10 Smart Discount Ideas for WooCommerce Stores

Looking for effective WooCommerce discount strategies to boost your store’s holiday sales? With Black Friday and Cyber Monday fast approaching, offering discounts has become even more relevant. Knowing the best discount ideas for WooCommerce to maximize sales during these peak shopping events is essential.

WooCommerce store promotions are big conversion drivers, both in online and offline stores. Even users without purchase intent end up buying products if you offer competitive pricing and discounts.

In addition to an increase in sales, coupons and discount offers can improve customer loyalty. However, discounts are not always viable, especially if you have a thin profit margin.

That’s why it’s essential to explore eCommerce promotion strategies that can significantly improve your store’s performance without compromising your profit or brand. Let’s address the key takeaways first.

With the holiday season approaching and the last quarter of 2024 upon us, now is the perfect time to push sales. Offering storewide discounts and exclusive deals can generate the buzz your WooCommerce store needs. The key benefits of offering discounts include:

• Increased conversion rates: A well-timed discount can turn hesitant shoppers into buyers.
• Reduced cart abandonment: Customers are more likely to complete purchases when they perceive greater value.
• Boost in traffic and engagement: Discounts during events like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the winter holiday season can draw in festive shoppers.
• Higher cart value: Discounts often encourage bulk buying, leading to a larger average order size.

Here are some promotional ideas to incorporate into your WooCommerce store to improve loyalty and conversions, especially during key shopping events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. These strategies can help you make the most of the high-traffic season and ensure your store stands out!

1. BOGO (Best for Offering Combo Deals)

In a world where everyone loves getting more at a lower cost, attractive offers are essential. At the forefront of these discount promotions are the ever-popular BOGO deals.

BOGO coupons, also known as Buy One Get One deals, are a proven strategy where customers receive an additional product for free or at a discount when they make a purchase. This eCommerce promotion strategy not only helps boost sales but also helps clear out your slow-moving products.

For instance, Barnes & Noble offers BOGO deals that allow customers to buy one book and get another at 50% off.

BOGO offers come in various forms, such as: “Buy items worth $300 and get $50 off” or the classic “Buy one, get one free.” Regardless of the type, BOGO deals are among the best WooCommerce discounts to drive more sales. They are an excellent way to create enticing combo offers that encourage shoppers to buy more.

How to Configure BOGO in WooCommerce?

To set up a WooCommerce BOGO discount, you’ll need an advanced plugin like Smart Coupons for WooCommerce. The premium version enables you to create more advanced BOGO deals.

2. Abandoned Cart Recovery Discounts (Best for Re-engaging Customers)

Cart abandonment in WooCommerce stores is not a fully bypassable event, no matter how hard you try. You can mitigate it by analyzing your purchase funnel. You can also control it to an extent by managing delivery and other miscellaneous fees charged during checkout.

However, one of the most effective strategies to recover lost sales is by offering targeted discounts. Cart abandonment discounts are customer behavior-driven discounts that often result in purchase and customer retrieval.

For example, the haircare brand Prose uses a combination of a catchy headline, an optimized CTA, and special discounts to encourage customers to return and complete their purchase.

So, how do abandoned cart discounts work? When a customer leaves without completing their purchase, it automatically triggers an abandoned cart email that includes personalized discount coupons. After a period of inactivity, the WooCommerce discount codes or product offers are sent to their inbox, which they can use to finish the purchase they started.

How to Configure Cart Abandonment Discounts in WooCommerce?

To set up a WooCommerce abandoned cart discount, you’ll need the premium WooCommerce Smart Coupons plugin.

3. Early Bird Discounts (Best for Seasonal Discounts)

Early bird discounts offer customers lower prices or exclusive perks for making purchases ahead of a set deadline. This promotional strategy is popular during seasonal sales, such as holiday events or pre-launch promotions. By rewarding early shoppers with awesome deals, businesses can generate excitement and urgency.

Offering special discounts and deals bring faster revenue thereby help manage cash flow. Additionally, offering these discounts builds customer loyalty, as buyers appreciate the exclusive incentives.

Amazon provide exclusive deals and discounts to Prime members who shop early in major sales event like Amazon Cyber Monday, Prime Day and Black Friday.

