Four Holiday Promos for Shopify that Sell and Won’t Damage Your Brand
From now through New Years, your eCommerce marketing efforts should be in overdrive. If you’ve been reading our posts and emails – and why wouldn’t you, right? – then you know that we suggest a ton of promotions this time of year and support it with two or more emails per week.
If you need a refresher, here’s a link to our article, “Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2018 – A Shopify Website Survival Checklist.” You can come back and check that out in a bit.
The problem is that discounting and sales can bite too hard into your margins, hurt your brand, and damage the value perception of the products. Here are three practical holiday promos you can run that will jump-start sales without damaging your business or your brand.
The Bundle
We’ve said it before … the best eCommerce bundlers on the internet are camera companies. Big camera-makers are super-protective of their brand perception and value. Retailers that sell cameras from Nikon and Canon are required by contract to sell those products above a set price. If they don’t, they can be kicked out of the distribution program. So, it’s impossible for these retailers to compete on price at all.
So, they have perfected the bundle.
On their own websites and on Amazon you will find dozens of offers for high-end cameras that include lens caps, and tripods, and spare batteries … all kinds of packages. A simple search on Amazon will tell the tale. When I searched for “Nikon Cameras” ten of the top dozen results were bundled deals. Here’s just one sample (image below). See how the camera appears to have all the value of that $699.00 price tag? This way the perceived product value and Nikon brand are protected AND the customer sees a deal with tons of accessories.
You can do this too. Bundle a scarf with a woman’s blouse. Bundle a tie and shirt in with a man’s suit. Bundle gloves with an overcoat. Add travel-size versions of soaps and lotions to full-size purchases. The possibilities are endless – your long-term value proposition will survive the holidays while customers give you more clicks.
The Free Upgrade
The Free Upgrade is similar, but a bit different from The Bundle. It’s perfect when you have products that can be purchased in different quantities or at different trim-levels. The reason it’s so great is that the main product level retains its value perception because that price does not change. This “anchors” the price in the consumer’s mind. The promo is to get more of that product or the more advanced product at the same price. After the sale/promo is over, the more advanced product is still perceived as more valuable than the base product.
Mattress sales do this all the time. We’ve all heard the ads saying, “get a king size for the price of a queen.” The price perception for the queen size – statistically the most popular mattress size – is not affected at all. And when the sale is over, the queen mattress will still serve as a price anchor for the king size, which will naturally be more expensive.
You can do this too.
Gift with Purchase
The Gift with Purchase promotion has been mastered by the perfume and cosmetics industries. They do it brilliantly. Not just at the holiday, but several times per year they kick-start sales by selling their main products at full price and “giving” a collection of sample-size products along with it all stuffed into a colorful zippered bag. Often, customers have to make a minimum purchase to qualify and that minimum purchase amount is usually just below the large size of the core product – customers have to buy the big one to get the “free” gift.
Not only does this spur sales, it also gives their customers a psychological incentive to try different products. It’s genius! The regular customers of the full-price anti-wrinkle night cream buy the big size and get a free tiny blusher, lipstick, and lip-moisturizer in a colorful bag.
The Loss-Leader
Ever notice that turkeys get real cheap just before Thanksgiving? That seems strange, right? Just when the demand for turkey is hitting its peak for the year, the prices drop. On the surface, it appears to fly in the face of every supply-and-demand lesson I had in economics class. But there’s a real solid business reason this happens.
The wholesale price of turkey does not really change all that much. But stores zap all of their profit out and sell the turkeys virtually at cost. Stores get you with the low-low turkey price, then you buy all the potatoes, cranberry sauce, biscuits, and pumpkin pies while you are there. They make the profit on the upsell. Customers buy most of their turkeys at Thanksgiving, so they don’t really notice the game all that much.
Pick a product from your inventory – something seasonal if you can get it – and put that as the super special deal. Then work like heck to get more business from that customer.
- Get their email address.
- Hit them with retargeting ads.
- Show them related products to add-on.
- Direct customers from The Loss-Leader to the other promos listed in this article.
The loss-leader discount will shield your core products from the perception of discounting, preserving their value and long-term price points. It’s one of the reasons that the big retailers bring in special inventory for the holidays
Run Successful Holiday Promos and Thrive
These tried and true promos will allow you to run brilliantly effective holiday sales without cannibalizing your future product margins and damaging your brand. Get started now … the next six weeks are where all the magic happens.
Thanks for reading!
Shopify Links and Resources
Our sister eCommerce marketing company – ShopREscue.com – has a great article about the details of how discounting hurts your business and brand. If you want to dig into the reasons, read this article too: https://www.shoprescue.com/blog/how-to-run-online-discounts-without-damaging-your-ecommerce-business
Here is a link to our article, “Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2018 – A Shopify Survival Checklist” – https://www.taskhusky.com/blogs/ecommerce-insights/black-friday-cyber-monday-2018-shopify-website-survival-checklist