“Anytime we’re evaluating a product or service, we think about it subconsciously as a consumer,” Long says. “As a marketer, we need to think about the human aspect of marketing.”

Dan recently wrapped up six years at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, one of the American South's most storied news organizations, where he served as Senior Manager of Conversions and Optimizations. In that time, AJC grew its digital subscriber base from 24,000 to over 101,000, a transformation driven by a mix of smart product strategy, rigorous testing, and a philosophy that puts the reader at the center of every decision.

We sat down with Dan for a conversation about how he thinks about the subscription funnel, what makes digital media conversion uniquely hard, and why the best optimization work always starts with the human on the other side of the screen.

A career at the intersection of journalism, technology, and revenue

Dan didn't start in conversion optimization. He started in marketing research, helping news organizations, regional papers, the Washington Post, and NPR understand what their readers actually wanted to read and how well they were delivering on it. That grounding in the reader experience never left him.

After moving to the publisher side, first at a regional paper in Dallas-Fort Worth, then at the larger competitor across town, he kept chasing the same question: how do you get people to pay for journalism? Not just tolerate a paywall, but actually recognize the value and subscribe.

"At one point, we thought the biggest challenge was time," he says. "People would say, 'I don't have time to read.' Then it became 'there are different news sources.' Now it's all of that plus: I can get my news from social media. I can use AI. There are a number of different reasons why people could say no."

That evolving challenge shaped how Dan thinks about conversion. It's not just a funnel problem; it's a relevance problem. And the solution isn't as simple as a better CTA button. It's understanding why someone might genuinely care about the product or content, in this moment, and meeting them there.

When he arrived at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2019, the organization had 24,000 paid digital subscribers. The only digital value proposition offered was an ePaper, essentially a digital replica of the print product. The paywall was still in its early days, and there was significant runway ahead.

Designing for the human, not the metric

The "What's in it for me?" question isn't just a gut check; Dan applies it as a lens that has helped shape his success. It reflects how he thinks about the entire reader relationship, from the first piece of content someone clicks on, to the paywall interaction that asks them to commit, to the checkout experience that either seals the deal or loses them.

In practice, designing for the human audience starts with the brief. Before any creative work happens, Dan works with his team to understand who the target audience is, what they already know about the brand, what they perceive about its value, and what would need to be true for them to hand over their credit card.

"What would be valuable to this person?" is the question that drives everything, and it doesn't stop being relevant once the work ships.

"As we're auditing the final conversion product, whether it’s a paywall or a subscription landing page, we think about it again with that perspective of: if I were an outsider looking at this page, if I were interacting with this site, does that answer the questions appropriately? What's in it for me, for all the consumers that we have?"

That last phrase matters. "All the consumers that we have." Dan is deliberate about not treating readers as a monolith.

Different people arrive at a subscription decision from completely different places. A loyal visitor who's been hitting the article limit for months needs a different conversation than someone who landed on an AJC story through a Google search and has never heard of the newspaper or news site. Segmenting those experiences and designing each one to answer that specific person's version of the WIIFM question is where the real gains live.

There's also a persistent tension Dan navigates that most conversion teams face but rarely talk about openly: the pull between designing for the human and designing for the machine. SEO scoring tools, algorithmic recommendations, and platform optimization all have their own logic, and it doesn't always line up with what actually feels right to a reader.

"There's always tension between designing for the human and designing for the machine that's giving you a score. By default, we think about the human aspect. Does this page have personality? Does it signal to the consumer: 'Hey, we get you. We understand you'? Does it support the brand in a way that really resonates?"

When the answer isn't obvious, his team treats it as a signal to test. Which is, in a way, the most human-centered move of all; instead of overriding the uncertainty with an opinion, you ask the reader.

Why "paywall" is the wrong word for most of what you're building

With a clear philosophy about who you're designing for, the next question becomes: what are you asking them to do? Here's where Dan says most teams are working with the wrong mental model from the start when discussing paywalls

People may not expect this, but “paywalls” don't always mean you have to pay for a recurring subscription.

"We use the term fairly generically," he explains. "People tend to throw it around, and you always assume it's a hard stop that causes you to subscribe to a recurring subscription. That's often the case. But a paywall could be a number of things."

In his framework, there are really three distinct conversion mechanisms, and treating paywalls universally like a single concept is one of the most common mistakes in digital media:

• Registration walls (regwalls) collect a reader's email address in exchange for access to a piece of content. It's a simple, low-friction value exchange. The reader gets the article. You get a first-party data point and the beginning of a relationship.
• Digital passes let a reader pay once for short-term access. For example, without the commitment of a recurring subscription, a digital pass may grant access for a day or two or during the course of a local event attracting out-of-town visitors seeking information. Dan sees these as underutilized tools, particularly useful for attracting readers who want access without a long-term relationship.
• Subscription paywalls are what most people picture when they hear the word. These convert high-intent readers into subscribers who generate recurring revenue and therefore unlock more consumer benefits. They require the most convincing and the most attention to friction.

"Using all three together helps you serve more types of readers, build relationships, and capture more value," Dan says. The goal isn't to push everyone to a subscription immediately. It's to match the mechanism to where the reader is in their journey and to answer that WIIFM question in a way that actually makes sense for that moment.

The three conversion surfaces require three different strategies

The paywall/regwall/digital pass distinction is one layer of complexity. There's another layer that Dan thinks about just as carefully: not just what kind of access point you're presenting, but where the reader is coming from when they are engaging with your subscription offer.

In his experience, there are three meaningfully different conversion surfaces, each with its own psychology and requirements:

• Paywall interactions happen in the middle of a reading experience. The reader is already engaged with specific content, which is a signal of relevance. But patience is low. They want access now. "Value must be obvious and friction minimal," as Dan puts it.
• Organic landing pages attract readers who clicked through from on-site CTAs (through a banner, a button in the navigation, or a prompt at the end of a free article). These visitors are in evaluation mode. They're asking that fundamental question: "What's in it for me?" And they need room to answer it. The page has to be more informative, more thorough, more value-forward than a paywall presentation.
• Paid campaign landing pages serve a visitor who saw a social post or ad, felt some connection, and clicked. That emotional connection is the asset, and the page needs to protect it. "We want to keep that emotional tie," Dan says. "We want to make it simple. We do want to make it informative, but that emotional connection is the thread you can't break."

At the AJC, this distinction had real tactical implications. Testing showed that different promotional offers resonated differently depending on where the reader encountered them. A 99¢-for-three-months introductory rate performed well on-site and on the paywall, while a $1-a-week rate performed better for paid social campaigns. Different audiences, different presentations, different context - each optimized for conversion efficiency.

Why cross-functional alignment is the real unlock

Successful subscriber growth initiatives at media companies require cross-functional alignment on shared goals. Conversion optimization at a media company isn't a product team problem or a marketing problem. It's an everything problem.

"Cross-functional work is absolutely important in our type of business," Dan says. "We have so many different small teams. We have to communicate well and work together to be effective."

While the News side and the business side operate independently by design, at the AJC, Dan would occasionally sit in on the newsroom's daily budget meetings, which were internal editorial planning sessions where reporters pitched stories and editors set priorities. He wasn't there to influence coverage. His presence meant he could spot content with subscription conversion potential early, so his team could prepare.

That might mean flagging a story about Georgia's swing-state status as something that could attract out-of-market readers, worth treating as a top-of-funnel engagement play rather than a conversion trigger. Or recognizing that a high-profile local investigation was exactly the kind of unique, irreplaceable content that could push a longtime reader over the edge into subscribing.

"Is it worth an organic social push, or is it something we can invest in with paid social to really amplify the message?" he explains. "And then we establish some business rules: if we're promoting it socially, should we allow people to access this without any barriers, or is this content so valuable that it's worth promoting and then attempting to get a registration or subscription out of it?"

Getting to that kind of coordination requires shared goals and shared metrics across teams. Without them, teams optimize for their own objectives, and the path-to-conversion or engagement journeys may end up being ineffective.

The case for bringing in an outside perspective

Even experienced teams get comfortable with their defaults. You know your product well, your mental models are well-worn, and sometimes that familiarity is the problem.

That's what drew Dan to bringing in The Good for a Digital Experience Optimization (DXO) Audit of AJC's subscription landing pages. The Good's CEO, Jon MacDonald, has a phrase that describes well the situation Dan was in: "You can't read the label from inside the jar."

"We all need an additional outside perspective from time to time," Dan says. "The value is that The Good works with a number of industries, not just media. So, having all of that experience and all of those additional perspectives, they may think of an enhancement we haven't thought of yet or use that expertise to reinforce the value of an approach we’re evaluating. It's like sharing some lessons and keeping us grounded, so that we are doing what we should be doing and we’re continuously improving upon things that we think we already know well."

For a DXO collaboration to work, Dan emphasizes the importance of building trust early, investing real time in scoping, and then getting out of the way. "Really sitting down and investing a lot of time and energy into setting the parameters, understanding the capabilities, understanding what's needed, and building that trust between the two so that both feel comfortable allowing the other to do what they do best."

The DXO Audit identified a pattern that showed up across user testing and analytics: the subscription landing page was creating cognitive overload rather than confidence. Too many competing offers. Pricing structures that required mental math. A mobile experience that buried the primary CTA below the fold.

When the work was done, he was pleased: "The team was super easy to work with — professional, organized, methodical, yet also very friendly and engaging. It was a worthwhile project with an enjoyable team." He was eager to implement recommendations and find out if they resonated with consumers and improved their subscription landing page conversion rates in a live environment.

AJC implemented the recommendations thoughtfully, adapting guidance to their technical constraints and layering in complementary changes, including a new annual subscription tier and channel-specific offer routing for paid campaigns. Collectively, Dan believed that these optimizations would better address “what’s in it for me” with a more intuitive design, a new offer with special savings for highly engaged readers, and a mobile-friendly design. In the end, the results demonstrated value with the DXO Audit.

Results: 56% overall lift, 157% mobile improvement

What 25 years at the intersection of journalism, data, and people actually teaches you

Ask Dan what makes conversion leadership in media different from conversion leadership anywhere else, and he doesn't hesitate.

