thread Re: How many sales or promotions are too many? in Community Corner

How many sales or promotions are too many?

tranguyen — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 15:44:02 GMT

Howdy folks ✨

June is around the corner which means many businesses are gearing up for the mid-year sales.

That's why this week, @DinaLRosenberg wants to ask:

How many sales or promotions are too many?

This week’s question is part of our Small Business Month celebration! Join this conversation and you’ll have the opportunity to earn a special achievement – a snazzy new badge for your community profile!*

*Badges will be rewarded periodically throughout May 2023. In order to earn the badge you must reply or comment on one or more Small Business Month 2023 posts between May 1 - May 31, 2023.

Have you always wondered how other business owners handle slow sales? If you have a Question of the Week you'd like to ask the Seller Community, share it with us on this thread!

Re: How many sales or promotions are too many?

JUYBoutique20 — Thu, 25 May 2023 21:08:31 GMT

I don't have regular sales throughout the year...if I do a special sale/promotion it's usually for Black Friday or if I need to move my last of items. When I first began my shop, I had another boutique owner tell me not to train my customers to expect sales/markdowns. I do promotions to announce a new release or an event and I have a loyalty program that my customers love.

Re: How many sales or promotions are too many?

Stacelyn24 — Fri, 26 May 2023 14:14:29 GMT

That’s actually a pretty good question…never thought of it like that. We usually run promotions around Prom, Mother’s Day/Father’s Day, Wedding Seasons….hell when the weather changes lol. I own a nail studio so we keep up with the latest trends and run promotions such as the “Pumpkin Pie Pedicure” during the holidays…we don’t discount the service…just breaks up from the norm. We usually have a complimentary adult beverage which compliments the pedicure (so maybe a spiced nutmeg).

I think having different sales every day of the week might get to be too much to handle. “Madness Monday” “Tickle Toes Tuesday” “Whatever You Want Wednesday” …..just made these up by the way lol 🙂

Re: How many sales or promotions are too many?

ProsperityPools — Fri, 26 May 2023 20:27:02 GMT

This doesn't really apply to our service-based business, however, we do offer an incentive program. If someone recommends our service, we give them one free week of service (for existing customers) or a $25 gift card for everyone else. This has been very successful for us, in fact, we've not spent hardly any money on advertising since we launched our business in 2016 and we've grown all organically through word-of-mouth referrals and/or just the magnets on our trucks. Networking is the best way to advertise!

Re: How many sales or promotions are too many?

ChapterII — Sun, 28 May 2023 03:28:31 GMT

My used bookstore features budget friendly books, online and brick and mortar. When shelves are full, I schedule a sale of 50% off inventory with few exceptions. For holidays and special events, displays dedicated to the event are set up.

Re: How many sales or promotions are too many?

Tech-repairs — Sun, 28 May 2023 23:34:23 GMT

I love the idea of a loyalty program!

Re: How many sales or promotions are too many?

koalas_boutique — Tue, 30 May 2023 14:20:54 GMT

I sell supplies to other soap and bath bomb makers. and I will be honest i am horrible with posting sales. i try to and intend to but stuff happens and I don't often get a chance to post them. But I do some, like my anniversary/ birthday sale which are both about the same time. and an occasional pre holiday sale, I send out samples that would work on the next upcoming holiday projects for those that order X amount. However, I often feel bad because my really loyal, long term, high purchase customers often miss the sales. so Each January, I use Squares customer directory to download all my customers into excel and filter the top most recent customers by # of visits and amount spent. then i send the top X number of customers a coupon for that year, usually a wee bit more of a % then my sales. and this way i don't feel bad if they ordered just b4 or just after a sale. and they can use it anytime they need to. most of my orders come through those vs my sales. this ability to see how many times and how much my shoppers spend is just one of the many reasons i love square.

Re: How many sales or promotions are too many?

JUYBoutique20 — Tue, 30 May 2023 20:49:45 GMT

I honestly thought it would be a waste of time in the beginning, but when I announced it and people started earning enough points to redeem, they were soooo excited.

