Sweetening the deal

Course content (19 lessons)

You’ll know your pricing and product best, but we have some best practices to help plan for the timing and structure of sales. We’re focusing on how a discount or sale is presented and how to make it land with your customers so it feels genuine, while still increasing average order value and orders in general.

0:00
[MUSIC PLAYING] So far, we've talked about how to use your theme to optimize the way you present information about your products and your company so that you can educate customers and provide them with a great browsing experience. Earlier in the course, we mentioned that 64% of customers find customer experience the most important factor in whether or not they'll complete a purchase.
0:29
That said, sometimes customers need an extra push. Let's talk about how you can sweeten the deal for 36% of customers who are more focused on the bottom line a.k.a your price. Before you can start offering deals or upselling your customers, you need to be able to speak well about your products. If you went to a boutique to try on a pair of jeans, you'd expect the sales associate to be able to answer any questions you have about the jeans, such as will they shrink?
0:59
Does the shop offer tailoring? If the sales associate brushed off your questions and started handing you other clothes to try on instead, you probably think that they didn't understand what you were looking for and you would not be very interested in shopping with them. The same applies if your online store offers an upsell without building a strong foundation for your other products.
1:23
A sale can be more successful if you're able to build off of an already strong customer experience. Having a solid understanding of your customer base will help you to determine how you can make a sale or sweeten the deal. Are your customers hesitant to pay shipping fees? You can advertise free shipping in the announcement bar or directly on the product page. You could also enable a shipping calculator on the cart page so there aren't any surprises once they enter their address at checkout.
1:52
If there is an ongoing promotion, you can include messaging about that in the product description which is considered to be more stable content. If you're running a flash sale, you could use a promo banner or a pop-up to draw attention to the promotion. Here at Pixel Union, we have several apps to help make sure merchants can get more control where they need it.
2:15
Our very first app, Pixel Pop, helps with these visual pop-ups and banners so you can control your messaging, who sees it, and how they see it. You can set sale prices in your Shopify admin, share discounts with your customers, or use an app to manage your promotions. Apps are an underrated tool in e-commerce but are used by 87% of Shopify stores with an average of six apps per store.
2:41
Pixel Union offers a number of apps including ultimate special offers to help you set up sales easily. It has eight offer types to cover a range of goals from clearing older stock to increasing average order value. Getting creative with a range of sale types like buy-one get-ones and bundles can give your customers more exciting options while they're shopping.
3:05
If an app looks like a good fit for your business, look into it. Research options in pricing and don't hesitate to use the free trial period to find out if it's really right for you.

Think back on any sales or discounts that you really appreciated, how did they suit your needs as a customer? Is there anything you can use as a parallel for your own business and products?

Sweetening the deal

Course content (19 lessons)

Overview

01 |Think like a Shopper

02 |First Impressions

03 |Browsing

04 |Sales pitch

05 |Making the Sale

06 |It’s Alive!