Rajat Singh
Giving deals can be a very effective way to get people to buy from you again and again.
There are deals, coupons, savings, and offers. A time will come when most online stores will have to choose whether to offer deals, when to do so, and how much they should be worth.
Giving deals can be a very effective way to get people to buy from you again and again. But if you use it in the wrong way, you could hurt your business badly or even lose money.
Here are some of the best discount and coupon code ideas you can use to keep customers coming back and make sales.
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Coupon Code ideas for ecommerce stores
When you run sales, deals, discounts, and offers, you can get customers to stick with you, buy from you, and convert. Here are some of the most common choices, each with an example.
Weekly Or Monthly Discounts
These are the usual sales that are used to get people to buy. These sales are often held at the end of the month or quarter to bring in more money and meet business goals.
If you need to get rid of seasonal stock to make room for new goods, weekly or monthly discounts are a great way to do it at the end of a quarter or season.
Pro Tips:
- Use an app that counts down the time until stock runs out to make people feel like they need to act quickly.
- Use BOGO and product bundle deals to make the deal more appealing.
- Stress that this is a “last chance” offer to make people feel rushed.
Schedule a prelaunch offer
You can use prelaunch offers to get people to your business or even to get people interested in a new product before it even comes out. This will help you turn new customers into loyal ones.
Prelaunch offers are a great way to get people to know about your brand before your store opens or to promote new goods.
Pro Tips:
- Collect email addresses from customers to stay in touch and let them know when your product is almost ready to ship.
- Set up a preorder app so that your first customers can get your new goods before anyone else.
Holiday & Seasonal Offers
Black Friday and Cyber Monday, along with the holidays, are the busiest buying days of the year. Holiday sales are the best time to raise the average cart value because shoppers are eager to do so.
Pro Tips:
- Around this time, people often buy gifts for other people, so even if you’re selling something specific (like toys for kids), you should still market to the people who are buying it (in this case, parents).
- People want their gifts to be special, so this type of sale is best for novelty and one-of-a-kind items.
Forgotten cart deal code
About 70% of people who leave their carts never come back. Email deals for abandoned carts can be a great way to get those people to come back.
Sending coupon codes to carts that have been abandoned can be a great way to get these sales back.
Pro Tips:
- Add the customer’s name and the item they left in their cart to the emails that remind them of their abandoned cart.
- Add a “call to action” (CTA) button to make it easy for customers to go back to their cart and finish their buy.
Newsletter Signup Deal
For web stores, building an email list is very important. By giving visitors an offer in return for their email addresses, you raise the likelihood that they will convert. They will also send you emails, which gives you a chance to get to know them, make them loyal, and sell to them in the future.
Pro Tips:
- Tell people what they can expect from your newsletter. For instance, you could say, “Get special deals and be the first to know about our newest products.”
- People who get your newsletter can share it on social media and email to get the word out about your brand and goods.
Social Engagement Rewards
It can be hard to get people to know about your new online store. Giving visitors and consumers a reason to tell their friends about your store is a cheap way to get them to tell their friends about it.
Pro Tips:
- Highlight Specific Incentives: Mention the types of rewards consumers can expect for engaging on social media, such as discounts, exclusive access to new products, or loyalty points. This adds value to the offer and encourages more participation.
- Leverage User-Generated Content: Encourage customers to create and share content featuring your products, such as photos or testimonials. This not only increases brand visibility but also builds trust through authentic customer experiences.
Referral Reward Code
People are more likely to buy from you if a friend or family member tells them about you. Make the most of this by using deals to get people to tell their friends about you. You can offer a deal to both the person who refers and the person who is recommended.
Pro Tips:
- Consider using Friendbuy to create a referral marketing program that incentivizes customers to share your products in exchange for discounts.
Welcome Shopper Discount
A lot of people who might buy from you might be hesitant if they don’t know much about your brand. Offering a deal just for first-timers might be the push a visitor needs to become a paying customer.
Pro Tips:
- For the best results with this type of deal, make sure the customer’s order is shipped quickly after making a purchase. A good first experience is very important.
Qualifying Purchase Offer
Upselling and cross-selling can be done by making an offer based on the total value of a shopping cart. This will get customers to spend more, which will raise your average order size. A smart way to add this to your online shop would be to find out what the average order value has been over the last few months and then offer a discount or free shipping on all orders that are 10% to 20% higher than the average order value.
You can also offer discounts for buying certain collections and goods with a minimum purchase. If you want people to focus on a certain collection, try offering a discount on their first buy to get them to do so.
Pro Tips
- Use an app for quantity breaks to automatically give discounts on sales over a certain amount.
- When this kind of discount comes around, people will want to buy things that need to be restocked or refilled as soon as possible because they might not be able to get the discount later.
Social Insider Offers
Giving people who follow you special deals on social networks can be a great way to get them to stick with you. You can also use this coupon code idea to get new people to follow you on social media, which will let you sell to them in the future.
Pro Tips:
- You might want to expand your campaign by using paid social media ads to promote your discount deals.
