5 Simple Discount Tips
Deciding when and how to discount your products is going to depend as much on your brand as what you’re selling. (In this post all about coupons, offers, discounts & promos, I go more into depth about whether discounting is “on brand” for you or not.)
However, I do think that eCommerce customers, in general, are not only accustomed to seeing offers in their inboxes or discounts promoted on social media but that they expect and enjoy the opportunity to score a deal at checkout. What this means is that even luxury and mid-market brands that never used to offer coupons are starting to incorporate discounts into their marketing strategies to meet the expectations of today’s online shoppers.
The one thing to keep in mind is that while you clearly have a lot of discount options and capabilities at your disposal that just because you can run very specific, highly complex promotions doesn’t mean you should. Keeping your discount strategy simple not only helps you make sure that you’re not setting yourself up to over-discount but is also way easier to market!
With those things in mind, here’s a recommended general discount strategy + some of my best tips for running promotions on your eCommerce site:
Offer Free Shipping - I think every shop needs to have a free shipping option. Restrict it to your cheapest method of shipping and only offer it to orders over a certain amount. Studies have shown that people will pay up for expedited shipping but really hate not having a base option offered for free.
But Throw Some Restrictions On It - Even better, I say restrict that free shipping option so that it only applies to orders over a certain amount. Be strategic here and set the threshold just above your current average order total (before taxes and shipping). People are almost always willing to pay more for products in order to score “free” shipping 🙃
Have One Welcome Discount Code - I tend to not like coupon codes in general but they do work well for “thank you” offers for things like signing up for your email list or placing their first order. If you use Squarespace Campaigns for your email marketing, it’s super easy to set up an automatic email that delivers a coupon code to entice first-time customers to give you a try.
Make Everything Else an Automatic Discount - For other sales or promos you have throughout the year, make it easy and go automated! For example, category discounts or specific product discounts are best when you can just say: “10% off all summer products - no code needed!”
Keep It Simple - Keep your active discounts or offers super targeted and limited. Unless you’re running paid Google ads or something, there’s really no need to ever have a thousand promo codes out there. I'm of the mindset that focusing on value and quality over discounting tends to be the better long-run business strategy.