"If I were to think of a company like Nike or Adidas, they're selling shoes — and they have so many different models to sell to different audiences. People think of the news as one thing. But the content changes every day. It's a new product every single day. And that product should have something to appeal to everyone. How do you communicate that to someone visiting the site?"

It's a genuinely hard problem. Unlike a shoe brand that can segment by style, price point, or sport, a news organization is selling one thing, access to journalism, to readers who want wildly different things from it. Sports fans. Business readers. Political junkies. Parents who want to know what's happening in their school district. The product and the access to journalism are the same. The job of the conversion experience is to make each of those people feel like it was made for them. Sports readers reacted favorably to “season pass” offers and the tone used with Varsity content; likewise, Atlanta foodies felt a connection with subscription presentations related to the AJC’s “Atlanta’s 50 Best Restaurants” content.

Compound that with the cultural challenge Dan has encountered in marketing research going back decades: the widespread belief that news and access to journalism should be free. It's a friction point baked into the category itself, and no amount of landing page optimization can eliminate it. What good conversion work does is reduce every other source of friction enough that the value becomes undeniable even for the skeptic.

The data rigor is one-half of how Dan gets there. The other half is something harder to systematize: staying genuinely curious about the humans on the other side.

"Maintain that balance between the human side and the rigor of analytics. Data is super important; we need it to understand things, to make decisions. But it's equally important to always understand the human side. Be observant. Watch people. Listen to people. See how they act, see how they react. Always stay curious."

That curiosity shows up in how he presents findings to leadership, too. When the data says something inconvenient, for example, a test fails, a beloved feature is hurting conversion, a long-held assumption is wrong, Dan's default isn't a slide deck of numbers. It's a story.

"Use the approach to really communicate what we learned, how we learned it, and what does it actually means. Do it in a way that really connects with a person. Make it personal. Make it feel accessible and like it's bringing value, new insights, or additional point of view into how you might want to proceed in future initiatives."

That instinct to translate data into something a person can feel is the same instinct that underlies the whole WIIFM framework. Numbers aren’t the only thing that persuade people. Relevance does. Whether you're trying to convert a first-time reader into a subscriber, or convince a skeptical executive that an inconvenient test result is worth acting on, the approach is the same: find the version of this information that makes it matter to the specific human in front of you.

It's also, Dan would say, what makes the work worth doing.

"Marketing should be fun. We think of it as really data-intensive, and it is, but it should always be fun. Think about the person on the other side. Think about how we can make a difference and connect with somebody. That comes through in your work. That comes through in how you communicate with your audience, and it makes it more relevant for them."

Twenty-five years in, after watching the industry transform from print delivery to ePaper to live paywalls to dynamic segmentation, that's the throughline. Not the technology. Not the platform. It’s the person on the other side and the relentless curiosity about what they actually need.

The post Dan Long Built a Subscription Machine at the AJC by Designing for the Human First appeared first on The Good.

Fritz O’Connor, former VP of Marketing at Ironman 4×4 America, exemplifies this approach. With over two decades of experience spanning manufacturing, sales, and marketing leadership, Fritz has developed a methodology for building high-performing organizations that deliver results consistently, even in challenging circumstances.

A marketing leader built for manufacturing

Fritz’s career journey reads like a masterclass in understanding customers across different industries. Starting in the printing and paper industry, he cut his teeth in structured sales training programs that taught him the fundamentals of professional sales and business operations.

“I’ve spent my entire career in sales and marketing roles. Almost exclusively in the manufacturing sector for companies that make stuff,” Fritz explains. This foundation in manufacturing would prove invaluable throughout his career, giving him deep insight into the complexity of bringing physical products to market.

His two-decade tenure at GE further refined his skills across diverse business environments. “We always used to say we can work in any industry, anywhere in the world, and still get paid by the same company,” he recalls. This experience working across plastics, appliances, and GE Corporate gave him a unique perspective on how great companies operate at scale.

But it was during his time at GE Corporate that Fritz discovered what would become his career-defining framework: differential value proposition (DVP). Working in a marketing consulting role with virtually every business in GE’s global portfolio, he helped launch this customer-centric approach to messaging and positioning throughout the organization.

This systematic approach to understanding and serving customers became foundational to Fritz’s ongoing success.

Implementing systems and frameworks that take teams from features to solutions

Originally coined by the founder of Valkre Solutions, Jerry Alderman, the DVP framework transforms how companies think about customer messaging and competitive positioning. Fritz became a master at implementing this methodology across diverse organizations.

“What are you offering? Be it a product or service that is better than the customer’s next best alternative,” Fritz explains. This might seem simple, but the implications are profound. Rather than competing on features or price, DVP focuses on solving customer problems in ways that competitors simply cannot match.

The challenge, as Fritz learned during his GE implementation, is that DVP represents a fundamental shift in thinking. "Every business, product, or service has a value proposition, but not every value proposition is differential. So many companies have the same value proposition. The white space is that differential part."

"It's about switching thinking from a feature to a benefit. For example, a blue appliance is not a differential value proposition. It's a feature."

Fritz teaches teams to make this shift by leading with problems and solutions.

"It's how it makes the consumer or customer's life better, how it solves that problem. You have to identify what the problem is. You have to articulate how you can fix that problem in a different way, better than anybody else."

This shift from features to solutions requires teams to understand their customers' actual problems, not just their stated needs.

For leaders, this translates directly into more effective product messaging, clearer value propositions, and ultimately, higher conversion rates.

Overcoming the "this is how we've always done it" challenge

One of Fritz's biggest career wins (and ongoing challenges) centers around implementing the Differential Value Proposition (DVP) methodology across organizations. The implementation at GE became both a success story and a learning experience in change management.

"As you can imagine, anytime you try and launch a new process in a company the size of GE, you can be met with resistance. Especially when you're coming out of corporate."

This resistance taught Fritz a crucial lesson about implementing change: "I don't view that as a challenge or a stumbling block, but as a fantastic and wonderful opportunity because when you flip those people, they become your biggest proponents."

His approach centers on listening first, then demonstrating value in the stakeholder's own language. "It's a listening journey. You've gotta understand what the challenges are that of the people with whom you're working, whether it's an external customer or an internal customer."

"Proactively listen and walk in the shoes of the people I'm working with. When I'm trying to introduce something as significant as DVP or other business tools."

This listening approach helps identify the real challenges and resistance points, making it possible to address them effectively.

The foundation: accountability, responsibility, and challenge

But having the right frameworks isn't enough. Fritz learned that execution depends on creating the right team culture. He is quick to credit his teams as the backbone of his successful projects, and one of the ways he supports them is with clear organizational principles.

"I have a few underlying business principles that I've gained along the way that are the foundational threads for me," Fritz explains. "One is, any team I work with or works for me, my job is to make them as successful as possible."

This people-first approach manifests through three guiding principles:

• Accountability: Holding yourself and your team responsible for deliverables and outcomes
• Responsibility: Taking ownership of significant business challenges
• Challenge: Embracing difficult problems that create meaningful business impact

"The way I do that is through three guiding principles, which are accountability, responsibility, and challenge," Fritz notes. "I want to be entrusted with significant responsibility that is helping to solve a significant business challenge."

These principles translate into a simple but powerful operational mantra: deliver on time, complete with excellence.

"I know those all sound like buzzwords, but they're not meant to be. And we don't treat them as such. We treat them as very simple guiding principles to keep us focused."

Putting it all together at Ironman 4x4

When Fritz joined Ironman 4x4 America, he found the perfect opportunity to apply all of these frameworks.

Ironman 4x4 is a global company that sells off-road parts and accessories for 4x4 vehicles (lift kits, suspension parts, bumpers, etc.). They have been around since the 1950s, but were new to the United States, so Fritz had the opportunity to find new ways to market their complex "fitment" products, or parts that must work with specific vehicle makes and models. This complexity creates both technical and marketing challenges that Fritz's team had to solve systematically.

His sales background gave him an invaluable perspective on marketing effectiveness. "If you spend any time in sales, that means you're around customers, whether those are B2B or B2C customers. And you learn what's important to them."

This customer proximity taught him the critical principle of "show me, don't tell me." Rather than relying on feature lists or industry awards, effective marketing demonstrates value through customer experiences and outcomes.

"We always, in both sales and marketing, it's easy to get into the trap of just talking, talking, talking, describing stuff, talking about features and benefits. Talking about the industry's best. Nobody cares about your industry. They care about how your product or service is going to impact them."

The key to marketing complex products, Fritz knew, is understanding how customers think about their problems. Rather than leading with technical specifications, the focus should be on the customer's end goal and the emotional drivers behind their purchase decisions.

Fritz emphasizes the importance of demonstrating value rather than just describing it: "Really, visual storytelling, video storytelling, placing the customer in the scene so they understand your value. That ability comes from firsthand experience of seeing that happen in the sales arena."

A data-driven website replatforming

His POV shaped everything he was involved in at Ironman 4x4 America, from new product introduction processes to website optimization. Fritz implemented structured new product integration toll gates with clear deliverables and cross-functional accountability, ensuring every product launch was executed with precision across creative, digital, and channel marketing.

His customer-centered thinking and frameworks proved essential when his team tackled a complex website migration from an outdated platform to Shopify. The project was based on their understanding that a website change was necessary to better serve their audience and increase ecommerce sales.

Working with The Good on a DXO Program, the Ironman 4x4 team executed the redesign and replatforming with data-driven methodology. Rather than relying on opinions about what the site should look like, they embraced rapid prototyping and continuous testing.

"Any decision made without data is just an opinion, right?" Fritz notes, referencing CEO Luke Schnacke's philosophy.

"We try to be very data-driven, which is why it was so important for us to work with The Good, to get that data and share it with the team managing the website replatforming so that they were making data-driven decisions on design and functionality."

They didn’t wait for a “perfect website” to figure out what customers wanted. They tested and got feedback throughout the entire process to make sure they were developing the right ideas.

"I realized we were never going to do it perfectly," Fritz recalls. The team was getting bogged down in opinions about checkout processes, product customizers, and overall site design. "We could end up using half our development budget on building something that doesn't perform."

