How Discounts Drive Sales

By Adam  |  15 Oct 2015 09:00:00

There's been a story in the news recently which does a good job of illustrating how discounts can drive sales. There was a pound shop in London (for American readers, that's pretty much the same as 99c stores) and they started offering things for half price. Even though their products were already very cheap, this additional discount attracted enormous numbers of people. There were literally hundreds of customers queuing for hours and buying loads and loads of things. I'd not be surprised if it turned out that they made more sales on that one day than on any other day in the shop's history!

People just love the idea that they're saving money, even if it actually means that they end up spending more than they do on a day when there is not a sale. If people can get a product for less than the price that they expect to pay for it normally, they almost certainly will buy it, regardless of other factors. But then if you offered products at an especially low price all the time then you'd lose a lot of money and also customers would come to view it not as something special, but as something normal and unexciting. This is why it's always good to offer these kinds of discounts for limited times only; this puts pressure on people to buy right away!

So I hope that has convinced you that offering some good discounts every now and then may well be good for business. When people do spot a sale, they'll message their friends so that they get a chance to get a discount too; people are much more likely to recommend you to others during a sale, than at any other time. You can also use social media to draw attention to the fact that you have some really good deals on. Who knows how many new people you might attract with that sale? And who knows how many of them might go on to become regular customers?

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