Enticing Holiday eCommerce Deals Your Customers Will Love!

Written by  AJ Leale, Sr. Director eCommerce 
With the holidays approaching at avalanche speed, it’s time to amp up your eCommerce websites and selling strategies to take advantage of all that natural momentum.
Almost every retailer out there plans to slash prices when the time comes, and growing competition makes it necessary to develop a good holiday deal strategy.
Here we’ll provide you with the various types of deals you can use to attract holiday shoppers, along with tips on using them wisely!

Limited Time Holiday Discounts: Shopping Events to Induce Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)

Fear of missing out is the driving force of limited-time deals, which never fail to skyrocket sales. Just look at all crowds in the Black Friday store videos!
The crowd effect happens online too. Websites can crash, because of insane visit rates that jump in a matter of minutes, and inventory may be limited for hot items.

“Are your eCommerce websites ready for the holidays? Make them lightning-fast with our guide here!”

Making these discounts significant for a short window will tempt customers to buy quickly so they don’t miss out on these low prices.

1. Percentage Discounts

Percentage-off deals are the most common, easy to understand, and effective type of discount.
Some marketers use these to grow their email lists all year round, offering 10% off the first order, for example, when a customer subscribes to their mailing list. A Synchrony Retailer Mobile Apps study from 2018 also showed that more than half the people who downloaded the retailer’s app did so just to get the discount!
Storewide percentage discounts (with few exceptions to which items they can be applied to) also work well to attract holiday shoppers, who will jump at the chance to finally purchase a discounted item they’ve been eyeing for a while.

2. Money Off

A flat dollar amount off a certain purchase offers a clear image to customers without asking them to calculate their savings the way a percentage does.
In a study where people were offered either $50 off or 15% off a purchase, Entrepreneur contributor Craig Simpson found that people responded better to the flat $50 off. This kind of proposition generates more revenue, possibly because it sounds like a substantial amount of money.

3. Holiday Coupons and Discount Codes

This is another way to provide your customers with enticingly-priced items in times of holiday shopping.
Partner up with influencers from relevant niches and secure an influx of brand new customers from their audiences. In addition to influencer codes, you can also offer coupons with certain purchases, giving buyers a free product, a generous sample, or money off!

4. Limited-Edition Products: Time Constraints and the Scarcity Illusion

Limited-edition products are only available for short periods of time — and they are often produced in very small amounts as well. This scarcity will make collectors rush each time their favorite brand releases a product that won’t be available again.
The festive design, amped-up packaging, and special features of such products and promotions make them even more appealing.

BOGO Deals

Buy One Get One Deals offer a bargain to your customers while driving increases in items ordered and allowing you to clear out stock on leftover, hard-to-sell items. Introduce them as:

• Free item with any purchase
• Buy this item, get another free/for a lower price

Festive Gamifying

Make the holiday shopping fun with these gamification tactics:

• Spin the Wheel (and get a reduction percentage determined by where the wheel lands)
• Quizzes
• Treasure Hunt (with a discount code hidden somewhere on the website)

You can also spice things up and add an element of mystery by selling mystery bundles with great value for the price, or by including a mystery gift with every purchase.
Holiday Advents is another amusing way to jazz up the holiday offer. NYX creates advent calendars with full-size or miniature versions of their products inside. Tiffany’s created an advent calendar as well, but theirs was $112,000!

Charity Donations

Donate a certain percent of the profit from every purchase to show that you care about causes that are important to you and your customers. Patagonia, for example, has seen revenues jump noticeably with the publicity generated by their 1% For the Planet program.

Free Samples

Adding free samples with certain purchases (or every purchase) is a nice touch that customers will appreciate — an easy, powerful way to improve your brand image!
Including samples of high-end, expensive products give people a chance to try and enjoy them. Chances are they will add these products to their wishlists and eventually purchase them.
Even if they don’t like the product sample, you will be spared the negative review they might leave if they paid for and were disappointed by the full-size product.
Product samples can also be used to test the waters for items that are not yet for sale.

Free Shipping for Holiday Gifts

Complimentary shipping will tip the scale in your favor and encourage customers to make additional purchases since they don’t have to pay additional costs.
Seventy-nine% of US consumers claim that free shipping makes them more likely to make their purchase online!
You can offer free shipping for orders over a set amount of money, for certain products, or even for every purchase — but for a limited amount of time only.
Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and every day in between Thanksgiving and Christmas — you have plenty of opportunities to test out what kind of deals work best for you. You can also reach out to us to create a custom eCommerce strategy just in time for the holidays!