Call us Today: 0330 058 5621

Email Us

5 Ways to Run E-commerce Promotions

02/08/2019 | Share:

An E-commerce promotion is an effective way to attract people to your website, grow your customer base and increase revenue. Special offers can also be used to encourage new visitors to potentially become loyal customers. Once they’ve bought one of your items, they’ll see for themselves how great your product is.

In this blog post, we are sharing 5 e-commerce promotion ideas to help you excite your customers (new and old) and get those purchase orders flowing!

Offer Free shipping

With the offer of a free shipping promotion, people are more likely to make a purchase for those smaller items that they may have otherwise not purchased. It can also help to provide a sense of urgency and FOMO (fear of missing out) if the promotion window is short enough. Some customers can abandon carts after seeing how much postage costs so an offer of free postage might just seal the deal.

This promotion idea only really works if the shipping costs are still covered by the price of the product. See our blog post on whether you should offer free shipping as standard here.

The classic BOGOF deal

Your product wins over their emotions and the deals you offer help with the logic! Just like offering free shipping, the benefits of a buy-one-get-one-free (BOGOF) deal make justifying a purchase from your store a lot easier.

Giving a customer a second item completely free seems like much more of a bargain than a percentage off deal. In addition, the customer gets double what they originally wanted or similar. All you have to do is make sure that the product is worth it in the first place.

For buy-one-get-one-free offers to be effective, your profit margins need to be high enough. Therefore, even if you offer one for free, it is still worth it because you make a profit and hopefully reap the long term benefits of some new regular customers!

Rewards

An increasingly popular trend for online retailers is a rewards programme. We’ve all seen these before in brick and mortar stores and it’s making its way over to e-commerce. By signing up to the site, some stores will provide you with loyalty rewards such as through a points scheme. For example, customers may receive a point for every £1 spent, which when collected can be redeemed to purchase something else.

This shows the customer you are willing to reward their loyalty and eventually give them something for free down the line but only if you spend a large amount of money first. The great benefit is that in the short-term you get great returns without having to give anything away. To promise something for free attracts the customers but the amount of people that you’ll actually have to give the freebies to is considerably less.

The downside is it can take longer to set up. You also need to make sure all the maths adds up before starting the rewards scheme – can you afford to give away your most expensive product in exchange for some points?

Another way to leverage this rewards scheme is by offering exclusive rewards to the customers that sign up. This is less complex to set up as you can simply contact them via email. If these customers know they’ll get exclusive discounts and offers, they’re more likely to continue buying from you.

Promo codes

If you’re emailing your customers to present them with offers, one way in which you can do this is through promo codes or coupon codes. These codes allow you to tailor your offers to specific audiences. Perhaps you want to remedy an abandoned cart, so you email that customer with your best deal. On the other hand, there may be people who already regularly buy from you that don’t need as much persuasion to make a purchase.

You could also choose to vary your code to reflect the channel it comes from such as social media, email, website etc. to help determine where your promotion performed best.

Top tip: One thing to avoid is making your codes guessable. If you provide someone with a promo code named “DISCOUNT10” for a 10% discount, there’s a chance they’ll be able to guess your “DISCOUNT20” code too! Treat your promotions codes like a password and keep them complex.

Flash sales

Remember FOMO? A flash sale is a type of promotion that relies heavily on this psychological trick. By making people aware of a deadline, it tries to build excitement and urgency. People often buy out of fear that they will not find it at a lower price elsewhere.

Once the flash sale ends, some businesses even deliberately extend the deals afterwards or offer further discounts once the original flash sale is up to gain more interest.

More from Blog

  • The Ultimate Guide to E-commerce Fulfilment: Streamlining Your Business for Success

    01/01/2025

    The Ultimate Guide to E-commerce Fulfilment: Streamlining Your Business for Success

    Efficient order fulfilment plays a crucial role in e-commerce, where quick and reliable service can make the difference between retaining a customer and losing a sale.With millions of online stores competing for attention, e-commerce fulfilment is crucial to ensure that your business stays competitive, maintains customer satisfaction, and grows consistently. Whether you’re an established brand or a startup, investing in the right fulfilment solutions is a critical …

    Read post
  • Mastering Peak Season Fulfilment: Expert Strategies for E-Commerce Success

    02/10/2024

    Mastering Peak Season Fulfilment: Expert Strategies for E-Commerce Success

    Understanding the Challenges of Peak Season Fulfilment As summer fades and autumn approaches, businesses must prepare for the next high demand period: the Christmas season. Efficient fulfilment during this peak time is essential for maintaining customer satisfaction and ensuring peak season success. This guide provides practical tips to help you streamline your fulfilment operations and get ready for the holiday rush. This period, particularly during Christmas fulfilment, …