Loyalty Rewards
When you give discounts to customers who already buy from you, you can build an even better relationship with them. With Shopify, it’s easy to give discount codes to only certain groups of customers.
Pro Tips:
- You can send your best customers a personal email with a discount or credit, or you can use an automated email marketing app like Klaviyo to send emails with deals after a certain number of sales.
- You could also use a reward app like LoyaltyLion to start a customer loyalty program.
Last Chance Offer
A quick offer right before someone leaves can sometimes turn a stranger into a customer. An exit-intent offer will show up right before a visitor leaves your site or closes the tab, giving them one last chance to buy.
Pro Tips:
- Consider using Sleeknote to create exit-intent popups in your eCommerce store, delivering bold and simple messages that encourage visitors to complete their purchases before leaving.
Comeback Promotions
These deals work well because they are only shown to people who have been to your site before. In other words, they already know who you are. It’s like coming back to see the ads, and the offer makes you want to buy.
Pro Tips:
- It’s best for retargeting discounts to be relevant to the customer’s journey. To do this, divide your audience into groups and make retargeting promos that are only for those groups.
Influencer Partnerships
A great way to get more people to see your brand is to work with people who are well-known and have big followings. And if you give the influencer’s network an exclusive offer, their fans are more likely to become your buyers.
Pro Tips:
- Make sure the discount code is useful for the people who follow your celebrity. This will make it easier for those people to remember and use the code.
- Make sure that the people you work with have the same kind of followers as your brand.
In-Store Coupons
You can use deals to boost sales both online and in person. This can happen at your storefront, if you have one, or at events like concerts, fairs, expos, and trade shows where people can see you in person.
Pro Tips:
- People remember in-person interactions better than online ones, so they’re a great way to get people to know and like your brand.
- Think about buying Google or Facebook ads that show them to people who live near your physical stores.
Event Participation Deals
You can give deals or free gifts to people who come to your events, whether they are in person or online. You can give these deals before or after the event. This helps to keep the relationship with customers who are interested strong and brings in more loyal customers. Plus, it will probably get more people to come to your next event.
Pro Tips:
- In the days before the event, keep people interested by advertising it on social media and through email marketing.
- People may want to attend your event because they don’t want to miss out, so make sure to stress how limited and timely your offer is.
Milestone Savings
Customer milestones are very important if you have a scheme to keep customers coming back. These events could be important to the customer, like a birthday or wedding.
You can celebrate the relationship you’ve made with each other at other points in time. These could be the anniversary of the customer’s first purchase, the date they joined your customer loyalty program, the date they spent a certain amount of money, the date they made a certain number of sales, or the date they did other things with your brand.
Pro Tips:
- For these kinds of deals, thank customers for their loyalty in your marketing copy. This will go a long way toward keeping customers loyal to your brand.
Rush hour Sale
Flash sales are short-term deals where items or services are sold at a big discount for a short time. People buy on impulse when there is a deal because it makes them feel like they need to act quickly and plays on their fear of missing out (FOMO).
Pro Tips:
- Spread the word about your flash sale ahead of time through email, text message, and social media.
- People are more likely to act quickly if the sale lasts less time.
- Make sure you have enough stock and that your website can handle more visitors.
Earth-Friendly Deals
Customers are more likely to buy environmentally friendly products when they see ads for deals. Some customers can get discounts if they buy green goods, use eco-friendly shipping methods, or recycle or reuse.
Pro Tips:
- Customers who choose eco-friendly choices should be rewarded with deep discounts or loyalty points.
- Work with reputable environmental groups to offer discounts for people who buy or donate to them.
Military/Student Perks
There are discounts for people who are in the military, veterans, and students to honor their service or schooling. Most of the time, these discounts don’t have a time limit and need proof that you are a student or member of the service.
Nike, for instance, gives 10% off most items to people in the service and to students. To get the deal, people in the military must prove their identity through SheerID, and students must prove their identity through UNiDAYS. With these deals, they can save money on popular Nike sports wear and shoes both in-store and online.
Pro Tips:
- Make sure that only people who are qualified for the discount can get it by using a reliable verification system like SheerID.
- Many customers who are qualified are actively looking for military and student discounts, so make sure they know about them on your website and in-store.
This is all, you can check our article on types of coupons for more idea on how you can showcase your offers to your customers.
Not all online businesses should offer deals and savings. You can best use offers to reach your goals, increase sales, and build customer trust if you have a clear idea of what you want to achieve, know a lot about the brand, and are willing to try new things.
FAQs
What is a unique discount code?
What are the different types of discounts?
Unique Discount Codes: These are custom codes that you can create in your Shopify admin and share with your customers. Customers manually enter these codes at checkout to receive a discount. These codes can offer a specific amount or percentage off and can be set to apply to certain products, collections, or customer groups.
Automatic Discounts: These discounts are automatically applied at checkout when a customer’s cart meets the criteria you’ve set. Unlike unique discount codes, customers don’t need to enter anything—if their cart qualifies, the discount is applied automatically. This can be based on conditions like a minimum purchase amount or buying specific products.