"Ultimately, we agreed to launch and then test the heck out of it. We didn't want to overburden the development pipeline with projects that don't have a financial impact."

This represents a fundamental shift in thinking. They went from trying to build the perfect site to building a testable foundation for continuous improvement.

The beauty of working with The Good in this situation, Fritz explains, was "the rapid prototyping, the test and learn. We could very quickly get feedback and iterate and then test and learn again."

Multiplying results through partnership

Leveraging an external partnership accelerated progress beyond what internal resources could achieve alone and held the team accountable to the frameworks and goals of staying user-centered and data-driven.

"If you're not an expert, I would recommend doing a website project with a company like The Good. It wasn't a cost, it was an investment," Fritz emphasizes. "And I think that Ironman 4x4 is the beneficiary of the investment that they made with The Good as they migrated over to Shopify and learned about what customers would like."

The partnership enabled intentional, studied testing with proper dependencies and measurable results tracking.

"That whole test and learn methodology is done in a very structured, deliberate way. Making changes in a waterfall, with the proper dependencies articulated, and then tracking the measurable benefits of changes, and then tweaking accordingly from there."

This approach breeds confidence because it's entirely data-driven, removing guesswork from critical business decisions.

Lessons for marketing and sales leaders

For marketing and sales leaders looking to build similar operational excellence, Fritz's approach provides a roadmap: start with principles, understand your customers deeply, make decisions based on data, and never underestimate the power of strategic partnerships to unlock potential.

Start with principles, not tactics

Before implementing any marketing or optimization program, establish clear guiding principles. Fritz's framework of accountability, responsibility, and challenge provided a foundation that influenced every decision and created lasting organizational change.

Understand your customer's next best alternative

Move beyond feature-benefit messaging to understand what your customers would do if your solution didn't exist. This "next best alternative" thinking is the foundation of truly differential value propositions.

Convert resistance through understanding

When facing organizational resistance to change, focus on understanding stakeholder concerns rather than pushing solutions. Meet people where they are and demonstrate value in their language.

Embrace data-driven decision making

Resist the temptation to rely on opinions or best practices. Instead, create structured testing methodologies that let customer behavior guide optimization decisions.

Invest in external partnerships strategically

Recognize when external expertise can accelerate progress. The right partnerships provide capabilities and perspectives that internal teams may not possess, ultimately delivering better results faster.

Starting an optimization journey

Fritz's approach to building and scaling teams, including Ironman 4x4's US marketing operations, demonstrates how principled leadership, customer-centric thinking, and strategic partnerships can create sustainable competitive advantages.

"There's no obstacle too big that can't be overcome with data and optimization, right?" Fritz states emphatically. "The whole point of being data-driven and optimizing is to get time back and to become more efficient."

His advice for other leaders facing similar challenges?

"Get to yes. Figure out how to do it. Don't say, this is why I can't do it. Say this is how I'm going to do it. Here are things I need to do in order to do it. Then hold yourself accountable. Make it happen. Do it."

The secret, according to Fritz, lies in celebrating small wins that compound over time: "Little steps, I always like to say, celebrate the little wins. Go after the little wins because they compound on one another and then all of a sudden you're gonna look back and go, holy mackerel, I can't believe I am where I am."

The secret is consistency: "And it starts with data as your foundation and optimization as the accelerator."

For ecommerce leaders looking to build similar operational excellence, Fritz's framework provides a proven template: establish clear principles, understand customer problems deeply, make data-driven decisions, and never underestimate the power of strategic partnerships to accelerate growth.

Ready to optimize your ecommerce experience with data-driven methodology? Learn more about The Good's Digital Experience Optimization Program and discover how strategic partnerships can unlock your growth potential.

The Good helps ecommerce brands like Ironman 4x4 optimize their digital experiences through research-backed testing and strategic partnerships. Our team combines deep technical expertise with proven methodologies to deliver measurable results for growing brands.

The post Fritz O’Connor Stays User-Centered and Leads with Data During Uncertain Times appeared first on The Good.

Yet lots of companies treat their existing users as endpoints instead of starting points. They focus on acquiring new customers rather than leveraging the growth potential already sitting in their user base.

There are plenty of strategies to maximize your existing user base, including leveraging the power of growth loops and positive network effects as covered in other articles, but today I want to touch on how strategic feature creation that drives collaboration is an underrated revenue opportunity.

Why account expansion through collaboration can beat traditional sales tactics

The traditional approach to account expansion relies on sales teams identifying upgrade opportunities and convincing decision-makers at a company of the value. However, a new group of buyers is not accounted for in this model.

“Citizen SaaS buyers” now influence 40% of all company SaaS spending. These aren’t IT decision-makers; they’re everyday users who either A) find tools so valuable that they eventually buy them for their teams or B) see how much more effective it would be if more team members used them, so they advocate for upgrades.

These users typically start as single-seat or individual account holders, and instead of a traditional path to account expansion, their user journey finds upgrade paths via team or collaborative features. This style of collaboration-focused expansion makes upgrading feel like an extension of getting work done. It focuses on what naturally happens when users find real value.

How does it work in action?

This model of account expansion creates self-reinforcing cycles where user actions naturally drive more user actions. Unlike traditional sales funnels that end with a purchase, growth loops turn a user interaction into a potential expansion opportunity.

Here’s how a collaboration-driven growth loop works:

• User finds value → Individual user discovers your product solves a real problem
• User enhances value through collaboration → To maximize the solution, they need to involve teammates
• Collaboration creates shared investment → Team builds workflows, templates, and shared resources
• Shared investment increases dependency → Team becomes reliant on collaborative workflows
• Dependency drives expansion → Team needs more features, seats, or capabilities
• Expansion enables bigger problems → Larger teams tackle more complex challenges
• Bigger problems require more collaboration → Loop repeats at a larger scale

This isn’t just theory. We’ve seen this pattern drive expansion in everything from design tools to project management platforms. The key is designing features that naturally create more collaboration opportunities. Eventually, revenue grows through authentic value creation rather than time-intensive upselling.

Understanding the types of collaboration and team features

Before diving into strategy, it’s helpful to understand the different types of collaboration features that SaaS companies use to turn individual users into team advocates. These features work best when they feel like natural extensions of your core product value rather than bolted-on additions.

Sharing and access features

These are the foundations of most collaboration strategies. Users can share specific content, projects, or workspaces with colleagues. Examples include shared documents, project folders, dashboard links, or design files. The key is making sharing feel essential to getting work done rather than optional.

Notion has clear shared workspaces, allowing groups of individual users or “teams” to share documents, templates, and files.

Invitations

Direct invitation systems let users add colleagues to their accounts or workspaces. This includes features like “Add team member,” workspace invitations, or role-based access controls. The most effective invitation systems make it obvious why adding someone will improve the work for everyone involved.

Google Meet offers pre-meeting invite capabilities and makes it simple to add new attendees to a meeting with multiple invitation calls-to-action, and even provides suggestions of individuals you can add.

Real-time collaboration

Features that let multiple people work on the same thing simultaneously. This includes co-editing documents, collaborative whiteboards, shared design files, or synchronized data entry. Real-time collaboration often creates the strongest expansion pull because it makes individual work feel incomplete.

Figma is a masterclass in real-time collaboration, with shared files, “jam sessions” or timed working sessions, and even name tags on cursors to see where collaborators are in the file.

Communication and feedback tools

Built-in ways for team members to communicate about shared work. This includes comment threads, @mentions, approval workflows, or status updates. These features keep conversations contextual to the work, making your product the natural hub for project communication.

Airtable offers commenting, tagging, and assignment features throughout the tool, allowing teams to notify each other and host conversations in relevant project spaces.

Permission and role management

Systems that let users control who can see or edit what. This includes viewer/editor roles, department-level access, guest permissions, or approval hierarchies. Good permission systems make it safe and easy to include external stakeholders in workflows.

TLDV clearly outlines the sharing permissions on videos with levels of access, including “my team,” “my organization,” and individual users. There are also general access links if you want to share beyond account holders.

Workflow and process sharing

Features that let users create templates, processes, or automated workflows that others can use. This includes shared templates, workflow automation, or standardized processes. When teams build shared workflows, they create a collective investment in your platform.

Canva has brand kits, controls, and templates that can be shared amongst your team to help standardize and speed up your design workflows.

Social and activity features

Elements that show what team members are working on and create visibility into collaborative work. This includes activity feeds, presence indicators, or team dashboards. These features help teams stay coordinated while showcasing the value of collaborative work.

Slack offers great visibility into who is online with the green or transparent status dot next to users in the sidebar, giving easy indicators of who is available for active collaboration.

7 tactics for building collaboration features that drive account expansion and keep users around

The good news is you don’t have to pick just one type of collaboration feature. You can combine multiple types to create comprehensive collaborative experiences that make teamwork feel natural and essential. Here are some essential tactics to help you do just that.

1. Make sharing more valuable than working alone

The biggest barrier to collaboration isn’t technical, it’s behavioral. Users default to working alone unless collaboration is obviously easier and more valuable than individual work.

Design your product so that collaborative features provide immediate, obvious benefits that individual work can’t match. Don’t just make collaboration possible; make it essential for getting the best results.

For example, Figma revolutionized design by making real-time collaboration the default experience. Instead of designers working in isolation and then sharing static files, Figma made the design process inherently collaborative. Stakeholders could see work in progress, provide feedback in context, and feel involved in the creative process. This didn’t just improve design quality; it naturally expanded usage to include project managers, developers, and executives who previously only saw final designs.

2. Build features that create shared investment

When users invest time in building collaborative structures, they create switching costs that extend beyond individual preferences. The more a team builds together, the harder it becomes to leave your platform.

Provide tools that enable users to create shared resources, templates, and workflows that become more valuable as more people contribute to them. Make it easy to start collaborative structures and painful to abandon them.

A good example is Notion’s template system, which creates significant shared investment. When a team builds a comprehensive project management template with custom properties, linked databases, and automated workflows, they’re not just organizing their current work; they’re creating a system that becomes more valuable as more team members contribute to it. Removing team members from the workspace breaks the system, creating a natural resistance to downsizing.

