This is why offering your customers discounts and special offers really does work. And with Christmas getting nearer, a good promotion can allow your business to stand out and here's some ideas to help you through the holiday season.
To execute promotions successfully, thorough planning is essential. Consider that "Buy One, Get One Free" is often seen as more rewarding than the equivalent "50% off," even though the savings are identical.
Focusing on promotions that connect with shoppers' practical and celebratory desires can prove beneficial. By creating holiday bundles like "Your Holiday Hamper" or "Christmas Cheer Combo" can make it easier for shoppers to choose the perfect items and gifts.
Amazon has really nailed great promotional deals with their "Prime Day" offering exclusive discounts to its Prime members across its multiple categories. But what makes this promotion stand out?
Exclusivity: The deals are available only to Prime members, encouraging sign-ups to their subscription service.
Wide Appeal: The discounts cater to a broad audience by offering deals on diverse products.
Urgency: The event is time-limited, often spanning just 48 hours, creating a sense of urgency and encouraging quick purchases.
Bundle Offers: Discounts are sometimes paired with incentives like additional savings for purchasing multiple items or bundles.
An idea for smaller retailers could be something along the lines of “VIP Festive Rewards Weekend” — a weekend of exclusive discounts for loyalty programme members, offering savings on gift sets or free delivery, to create excitement and urgency.
Here’s an idea for a retail context:-
Promotion Idea: “VIP Festive Rewards Weekend”
Eligibility: Exclusively for loyalty programme members or subscribers to your newsletter. This drives sign-ups ahead of the promotion.
Duration: A three-day event (e.g., Friday to Sunday) to build urgency while giving customers time to shop.
Deals: Offer tiered discounts based on spending thresholds (e.g., spend £50, get 10% off; spend £100, get 20% off). Include bonus perks like free gift wrapping for purchases over £50 or a free festive gift with purchases over £75.
Themed Bundles: Curate bundles tailored for Christmas gifting, such as - “Festive Family Pack” – holiday treats and decorations at a discounted price and “Luxury Pamper Set” – skincare or self-care items perfect for gifting.
In-Store and Online: Ensure deals are available across all channels, with consistent messaging and pricing. Offer “click-and-collect” to merge online convenience with in-store footfall.
Marketing Strategy: Launch teasers via email and social media in advance, highlighting the exclusivity and deals. Collaborate with local influencers to promote the event to relevant audiences.
The key to your promotional deal success lies in knowing your audience and delivering genuine value.
A loyalty programme is another popular way to entice customers to buy more, and more often. After a certain number of transactions, customers receive a bonus, gift, or discount.
According to YouGov and Mando-Connect in 2023, more than two-thirds (72%) of UK adults think loyalty programmes are a great means for brands to reward their customers with, while over half (59%) believe all brands should provide them.
This too relies on offering an authentic benefit for multiple purchases. Saving up points for months to get a voucher for a pound may not have the desired effect! However a loyalty programme can be valuable, as it costs a great deal less to hang on to existing customers than it does to attract new ones and holiday periods are a great opportunity to connect with your loyal customers with exclusive discounts or early access to Christmas sales.
Offering different loyalty bonuses or promotional offers across your ecommerce website and in-store, can be seen as divisive and unfair to your customers.
With many shoppers now researching online first before coming in-store to buy (webrooming ), if offers and pricing are not consistent across all your sales channels, this can alienate your customers.
Ensuring this consistency, as well as effective execution of your promotional campaigns, across all sales channels, requires integration between your ePOS till system and eCommerce platform .
Using an integrated ePOS till and eCommerce platform will help you to set up your promotional campaigns properly, and it will also synchronise those promo codes, bundles, and discounts across your sales channels, saving you precious time.
And by ensuring your promotions and discounts are automatically synchronised between your ePOS till system and eCommerce platform the customer also gets to benefit from a seamless shopping experience no matter where they buy.
Choosing the right discount, bonus or deal comes down to having a good grasp of your target customers and their perceptions of your brand.
What would be the best way to get their attention, without digging too deeply into your profit? You know your customers best, so find the offer most likely to get your ecommerce operations and shop on track for a great sales boost.
Keeping it simple helps. So, percentage discounts should be easy to calculate mentally, such as 10%. Sometimes the most effective discount is a basic money off promotion. The customer gets a compelling and straightforward deal that requires little or no thought.
And be sure to set dates and times when you want the promotions to appear and importantly when you want them to end. Automating these processes frees you to spend your time interacting with your customers while technology takes care of all the admin.
Make it easy for yourself and simplify the set-up, management and tracking of your promotional offerings by using an integrated ePOS Till and eCommerce platform like ShopTill-e.com .
Within ShopTill-e there is a range of different discounts and promotions that you can choose from:-
Easily create site-wide discounts or limit them to specific products or categories. It's easy to set start and end dates, and you can choose from :-
Also for your loyal customers, loyalty programmes can be achieved by setting up different customer groups with special pricing assigned tor these loyal people, such as a Loyal Customer Group or VIP group, as well the ability to apply different pricing for these groups and for example, to the trade.
ShopTill-e provides you with complete control over your product pricing so you can set different prices for different groups .
Gift Vouchers can be redeemable both on your ecommerce website as well as in-store through your ePOS till. Issue and track gift vouchers with a unique code, set an auto expire date, and optionally assign to a registered customer. Gift Vouchers can also be part redeemed by simply scanning the bar code on the voucher at the checkout.
With the holiday season fast approaching, now is the perfect time to start implementing your promotional campaigns. By using an integrated ePOS till system and eCommerce platform like ShopTill-e's all-in-one retail platform, you can automate and synchronise your offers, ensuring a seamless experience for your customers both online and in-store.
Let technology handle the heavy lifting, so you can focus on what really matters – building strong relationships with your customers and boosting your holiday sales.
If done right, your promotions and discounts can help turn festive shoppers into loyal customers, setting your business up for success now and in the years to come.
If you would like to find out more you can take a no obligation free 14 day trial of ShopTill-e or book a walk-through with one of our retail experts.