Re: How many sales or promotions are too many?

PartyManiaMD — Tue, 30 May 2023 21:17:09 GMT

We offer a pretty hefty rewards program of 10% back using Square loyalty, people either love it or don't care about it. In addition I'll do an email blast OR text blast once every 1-2 weeks. I refuse to be like most companies that send daily email blasts and our conversion rate is decent and unsubscribe rate is low.

When it comes to promotions I know that I "should" be jacking up prices and doing flashier sales but I hate that gimmick, I'll either survive or lose by having fair margins with a small amount of room for promotions.

It's kind of ironic because JC Penneys at one point tried to lower prices and get rid of promotions and customers hated it.

Re: How many sales or promotions are too many?

sweetteacoffee — Tue, 30 May 2023 21:24:47 GMT

We are a small local coffee shop. We focused on affordability right from the get go. With that said, we are not offering any sales, promos or loyalty options. For us to offer those, we would need to mark up prices and that is something we did not want to do.

Re: How many sales or promotions are too many?

YGIM — Wed, 31 May 2023 02:43:39 GMT

I own a maid service and we’re in our 2nd year, so though I don’t have much experience I’m noticing that 2 sales per year is great for our customer base - between the beginning of spring and Memorial Day, and Black Friday. We offer a $25 referral bonus for both clients as well all year long and well as reoccurring service discounts and other cleaning specials.

Re: How many sales or promotions are too many?

mansour462 — Thu, 01 Jun 2023 15:33:51 GMT

@tranguyen Thats a great question. I would go about it to look at your business goals and offer sales / promotion to achieve your goals. The other part is to look what are your competitors doing. I personal think it comes down to testing to find the sweet spot.

Re: How many sales or promotions are too many?

Roxxgoose — Fri, 02 Jun 2023 21:49:37 GMT

It's kind of ironic because JC Penneys at one point tried to lower prices and get rid of promotions and customers hated it

Re: How many sales or promotions are too many?

BodyInBalance — Sat, 03 Jun 2023 01:40:02 GMT

We have three main sellers. Massage, facials,and waxing. We'll do a promotion for one at a time. One month will be massage, the next facials, and the next waxing. Just alternate them.

Re: How many sales or promotions are too many?

SlimeStudioLV — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 08:22:16 GMT

I do a sale anytime business gets slow. So far its been once a month just to keep people engaged.

Re: How many sales or promotions are too many?

mksavage — Tue, 06 Jun 2023 15:33:51 GMT

@JUYBoutique20 We similarly were advised early on not to do too many promotions, or people start coming to you only when there's a promotion (kind of a "Groupon" mentality). We try to price our items fairly, taking into consideration the quality of our ingredients, the fact that they're made from scratch to order, etc., and then charge what we believe they're worth. We do have the Loyalty Program, and people love accumulating points, which is cool. Other than that, we do very few discounts/sales.

Re: How many sales or promotions are too many?

JUYBoutique20 — Tue, 06 Jun 2023 22:41:35 GMT

Absolutely....I think when you have a sale constantly it takes away from the quality of your brand.

Re: How many sales or promotions are too many?

Bronze_Palms — Wed, 07 Jun 2023 02:19:57 GMT

I only offer promotions when I have new staff to welcome them into the salon. Then, we offer rebooking promos at checkout from there! But, we never run first time clients specials.

Re: How many sales or promotions are too many?

TravisRenLeathe — Wed, 07 Jun 2023 15:50:58 GMT

We don't do sales. We plan to start a monthly givaway, however. If you show your new product on Facebook or Instagram and tag us in the photo, you become eligible to receive the monthly gift. We choose our favorite photo and send a gift up to $100 in value to that person. That gets us tags all over social media.

Re: How many sales or promotions are too many?

ReginaRMT — Wed, 07 Jun 2023 20:40:55 GMT

For me I offer a loyalty discount to people who have been with me for over a year or book more than 3 times in the last 4 weeks. I would rather lower my prices to see people get the help they need instead of being in pain.