3. Make collaboration visible and desirable

When users see colleagues accessing information, participating in decisions, or benefiting from workflows they can’t access, they naturally want to be included. Visibility drives demand for inclusion.

Make collaboration visible and valuable. Show users what they’re missing when they’re not part of collaborative workflows. Create transparency around who’s involved in what work, and make it easy to request access or suggest inclusion.

One example is Slack’s channel system, which creates visibility that drives expansion. When important decisions happen in channels users can’t access, they naturally request to be added. When they see colleagues sharing resources, celebrating wins, or coordinating work in channels they can observe but not participate in, they want to create their own channels for their work. This visibility drives organic expansion as users advocate for broader team adoption.

4. Include stakeholders who don’t use your product daily

Most SaaS tools start with individual users and try to expand outward. A better approach is to identify who needs to be involved for your primary users to be successful, and then build features that naturally include those stakeholders.

Map out who needs to be involved for your users to achieve their goals. Design features that make it easy to include those stakeholders in workflows, even if they’re not primary users of your product.

Miro understood that successful brainstorming sessions require diverse perspectives. Instead of building a tool just for facilitators, they created features that make it easy to include participants who might never use Miro independently. Guest access, simple sharing links, and intuitive contribution tools mean that workshop participants don’t need to be Miro experts to add value. This naturally expands usage to include executives, clients, and cross-functional team members who become advocates for broader adoption.

5. Recognize when users need help and suggest collaboration

The most effective collaboration features activate automatically when users hit natural collaboration points in their workflow. Instead of requiring users to remember to invite colleagues, smart systems recognize when teamwork would be valuable and make it easy to initiate.

Identify the moments in your user workflows where collaboration would be most valuable. Build features that recognize these moments and proactively suggest or facilitate collaboration.

Canva’s team features activate when users create designs that would benefit from collaboration. When a user creates a brand template, the platform suggests inviting brand managers. When they start a campaign design, it recommends involving marketing team members. When they build a presentation, they offer to share it with stakeholders for feedback. These suggestions feel helpful rather than pushy because they activate at moments when collaboration genuinely improves outcomes.

6. Support different work styles and schedules

Not all collaboration happens in real time. Some of the most powerful collaborative features work across time zones, schedules, and work styles. Asynchronous collaboration features often drive more expansion because they’re less dependent on coordinating schedules.

Build collaboration features that work when team members aren’t online simultaneously. Focus on features that let people contribute when it’s convenient for them while maintaining context for others.

Loom’s video messaging creates asynchronous collaboration opportunities that naturally expand usage. When someone creates a video explanation of a complex process, they often need to share it with multiple stakeholders who weren’t part of the original conversation. The video becomes a shared resource that multiple team members reference, comment on, and build upon. This creates natural expansion as teams recognize the value of asynchronous video communication for knowledge sharing.

7. Use access control as an expansion tool

Most SaaS companies think about permissions as security features. The smartest ones also use permissions as expansion features. Well-designed permission systems create natural opportunities for users to expand access as their needs grow.

Design permission systems that make it easy to grant appropriate access to new stakeholders without overwhelming them or compromising security. Use permission requests as expansion opportunities rather than barriers.

For example, Dropbox’s permission system creates natural expansion opportunities. When users want to share folders with specific access levels, they’re guided through options that often result in upgrading accounts to accommodate more users or storage. The permission system protects files and creates moments where users recognize the value of bringing more people into their workflows.

Ready to organically drive account expansion?

Collaboration-driven account expansion isn’t just about adding team features to your product. It’s about understanding how work really gets done and building features that make collaboration feel natural, valuable, and necessary.

The SaaS companies that master this approach turn every user into a potential growth engine. They create products so collaborative that teams can’t imagine working any other way. When collaboration becomes essential to how work gets done, account expansion becomes inevitable.

At The Good, we’ve helped SaaS companies identify and build collaboration features that drive meaningful account expansion. Our Digital Experience Optimization Program takes a systematic approach to understanding user behavior, designing collaborative experiences, and optimizing for sustainable growth.

Ready to transform your users into your most effective growth engine? Let’s explore how collaboration-driven expansion can accelerate your growth.

The post How to Drive Account Expansion with Collaborator & Team Features That Stick appeared first on The Good.

Shoppers love sales. Any reason you can come up with to hold one – be it Black Friday, Memorial Day, or your ecommerce birthday – is sure to get more orders.

There’s just one problem with the idea. “On Sale” means a discounted price, and a discounted price means less profit. Yes, a properly orchestrated sales strategy can make up for the slimmer margin by pumping up the volume, but what if you could increase ecommerce sales without discounting prices?

In this article, we’re going to share the best ecommerce sales strategies that we’ve found to get more conversions without lowering your prices.

What’s Wrong with Discounting in Ecommerce? 

On the surface, offering discounts seems like a perfectly fine idea. Many successful online companies have been using discounting strategies for decades, and it appears to be working for them, right? There’s an entire economy built around helping customers find the lowest prices. A discount-finding tool, was recently purchased by PayPal for a staggering $4 billion.  

So why are they such a problem? Three reasons. 

1. Discounting leads customers to think that you’re a discount brand.

Instead of being known for quality products or outstanding service, customers associate your company with the lowest price. You become the ecommerce version of Dollar General, attracting those searching for bargains. When a customer receives a discount on their first purchase, you can be pretty confident that they’re going to try to get the same discount with every subsequent purchase. 

Do you really want to join other discount brands in a race to the bottom? Probably not. 

2. You can’t build a business by targeting deal-hunters

If you want to turn a profit, shoppers with a “no discount, no purchase” mentality are likely not your ideal customers. Discounts cannibalize your profits, leaving you with razor thin margins. If you want a healthy bottom line, you probably don’t want your primary customers to be bargain hunters. 

3. Discounting is a short-term solution to a larger problem

Ultimately, you need to figure out why your sales are slumping, or why they aren’t increasing organically. In other words, where are the holes in your sales funnel? Is your website confusing? Are your landing pages or Google Ads ineffective? 

Leaning on discounting to help your business make it through a tough time is like putting a bucket under a leaky pipe instead of taking the time to repair the pipe. Clearly, you need strategies for increasing ecommerce sales without discounting. 

23 Promotional Ideas for Your Brand (That Aren’t Discounting) 

If you want to know how to increase ecommerce sales without discounting, you’ll need to use one or a variety of tactics. The following ecommerce sales strategies will enable you to boost sales without eroding your profits. 

1. Buy one/get one

If you have excess inventory, BOGO (free or half-off) is an effective way to increase customer engagement and generate sales. You can even stack the offer so that they get more when they buy more, like Beloved Shirts does:

2. Buy one/give one

A buy one/give one promotion is when you give something away each time a customer places an order (or for each product purchased). 

This promotional idea has been around for a long time, but it was popularized when shoe brand Toms launched in 2006 and pledged to give away a free pair of shoes for every pair sold. Other brands like Warby Parker and State Bags are built on this model as well. 

3. Free gift with purchase

Offering a free gift with purchase can be a powerful incentive, giving customers the nudge they need to buy. And if the gift is a sample of one of your products, it gives customers yet another reason to buy from you in the future. Sephora knows this and often includes product samples for free with orders:

4. Free shipping 

Free shipping belongs on every list of ecommerce sales strategies. Customers demand it. 

Ecommerce conversion rates are always higher when free shipping is included. No surprise there. There’s a reason it’s the cornerstone of the Amazon Prime program. If you want to see your ecommerce sales increase, give free shipping to customers, just like Bonobos does for customers in the United States:

5. Free returns

Offering free returns sets customers minds at ease and incentivises them to purchase. They know that they can easily return products if they have any issues. Yes, it will probably increase your return rate, but it will also increase customer loyalty.

Zappos is known for their generous return policy, which is important to shoe buyers who might not get the right size on the first order.

6. Threshold free shipping / free gift

Offering some form of benefit for orders over a threshold amount can motivate shoppers to add more items to their cart, increasing key metrics like Average Order Value (AOV) and Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). Athleta offers free shipping on all orders over $50:

7. Loyalty programs

A loyalty program allows you to reward customers who are particularly faithful to your brand. Whether through special discounts on high-demand items or exclusive access to particular products, loyalty programs keep customers coming back again and again. Keenly aware of this reality, Amazon offers all sorts of perks to Prime members:

8. Display “limited quantity” messaging

Showing that you have a limited number of something in stock can create a sense of urgency in customers. They don’t want to miss out on the opportunity to buy. Etsy does a great job of increasing urgency on their product pages by showing how many items are in stock, as well as alerting customers if an item is already in someone’s cart. 

9. Show sold out items

Highlighting sold out items shows how popular they are, which can cause even more people to want them. Just be sure to give customers the option of being notified when the product is back in stock. Otherwise they may forget about it. Snow Peak uses this technique with out of stock items and has stellar results:

10. Money back guarantees

The greatest fear of most online shoppers is buying something, not liking it, and not being able to easily get a refund. Offering a rock-solid money-back guarantee can ease this fear and compel the customer to purchase. Fly-fishing company Orvis offers what they call a “Great Catch Guarantee”:

11. Service guarantee

Even broader than a money-back guarantee, a service guarantee assures your customers that you will do whatever is necessary to assure their satisfaction. Companies who offer outstanding customer service create customers for life, reducing churn rate and increasing Customer Lifetime Value. Bombas offers a happiness guarantee that gives customers every reason to purchase from them:

12. Product bundling

Product bundling is the practice of grouping two or more items together and selling them as a single unit, usually at a lower price than if they were sold individually. While this is technically a discount, it also increases the customers’ order value, so you’re still bringing in more money. 

Notice how Kylie Cosmetics smartly create bundles. They group multiple products together and present them as a bundle even though the customer would be spending more. 

13. Special edition/seasonal items 

A special edition item (or a season edition item) is a product that will only be produced for a certain period of time. There isn’t a limit to the number you’ll sell, but there’s a limit for the duration that you’ll sell it. 

Special edition items work well because they build hype, create scarcity, and build on seasonal excitement. The best example of this are seasonal fashion items. Whether you sell 10 winter jackets or 10 million, you’ll still only sell them during the winter. 

