How To Increase Your Sales With Product Promotions

In the fiercely competitive ecommerce marketplace, customers can afford to be choosy. Increasingly, many shoppers simply won’t buy a product if there isn’t some kind of promotion attached to it.

It’s human nature. We like to see special offers and feel like we’re getting a deal.

So if you want to increase your ecommerce sales, you’ll need to use a range of product promotions to encourage customers to buy from you.

1. Offer Discounts On Orders Over A Set Price

One of the easiest ways to offer incentives for your customers – without changing the prices of individual products – is to offer a discount if a shopper spends over a set amount.

Maybe you’ll offer 10% off all orders over $50 or free delivery when you spend more than $75.

It’s an easy discount to showcase across your site, and it means that you don’t have to be constantly tweaking and amending product prices across your marketplaces.

Offering discounts is especially effective if you can set the pricing points to just above the average amount a customer spends. For example, if most usually buy 1 or 2 items at the cost of $35, offer free delivery at $40. By just spending a little more, a customer can get something free – and that’s powerful psychology.

2. Cross-Sell To Increase Average Order Value

Another great way to increase the average order value – and get more sales – is through cross-selling.

If a customer is purchasing one product, then recommended a selection of complementary products that they may also like. You’ll see this feature on countless sites, usually along the lines of “you may also be interested in…”

The key to cross-selling is to be as personal and relevant as possible. Don’t recommend another product for the sake of it, as it will be of no use to the customer and may turn them off.

Instead, you need to be as convenient and helpful as possible and use terminology that sounds useful, like “don’t forget” or “are you planning on…?” which is more personal than “recommendations.”

For example, if you’re selling electrical items, you might want to include batteries, plugs, or adapters. If you’re selling swimwear, maybe you will recommend a sarong that complements the chosen bikini or suggests flip-flops and towels in case the customer is preparing for a vacation.

Don’t promote cross-selling opportunities on the product page either. Research from Shopify shows that cross-selling is far more effective when included on the checkout page (you may want to consider pop-ups here).

3. Upsell If You Have Better Products Available

As well as cross-sales, a great way to promote more of your products is through upselling. This is where you suggest a better, higher-value item to your customers when they’re looking at a specific product. It’s potentially much more effective than cross-selling, according to Econsultancy.

You might have a more recent version of a product, a newer range of clothing, or a higher-spec option.

Finding the right product can be difficult for customers, so if you position your upsell as a way of helping shoppers make the right choice, they will be grateful and may opt for the more expensive option.

4. Create Different Bundles Or Kits For Your Store

Bundles are a superb way of promoting a range of products, increasing your average order value, and helping you stand out from competitors.

By linking several complementary products into a single package, you’re making the shopping experience easier for your customers. And since you’re including a range of products, you have more flexibility in offering discounts and savings.

Using bundles effectively can help you improve your margins while also providing greater value for money for your customers. And because you’re promoting a unique offer with your custom bundle, they won’t be able to compare prices with your competitors.

Many ecommerce sellers shy away from creating bundles because it can be difficult to control the logistics with regard to inventory and stock management. If you’ve got different products in different bundles, keeping track can be a nightmare.

But ChannelGrabber’s multichannel ecommerce software for Amazon, eBay, and websites helps you solve that problem as it allows you to easily link products based on their SKU number. This way, all stock levels are synced automatically, whether a product is bought individually or as part of a bundle.

5. Use Bundles To Offer Discounts On Multiple Quantity Orders

As well as including different items in bundles, you might also want to create a bundle that offers multiple quantities of the same product.

That way, you can create separate offers and discounts for any customer who wants to buy more than one. For example, you might run a BOGOF (buy one get one free) offer on special occasions or a “3 for the price of 2” discount.

If you have a lot of excess stock that you want to move quickly, you can use a multiple-quantity bundle to offer big discounts for customers willing to purchase large quantities – five or more for example.

6. Try Out Flash Sales – But Use Them Sparingly

Flash sales are a great way to promote your products effectively over a short period of time. They create a real incentive amongst your customers to maximize this special offer and buy from you immediately.

You could run flash sales on specific products if you want to shift stock or across your entire store. Store-wide sales will generally be more successful.

The key to flash sales is to use them wisely, so you don’t fall into the trap of always needing to run them. Think about your customers and use your knowledge of their buying habits to target them effectively.

You might want to try and personalize a flash sale to a segment of your customers – “men who buy grooming products,” for example. Or, perhaps you can time a flash sale so it lands in customers’ inboxes right when they need it – a flash sale on “summer dresses” right before wedding season perhaps.

7. Promote Products That Have Limited Availability

Another “time-sensitive” way to increase your sales is by promoting any products that have limited availability – even if you have more on the way.

Customers are afraid of missing out, and they’re more likely to buy if you only have one or two left in stock. By drawing attention to your stock count, you can play on this fear and increase your sales.

Use multichannel inventory management like ChannelGrabber to select any items that you want to promote, and then set the stock levels to always display at a low number. Your inventory account will keep track of your real totals, but your webstore or marketplace accounts will only show a limited number available.

8. Follow Up Purchases With An Aftersales Email

After you’ve sold a product and completed an order, always be sure to send a follow-up email to your customers.

This is the perfect opportunity to promote more products, through cross-selling, upselling, or generally just being front-of-mind.

9. Leverage Your Content Marketing

Finally, to continue to increase your sales through product promotion, you should be focusing on leveraging your content marketing.

Because product promotion is so much more than just “look at this product, maybe you’d like to buy it.”

You need to show your products in context, highlight their features and benefits, and let your customers see just what they can be used for. Content marketing can support you with this.

Try out a range of different content types – from case studies showcasing how good a product was for a particular customer, to informational guides that include a list of your best products for any given task.

There are many different ways in which you can use content marketing to promote your products and improve your sales – something Victoria can definitely help you with!