How to create user groups

-- url of the page with the problem -- : ggboxing.com/staging
-- HikaShop version -- : HikaShop Business 2.2.1
-- Joomla version -- : 3.1.5
-- PHP version -- : 5.3
-- Browser(s) name and version -- : Chrome
-- Error-message(debug-mod must be tuned on) -- : n/a

I need to create several user groups and then assign to each a different price per product.
I understand that I have to create these groups in Joomla and I know how to do that.
My question is: do I create them as children of "registered" or do I create a separate user group called "Customers" and then create the children for it? If creating a "Customer top level group, how do I make sure that it has the same privileges as "registered"?

Basically, is there a best way to create these groups relative to hikashop or it doesn't matter?

I would be more than happy to just have a link to a pre-existing explanation if one exist. I found several, but they only explained that the groups need to be set in Joomla, not how they would be set.

Incidentally, we are planning to manually assign each user to their specific User Group. The reason for that is that we are selling Cable TV events and the pricing for each event differs by the occupancy of the customer's establishment. So each product will have up to 15 different pricing based on the customer group which derives from occupancy.

I know there is a system by which the group could be established by the customer purchasing a specific product, but I cannot think of a way to implement that for our purposes. I think it would take too much explanation and we need to check on our customers anyway since some may not report their occupancy correctly in order to enjoy better pricing.

In any case, for now I am chiefly interested in how to setup the groups properly as far as hikashop is concerned.

OK, I have created new groups in Joomla like this below:

|— Registered 2
|—|— Customer Groups 10
|—|—|— 01 Contender (1 to 50) 11
|—|—|— 02 Select (51 to 100) 12
|—|—|— 03 VIP (101 to 150) 13
|—|—|— 04 Elite (151 to 200) 14
|—|—|— 05 Champion (201 to 300) 15
|—|—|— 06 Prestige (301 to 400) 16
|—|—|— 07 Premier (401 to 500)

Now I am not sure how to approach the viewing access level or if I have to set those up as well. It seems to me I have to, but I am not positive about what groups to select for each of them.

One thing I noticed is that in the Product pricing, no user groups show up for me to assign a price for each group. That means I forgot something important. All I see is a double dash -- but no way to select the user group.

Can someone point me in the right direction?

Thanks Nicholas. That's the way I created them. UNfortunately, the p[rices are not showing up with the ability to be assigned to a specific user group. I am not sure why, so I created another post requesting help in that regard.

The post is here in case you have the knowledge and the time to help with that:
www.hikashop.com/forum/4-how-to/862289-u...anywhere.html#124971

As I mention in this post, I tried to assign user groups both at the product and the category level, yet the "Access level" column in the Pricing pane remains inactive. I am starting to wonder if by any chance there is something wrong with my built of hikashop.

For that matter, I would think that the canonical Joomla groups should show up without me having to do anything too esoteric, but they don't either.

It's very possible I missed a step somewhere, but I have no idea what I could have missed. This is the last big hurdle I have in building the framework for this shop, but it's also the most important. Without it I am unable to properly test the shop.

Thank you again for the reply.