How to Create a Discount Strategy on Shopify in 2023

Having a discount strategy is an effective method to help boost your sales and increase the conversion rate of your eCommerce, as long as it is done strategically, as it will also mean a decrease in Return On Investment (profit divided by investment amount).

Before establishing a discount strategy, it is necessary to know the profit margin of each product or service, the strategy that best fits your target (free shipping, discount coupons, a percentage discount, etc.), and the duration of the discounts, which can be recurrent or occasional.

What is the Discount Strategy?

The discount strategy is based on reducing the price of products or services during a certain period to attract new customers and increase the sales of a business.

This strategy is commonly used in physical and online stores in various ways.

To carry out a discount strategy in a strategic way, we must take into account the following aspects.

Product Analysis

The analysis of your products is an essential step in implementing promotions.

You must be clear about the best-selling products of your eCommerce, which products you have more stock or which products are from other seasons, and therefore, you want to sell at a lower price.

An example of this would be to make a discount on the last units for a product with low stock, reducing the prices of these products to remove them from your eCommerce.

Brand Image Analysis

This aspect refers to the customers' image of your company, which is crucial. If you want users to perceive you as a luxury brand, discounts on your products have a negative influence because a discounted product is perceived as inferior quality.

In this case, it is very important to have previously defined your brand's objectives to understand if the discount strategy is a viable option in your eCommerce.

Strategy Implementation

What discount strategy are we going to use in our eCommerce?

The options are very diverse, and therefore, we must analyze which option best fits our target audience and our business goals, always taking into account, as we have said, our profit margin so that it is not negatively affected.

Price Discount

In this way, you can make automated discounts in your eCommerce, which will start on the start date and end on the programmed end date automatically.

The main difference that the use of apps presents when discounts are being applied in an eCommerce is that the discounts are displayed on the product page, so users will see the discount when accessing your eCommerce.

Free Shipping Discount

According to SaleCycle, the abandonment rate of abandoned carts was 81% in 2020, mainly due to high shipping costs, long order processes, and a complex checkout process.

We can use the free shipping discount in our eCommerce if our goal is to reduce the abandoned cart rate.

Loyalty Customer Discount

Another of the most popular discounts in eCommerce strategies are discounts for loyal customers, which will be configured in Shopify through customer eligibility, selecting as beneficiaries of the discount only those customers who have made a previous purchase.

In the opposite case, if the goal is to attract new customers, we can configure discounts for the first order by configuring customer eligibility for new customers.

Source: Shopify

Flash Sales

Flash sales are ideal for special events such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday, as they have a limited duration. Together with the daily deals, they consist of offers available exclusively quickly and with higher discounts.

Last Unit Discounts

If our long-term objective is to release stock, we can opt for more prolonged promotions of products with low sales or from previous seasons.

For example, discounting winter products at the start of summer.

Volume Discounts

These discounts will be beneficial if you use a dropshipping strategy in your eCommerce since you can give discounts to your users depending on the number of products they purchase.

Therefore, you will achieve your goal of selling more products.

Remember that, to promote your discount and inform your potential customers; you should prepare a communication strategy in advance.

Since there is so much competition and dates with possible promotions, users might miss the offers of your eCommerce.

To ensure your customers don’t miss your offer, you can promote your discount through email marketing, SMS marketing, and social media.

In this case, we focus on creating a discount strategy on the Shopify platform, as it is a growing eCommerce platform with more than 1.75 million more users in 2022.

You can see more detail on how to make discounts on Shopify in this step-by-step guide.

Types of Shopify Discounts

Shopify offers the possibility to include discounts in your eCommerce through the discount code method or automatic discounts.

Source: Shopify

Discount Codes

Discount codes are discounts such as "amount off product," "amount off order," "free shipping," or "buy X, get Y" that are applied by including the appropriate code during the checkout process.

From the Shopify dashboard, we must click the "create a discount" button, access the discounts page, and configure the following:

• Duration of the discount
• Number of discount uses
• Minimum purchase quantity or items
• Discount conditions (products, collections, variants, countries, etc.)
• Customer eligibility

Automated Discounts

As in the previous case, the automatic Shopify discounts are:

• Amount off product,
• Amount off order,
• Free shipping, or
• Buy X, get Y

However, in this case, the discounts will be applied automatically to the cart and checkout page without the need to enter a code as long as the right discount conditions are met.

Similarly, an automatic discount will be created from the Shopify discount page by selecting the discount type and configuring its conditions.

Suppose you want your discount to be applied directly to your eCommerce product page.

In that case, you can use Shopify Apps like Planet, which allows your customer to see the final price of the discounted product and how much money they are saving with the purchase thanks to the comparative price.

This will increase the average order value and save time by automating the process in just a few clicks.

Conclusion

Automating your eCommerce pricing strategy will save you time to invest in your customer, improving their shopping experience.

In addition, offers will encourage customers to purchase in your eCommerce, thanks to the feeling of scarcity.

However, it is essential to carry out discounts in your eCommerce following a proper strategy, taking care of the profit margin so that your sales remain profitable and effectively managing the increase in the number of orders in your eCommerce.

Finally, we highlighted the importance of discount personalization since the types of users (as well as discounts) are very varied, and offering an appropriate discount for each customer will help increase the conversion rate in your eCommerce, as stated in Shopify's Future eCommerce report, which shows that more than 50% of users are more likely to make purchases when a personalization strategy is used.