March 15, 2023
Ecommerce Promotion Ideas to Boost Sales

There is always room for growth – and there’s certainly always room to boost your sales.

It doesn’t matter how big your company is. Even enterprise-level businesses should be considering ecommerce promotions

If you’re new to the world of ecommerce promotion ideas or a marketing professional searching for a way to get buy-in on your promotion suggestions, this blog is for you.

We’ll cover why promotions are important and give you some ecommerce sales promotion ideas you can take to the bank.

Why create ecommerce sales and promotions

Anyone living in today’s day and age is no stranger to ecommerce. The amount of online shopping options continues to grow by the day. Customers are also doing more research and possess more retail savvy than ever before.

The combination of these factors leads to a complex customer journey that can be challenging for ecommerce businesses to navigate. At the very least, prospects or leads take much more convincing to turn into customers than they have in the past.

Despite this intricate buying landscape, promotions can still be one of the strongest ecommerce tips to reach your customers. Most internet shoppers will search far and wide to research product quality, customer experience, and, of course, pricing. Ecommerce promotions are a way to show your customers that they’re getting a deal and your best price, no questions asked.

If done correctly, ecommerce promotions can deepen the level of trust from your customers, boost sales, and increase ROI for a scaling ecommerce business.

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10 ecommerce promotion ideas

As an enterprise-level platform, your marketing team may be familiar with ecommerce promotion strategy. However, that being said, even the cleverest marketers need some new inspiration from time to time.

That’s why we’ve included our list of ecommerce promotion ideas below. As you read through, you may see some that your company is familiar with, but we know somewhere in there, you’ll find that one idea that gets the wheels turning and launches the campaign your company needs.

Let’s take a look.

1. Free shipping

We’ve all been there before. You spend hours bargain-hunting for your favorite item online. You find a good price, but shipping costs destroy the “great deal” you saw in the first place when you check out.

Can’t relate? Well, if you can’t, we can almost guarantee your customer can.

That’s why free shipping is so effective. Customers know they’re getting the price they see listed on your site – no last-minute surprises.

Free shipping also streamlines your sales process. Customers no longer need to click through two or three extra cart windows to select shipping and calculate shipping costs.

The results are faster checkouts, fewer abandoned carts, and much happier customers.

2. Digital wheel spin to determine discount percent

Your customers see discount offers everywhere.

Scroll any social media feed, and you’ll see various ads promoting a 10 percent discount here, a 15 percent discount there, and so on. Not to mention, most social media influencers have some discount code with the companies that sponsor them.

All this can almost lead to discount exhaustion.

So, how do you stand out?

Gamifying the discount your customers receive is the perfect answer. Allowing them to engage with a digital wheel they can spin to determine their discount makes the process fun and exciting.

It will be an experience they remember, and you may end up with a loyal customer for life.

3. Discount an upsell on related product

If this doesn’t sound familiar to you, we guarantee you’ve seen this ecommerce promotion strategy before. Health and beauty sites are prime examples of ecommerce platforms that use this tactic.

Let’s say you’re shopping at a cosmetics ecommerce store. You choose the lip gloss that you want and go to check out. Before you get to your cart, the site will prompt you with deals to “Get X percent off if you combine with these products.”

This is a win-win. The retailer sells more products, and you get a discount on cosmetics you’ll most likely enjoy and may have ordered in the future anyway.

You’ll see a similar tactic used to upsell digital courses. If you choose to buy a digital course, you’ll receive a pop-up to combine the course you’re buying with other products from the same creator before you go to check out. The price may be more than you originally intended to pay, but it’s significantly less than if you were to buy all those products individually.

4. Offer a coupon or promo code

Promo codes are a fairly popular option when it comes to ecommerce. And they’re so popular for a reason. Not only does everyone (your customers) love a discount, but they also serve a hidden purpose for business owners.

Let’s go back to our influencer example. Let’s say you have several influencers running campaigns for you on various social platforms. By giving each of them their own promo code, you’ll instantly be able to track which campaigns are working and which are duds.

