How to Use Coupons, Discounts, and Deals to Boost Your E-commerce Store's Sales

How to Use Coupons, Discounts, and Deals to Boost Your E-commerce Store’s Sales

An e-commerce store requires conversions, and it can only happen if the visitors spend their money. It should be every e-commerce store’s aim to turn visitors into customers. There are several ways to do that as covered in this article.

One way to lure customers in and boost sales of your online store is to offer coupons, discounts, or exclusive deals to customers. If you have a WooCommerce store, you can easily do so with the help of a WooCommerce coupon plugin. So, make them an offer they can’t refuse.

In this article, we will explore some of the different ways to use such offers to increase the sales of your e-commerce store. We will also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of coupons/sales at your store. So, let’s get to it.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Offers

Coupons, discounts, and deals sound good, but they do come with some downsides. Let us look at their advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

  • Shoppers love discounts and exclusive deals. It makes them happy which in turn will improve the frequency of their visit and conversions, and also build loyalty
  • Offers make customers happy, which means they are most likely to spend more time and money on your store. Therefore, a well-planned store offer can boost sales significantly.
  • Offers are also one way to clear up your old or low selling stocks (we will discuss it more later), thus helping in managing the inventory of your store.

Disadvantages:

  • Too many discount deals may adversely affect the profitability of the store. Therefore, you must plan the offers carefully and make them available at the right time.
  • Offering discounted deals may make customers have over expectations, and they will also rely on such deals to shop with the store. It may slow down the store’s sales on days when there are no offers.

How to Use Online Store Offers to Boost Sales

Looking into the advantages and disadvantages of online store offers, here are some of the best ways you can use them to generate sales.

Pre Launch offer

If you have not launched your store or are about to introduce a new product, you may think of providing good deals to lure potential customers.

You can do this by researching what kind of products are people looking for or analyzing the various social media networks to reach out to potential customers.

First-time buyer offer

It is difficult to convert a first-time buyer to a returning customer. Most often, such customers find something they like and purchase it but do not intend to return to the e-commerce site again.

You can give a first-time buyer discount as a thank you for choosing to shop with you. It will entice them to revisit the store.

Recommended Reading: How to create a first-order discount for your WooCommerce store.

Free shipping

You can offer free shipping services to the customers. It will be a motivation for customers to shop with you. It will also reduce cart abandonment since the shipping cost is one of the primary reasons why customers leave the cart before the checkout.

You can start by providing free shipping on orders above a certain amount. This will make customers add more items to purchase to take advantage of the offer.

Recommended Reading: How to create and use shipping coupons in WooCommerce.

Free return

Customers do check out the return policy of a store before finalizing their purchase. Charging a return fee could be a real sales killer.

Offer a free return to impress your customers and make their shopping experience pleasant.

Minimum purchase discount

Giving discounts on orders above a certain amount will motivate customers to spend more.

It is also a great way to get revenue from your niche products.

Analyze what your average order value is and, according to that, decide the discount percentage.

The article on how to Set up Quantity Based Discount Rules in WooCommerce will help you achieve a minimum purchase discount on your WooCommerce store.

Weekly/monthly discount

At the end of a week or month, you can offer good deals and discounts on products, especially if the sales are slow.

It will help in giving a push to your sales, if necessary.

Abandoned cart offer

Cart abandonment is one of the major problems that an e-commerce store faces. Studies show that around 70% of people leave the store before checking out. It is a recurring problem that every e-commerce business goes through and must address.

You can recover some of the orders by giving coupons or deals via emails or popups.

Use plugins to track the abandoned carts and program them to send personalized reminder emails accompanied by unique coupons.

Learn how you can offer discounts for abandoned carts in WooCommerce. Read other ways to reduce cart abandonment here.

Product combo offer

Product combo or bundling offers have many advantages.

One of them being able to sell more products. Bundling relevant products together and selling them with a good deal will be a great sales booster.

Second, you can combine products that are less in demand with the best-selling products to encourage customers to buy them.

Third, you can implement the buy-x-get-one deal that is very common among e-commerce stores,

Customer loyalty offers

You can give exclusive offers to your loyal customers via personalized emails. You can include unique coupon codes that they can use to avail themselves of discounts.

It will encourage them to purchase more and recommend your store to others as well.

Here’s how you can email coupons to customers to create loyalty programs in your WooCommerce store.

Flash sale

It is unlikely that you are an e-commerce customer and have not received any emails about flash sales.

A flash sale is a discounted sales offer that only lasts for a limited time. Customers will get exciting offers during this time.

It makes use of a scarcity tactic to create a sense of urgency in customers, and most often, they are effective.

You can either send emails informing the customers about the sale or add popups on the site or both.

Newsletter subscription offer

You can offer good deals in exchange for customers’ subscriptions to your store’s newsletters.

It is an effective way to build a relationship with them and utilize email marketing.

Referral promo

Your customers can boost sales by not only spending their money but by promoting your brand to their friends and family through referral programs.

You give discounts to both the referring and referred customers. It is a perfect opportunity to maintain existing customers as well as gain new customers.

Exit-intent offer

Many customers leave the store before they even reach the checkout page. The exit-intent popup is an excellent way to make them stay with discounts and coupons.

Many plugins can help you set up exit-intent popups on your store. It will identify when the customers are about to leave the site and offer them exclusive deals to stop them from leaving.

Exclusive social media offer

Social media has a sea of potential customers. By providing exclusive social offers, you are not only engaging your followers but also potentially attracting new customers.

You can provide discount coupons or deals exclusive to a particular social media network where you receive maximum engagement.

Customers can log in to your store using their social media and avail of the unique offer.

Seasonal offer

Holiday seasons are a great sales opportunity for your e-commerce store.

Customers are looking for a variety of products with great deals. So, just give them that. Offer attractive deals and discounts or holiday-special coupons to make them happy.

You must brainstorm the promotional plans well in advance and be ready to launch them before the holiday season hits.

For example, American retail brand REI offered a deal to save money for Black Friday:

REI Black Friday Deal

Clearance sale

Sometimes you need to clear your old stock or low selling products to make room for new products. This is where you can offer clearance discounts.

In clearance sales, you can offer heavy discounts to make people buy the products.

Clearance sales help in managing the inventory in addition to boosting the sales of your store.

Here is how NOMAD did it:

Nomad Clearance Sale

App-only offer

Nowadays, almost all e-commerce websites have mobile apps.

The number of smartphone users is increasing day by day. With it, the number of people using mobile phones to shop is also rising. It will be a loss if you do not develop a mobile app for your store as the user experience is much better than browsing the site on the phone.

You can provide app-only offers to make more customers download the app and spread the word.

Wrapping Up

You cannot provide online store offers without proper planning. It is crucial to decide the right time and the right kind of offer.

Paying attention to your customers’ requirements is good; however, you should not forget your business goal while planning out these offers. One small slip may cost you a lot.

We hope these tips will help you. We would love to know what you think. Please share your experiences with us in the comments below.

If you are interested in reading about other common discount ideas to promote your store, give it a go.

Article by

Safwana is a technical content writer for WebToffee. She loves working in WordPress and writing about it.

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