Convertedin Blog

Top 10 Discount Strategies To Boost Your eCommerce Sales

Written by Maria Zaki | Apr 12, 2023 8:38:22 AM

Boosting your eCommerce business can be a real job! It demands a lot of planning work, and with the right strategies, you can maximize your sales, be top of mind and drive more traffic to your website!

On top of these strategies lies the discount strategies for your store. Discount strategies for online businesses have to be employed as a tool to address certain issues facing the company.

Discounts can help you build your business boom if used properly. However, you shouldn't use it as your primary sales technique. 

In this article, we will let you know the best discount techniques and strategies and how to use it.

Table of content:

  • Top Discount Strategies For Your eCommerce:
  1. Exit Intent Popup Discount
  2. Discount On Higher Quantity
  3. Abandoned Cart Discount
  4. Discount On A Targeted Amount Spent
  5. Free Shipping Discount
  6. Relevant Products Discounts During Checkout
  7. Location-Based Discount
  8. Loyal Customers Special Discount
  9. Discount on Referrals
  10. Next Purchase Discount

Top Discount Strategies For Your eCommerce 

Image Source 

Offers for discounted prices are among the best techniques, particularly for eCommerce businesses, to convert more prospective leads into paying clients.

A study reveals that offering special discounts might increase sales by 73%.

But it's not quite that easy. Strategic planning should go into the discounts in order to maximize their ability to increase sales. Here are some discount strategies to use:

1- Exit Intent Popup Discount

An exit intent popup discount can be a useful tactic to use when a consumer tries to leave your website without making a purchase in order to persuade them otherwise and recover lost sales. 

Even while you might not be able to persuade every site visitor to buy something, if your popup provides something worthwhile, such as free shipping or a particular percentage off their first order, it might be enough to encourage someone to make a purchase. 

To use this discount method, time a popup to display when a customer is about to leave the website or is inactive for too long.

2- Discount On Higher Quantity

Image Source 

People can afford to purchase a variety of goods in larger quantities. One might purchase several t-shirts at once, for instance. And you can take advantage of this chance by giving discounts on larger orders of your products.

An appealing and effective conversion trigger is a pricing campaign that offers discounts for purchasing larger quantities.

When customers may require or want larger amounts of a product in a shorter period of time, such as with food items, regular apparel, stationery, toiletries, etc. This technique works effectively.

3- Abandoned Cart Discount

Due to additional expenses or shipping fees, more than half of online shoppers will abandon a basket during a buying session. Offering these consumers a discount is one discount strategy to make up for these missed revenues. 

Your reduction can rekindle their interest in your products and encourage them to finish the transaction at a lesser price. Sending follow-up emails about the abandoned basket and reminding them of the products they were interested in is a fantastic method to put this discount pricing approach into practice.

4- Discount On A Targeted Amount Spent


This is a great strategy that helps to raise each customer's order values. Give a minimum purchase requirement that customers must meet in order to receive a discount. For instance, you might declare, "Spend $500 or more and get 15% off your entire order!" This will entice customers to try to buy more goods in order to take advantage of this discount.

This strategy can be used all year long or at the very least at the start of each season. (Summer and Winter). Additionally, it will perform admirably during the Black Friday and holiday sales, when consumers are eager to spend more on items with discounts.

Discover 19 Effective Ways to Increase Your Average Order Value

5- Free Shipping Discount

One of the primary causes of cart abandonment for online customers is shipping fees. Therefore, a decent pricing tactic is to provide free shipping for customers who spend more than a particular amount. There are several ways that this tactic can increase sales. 

In order to get free shipping, it could tempt customers to spend more money than they should. Additionally, it will reduce some of the friction they experience when shipping fees are included in the price of their purchase. 

6- Relevant Products Discounts During Checkout

If properly implemented, this straightforward strategy has the potential to increase average order value (AOV) considerably. When a customer reaches the checkout page, he is likely prepared to make a purchase of the items he placed in the cart. 

The buyer will usually wind up including your offer in his offer if you can make a decent one at this time on something he can utilize in addition to the item he is going to buy. Making the offer as an order bump at the checkout is the ideal course of action in this case. This indicates that the offer will be accessible on the checkout form and that it may be quickly added to the order.

There are now two elements that are essential for this to succeed:

- The item being provided must be pertinent to one of the items in the shopping cart.
- You must provide a discount that will enable the customer to save some cash.