14. Pro deals (special offers for teachers, students, etc.) 

Offering deals for specific groups of people is a great way to show your support for those causes and drive traffic to your business. You might offer promotions like buy one get one for students, first responders, military/veterans, healthcare workers, teachers, or other deserving groups. Many people will support your business because of your offers even if they don’t qualify for the deal themselves. 

Keep in mind, however, that verifying eligibility will be a challenge here. You’ll need shoppers to submit proof of their membership in order to accept the deal, otherwise everyone will claim to be eligible. For example, Under Armour requires you to verify your military or first responder ID before claiming their deal. 

A word of advice: Make sure the group you choose to honor is deserving. No one will appreciate “Free gift for stockbrokers.”

15. Sponsorships 

Sponsoring an event, charity, award, conference, or other cause is a great way to build good will with your audience and get prime exposure to potential buyers. Sponsorship could be as simple as paying a few bucks to have your logo displayed. Or you may decide to take a more active role in the process, perhaps by giving a talk, supplying the cause with products, or hosting your own events. 

16. First purchase anniversary gift

This isn’t one of the most popular ecommerce sales strategies, but it’s surprisingly effective.

A gift that celebrates the anniversary of a customer’s first purchase is a great way to commemorate a positive relationship. It tells the customers that you care about them and their support. Most importantly, a free gift raises the perceived value of your products, rather than lowering the perceived value as a discount would. 

17. Co-marketing deals

Co-marketing is when you work closely with another ecommerce brand to promote each other. It gives you access to another audience of potential buyers. It’s also quite cost effective, which is why it’s one of the most popular e-commerce sales strategies for brands that already have established audiences.

In 2020, sophisticated footwear line Thursday Boot Company worked together with Cobbler’s Choice, a brand that sells footwear care products, such as cleaners, brushes, waterproofing sprays. These brands complement each other nicely without competing. 

Thursday Boot Company posted on Instagram showing off the Cobbler’s Choice Suede Cleaning Kit.

On the other end, Cobbler’s Choice also posted on Instagram, showing off a pair of shoes from Thursday Boot Company.

18. Subscriptions or memberships

A membership or subscription program is a powerful way to bring your customers into an exclusive club and generate some guaranteed revenue. If your membership is structured well, you can actually get your customers to spend more than they would otherwise.

Check out this membership program from Italic. For $60 a month, members get access to $120 in credit, referral bonuses, credit for product reviews, and other benefits. Isn’t that a 50% discount? Technically yes, but the subscription nature could end up bringing in more revenue from a single customer than that customer would normally spend on their own. 

19. Limited editions

People love exclusivity. We love having things that others can’t get. It’s a component of the scarcity principle: We overvalue things that are hard to obtain. You can make some of your products seem more valuable by only selling a limited number of them. 

Streetwear brand Supreme takes this to a whole new level. When a product runs out, they almost never produce more of them. Customers have become conditioned to checking the site every Thursday for new products before they sell out.

20. Store credit/amount for your next purchase

If you give your customers 20% off, then you simply lose 20% of the sale. It’s a total giveaway. But if you offer store credit, customers only get the discount on future purchases. This means you make a little extra for the same deal. 

21. Upsell/complementary item at checkout

The checkout page is one of the best opportunities to upsell a customer. You know they like your brand and you have a pretty good idea of the kinds of products they want to buy. Don’t be afraid to use this as a last-minute attempt to increase their order value. 

22. Each purchase gives back

Customers love knowing that their purchase is helping make the world a better place, even in just a small way. This is especially useful for commodity products where prices are the same and customers can buy anywhere.

This doesn’t mean you have to build an activism arm of your company. There are charities that facilitate this for you. One Tree Planted will plant a tree for $1. You could simply donate a dollar for every order and honestly say, “We plant a tree with every order.” And that’s exactly what Amour Vert does.

23. Wish lists

A wish list is simply a saved list of items that you’d like to own at some point. They use it to a) make finding those items easier in the future, and b) to give their loved ones ideas for gifts. If you ask someone what they’d like for their birthday, and they say, “Check out my wish list on HomeDepot.com,” that’s an easy decision for you and a quick sale for Home Depot. 

Other Ways to Increase Sales Fast Without Discounting

The previous list of ecommerce sales strategies is comprehensive, but depending on your needs, you may not want to implement them all. If we could only use seven optimization tactics from our toolkit, the ones we’re listing here would be among the top choices. We’ve seen these ideas breathe new life into ecommerce conversion rates again and again. They work.

Split testing (A/B testing)

Split testing (which also includes A/B testing and multivariate testing) is a direct route to more revenue. It’s a Kaizen-type approach to continuous improvement that – done correctly – guarantees results.

The process is simple: You send portions of traffic at different versions of your website. The version that gets the highest conversion rate is the winner. 

The problem, however, is that most agencies or ecommerce development shops don’t test deeply enough, try to test too many things at once, or fail to test altogether. Don’t do that. Learn this lesson and shut out the competition.

In fact, we recommend taking advantage of A/B testing for any of the ecommerce sales strategies you end up using. You should always be testing. 

Identify and highlight your USP

This is a key way to separate yourself from the competition. Your unique selling proposition (or unique selling points) answers the question, “Why should I buy from you, rather than from someone else?”

Not only should your business have an identified and proudly proclaimed USP, every product or service needs its own USP. What, you say? There’s nothing really unique about the products you sell?

Have you heard of Grey Poupon mustard? Check the grocery shelves. It is definitely NOT the cheapest mustard you’ll find there. Customers wouldn’t dream of paying less for Grey Poupon. After all, it’s marketed as the brand the super-wealthy can’t do without. It’s not “common” mustard.

Fix your checkout procedure

You rarely see someone at a local store get almost to checkout, then decide to walk away and leave the shopping cart sitting there, but it happens online all the time.

Digital marketing managers sometimes tell us “That’s the nature of ecommerce. Cart abandonment is unavoidable.” That’s not the case, in our experience. We’ve seen dramatic improvements when optimization principles are applied to the checkout procedure.

Provide plenty of social proof

Online shoppers want to know ordering from you is a smart thing to do. The best way to show them is by letting other happy customers shout your praises. Prospects are much more likely to believe it when someone else gives you kudos than when you brag about yourself.

Use ratings, reviews, comments, endorsements – get your customers involved in the promotion of your products, services, and brand. Every sales page on your ecommerce site should include social proof. If you’re afraid of getting ‘bad reviews,’ get over it. Not having customer comments at all is a whole lot more damaging than risking a few complaints.

Smart companies turn problems into solutions. When someone does gripe about something, they go to work to take care of the problem – in plain sight of other shoppers. They don’t try to hide mistakes. They fix them.

Cut down on friction

The path to purchase is a journey, not a one-stop event. Prospects must find your ecommerce store, access it via the internet, browse your inventory, select the product or products best for them, add items to a shopping cart, enter the checkout procedure, and complete the purchase.

Prospects don’t become buyers in an instant; they move along a path that leads to the final decision. Optimization tactics remove barriers (friction) from that path and make it EASY for prospects to become paying customers.

Create a sense of urgency

Ecommerce shoppers are apt to do considerable research before making a decision. Your job is to give them plenty of information (so they don’t have to go elsewhere to answer their questions) and a reason to buy from you now.

There are plenty of creative ways to do that: exclusive limited-time bundles, showing remaining stock left, including a gift with purchase during a specific time frame, or appealing to shipping deadlines (especially around the holidays).

When you give prospects a good reason to complete the transaction while they’re on your website, your sales will increase. And that is the purpose of optimization.

Leverage FOMO and exclusivity

Fear of missing out (FOMO) is a big consumer purchase motivator, and you can take advantage of it by utilizing both exclusivity and scarcity. With exclusivity, you offer bonuses to customers that they can’t get anywhere else, while scarcity highlights the limited availability of particular products. 

Hide the coupon field during checkout

If a customer sees a coupon field displayed prominently on your checkout page, do you know what they think? “Oh, but I don’t have a coupon…” The customer starts to feel like they’re paying more than they ought to for their order. That’s a terrible way to start a relationship!

You can reduce this effect by simply minimizing the coupon field. Shoppers with a coupon will look for the link, but shoppers without a coupon will skip right past it without much of a thought. 

How to Grow Your Brand Without Discounting: Invest in Optimizzation

It’s simple math: you’re twice better off selling 10,000 widgets at a profit of one dollar per widget ($10K net profit) than you are if you sell 1,000 widgets at a profit of five dollars per item ($5K net profit).

That’s the dilemma every marketer runs up against when pricing goods. “Shall I go with the higher price, but fewer sales? Or am I better off lowering the price to get more buyers?” (Of course, the starting place for pricing is always to survey the current market and competition.)

The danger is in getting fixated on the prices your competitors are selling those widgets at, then basing your sales strategy on undercutting the price. In common terms, that’s called “getting in a race to the bottom of the barrel.” It’s not the recommended practice.

At The Good, we invest much of our time educating smart digital marketing managers in the principles of optimization. And a good optimization strategy does not include discounting.

Let’s go back to the widget sale and consider a new set of numbers:

Scenario #1: Your rock-bottom pricing draws 100K visitors to your ecommerce website. The deep discount pulls a hefty five percent conversion rate on an average order value of $50. That means you made 5,000 sales and generated $250K.

Scenario #2: You keep your prices up and refuse to discount. Even if you manage to get the same amount of traffic (100K) and the AOV jumps from $50 to $75, if your conversion rate falls to 1%, your revenue will drop to $75K.

Scenario #3: You read this article and decide to put some of the tips below into action. By applying the principles of optimization, you’re able to keep the conversion rate at five percent and drive the AOV up to $95 per order. Your revenue moves to $475K – almost double that of your steep discount strategy – but without discounting prices.

Optimization is the missing link between your website traffic and your sales volume.

Constantly relying on discounts to boost sales is a losing game in the long run. Yes, revenue increases, but profits take a hit. What’s more, you label yourself as a discount brand in the eyes of many customers, and once you’re on that path it’s hard to escape. 

There are effective ways to increase ecommerce sales without discounting. By strategically leveraging these ecommerce sales strategies, you can compel customers to purchase while still maintaining healthy profit margins. 

