A sale is easy to start and hard to stop. If your customers learn that a discount arrives every month, the full price stops being the price. Plan sales so they stay exceptional.
Give a reason
A discount with a reason — a birthday, the end of a batch, a seasonal clear-out — reads as a decision. A discount for no reason reads as a product that is not selling.
Make the scarcity real
- If it ends on Friday, end it on Friday. Extending it teaches people to ignore your deadlines.
- If there are twenty left, say twenty, and be able to show it.
- Fake countdowns and invented stock levels are illegal in many places and expensive to be caught at.
Other ways to give something
- A bundle: two things together for a little less.
- An extra instead of a lower price: a free sample, a faster delivery.
- An early-access price for people on your email list.
Do not discount the thing you are known for
Keep the full price on whatever customers recognise you by. Put the offers on the second line of products.
Measure what the sale did
Compare the month after to the month before. If sales fell after the sale ended, you pulled orders forward and did not create new ones.
Write down the next sale’s date only after you have decided it will be earned.