Therefore, you might offer two pairs of socks for $5 cheaper if someone was ready to buy a pair of shoes. Offering a phone case wouldn't be very practical, though. This strategy will be most effective around holidays and at the start of a season when customers are looking to buy larger quantities of related goods at once.

7- Location-Based Discount

Image Source 

Shipping to some locations is more expensive than it is to others, which may deter customers in some areas from buying from your company. 

We already know that excessive delivery prices can drive away potential customers, so online retailers may need to address this problem if they wish to operate in particular regions of the nation or the world. 

In order to reduce the high transportation expenses they incur, sellers can give locals a discount, which can increase sales in particular locations.

8- Loyal Customers Special Discount

Trying to increase the number of repeat clients is an important strategy that most online stores overlook. You see if you can locate customers that will buy from your online store repeatedly, you will be able to generate a sizable quantity of money without incurring any further acquisition expenditures.

Offering special discounts to repeat clients is one strategy to encourage more customers to visit your website and make purchases. For instance, once a customer makes a purchase from your store, you might send him an email a week later with a coupon for, say, a $20 discount off his subsequent order.

Even if a customer hasn't placed an order in over a month, you might think about sending them a coupon for a discount. This might be a bigger offer, like $100 off for orders of $500 or more.

A reverse approach will also be effective here. Sending a discount voucher to customers who have made more than $800 worth of purchases in the previous three months is possible. This will encourage them to make frequent purchases going forward.

Delivering the product on schedule and in excellent condition is the key issue in this situation. If you offer a coupon and the customer is happy with his purchase, he will very certainly consider making another purchase from you.

9- Discount on Referrals

Offering a discount to current customers who recommend the company to a friend is one of the best discount types that e-commerce stores can use. By doing this, you can benefit from clients who are already familiar with and enthusiastic about your items. In essence, it turns your customers into local salespeople. 

When a referral makes a purchase, you will only provide the previous client a discount in exchange for helping to promote your business.

Learn more about The Most Powerful eCommerce Referral Marketing Strategies.

10- Next Purchase Discount 

Offering customers a future percentage off or free shipping after a purchase is another type of discount you may use. In other words, you are getting paid in full for the present sale and incentivizing the customer to buy from you again in the future. 

Even if they never use the discount, it's still a terrific strategy to encourage a full-price purchase that you would not have otherwise been able to secure.
Send a follow-up email with information on how to use this offer on future transactions after a consumer makes a purchase. 

Discount Strategies Tips, Tricks & Mistakes To Avoid 

To execute those strategies, you need to take some important points into consideration:

1- There must be a profit

Never offer a bargain that doesn't result in a profit. No matter what type of business you operate, even a $1 discount should result in a profit.

2- Don’t use discounts all the time

Too many annual sales can induce customers to form the expectation that your website will always have cheaper pricing. Thus, it is never a smart idea to do this. (The Flash Sale tactic is an exception).

Imagine it. Will you still be as excited if you go into a store and discover that they have a sale going on every two weeks? Over time, the pricing won't feel as remarkable, and you might come to insist on just shopping there when there is a sale.

Make an effort to use discounts as a surprise. Every time a customer receives a discount, he or she should see the opportunity to buy the goods as something unique.

3- What is the objective?

Each discount pricing strategy must be applied carefully. You cannot assume that using the same strategy across all items would produce the same outcomes.

Offering a quantity-based discount, for instance, on a costly product. Let's say one costing $700 won't result in many sales. Again, giving a discount at random in the middle of February without reason will not excite customers much. Consider your options carefully before applying the examples of strategic discount pricing.

The following inquiries What does this discount serve? If offered now, will this reduction excite buyers? Is this strategy appropriate for the goods I'm selling? Try to provide unbiased responses to these inquiries so that you can determine whether you should or shouldn’t use discounts.

4- Always choose the right time

Try to determine when your products or a certain class of products sell better. You can decide which discount pricing method might be appropriate based on that.

Winter clothing will, for instance, sell more of itself than summer clothing during the winter. The best action in this situation would be to offer summer clothing at a discount a month before loading your website with winter goods.

A week before winter officially begins, you may also provide things for the colder months at a discount. These will produce better outcomes.

At the end of the day, your goal is to maximize every discount campaign you run in terms of sales. If you don't make an effort to improve it and just assume that buyers will accept your offer—even at inconvenient times—it is meaningless.