The strategies listed above are just part of the optimization process. If you would like help optimizing your website for maximum ecommerce sales, we recommend you reach out or sign up for our ecommerce Insights newsletter.

The post The Top Ecommerce Sales Strategies (Including How To Increase Sales Without Discounting) appeared first on The Good.

As you consider your options, the idea of offering discounts crosses your mind. It’s a common tactic for boosting ecommerce sales and generating additional revenue. Maybe running a sale will give your business the shot in the arm that it needs. 

Probably not. 

While it’s true that offering sales and discounts can provide a temporary lift in revenue, it’s ultimately not a sustainable strategy and will only provide you with short-term success. A better solution is needed. 

In this Insight, we’ll be providing you with 10 proven tactics to increase ecommerce sales without discounting. Here’s what we’re covering:

1. Why shouldn’t you be utilizing discounts? 
2. What are your options besides offering a discount?

Why shouldn’t you be utilizing discounts? 

On the surface, offering discounts seems like a perfectly fine idea. Many successful online companies have been using the strategy for decades, and it appears to be working for them, right? There’s an entire economy built around helping customers find the lowest prices. Honey, a discount-finding tool, was recently purchased by PayPal for a staggering $4 billion.  

So why are they such a problem? 

Three reasons. 

1. Discounting leads customers to think that you’re a discount brand. Instead of being known for quality products or outstanding service, customers associate your company with the lowest price. You become the ecommerce version of Dollar General, attracting those searching for bargains. When a customer receives a discount on their first purchase, you can be pretty confident that they’re going to try to get the same discount with every subsequent purchase. 

Do you really want to join other discount brands in a race to the bottom? Probably not. 

2. If you want to turn a profit, shoppers with a “no discount, no purchase” mentality are likely not your ideal customers. Discounts cannibalize your profits, leaving you with razor thin margins. If you want a healthy bottom line, you probably don’t want your primary customers to be bargain hunters. 

3. Discounting is a short-term solution to a larger problem. Ultimately, you need to figure out why your sales are slumping. In other words, where are the holes in your sales funnel? Is your website confusing? Are your landing pages or Google Ads ineffective? 

Leaning on discounting to help your business make it through a tough time is like putting a bucket under a leaky pipe instead of taking the time to repair the pipe. 

Clearly, you need strategies for increasing ecommerce sales without discounting. 

What are your options to drive ecommerce sales without discounting? (10 Tactics)

To increase ecommerce sales without discounting, utilize tactics like promotions, exclusivity, scarcity, and guarantees. These strategies enable you to boost sales without eroding your profits. 

Promotions 

While discounts seek to attract customers with lower prices, promotions focus primarily on offering something extra. Promotions create similar feelings in customers as discounts without the downsides. Discounting is simply reducing the price, and possibly devaluing your product in hopes of making up revenue through increased sales volume. 

Here are five examples of promotions you can implement:

1. Buy one, get one: If you have excess inventory, BOGO (free or half-off) is an effective way to increase customer engagement and generate sales. You can even stack the offer so that they get more when they buy more, like Beloved Shirts does:

2. Free gift with purchase: Offering a free gift with purchase can be a powerful incentive, giving customers the nudge they need to buy. And if the gift is a sample of one of your products, it gives customers yet another reason to buy from you in the future. Sephora knows this and often includes product samples for free with orders:

3. Free shipping: Ecommerce conversion rates are always higher when free shipping is included. No surprise there. There’s a reason it’s the cornerstone of the Amazon Prime program. If you want to see your ecommerce sales increase, give free shipping to customers, just like Bonobos does for customers in the United States:

4. Free returns: Offering free returns sets customers minds at ease and incentivises them to purchase. They know that they can easily return products if they have any issues. Yes, it will probably increase your return rate, but it will also increase customer loyalty.

5. Discount price threshold: Offering some form of discount or other perk for orders over a threshold amount can motivate shoppers to add more items to their cart, increasing key metrics like Average Order Value (AOV) and Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). Athleta offers free shipping on all orders over $50:

Exclusivity and Scarcity

Fear of missing out (FOMO) is a big consumer purchase motivator, and you can take advantage of it by utilizing both exclusivity and scarcity. With exclusivity, you offer bonuses to customers that they can’t get anywhere else, while scarcity highlights the limited availability of particular products. 

6. Loyalty programs: A loyalty program allows you to reward customers who are particularly faithful to your brand. Whether through special discounts on high-demand items or exclusive access to particular products, loyalty programs keep customers coming back again and again. Keenly aware of this reality, Amazon offers all sorts of perks to Prime members:

7. Displaying “limited quantities available”: Showing that you have a limited number of something in stock can create a sense of urgency in customers. They don’t want to miss out on the opportunity to buy. Etsy does a great job of increasing urgency on their product pages by showing how many items are in stock, as well as alerting customers if an item is already in someone’s cart. 

8. Show sold out items: Highlighting sold out items shows how popular they are, which can cause even more people to want them. Just be sure to give customers the option of being notified when the product is back in stock. Otherwise they may forget about it. Black Milk Clothing uses this technique with out of stock items:

Guarantees

Even though online shopping is ubiquitous at this point, customers still deeply appreciate guarantees. Almost everyone has had at least one bad online shopping experience, and guarantees go a long way in assuring customers that they’ll have a good experience with your company. 

9. Money-back guarantee: The greatest fear of most online shoppers is buying something, not liking it, and not being able to easily get a refund. Offering a rock-solid money-back guarantee can ease this fear and compel the customer to purchase. Fly-fishing company Orvis offers what they call a “Great Catch Guarantee”:

10. Service guarantee: Even broader than a money-back guarantee, a service guarantee assures your customers that you will do whatever is necessary to assure their satisfaction. Companies who offer outstanding customer service create customers for life, reducing churn rate and increasing Customer Lifetime Value. Bombas offers a happiness guarantee that gives customers every reason to purchase from them:

Play the long game and boost ecommerce sales without discounting

Constantly relying on discounts to boost sales is a losing game in the long run. Yes, revenue increases, but profits take a hit. What’s more, you label yourself as a discount brand in the eyes of many customers, and once you’re on that path it’s hard to escape. 

There are effective ways to increase ecommerce sales without discounting. By strategically leveraging promotions, exclusivity and scarcity, and guarantees, you can compel customers to purchase while still maintaining healthy profit margins. 

The strategies listed above are just one part of the Conversion Rate Optimization process. If you would like help optimizing your website for maximum ecommerce sales, request a free landing page teardown. 

A member of our strategy team will provide you with a base-level assessment of your website and identify potential areas that could be optimized to elevate your website experience.

The post 10 Tactics to Drive Ecommerce Sales Without Discounting appeared first on The Good.

You’ve already visited the dealership and know the model you want, but it’s just slightly out of your price range. If only there were a promotion running that would get the price down to your budget…

Suddenly, you receive a text from the dealership announcing a 24-hour discount on the exact model you were looking at. You start to feel the pressure to buy the car even more. After all, you wouldn’t want to miss out on that discounted price!

Urgency is a tactic used by so many ecommerce websites to motivate users to complete a purchase. Creating a sense of urgency for your customers can be a highly effective tactic for increasing buyer motivation, and can have a direct impact on revenue. 

In this Insight, we’ve detailed a variety of tactics you can utilize to help reduce buyer hesitation and improve the overall conversion rate of your ecommerce site. 

8 Tactics to Create Urgency

Note: Before you move forward with implementing any of these ideas, remember that the purpose of creating urgency on your website isn’t to cause a panic or rush your customers through the purchase process, it’s to increase buyer motivation and combat the hesitation involved in online shopping. The bottom line is: never sacrifice your user experience for quick revenue gains. If your customers don’t have a frictionless buying experience on their first visit, chances are good that they’ll never return for future purchases. 

1. Show stock levels on the product page

A great way to increase urgency on your site is by allowing customers to see stock levels if an item is close to selling out. Not only does this create a sense of urgency on your product detail pages, but it’s helpful information for the customer to know. This tactic can also be used to combat cart abandonment. Showing low stock levels on the cart page can increase urgency and grease the path to conversion. 

J Crew makes great use of this tactic by displaying stock levels when a product is close to selling out. This feature doesn’t distract from the user experience, and is giving the customer extra motivation to complete the purchase without causing panic or frustration. They also utilize this tactic on their cart page as an additional attempt to reinforce the limited stock availability. Remember to be honest with these numbers though. You’ll erode trust if your customers see the same stock levels three days in a row and realize you’re tricking them. 

2. Alert your customers via text 

There’s an ongoing debate as to whether text message marketing is a viable option for reaching your customers, but there’s no denying the results that SMS messages are producing. The response rate of SMS text message marketing is 45 percent vs email response rates at 6 percent, and what’s even more interesting is the average open rate of promotional text messages being 90 percent. 

Nobody has the time or patience to open every single promotional email from the brands that you’re subscribed to, but you will open every text message you receive, even if you know it’s promotional. Create urgency by sending a text message to your subscribers as soon as your sale launches. Create a short and attention grabbing message that will take less than 10 seconds to read, and make sure your send time is optimized. 

Utilizing branded vanity links can also help increase the conversion rate of SMS messages being sent to customers. Branded links get up to 39 percent more clicks than generic short links because customers are more likely to trust a link that has your name attached to it as opposed to a random “bit.ly” link.

Testing will be essential to you having any sort of success with text message marketing. If you want to figure out what your customers respond positively to, you’ll likely need to run a thorough testing program to help determine the specific wording and approach you’ll have to take in order to have success with this tactic.

3. Allow customers to see other buyers

Scarcity is a significant driver of demand, so showing your customers how many other users are interested in the same product will have an impact on their perceived value of the product and their urgency to purchase it. Consider the classic study on scarcity and its effect on demand that involved to two identical cookie jars. In 1975, researchers wanted to know how people would value cookies in two identical glass jars. One jar contained ten cookies and the other jar contained only two cookies. Despite the cookies and jars being completely identical, subjects perceived the cookies in the near-empty jar as more valuable. The presence of scarcity had a direct impact on their perception of value. 

The example shown below is taken from Etsy’s mobile site. You can see how they clearly display how many other customers are interested in the product you’re viewing, which helps add value to the product and increases the urgency to buy.

