What Type of Discounts & Promotions You Should Run for Black Friday
With less than fifty days left until Black Friday, marketers and ecommerce retailers are already getting ready for one of the busiest shopping seasons of 2020. And with online shopping expected to hit record highs this year, there’s plenty of preparation that is required for a strong holiday marketing plan.
If you’re in the process of developing your pricing strategy for Black Friday, here are our tips for how to keep your margins high, budget accordingly, and still offer a deal to your most engaged customers.
1. PRICE CUTS
Perhaps one of the most common Black Friday promotions is a price cut. Online stores typically slash prices anywhere between 25-75% and use aggressive sales tactics to clear end-of-year inventory and offer shoppers enticing discounts. These discounts might be applied sitewide, or just to select products online.
Depending on your margins, you might be able to offer steep discounts for your customers. But at the very least, you’ll want to make sure that you’re still clearing your wholesale costs!
Shoppers typically react most favorably to discounts above 25% for Black Friday (and the higher, the better!), so if you aren’t able to offer a 25% off discount across all products, you might want to consider a BOGO offer instead (see #2!)
2. BUY ONE, GET ONE OFFERS (BOGO)
If you aren’t able to offer an aggressive sitewide discount but still want to clear inventory, buy one, get one offers are a great way to still offer a deal for shoppers. Some of the most popular BOGO formats include:
Buy one, get one free
Buy one, get one 50% off
The best part about BOGO offers is that you are able to distribute the discount across the products. At surface value, a buy one, get one 50% off deal is similar to a sitewide 25% off promotion—but with one important distinction: you’re able to clear one additional item that’s been bundled with the sale. Especially for retailers who have high inventory and warehouse costs, BOGO deals are a great way to clear room for new products. These offers incentivize shoppers to buy more products in order to cash in on bigger deals.
You can also offer tiered BOGO offers in the form of automatic discounts (see #3!)
3. AUTOMATIC DISCOUNTS
Automatic discounts are a great way to incentivize higher volume purchases. You might see a structure similar to:
Buy 2+ Items and Get 25% Off
Buy 5+ Items and Get 50% Off
Buy 10+ Items and Get 75% Off
These discounts are a great way to move additional inventory. You can also offer bundle deals to help shoppers more easily find complementary products.
No matter how you choose to promote your store this holiday season, just make sure to keep your margins in mind! It can be easy to get caught up in offering generous discounts, but make sure that your costs are covered.
