If customers know they can always get a discount, they aren’t going to feel particularly motivated to buy right now. They know they can come back tomorrow, or the day after.
For discounts to work, you need to create a sense of urgency. Your potential purchaser needs to feel that if they don’t press the buy button right now this very minute, they’ll miss out.
One way some retailers do it is to email their customers with news of new discounts, letting them get ahead of the queue. Of course, for this to work you’ll have had to build your own email list – not particularly easy if your business is based on Amazon.
You’ll want to get used to copywriting that pushes all the right buttons, with phrases like “ends soon”, “hurry!”, “last chance”, “today only”, or “one time offer”. If you have your own e-commerce website you can add a strong call to action right next to the buy button.
But there are other ways to create urgency, too. You might have a flash sale or a lightning deal. Customers know that this deal will only be available for so long, so even if they don’t buy right now, they’ll likely come back before the end of the day or week. Lightning deals on Amazon, of course, last even less time, so they’ll probably hit the Buy button good and fast.
Preorders at discount prices can also work well to get new products off to a good start. “Order before Tuesday 19th for a special discount” will get buyers thinking about what happens if they wait till the day after…
When a time limit coincides with a special occasion, such as Thanksgiving, Veterans Day, or Black Friday, it’s particularly potent. These are great times to offer Flash Sales, particularly as buyers are often likely to be looking for deals at these times in any case. Of course, you’d want the special occasion to be relevant to your product; discounts on cement mixers, laptops or dehumidifiers probably won’t work their magic for Valentine’s Day.
On the other hand you might set a limit for the number of units available at the special price. One UK retailer uses the slogan “When it’s gone it’s gone”. That can actually be more effective than a time limit, as your buyer doesn’t know how much time they’ve got. Those 100 units might take till tomorrow to sell out, or they might all be gone in ten minutes.
Clearance sales are a particular case in point. Buyers know that you’re clearing out the last inventory, so they know there’s only a limited amount left. Limited-edition products are another way that manufacturers and retailers create scarcity in luxury items. For instance, a limited edition handbag might have just 500 units sold worldwide; the scarcity of the product allows the retailer to keep a high price and still build in the big FOMO factor.
You might also want to add scarcity by only allowing one purchase per customer. This also helps you defend your product against resellers buying it at sales price and then putting it on sale at the original price, making a nice profit margin.
Of course if you use Vipon, you can also get access to buyers who have already proven that they’re really motivated to get discounts. Motivated buyers plus scarcity plus time pressure is a really great way to get your products moving out of the warehouse!