The same goes for coupons. They serve as an incentive for your customers to buy and as a tracking tool for you. Coupons can also work as a tool for customer retention. If someone buys from you once, giving them a coupon they can use for a discount on their next purchase is a good way to keep them coming back.

Depending on your promotional sales calendar, you can even offer codes or coupons around specific holidays. But be sure to track your marketing closely. You want to make sure it’s actually your marketing (and not just the holiday itself) that’s driving your sales.

5. Use social proof

Social proof is one of the strongest conversion tools on the internet. Consumers feel more comfortable doing business with brands other people have already done business with. Plain and simple.

The challenge with social proof is that it can sometimes feel unauthentic and “spammy” to continually ask for testimonials and case studies. A better way to get social proof is by incentivizing your customers to participate.

Chances are good that you’ve already seen this in action — restaurants offering discounts for Yelp reviews, tech companies incentivizing 5-star reviews for their app, and influencers offering giveaways or meet-and-greets if you post about or review their digital course.

You get social proof to help market your business, and your customer gets to support a brand they love – in more ways than just buying from them.

6. Create a referral program

Word of mouth is one of the strongest forms of advertising. It ties into the social proof aspect we just covered. The odds that a prospect will do business with you is much higher if the recommendation comes from a friend or family member rather than finding out about your business through traditional advertising.

To keep your loyal fans bringing you new customers, you can offer them discounts, freebies, or bonus gifts every time they refer a friend to your business. And, the more friends of your customers that have a positive experience with your brand, the deeper customer relationships, trust, and loyalty will go.

7. Create a loyalty program

Speaking of loyalty, loyalty programs are another great ecommerce sale idea to keep customers doing business with your brand. Some companies do this by offering rewards points, and others may use a punch card where you get a free item or service after your tenth visit (as an example).

While they can be effective, companies should only consider loyalty programs if they’re willing to commit to that promotion. They can take considerable time to set up and implement, and you’ll need to engage with your customers regularly to experience the full benefit of the campaign.

8. Run a contest or giveaway

Giveaways make a great promotion because they’re flexible and easy to set up. Companies can give away their own products, limited editions, personalized products, and more.

Creating an online contest or giveaway provides ecommerce businesses with three benefits:

  • Reward customer loyalty
  • Bring in new customers
  • Increase awareness and demand for new products

Remember that it’s important to check with your legal department and ecommerce best practices before running a contest or giveaway.

9. Use product-specific landing pages

Ecommerce platforms can build product-specific landing pages and direct all of their marketing traffic to those pages. The primary benefit here is that it significantly streamlines the product sales funnel.

This type of product promotion brings customers directly to a page about the particular product they’re interested in, with zero distractions.

These pages also have unintended SEO benefits to help businesses rank for important keywords and search phrases in their industry.

10. Implement branded hashtags

Branded hashtags help your brand to further align with your customers and connect with them on social media. Your audience will help make your brand more noticeable on social media as they continue to use your company’s hashtag in their posts.

Over time, your brand name will be synonymous with a particular look or lifestyle for your target audience. Ecommerce platforms can also continue to use this hashtag on and off social media to raise awareness and bolster consistent promotion of the entire brand.

Choose hosting that can support your promotions

We hope you leave this article with a fresh perspective and some more inspiration for your future ecommerce promotion ideas. To make these ideas work, ecommerce platforms need to be able to trust their online hosting.

Nexcess will always be here as your ecommerce hosting partner. Discover how our WooCommerce hosting options can help you grow your ecommerce business. Get started today.

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Nexcess

Nexcess, the premium hosting provider for WordPress, WooCommerce, and Magento, is optimized for your hosting needs. Nexcess provides a managed hosting infrastructure, curated tools, and a team of experts that make it easy to build, manage, and grow your business online. Serving SMBs and the designers, developers, and agencies who create for them, Nexcess has provided fully managed, high-performance cloud solutions for more than 22 years.


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