Habitually, at this time of year discounting has always been at the forefront of any retailer’s mind, if not just for Black Friday and the long standing tradition of Boxing Day sales.
As previously discussed in our article, “Black Friday 2020 – The Headline Predictions” we discussed how discounting period is becoming extended. In recent years this has applied to Boxing Day sales, as well as Black Friday, online discounts have even be known to start on Christmas Day.
How do you go about setting up your online discounts? What should you consider to make sure your discounting works for you and your customers?
Product Selection
When considering what products or services you are going to discount it’s an easy trap to fall into to believe that you should discount the products or services that don’t sell well and that you are considering discontinuing.
In fact, it’s a great idea to choose products that sell well that you can still make a good margin on even if you make a discount. Use an exceptional offer or few offers on items that you know are most popular and use these offers to encourage customers to place an order with you.
If you wish to also discount discontinued products then make them visible but prioritise those products that you know customers will find attractive.
Check Your Margin
Always check your margin on the products you are discounting.
In addition to materials, delivery charges, and other tangible costs – don’t forget to take into consideration the intangible costs such as marketing costs per product.
The cost of producing a product may also have changed since you originally priced it, when producing your sales price it’s important to check your margins again.
Display The Offer
It’s important to think about how you are going to display and promote your offer.
Think about all the methods you can use to ensure that your customers will see your promotion. Marketing for printers should not be via just one channel. As well as digital or online marketing, it’s important to consider other methods such as direct mail.
When you are thinking about printer ecommerce the most obvious place to display your promotion is at the top of your homepage. Most sites utilise a slider which is a great place to display any temporary promotions for customers landing on your site.
Think about clearly displaying the discount and any timings that are relevant such as an offer end date. The design of your slider should catch the eye of your customer, often new offers will be displayed as the first image that comes up when a customer lands on your homepage.
Check Your Timing
As we wrote about in our blog, “How Do I Plan My Christmas 2020 Ecommerce Sales Approach?”, planning the timings of your promotions and sales is very important.
The timing of your promotion must work for your customer and you should also consider your direct and indirect competition’s timing of their promotions so that you are relevant within the marketplace.
It’s imperative to ensure you have enough stock and resources to meet any additional customer demand. From a customer perspective, it is irritating to choose to make a purchase and then to find out that the business you are buying from is unable to meet your order and there is a reputational risk in marketing an offer that you are unable to fulfil.
Using Discount or Voucher Codes
You’ve checked your stock and resource, planned your marketing, and created your designs for your marketing for printers. One way to promote a special offer is to use a discount code or voucher code.
Once you have set up your discount codes it’s important to always check that the codes work and that any restrictions such as single use or expiry date also work.
In the Flex4 OPS back office, users can setup discount codes which can be displayed on a website, used for email campaigns or included in newspaper or magazine adverts.
Why Choose Flex4?
Flex4 have over 10 years’ experience in designing, developing and supporting web to print systems, solutions and services for print businesses in both the UK and overseas.
We have an experienced eCommerce team with skills and experience in business development, marketing, project management, software development, website management, printer ecommerce, seo for printers, and online marketing for printers.
Our raison d’être is to help your business to grow by increasing your print revenues and reducing your administration costs. The result is a better ordering experience for your customers and a better margin and more efficient process for you.