pass user authorization data when you request the item catalog using the methods of the Catalog subsection from the Virtual Items & Currency method group.
To correctly display the number of items that are available to the user, you need to configure authentication.
Note
Xsolla ensures the limits are not exceeded and prevents users from purchasing more items than the set limit.
When opening the payment interface and paying for an item, all unpaid orders with this item become invalid.
Example: the user can open the payment form for an item with a purchase restriction in several browser tabs until the item has been purchased. This automatically results in the creation of multiple orders for the same item. After purchasing an item in one tab, Xsolla will void all unpaid orders with the same item.
Note
We recommend using a Featured item card layout to draw users’ attention to promotional products.
Number limited allows you to limit the number of available offers per user. You can set up a number of sales limitation for:
If you have a number of sales limitation for both items and promotions, the lower limit will be shown on your site. For example, if a user can buy an item only 3 times but a promotion with this item is available 5 times, the item card will show only 3 available.
Number of permitted uses
For bonus and discount promotion you can set up a limit to the number of offers available to the user. After setting a limit number of times one user can use promotion, on your site an item card will show:
Click Store in the side menu and connect the Promotions module.
Enter the promotion title.
In the drop-down list, choose the promotion type.
Fill in the fields depending on the type of promotion you have chosen.
Click Next.
For a number of sales limitation on the Conditions page, set the Limit number of times one user can use promotion to On and enter the number of uses.
To set up personalized promotions, set Promotion for only specific users to On and follow these instruction.
Click Next.
Set the campaign start and end dates.
Click Next.
Check the settings and click Save and exit.
Note
You cannot change active promotions.
To activate a promotion:
Find the promotion in your promotions catalog.
Click the ••• menu button and select Edit plan.
In the upper right corner, open the drop-down menu and choose Activate promotion.
Note
After a user has reached the limit of the promotional offer, the product will be available at the full price without a discount or bonus.
Number limitation for virtual item
You can limit the number of items available to users. After setting up, a counter available to the user items will appear on the site.
How to get it
Note
The example below sets up a limit for virtual items.
To set up virtual items, you need to configure virtual item groups. Groups allow you to have a multilevel catalog and manage how items are displayed in the store.
Click Store in the side menu and connect the Virtual Items module.
Click Create item.
Specify:
Image.
SKU.
One or several groups the item should belong to.
Name.
Description.
Item property: consumable, nonconsumable, or time-limited items.
Note
You can currently set up a limit for consumable items only.
Prices in real or virtual currencies.
Note
You can’t create an item without specifying its price in real or virtual currency. You can’t create an item with a zero price value.
If you want to show an item in the store, set the Show item in store toggle to On.
If you want to limit the number of times a user can buy an item, switch the Limit the number of times one user can buy this item toggle to On and specify the limit.
Click Create item.
After setting a number of sales limitation for items, on your site an item card will show a line with the number of available items.
Note
If you have a number of sales limitations for items and for promotion, a lower limit will be shown on your site.
Refresh limits
You can refresh the limits you set earlier. Refresh limits allows you:
implement periodic updating of restrictions on the purchase of goods or the use of a promotion
synchronize data with your system if the sale of goods is carried out on several game publishing platforms
Refresh limits for items
To refresh limits to specific product or promotion for all users (on the example of virtual objects):
Time limited is a standard setting for all promotions. The expiration date is specified when the promotion is created.
A timer appears on an item’s card 30 days before the end of the promotion to show the remaining time:
If the end of the promotion is in more than a week, the timer shows days and hours.
If the end of the promotion is in more than one day, the timer shows hours and minutes.
If the end of the promotion is in less than a day, the timer shows minutes and seconds.
Time limitation for items
You can set the display period for an item in the store to:
maintain the relevance of the catalog at a given time, for example, during holiday sales
create an item in advance without displaying it in the catalog
motivate users to buy items by displaying a timer next to the item
Limiting the display time is available for the following item types:
virtual items
virtual currency and virtual currency packages
bundles
Note
For virtual items, virtual currency packages and bundles, configuration is available through the Publisher Account and using API calls. For virtual currency, configuration is available using API calls only.
To set a time limit for displaying a virtual currency, virtual currency packages and bundles in the store via Publisher Account:
When creating an item in Publisher Account, set the Show in store toggle to On.
Select Time period and specify the time zone, the beginning, and end of the period. To not indicate the end of the item display period, check the No end date box.
To set a time limit for displaying items in the store via API, use:
Pass following parameters to the item creation or item update API call:
periods[0].date_from with the date and time of the beginning of item display period in YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss±TMZ format, where TMZ is the time zone indicator in hh:mm GMT format
periods[0].date_until with the date and time of the end of the item display period in YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss±TMZ format, where TMZ is the time zone indicator in hh:mm GMT format. To not indicate the end of an item’s display period, pass null
You can set up multiple periods for displaying an item in the store. To do this, pass an array of objects with the start and end dates of all periods in the API calls.