How to Configure Early Bird Discounts in WooCommerce?

Smart Coupons for WooCommerce offers advanced features for all your coupon and discount needs, including early bird promotions.

4. Volume-based Discounts (Best for Offering Bulk Discounts During Clearance Sale)

Volume-based or quantity based discounts are a proven method when it comes to promoting your store, online or offline. Customers love getting more for less, and this strategy can be a powerful tool if used wisely to protect your profit margins.

Quantity-based discounts must be leveraged wisely so that it doesn’t affect your profit margin. With the holiday season approaching, offering bulk discounts and vouchers can attract more shoppers to your WooCommerce store, particularly during clearance or end-of-year sales.

For example, Famous Footwear offers a 40% bulk discount to customers who purchase two or more pairs of shoes.

Ensure that the deal provides real value to your customers. They should feel like they’re getting a good deal. Delivering a great shopping experience during the holiday season will ensure they return even after the sale.

How to Configure Quantity-based Discounts in WooCommerce?

Smart Coupons for WooCommerce Pro offers advanced features to create and offer quantity-based discounts in woocommerce.

5. Sign-Up Offers (Best for Attracting New Customers)

First impressions are the best impressions!

People are always hesitant to trust an unfamiliar brand, especially a new one. So it is important that you create a good impression on your potential audience with special sign-up offers and discounts. Many shoppers are reluctant to sign up for a store unless they are presented with a deal that encourages them to convert.

Sign-up discounts and other first-time shopper offers are a good way to bridge the differences between you and your customer. These offers often nudge customers to choose your brand over competitors.

For instance, Pond5 uses a sign-up popup offering discounts on the next order, motivating them to engage with the store and potentially become loyal customers.

Nevertheless, always make sure to provide your customers, old or new, a good shopping experience. Pay attention to details like prompt shipment initiation and proper packaging, which build brand loyalty and encourage repeat purchases.

How to Configure First-Order Discounts in WooCommerce?

Smart Coupons for WooCommerce Pro have built-in features to create and assign coupons for first-order discounts in WooCommerce.

6. Free Delivery (Best for Reducing Cart Abandonment)

Free delivery is a ladder to success.

Free shipping in WooCommerce is an increasingly popular marketing tactic employed by almost every leading business in the town. Free delivery is one of the best ways to improve the average number of orders and even the average cart value.

Additional charges like the delivery fees added during the end of the purchase funnel are often the main culprits for cart abandonment. Dropping such a charge can have a highly positive impact on your business.

For instance, Sunday Somewhere offers free shipping on all orders in the United States, ensuring a smoother checkout experience.

Moreover, free delivery doesn’t have to be just free delivery! It can also be ‘free delivery over a fixed cart subtotal.’ This not only helps to improve sales but also reduces the impact of having to provide free shipping services from limited profit.

How to Configure Free Shipping in WooCommerce?

WooCommerce offers a built-in free shipping feature. However, to apply restrictions and advanced settings, you’ll need additional functionality, available in the Smart Coupons plugin, which you can find in the repository.

7. Giveaways (Best to Increase Average Order Value)

Giveaway products set a foundation of trust in the brand. 

Free rewards for purchases are a common practice, especially in the retail industry. Not only does this help boost sales but also helps to get rid of extra or unnecessary stock.

Giveaways can be of many types. It can be either a fixed free product for all purchases or different products based on the purchase or let the customer decide the product that they want. Select the giveaway type based on your eCommerce holiday strategy.

For instance, TOMS offers a free pair of shoes without any specific purchase requirements.

However, it’s often best to set purchase criteria, such as a minimum purchase amount, a specific product (e.g., “Buy a baloney pizza, get a nugget free”), or a product category to get maximum effectiveness.

How to Configure Giveaways in WooCommerce?

You need Smart Coupons for WooCommerce to configure giveaways and set advanced purchase criteria in WooCommerce.

8. Flash Sales (Best for Immediate Sales)

Setting up flash sales is the go-to method when you want immediate results. It creates a sense of urgency and encourages faster conversions.

Frequent promotions create a positive brand impression on the customers. However, if you don’t have the resources or bandwidth to provide regularly scheduled promotions, sudden impromptu flash sales are a good alternative.