4. Last chance emails – “Don’t miss out”

Despite email marketing being seen by some as an out-dated method for reaching your target audience, email continues to be one of the highest performing ways to get your content in front of people. According to a 2019 report by Drift, 65 percent of surveyed consumers named email as one of the key methods for interacting with brands online. 

Utilizing email marketing to build urgency and demand around promotions you’re running is a necessary tactic to include in your ecommerce strategy. Ursa Major uses emails to alert customers about promotions that will be ending soon (See example below). All you need a simple subject line that highlights the promotion and builds excitement, and a clear CTA that your customers can click-through to browse the sale items. If you’re able to nail those two things, I can guarantee you’ll see an increase in your conversion rate. 

5. Time-bound purchase for same-day shipping

Adding a countdown timer for same-day shipping is a simple and effective tactic for adding urgency to the buying experience. Many ecommerce websites have adopted this feature because it’s a non-intrusive method of motivating customers to complete the purchase on the spot. There’s a reason why ecommerce giants like Amazon use this tactic to increase urgency, it’s non-intrusive and provides the user with information that may influence their decision to buy. 

Wheelership uses a countdown timer on their product detail pages that tells customers how much time they have left to place an order so it will ship the same day. The timer disappears from the product page at noon each day, so if a customer is ordering something past the same-day shipping cutoff time, they won’t see the timer. This is a great way to add urgency to the ordering process without cluttering the user experience, and is a value add from the user’s perspective. 

6. Add a Shopping Cart Timeout

Adding a countdown timer to your shopping cart can be a great motivator for customers to complete their purchases. It’s very common for shoppers to add products to their cart and forget about them because either they want to browse prices elsewhere, or they get distracted and exit the site. Giving your customers a limited window of time to complete their purchase is a great tactic for adding urgency to the buying process and also helps prevent customers using the shopping cart as a wishlist. 

ASOS is a great example of an ecommerce site that utilizes a countdown clock on their shopping cart without being intrusive. When you add any new items to your cart, a notification appears that your item will be held for 60 minutes before it’s removed. Notice the messaging they use for these notifications (see example below) instead of causing panic, they position it as they’re doing you a favor. “We’ll hold it for an hour!” is a much better approach than simply showing a large red countdown timer next to the shopping cart icon. The goal shouldn’t be to rush your customers through the purchase process, just give them motivation to complete the transaction. 

7. Utilize chatbots to promote sales 

Research from 2019 showed that 33 percent of American adult consumers have used online chat to interact with a business in the past 12 months. Utilizing chatbots and livechat can be a highly effective method for creating urgency on your ecommerce website, and it allows you to add a touch of personalization to your engagement. Not only can they be used to notify customers of ongoing sales and promotions, but they can help add personalization to your site  experience.

Most chatbot services have the ability to store general information about users which can be utilized to help target returning customers. The chatbot example below shows how the tool can be used to notify customers of current promotions, while also collecting useful information (email address, name) that can be used for retargeting or an abandoned cart email campaign.

8. Don’t tell your customers when a promotion ends

It may seem counterintuitive, but not disclosing the exact time that your sales promotion will end is a great way to build buyer urgency. When you tell your customers exactly when the sale is ending, this could lead to an increase in your cart abandonment rate because customers will browse for what they want, and then hold off on checking out because they still have time before the sale ends. Rarely will these customers remember to return to your site to complete the purchase, unless you have a strong method for re-engagement such as an abandoned cart email campaign. 

If you advertise your latest promotion as a “limited time offer” without disclosing a specific end date, it can increase the urgency for a customer to complete the purchase before the sale ends, and it allows you to gauge how long you’d like to run the promotion based on sales performance.

Note: To create urgency can be a double-edged sword

Creating urgency on your site can both decrease and increase friction. The goal of these tactics is to help nurture the user along the path to conversion, but overdoing it can lead to panic rather than urgency. Avoid using tools or plugins that appear to be ‘spammy’ from the user’s perspective. Based on user testing that our own team has conducted, we’ve found that countdown timers located on pop-ups or sale items are an immediate nuisance to the user. You’re not trying to trick your users into completing a purchase faster, you’re trying to improve the overall buying experience.

If you’re using urgency in a seedy or ‘spammy’ way, your customers will notice and most likely won’t put up with it. 

Don’t expect scarcity and urgency to replace conversion optimization

Scarcity can be used as a quick win for your ecommerce site, but if you’re expecting a long-term improvement of your conversion rate by simply applying these tactics, you may be disappointed. Creating a sense of urgency on your website will likely result in a momentary increase in conversions, but if the user experience on the rest of your site isn’t optimized you’ll have a very hard time retaining any new customers you gained from your promotion. 

If you’re looking to make lasting improvements to your ecommerce site, it may be time to consider investing in an optimization program. At The Good, we specialize in removing friction points for ecommerce websites so the customer journey is effortless and nurtures customers along the path to conversion. Creating urgency is just one of many tactics we utilize to help improve conversion rates, and we’re committed to working with brands of all sizes to help achieve the revenue goals they have for their business.

The post 8 Tactics to Create Urgency and Increase Conversions on Your Ecommerce Website appeared first on The Good.

You’ve just discovered what could be the perfect solution.

You see, there are two things online shoppers especially love: discounts and specials. Present the right offer to the right audience, and you can create a selling frenzy.

In this guide, we’re going to offer 78 types of sales promotions you can run to help drive more sales for your business. We’ve included dozens of sales promotion examples that you can reference for inspiration when designing your own promotional campaigns. We’ll also talk about how discounts, used properly, can boost your bottom line instead of putting a dent in it. 

Are you ready to sell more and earn more?

Let’s get started…

Leverage discounts and sales promotion ideas to your advantage

Are discounts really worth it, or do they increase short-term sales while lowering overall profits?

Smart marketers know the importance of computing the lifetime value of a customer, rather than focusing on the one-time cost/benefit ratio of a single transaction. It’s even possible to build a business by giving something away.

Here’s a classic example: In 1888, Coca-Cola began issuing paper coupons that entitled the bearer to one free glass of “Genuine Coca-Cola.” Over the next 25 years, 8.5 million consumers took Coke up on that offer, and the legend we know today was born.

The principle that you can build a business by giving something away has never been truer than in the Internet Age. Online shoppers are educated, discount-conscious, and extremely capable of comparing product offers across ecommerce and local stores.

Online shoppers expect discounts, and recent research shows the number of consumers who search for discount codes before making a purchase is rapidly on the rise. At The Good, we advise our clients to leverage that trend instead of cursing it.

Used wisely, promotional discounts can help boost sales and ROI

Some say that offering discounts tells the customer your normal prices are too high. They maintain that presenting frequent discount opportunities will hurt the bottom line and lead buyers to expect more for less. 

Retail giant JCPenney listened to that advice and tried backing off from their strategy of offering regular promotional discounts. Consequently, their sales dropped sharply.

JCPenney’s experience added credence to the point that consumers love bargain prices – even when the suggested retail price (MSRP), which the discount is based on, is an amount few customers ever pay. Browse to the JCPenney website on any given day, and it’s fairly certain you’ll see a discount banner like the one below.

Buyers want to feel like the price they paid was fair. Nobody relishes being taken advantage of. If getting a fair price feels good, though, getting a great price feels a whole lot better – especially when the buyer walks away feeling like a winner in the transaction.

Giving your customers what they want is the surest path to success in sales. Here’s one caveat to providing sales discounts, though: always give the consumer a reason for the special price. Otherwise, they’ll assume it’s because you’re charging too much in the first place.

Here are 78 ways to offer discounts to your customers – that’s 78 ways to get more business. See which fit best for your business and test them. Chances are high you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the results.

78 Ecommerce Sales Promotion Ideas You Can Use to Boost Revenue

1. Seasonal discounts: Summer is coming, and it’s time to celebrate! Why not invite your customers to the party? Seasons give you four reasons each year to offer special prices on seasonal goods.

2. End-of-season discounts: Hold it, though. Seasons have an ending as well as a beginning. That gives you four more reasons to offer special prices. When do end-of-summer discounts become fall discounts? Why not run them concurrently? After all, some goods and services are summer-related and others are perfect for autumn. Customers can stock up on goods for next summer while the prices are low, and get fall merchandise while the specials are running. Overstock takes the end-of-season discount to another level by also offering free shipping on all orders (see below). 

3. Pro deals: Let’s say that some of your best customers are teachers, and they need certain supplies often. Why not entice them with a pro deal? One sure way to get on the good side of others is to make them feel special – to let them know you appreciate them and their business. Pro deals do that in a big way. Who are your industry professionals? Cater to them, because their voice will influence over their industry peers. Blick Art Materials offers discounts to both educators and students. They know that their products are heavily used by educational institutions, so they’re capitalizing on that demand (see example below). 

4. Sponsorships: Now that you’ve identified the teachers (for example) in your customer base, why not find out which associations they belong to and which conferences they attend? By taking your discount pricing beyond individuals and offering special pricing to a much larger audience, you can get your products and your offers in front of more people and get more sales. 

5. Incentives for reviews: Here’s a sales promotion idea. By offering a special discount to those who are willing to review your store, you get the best of both worlds: increased sales and additional social proof that you do what you say. Of course, you can’t offer discounts only to those who leave favorable reviews. Here’s how to handle good and bad reviews. 

6. First purchase anniversary: Let your customers know you appreciate them by celebrating each year on the day they placed their first order with you. It’s a great reason to offer a special discount on their next purchase, and it makes you a little more special to them. Keep going with milestone anniversaries: 5 years, 10 years, 25 years. Celebrate your fans, and they’ll bring others to the fold. ASOS sends purchase anniversary emails to offer their loyal customers a 10 percent discount code (see example below). 

7. Other types of anniversaries: There are wedding anniversaries, birthdays, and other occasions to celebrate. Depending on your ecommerce offerings, you may even want to know the family dog’s birthday. Hey, a party is a party, and parties are always a reason to buy something special. 

