Promotions have been a tried and tested retail strategy since the beginning of time.  Since 6000 BC, Mesopotamian tribes have struck bartering deals to drive an exchange of goods.  Today, the goal of promotions have remained the same, even in the digital world:  increase sales.

This quick guide will walk you through the benefits of using e-commerce promotions, and how you can apply this to your website, depending on your chosen platform.

Benefits of using promotions

• Increase sales.  If implemented correctly, and if consumer shopping behaviour is taken into great consideration, promotions can help you boost sales.  However, do take note that you don’t have to offer huge discounts or incentives to drive conversions.  Smaller incentives can still make a positive impact on your sales, without compromising your margins drastically.
• Enhance shopping experience.  Shoppers can’t resist a good deal, whether it’s free shipping, a discount, or a freebie.  Hence, it won’t hurt to throw in something of value to your visitors to enhance their shopping experience and keep them coming back for more.
•  Easier to track, hence, it will be easier for you to  come up with better sales strategies based on the success of a store offer.

E-commerce website promotions you can offer

• Coupon codes. Coupon codes are codes given to a certain group of customers or disseminated through highly targeted email marketing or social media campaigns promising discounts or freebies to those who use them.  They help you measure the effectiveness of an offline marketing campaign, as purchasers have to enter the coupon code to redeem the freebie or the discount.  Coupon codes, too, can also increase customer loyalty and conversion (if implemented correctly).
• Free Shipping. It’s more than just about getting something for free.  As shipping costs can greatly increase the final price paid for an item, free shipping has become a deciding factor for many consumers in looking for an online retailer.  But there’s a caveat to using free shipping:  When not done right, free shipping can significantly decrease margins.  Best ways to implement free shipping is through establishing thresholds on order values, or offering free shipping on select products where it is viable.  You can also enact price increases on your products to make up for lost profit.
• Sale or Discounts.  There are a many ways to offer discounts to your loyal or new customers.  You can set up a discount at an item level (discounts on an item per se), by customer (for premium members), or based on quantity.  TIP:  Use discount pricing strategies sparingly and with caution.  This will not only cut your margins significantly, it will also diminish your ability to sell products at a full price.

How to set up promotions on your website

You can setup e-commerce promotions on your website.  But depending on the platform you are using and your specific requirements, you might need to purchase additional plugins or functionalities.  Click on the links below to learn how you can implement e-commerce promotions on your website:

Zest

Coupons

You can purchase coupons as an add-on to your Zest website. Once you have purchased the coupons add-on, read this help document to know how to create and manage coupon codes.

Sale or discounts

If you would like to implement a sale or discount on an item level, see Setup a promotion for the complete instructions.  The Promotions tab allows you to set a start and end date for the promotion, as well as the exact discount amount.  If you would like to set up a discount or sale on bulk items, go to Advanced Pricing, then add quantity pricing.  For more details, see this help document.

You can also implement sale or discount prices per customer or customer group.  For group pricing, you first need to setup customer groups before setting up group pricing.

NOTE: If a customer belongs to multiple groups and each group has a unique pricing structure, the customers will see the items with the cheapest price offered.

Others

For other options that are not mentioned here, it may require add-ons or customisation.  If you have any specific feature request, contact our support team for estimates.

Woocommerce

Coupons

See this helpful Woothemes documentation to learn more about setting up discounts on your Woocommerce website.

Free Shipping

Encourage your customers to spend more with Free shipping.  Learn how you can implement this on your Woocommerce site by reading this Woothemes documentation.

NOTE:  If you have copuons for free shipping, and a minimum amount set, coupons take priority.  The minimum amount will be ignored when the customer redeems a free shipping coupon.

Others

For other options that are not mentioned here, it may require an additional plugin.  If you have any specific feature request, contact our support team for estimates.

Shopify

Discount Codes

Shopify discount codes allow you to give out dollar value discounts, percentage discounts, or free shipping discounts.  You can even specify the validity dates of the discount codes or the number of times it can be used.  Read all about it in this Shopify documentation.

NOTE: Here are a few items you need to remember:

• The discount code entry field will only appear during checkout, if you have active dciscount codes available to your customers.
• Customers cannot “stack” discounts.  Only one discount code at a time will be valid.
• You can limit discount codes to one per customer in the Usage limits section.
• If you set an expiry date for a discount, the discount will expire at 11:59:59 on that day.
• One of the easiest ways to send out discount codes is through customer groups.  Just apply filters to create a group with the selected customer type, grab the email addresses, generate a special code, and send it to these customers.
• You can’t edit a discount.  if you want to make a change, delete the discount and recreate it.  But keep in mind that all reporting associated with the deleted discount will also disappear.
• You can apply collection discounts in two ways:  To a single item order, or to every applicable item in the cart.  Choose the method you want in the Conditions section.
• Product specific discount codes will apply to all quanities of a product once customer has gone through the checkout and applied the discount.  For instance, if a client orders 10 of a discounted item, the discount will apply to all 10.
• You can apply discount codes to specific variants of a product.
• You can perform bulk actions to disable discount codes at once.