6 Ways to Use Deals and Discounts to Drive More Sales for Your eCommerce Business
The main reason why you are out here doing business on the web is because you want to make sales and generate profit. Introducing promotions in the form of deals and discounts is one of the ways through which you can achieve that.
Promos have been a business tactic for ages, and it not only helps you increase sales, it also helps your business catch a lot of people's attention. People always love freebies and the chance to purchase things at less than regular rates. There's therefore no better way to grab their attentions than to dangle the deals and discounts carrot in their faces.
Here are some of the ways to offer your clients deals and discounts that would force them to pull out their credit cards.
1. Free Shipping
Sometimes, the cost of shipping an item might outweigh the price of the item – especially when it's an international purchase. This is why a lot of online shoppers would jump at a free shipping deal. Statistics carried out revealed that at least 73% of online shoppers cited free shipping as one of the major deciding factors whenever they need to make a purchase.
To offer free shipping, you have to consider the modalities of your business and the items you are selling, including the weight, size, profit margin and the location of your consumers. Someone has to pay for shipping anyway and if you are offering free shipping, that person would most likely be you. So you have to figure out how to make it work probably by discussing with shipping agents and companies so that you can still earn good profit margin while offering free shipping.
2. Promo Vouchers
You could also offer voucher codes to your customers that they are able to use to redeem some discounts. You could make the voucher code special such that not everyone has access to it except your loyal customers. This is another great way to keep getting repeat customers.
3. Product Bundles
Another promotional tactic to think of is bundling products or offering complementary products. For instance, if you are selling toothpaste, you could offer toothbrushes for free to go with the toothpaste. This will definitely drive more sales for your ecommerce business.
4. "Buy One, Get One Free"
You could also do two-for-one offers where you allow your customers to purchase two items for the price of one.
One way to achieve this is with your old and slow moving stock. If you have any stock that is about to expire or has gone out of season, you could offer them as freebies before they actually go bad. You could also talk to your suppliers about bulk discounts so that you can offer these as freebies to your customers.
5. Loyalty Cards
Loyalty cards are everywhere now and they wouldn't be if there isn't something special about them. Loyalty cards can be used to offer discounts to your customers and can also keep them glued to your business.
This is how it works.
You offer your customers the opportunity to sign up for a loyalty program for free (or sign them up automatically) and then for each purchase they make, they earn some points which they can eventually use to make free purchases when they reach a specific milestone. Most customers would commit to buying from you because of the eagerness to earn a reward in the future.
6. Referral Discounts
Sometimes, it is impossible to spread the word about your business all on your own, you need people who know what your business is all about and have had good experiences with your business to join you in spreading the word.
To encourage your customers to help you tell their friends, co-workers, neighbors and other people they know about your business, you should consider offering them referral discounts. You could offer them a certain percentage on purchases made by anyone they refer. You would have to offer them referral codes so that they can easily earn their rewards whenever they introduce a new customer to your ecommerce business.
It is very important to ensure that the offers you create are mutually beneficial. Don't just create offers that are one-sided such that only you or your customers would benefit from it, ensure that whatever deals and discounts you offer would make your customers happy and feel special, and would also increase your revenue and profit.