    Read post
  • Revolutionising E-commerce Efficiency with Advanced Warehouse Management Systems

    02/02/2024

    Revolutionising E-commerce Efficiency with Advanced Warehouse Management Systems

    The landscape of e-commerce has undergone a paradigm shift, catapulting the role of a e-commerce warehouse management system (WMS) to the forefront of operational excellence. In this era of accelerated digital commerce, the efficient management of inventory, streamlined order fulfilment, and seamless warehouse operations are pivotal to success for e-commerce businesses. Understanding the Evolution of Warehouse Management in E-commerce E-commerce, once a novel concept, has now evolved …

    Read post
  • Advantages of E-Commerce Fulfilment over Drop Shipping

    02/12/2019

    Advantages of E-Commerce Fulfilment over Drop Shipping

    What’s the difference between Fulfilment and Drop Shipping? As an e-commerce business, you may have a fulfilment model or a drop shipping model. E-commerce fulfilment involves having products pre-stocked and ready to be shipped out upon placement of an order. It will be picked and packed, then shipped from a warehouse. A drop shipping e-commerce store, on the other hand, does not hold stock. Upon receiving an …

    Read post

Categories

We value your privacy

We use cookies and similar technologies to personalise content and ads, provide social media features, and analyse traffic. You can choose to accept all cookies, reject non-essential ones, or manage your preferences by category.

To learn how Google uses your data, see Google’s Privacy & Terms. For more details, see our Cookie Policy.

Essential

Essential cookies are small data files stored on your device by websites to ensure their proper functionality. They are crucial for core activities like page navigation, secure access, and saving preferences. Without these cookies, the website would not perform as expected, compromising your user experience. Essential cookies do not store personal information or track browsing activities beyond the website.

Wordpress

wordpress_test_cookie

Cookie set by WordPress to check if the cookies are enabled on the browser to provide appropriate user experience to the users

devicePixelRatio

Used to make the site responsive to the visitor’s screen size.

tk_qs

JetPack sets this cookie to store a randomly-generated anonymous ID which is used only within the admin area and for general analytics tracking.

tk_lr

Jetpack - Stores the unique identifier for the publisher to enable Jetpack to collect data.

tk_or

Jetpack - Stores the unique identifier for the publisher to enable Jetpack to collect data.

tk_r3d

JetPack installs this cookie to collect internal metrics for user activity and in turn improve user experience.

tk_tc

JetPack sets this cookie to record details on how user's use the website.

wp-settings-

Used to persist a user’s wp-admin configuration.

wporg_logged_in

Used to check whether the current visitor is a logged-in WordPress.org user.

wporg_sec

Used to check whether the current visitor is a logged-in WordPress.org user.

wporg_locale

Used to persist a user’s locale configuration.

welcome-

Used to record if you’ve chosen to hide the “Welcome” message at the top of the corresponding blog.

showComments

Used to determine if you prefer comments to be shown or hidden when reading the site.

trac_form_token

Used as a security token for cross-site request forgery protection.

trac_session

Used to keep anonymous session information.

codexToken

Used to check whether the current visitor is a logged-in WordPress.org user. Only set if you select “Keep me logged in” when logging in.

codexUserId

Used to check whether the current visitor is a logged-in WordPress.org user.

codexUserName

Used to check whether the current visitor is a logged-in WordPress.org user.

camptix_client_stats

Used to track unique visitors to tickets page on a WordCamp site

wp-saving-post

Used to track if there is saved post exists for a post currently being edited. If exists then let user restore the data

comment_author_

Used to tracked comment author name, if “Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.” is checked

comment_author_url_

Used to track comment author url, if “Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.” checkbox is checked

wp-postpass_

Used to maintain session if a post is password protected

wp-settings-time-

Time at which wp-settings-{user} was set

tix_view_token

Used for session managing private CampTix content

jetpackState

Used for maintaining Jetpack State

jpp_math_pass

Verifies that a user answered the math problem correctly while logging in.

stnojs

Remember if user do not want JavaScript executed

wordpress_logged_in_

Remember User session

Marketing

Used to determine a user’s inclusion in an experiment and the expiry of experiments a user has been included in.

ad_storage

ad_user_data

ad_personalization

analytics_storage

Social

Social cookies enable social media features on websites, such as sharing content and social media logins. They can track your activity across different sites for targeted advertising. These cookies enhance your online experience by facilitating content sharing and engagement on social platforms.