These time-constrained sales strategies drive sales by creating a FOMO or a ‘now or never’ sensation. You can also keep on reminding them of the decreasing stock to create a rush.

For instance, Bed, Bath & Beyond offers 2 days only flash sale offering 40-60% off on bedding and bath exclusive to its online shoppers.

An additional tactic that you can implement is countdown timer banners for WooCommerce. Use these banners to inform customers about the end of the sale – this helps to maximize conversions over a short period of time.  

How to Configure Flash Sales in WooCommerce?

You need the premium version of WooCommerce Smart Coupons to create coupon banners.

9. Recommending Bundle Deals (Best for Bundle Discounts)

Offering bundle recommendations based on customers’ purchase behavior is a highly effective strategy to increase the average order value. You can send product recommendations to loyal customers via email or suggest complementary products when they preview an item using a recommendation plugin. Adding related products on product pages is a common practice for delivering personalized recommendations.

For example, when someone buys an iPhone, they may also need a charger. Since customers might overlook the need for additional accessories, it’s smart to recommend the charger when they add the phone to their cart. Better yet, offer both as a bundle deal.

Ensure the bundle is enticing. If the combined price is the same as purchasing the products separately, customers may not see it as a good deal. Moreover, repurposing existing bundles as gift sets and using festive names during the holiday season can attract more attention from shoppers

For instance, a Nintendo Switch bundle is a great example of bundle discounts. These bundles often include popular games and accessories, with perks like free express delivery on orders over a specific subtotal.

Recommendations can be product upsells, cross-sells, or even down-sells. This strategy has extreme potential to generate a soar in the net average sales value.

How to Configure Bundle Discounts in WooCommerce?

You can use a combination of WooCommerce’s default features and the Smart Coupons for WooCommerce plugin to set up bundle discounts. For advanced recommendations, the WooCommerce Product Recommendation Plugin from WebToffee is an excellent choice.

10. Deal of The Hour (Best for Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals)

This method is simple: provide an exclusive offer for a limited time only. Deals could include freebies, VIP discounts, or coupon codes. Many online retailers utilize this tactic for their Black Friday deals and Cyber Monday promotions. The driving factors for such sales are exclusivity, urgency, and scarcity.

How to Configure Deal of the Hour in WooCommerce?

With the free version of Smart Coupons, you can schedule coupons to be active for a set time. However, if you want to add features like a countdown timer or promotional banner, upgrading to the premium version of this advanced WooCommerce coupon plugin is necessary.

Growing your customer base is as important as retaining customers.

A simple way to explore a new audience is by expanding your store to new areas such as social media and other community platforms. You can do everything with social media – from creating simple posts about updates on your platform to offering incentives for engaging with your page.

You can even promote your sales on social media. However, the process flow of such an action is quite complicated. When a user sees a sales alert post on their socials, they will have to first manually navigate to your online store, add products to the cart and apply the coupon.

You can simplify this whole process by creating an Add to Cart URLs. Embed these URLs on all your promotion posts on the web store, socials, etc. This way, when a user clicks on the URL, they will be automatically redirected to their store cart with both the products and coupons automatically applied. All they have to do now is complete the payment. You can achieve this with the auto-apply URL coupons.

Well, this is the easiest part!

There are several plugins in WordPress to help you with promoting your products on your WooCommerce stores. These plugins will provide you with the configurations required for setting up all the discounts and promotions you might need for your store.

Smart Coupons for WooCommerce, both free and pro, can handle most of your coupon and promotion needs. Additionally, using recommendation plugins and URL Coupon plugins can further help increase sales.

Holidays are something that people look forward to every year to spend time with the dear ones. And when the season for shopping hits, the frenzy needs to be monetized with well-made holiday marketing and seasonal discount strategies.

One thing to note about these festive discounts is that people not only purchase for themselves, but they also do it for others too, as gifts. For example, a person buying a pair of jeans may next buy toys for kids. So market your products effectively, show users everything that they might want this holiday season, and let them decide for themselves.

Promoting your brand and your products is the right thing to do if you are looking to scale your business. Do try out the suggested promotion strategies this coming Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns and let us know your thoughts in the comments below.