InkSoft Marketing Tip: Marking Products as “On Sale”
Did you know that you have the ability to mark products “on-sale” within the Online Stores platform?
Did you also know that you can get as broad or as granular as you want by discounting anything from the entire store to an individual product’s size or style?
This article will briefly go over when and why you might want to mark down particular products, and how you can implement a discounted pricing strategy within your InkSoft Online Store.
Why Discount Products?
Generate More Sales
The most basic reason for having a sale is to generate more business. Sure, you’d ideally like to sell at as high a price as possible, to generate the most profit, but if selling more quantity can make up for a lower price, discounting could be worth it.
Tip: Try experimenting with different discounts, and remember to measure the impact that price discounts have on your profitability. This way you can make pricing decisions based on data!
Empty Old Inventory
Remember that awesome new product that you just had to stock up on? Well, sales didn’t go as well as you thought, and now you’re dealing with your very own Crystal Pepsi fiasco.
Well, news flash…the product probably isn’t going to ever sell like you thought and now it’s just taking up valuable shelf space. At some point, you have to realize that generating any revenue off of these products is better than having them serve as expensive dust collectors.
Discounting this type of product not only increases the chances of the product finally getting off the shelf but also allows you to offer new products that may be more attractive to your customers.
Artificial Inflation
Sometimes a sale really isn’t as big of a sale as your customer might think. We’ve all walked by that store whose had the “Going Out of Business Sale” going on for two years straight. Here the store is trying to increase the consumer’s purchase intention by creating a sense of urgency.
While your shop doesn’t have to go to this extreme of a measure, you can implement this strategy in small doses. InkSoft Online Stores strategically lists original retail price of your product, the sale price, and the customer’s savings.
Say you originally planned on having the retail price for a short sleeve T-shirt at $14.99. Well, you can set the actual retail price to $19.99, mark it down $5 to the original $14.99 for a week long sale. You will still be making the same profit per shirt as you originally planned, however, sales will increase because of that increased purchased intention created by the sense of urgency put on the customer with the limited-time $5 savings.
Special Occasions
Creating sales around high volume shopping seasons and holidays are widely considered an effective use of discounting products. The reason for this is more than just because your competition is also doing it. As Marshall stresses, pricing strictly off of competition is not the best method.
However offering sales around holidays and special events is a great source of word-of-mouth marketing and give your shop the opportunity sell to new customers (think Black Friday or Back-To-School). By offering discounted products, you will generate goodwill towards current customers, making them much more likely to tell others about your store. Additionally, by having an InkSoft Online Store, customers can easily pass along the store’s URL to their friends and family in as easy as an email or text message!
Using Within InkSoft Online Stores
First, you will have to sign-in to your Admin Portal and go to Products ->Manage Products.
Here you can search products by SKU or use the filters to drill down to the certain products you want to mark “on-sale.”
Options for marking products on sale (check out the video for a detailed walk through):
- Control at SKU Level: Simply click on the SKU, then the Pricing Tab, and here you’ll be able to control all of the pricing for that particular SKU. If the SKU has multiple styles and sizes, you can use the pricing grid to select which styles and sizes you want to mark on sale. Simply click the “New Sale” button, and you’ll be able to edit the sale price and the begin and end date of the sale as well.
- A Range of Products (e.g.: All T-Shirts): From product drill down, select all of the product that you want to be included in the sale. Then from the grid drop down, select “Product Sale Grid.” This will open up a new workspace, where you can establish a “Sale Start Date” and “Sale End Date” and mark a unique sale price for all the styles and sizes of the products you selected.
Questions?
Are online Stores still giving you trouble? Contact the Success Squad at support@inksoft.com, and we’ll help you out!
Still not a customer? Looking to improve the way your shop operates? We’d love to show you around.
