The Art of Discount Coupons and Why We Love Them So Much?

Why are discounts so popular?

Discounts not only allow us to save money, they also make us feel happy. A 2012 study in the US found that people who received a $10 discount voucher experienced a 38% increase in happiness hormones.

Interesting figures on discounts:

• In a 2013 survey of 10,009 people, 51% of respondents said they were influenced by a discount when shopping online.
• Data from BIA/Kelsey shows that discounts increased their customers’ total sales by 17.7%.
• Statistics from VoucherCloud show that 57% of shoppers are motivated to make their first purchase from an unfamiliar e-retailer when offered a discount voucher.

Source: HuffPost

How do we use the discounts in the e-shop?

In the e-shop we divide the discount coupons according to their use:

• Acquisition – thanks to them we get new customers
• Retention – with those ones, we motivate customers who have already bought from us to buy again
• Parasitic – they move freely on the Internet (question here is: would an order be placed without this kind of voucher?)

As you can probably see from the previous lines, acquisition and retention discounts are the ones we want. We don’t want parasitic discounts in most cases.

What are the most common discounts?

• Buy one, get one free (high margin products)
• Percentage
• Fixed amount
• Gift with an order (a light gift that doesn’t affect shipping and doesn’t cost much)
• Free shipping
• Quantity discounts

Discount strategies:

• Acquiring new customers.
• Selling out old stock or seasonal products.
• Encouraging customers to spend over a minimum amount.
• Getting the customer back into the store after abandoning the basket.
• Tracking and reporting on marketing campaigns.

Personalized loyalty discounts: If you know your customers’ preferences, you can reach them with a personalised discount.

New customer discount: Promote the discount coupon externally, but only to new customers.

Tips for building a discount:

• For new customers, across-the-board discounts on all products are more attractive.
• For more expensive products, it is better to offer a value discount than a percentage discount.
• For cheaper products, use rounded amounts; for more expensive products, use “Bata prices”.

The psychology of discounts are effective because they’ll make your customers feel good and more motivated to buy. But if you’re going to use these strategies, make sure you’re doing so strategically and not wasting your time or money.