In eCommerce, there are many ways you can boost your sales. For example, you could create bundles, give free shipping with a particular cart value, BOGO deals, etc. However, one of the most effective ways to boost is through a limited time offer.
But what does limited time offer mean, and how can you make high-converting ones. All this and more will be answered in today’s blog post. So if that sounds interesting to you, then keep on reading.
Table of Contents
What Does Limited Time Offer Mean?
3-Step Guide to Creating Highly-Converting Limited Time Offers
6 Limited Time Offer Examples for Inspiration
What Does Limited Time Offer Mean?
Let’s start by defining what limited time offers are! To put it simply, it’s basically your usual sale which lasts for a limited time. And that last part is the reason why it’s so effective.
That’s because limited time offers add urgency to your deals. That forces your potential clients to make their purchase decision on the spot, instead of a “maybe later.” That, in return, will most likely convert more people into buyers.
Why Run Limited Time Offers?
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Now that you’ve got a complete understanding of what limited time offers are, it’s time to talk about the reasons for running them.
The main benefit of creating limited sales is that they are just effective. That’s because of a couple of things. First, it makes people act instead of delaying the purchase.
Just think about it, wouldn’t you be interested in buying from your favorite brand when their products are 50% off? I know I would!
However, there is one mistake you should never make! And that’s overusing this strategy. The problem with having constant sales is that you’re depreciating your product prices in the long term.
Just think about it, if there’s always a sale, why would your customers ever pay the total price when in a couple of days, there’s a sale on?
That’s what has happened with Udemy! Since there’s almost always selling their courses for less than $20, almost nobody will look to buy them when they cost hundreds of dollars. Instead, they’ll just wait a couple of days and then buy.
Additionally to that, studies prove that if you discount an item constantly, they tend to believe they don’t perform as well. That makes it less desirable in their eyes.
However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ever have store-wide limited time offers. The only thing you need to do is space them out in the year. A good number of limited time offers would be 3-4 per year.
3-Step Guide to Creating Highly-Converting Limited Time Offers
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However, creating limited time offers isn’t a piece of cake. You need to do more than reduce prices for a limited time only and hope to see your revenue skyrocket. Instead, you should do much more to guarantee your buyers care about your offers.
But how can you create a fantastic limited time offer for your market?
The answer lies in the critically acclaimed movie “The Godfather”! You need to create an offer that your customer cannot refuse.
And by that, we don’t mean you’ll have to hold your customers at gunpoint or put their favorite horse’s head in the bed while they sleep. Instead, you should think of an offer that includes many benefits that it’s irresistible to buy.
So if you’re looking to do that, follow the following 3-step guide:
#1 - Do Your Market Research
First things first, you should do some market research. If you won’t, you’ll just be guessing what works for your customers.
But what should you do?
First, if you haven’t done it yet, create an ideal customer profile. With it, you’ll have enough information about:
- Who your customer is,
- What are their problems, fears, and dreams
- What do they value in life
- And much more.
Then you can use it to get better information about who your customer is and how you can help them with a better offer.
Additionally to that, you should also check out your competitors! Look at what type of sales they tend to do. That can give you a great understanding of which sales work the best, how big of a discount, etc.
Then you can just replicate it or find ways to create an even better offer.
Step #2 - Create an Offer Your Customers Cannot Refuse
Now that you’ve collected enough information about your customer, it’s time to make that desirable offer.
For this, I recommend you mainly depend on the data you’ve collected from your market research. However, there are a couple of things you should consider before launching your sales campaign.
First, you should think about the discount percentages. If the percentage is too low, it probably won’t make people want to buy from you. However, if you go too high, you risk becoming unprofitable or alienating your customers (especially if you own a luxury brand).
So what should you do?
That depends on your market, but you should try a discount code that is 20% - 30%. That’s because then it won’t be too low for your customers to be an incentive to buy, while not too high to become unprofitable and cheapen your products.
Step #3 - Promote Your Offer
It’s not enough to discount your products and call it a day. Instead, you should spread the word around to as many people as possible, or they won’t know that there was a sale. So instead of doing that, you should start promoting it.
But first, you should change your Shoplazza store. Make sure that you have announcement bars to tell you you have a sale. Then when someone sees your store, they know precisely that there’s a sale and how little time they have left to buy.
Then, you should go and announce the sale on all your channels. However, choose the channels wisely.
For example, if you have a store-wide sale, you should promote it to all your social media accounts and email subscribers and make some ads. But if you have a sale only for your customers, you should only spread it in emails and social media channels.
6 Limited Time Offer Examples for Inspiration
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While you already know how to create limited-time offers, we’d like to give you some examples for inspiration. This way, you won’t have to reinvent the wheel and start profiting fast. Here are six models:
#1 - Flash Sales
Flash Sales are almost exactly like your usual Christmas Sale. However, the difference is that it usually lasts about 24 hours and will start unannounced. That makes these sales extremely profitable as the people who’ve been on the fence about buying your product will probably act now as they can get your products.
#2 - Birthday Promotion
Suppose you have an email marketing software that lets subscribers fill in their birthday. In that case, one of the easiest and most profitable ways of getting additional sales is through a Birthday Promotional email.
With this campaign, your email subscriber usually receives an email with a unique coupon code on their birthday. Then, they can use the coupon for the whole birthday month to buy something for themselves.
And did we mention how effective it is? According to LocalIQ, these promotions tend to have, on average, 481% higher transaction rates.
#3 - New Customer Offer
When creating limited time offers, you don’t need to make a store-wide sale. Instead, you could create a sale that you offer only to new customers.
That means, for it to be profitable, the best way of selling your products is through ads, where you exclude your audience except those who haven’t paid yet. You could also send out emails to those who haven’t yet become customers.
#4 - While-Supplies-Last Offer
Do you have some products that don’t seem to sell and are collecting dust on your warehouse shelves? Well, then this might be the solution for you.
Instead of disposing of them, you could sell them with a While-Supplies-Last offer. What makes it different from others is that this offer usually doesn’t have any time constraints; instead, it has a limited quantity!
That can be effective as it could make the customer act fast as the product could go out of stock any minute!
However, we could make this even more effective. During the sale, you could add a progress bar that slowly shrinks as orders come in! That makes the person act even faster as they can see how the inventory shrinks minute-by-minute.
#5 - Holiday-Related Limited Time Offers
This might be the most well-known type of limited time offer, that’s because during these times people are looking to buy things. However, instead of doing the same promotion, everyone’s making, you could get a bit creative.
For example, during Valentine’s Day, you could create a gift bundle. In the bundle, you can add some of your most popular products wrapped like a lovely gift.
Additionally, You could also add a customizable note and some chocolate bars if you can collaborate with a chocolate brand.
So when creating this, we highly recommend you to get creative with your offers so that they would be as profitable as possible.
#6 - Anniversary Sales
Is your company getting close to your 1-year, 5-year, or other anniversaries? Then this can be the best time to create an anniversary sale. With this sale, you usually create significant discounts, but you could get much more creative than that.
For example, you could create an anniversary edition of your products. It should have a limited quantity, making your product into a collectible your brand’s biggest fans would like to buy.
But whatever you do, you should do one thing: show your gratitude to your customers. Telling them your appreciation will make your customers feel great and increase their customer loyalty.
Conclusion
Congratulations! Now you understand what are limited time offers and how you can create effective ones.
So instead of letting this knowledge go to waste, why not start taking action today. For example, you could start by researching your market and creating promotional social media posts.
So take action and see your Shoplazza store grow to new heights.