8. Co-marketing discounts: You don’t carry everything everyone needs to buy. So why not strike up a relationship with other sellers for mutually beneficial promotions? Their customers get a special discount for becoming your customers too (and vice-versa). It’s a win-win proposition that can draw more traffic to your website and help grow your bottom line. It also forges relationships that can lead to even more goodwill and promotional opportunities. 

9. Cart abandonment offer: This is sometimes accomplished via a pop-up while the shopper is still on your website, but even if that fails you can recover many would-have-been sales by sending an email to remind the prospect of the abandoned cart and adding in a special incentive for following through. The incentive can be an additional discount, free shipping, a trial membership… or any of a myriad other possibilities. The main thing is that your offer be seen as valuable and time-sensitive. SWAG Jeweller sends abandoned cart emails with a 5 percent discount code included. Not a bad way to improve your CTR on abandoned cart emails, and a great sales promotion idea.

10. Email list sign-up discount: Online marketers often proclaim that “The money is in the list.” While your ecommerce website may not depend primarily on email marketing for business, there’s little statistical doubt about the benefits of building and utilizing a healthy database of customers and prospective customers. Your email list is a valuable tool, so why not reward those who subscribe? You get to grow your list, the prospect gets a discount, and you’re then likely to get an order. Life is good when both parties gain from the interaction.

11. Point-based rewards discount: The more you buy, the closer you get to a reward. Does it work? Starbucks thinks so. The world’s largest coffeehouse bumped their Starbucks Rewards program up to a “More stars than ever” system. Customers get rewarded for each dollar spent, and there are special ways (join the email list, for example) to get bonus stars. Not only that, but Starbucks teams up with other sellers for partner programs. Can you set up a Starbucks-type reward system for your ecommerce business? You bet you can.

12. Upgrade discount: What do you do when your current model is no longer current? At Verizon, you just “Trade in to trade up” (see below). It’s an excellent way for them to recycle phones and the practice gives customers just a little more reason to opt for a new smartphone. The trade-in value doesn’t have to be high, it just needs to be substantial enough to add value. What upgrade possibilities do your products or services offer? Get creative. We’ve even seen clothing stores offer trade-ins on evening gowns – then donate the used items as formalwear for those attending special needs events. The customer gets a discount. The store gets the sale, the goodwill, and a tax credit for their donation! 

13. Bundling discounts: Anyone buying a new printer is sure to need ink soon. Why not include an accessories discount? Another one of our sales promotion ideas is to combine go-together items. Pants come with a discount on belts, or snowshoes are matched up with a discount on gloves. Think a bit, and you’ll see possibilities popping out everywhere.

14. Membership discount: Offer special pricing for loyalty programs. Sam’s Club and Costco work this angle to the bone. Maybe you don’t want to lock your entire store down under a members-only agreement, but could you start a fishing club or an expectant mothers club? Here again, give it some thought and you may see opportunity to help your customers feel special and save money – the two things they want to do on a regular basis. Amazon Prime is a prime example of how to do membership discounting. Prime members get exclusive discounted prices on many high-demand items in the Amazon catalog. 

15. Frequent shopper discount: Cultivating fans and ambassadors is good for branding and good for sales. Whereas the point-based rewards program is based on the amount of purchase, the frequent shopper discount adds time to the equation. The more frequently your customers buy from you, the higher their rewards. Of course, you’ll need their email addresses or cell phone numbers to make this work, so you’re building your list at the same time. When you remind customers their 25% discount is going to expire in a week, they’re likely to look hard for a way to use it before it goes away.

16. Credit card discount: When you offer a store credit card (usually with a significant discount on sign-up), you get the customer’s contact information and an excellent opportunity to build loyalty to your brand. You can leverage your cardholder mailing list to present special opportunities for additional savings, added services from you and your partners, and invitations to special events. Those who carry your credit card feel more a part of your ecommerce family. Both Amazon and Nordstrom work this angle heavily with great success.

17. Buy more, save more: Bulk discounts are attractive to consumers and tend to increase the total order amount per transaction. Get creative with the presentation and test results. Would a “4 for the price of 3” offer generate more sales than “25% off when you buy 4” sale? One word of caution: Be careful with “get one free” language; it can make your legal staff shiver. If a consumer must purchase something to get something, then it’s not “free.” We often find they appreciate “gift with purchase” language better.

18. Social follow for discount: Here’s a way to increase your social media audience, open up a further avenue of contact for your clients, and boost sales all in one swoop. The technical end can get a little tricky, depending on the platforms and tools you employ, but this is a case where your “ask” (follow us on social media) is usually well worth the reward (a money-saving discount). Here again, you can get creative and test different approaches.

19. Social post for discount: The larger the reward, the higher you can raise the bar on your ask. Maybe you want respondents to follow you, share something about you on their social media account, and leave a comment. Which actions would most fit your marketing and social media strategy? 

20. Refer-a-friend discount: Here’s a way to quickly grow both your mailing list and your sales. In exchange for introducing you to someone else who could benefit from your products or services, respondents get a discount. Variations might include targeting a specific item for the discount (Share your love of fishing and get 20% off the purchase of any Eagle Claw fishing rod within the next 30 days) or awarding a discount good for any item in your store. Did we say “test” yet? Each special you run can tell you more about your audience and their preferences, but only if you remember to test and test again.

21. Affiliate discounts: These can range from an Amazon-style commission on orders generated by links from Amazon Associates, to tallying up the number of new customers referred by champions of your brand and providing rewards based on the number of referrals. Affiliate programs are one of our favorite sales promotions ideas, and can help lower advertising costs and enable you to reach a wider audience.

22. Auto-ship: There are two ways to go about auto-ship. One often comes across as sneaky and is certain to create resentment. The other is upfront and builds long-term loyalty. We suggest the latter. When the customer is totally aware that the discount is based on agreeing to receive further shipments automatically, and when instructions for how to end the agreement (and whether there is any penalty for doing so) are easy to access, auto-ship arrangements can be a win-win proposition.

23. Pre-order discount: Here’s a way to secure sales even before a new product is ready to ship. Not only do pre-orders allow customers to be “first in line,” they build excitement and add value. If something is so highly desired that people have to place an early order to be sure and get it before it sells out, that product must be amazing… right? Like layaway programs that allow customers to fix the price now and pay later, pre-order discounts can help you get orders that might otherwise have been lost. Here’s a good maxim for increasing ecommerce sales: If the customer wants to buy now, let her do it. Now.

24. Back-order discount: The customer wants to order a product you don’t have in stock. Rather than lose the sale, why not offer a back-order discount? In exchange for the buyer’s willingness to wait (spell out how long that wait will be), you offer a price break. They pay now. You deliver when the item is back in stock. A small discount can save the sale.

25. First time shopper discount: You’ve computed the average lifetime value of a customer, right? Take that into consideration here. By offering an attractive discount on the first order (which includes getting on your mailing list), you’ve done more than make one sale; you’ve gained another customer. And the potential value of that customer to your business is way more than the value of the first order. Way more.

26. Influencer discount: There are celebrities in every niche – people whose advice others readily accept. Ecommerce sites can see significant bumps in sales when those niche-centered thought leaders recommend their products. Add a special discount to the mix and the results can be spectacular. The first step is to identify the influencers most germane to your niche. After that, it’s a matter of initiating contact and establishing a relationship. Once you’re able to illustrate how your products or services are valuable to the influencer’s audience, the next step is evident: let them know how to access your website. Instagram has become a great place for brands to partner with influencers to offer a discount on specific products. Both the influencer and brand profit from this type of partnership. 

27. Re-engagement offers: Life happens. Situations change. Your customer base is constantly in flux. You work hard to earn those customers, though, so don’t let them drop off the radar without doing what you can to get them re-engaged. You’ll need to determine the criteria that best fits your business, but it can be as simple as getting in touch with those who haven’t ordered in a set period of time, letting them know you haven’t forgotten about them, and offering a special discount for their next order. Goodwill is a good thing.

28. Behavior-based offers: Standard pop-up ads triggered by user actions (closing a page, for instance) are often seen as annoying. They’re about as likely to dissuade a visitor from coming back as they are to save a sale. Special offers based on machine-learned observations about the visitor, though, can appear more helpful, timelier, and less intrusive. Check Smart Exit Offers app in the Shopify app store for an example of how smart offers can work.

29. Subscription discounts: The customer agrees to a set number of purchases over a certain period of time in return for a discounted price. Consider how Amazon leverages subscription discounts on their Audible.com site. Does your inventory include consumable items or services the customer will want to purchase on a regular basis? A subscription discount can keep them coming back to you.

30. Multi-purchase agreements: Similar to the subscription discount, this commits you and the buyer to a set number of purchases at a discounted price. Unlike the subscription discount, the agreement will expire after those purchases are made and will need to be renewed after each cycle. The multi-purchase agreement works well for items that will be needed only for a limited time.

31. Time sensitive discount: You can incorporate the persuasive power of urgency by setting a time limit on the price. If the sale ends tonight at midnight, the customer must make a decision or lose the opportunity to save. Don’t over-do urgency, but don’t neglect it either. Just be sure to make it real. Don’t be the store that’s always “Going out of business next week.” Be the store that’s offering a truly special offer for a set period of time. After that, it goes away and may not ever be back again.

32. The daily discount: By running specials 24 hours at a time, you can switch up the offer and keep customers coming back to see what’s on sale next. This also gives you a perfect reason to make daily use of your email list. Amazon is the best example of how to utilize daily discounts. They consistently have their “Deal of the day” sale items that are typically extremely discounted products available in a short 24-hour window.

33. The special period discount: The winter holiday season, beginning with Black Friday, is the perfect example of how enthusiasm can be generated during a special period. Don’t wait for November, though, you could do a regular end-of-the-month discount, or even a full moon discount, any month of the year. Choose something that makes sense for your niche and try it. Once your customers get used to the rhythm of your offers, they’ll look forward to the events and even tell their friends about them. Consider implementing a countdown widget (see example below) on your site to increase urgency and let customers know the deal is only available for a short period of time. 

34. Spend more to get the discount: Buy more to pay less. This one requires a careful look at cost accounting, but it can encourage shoppers to add more items to the cart. If the current total order is $80, but you’ll take 5% off the total hits $100, then most people will at least consider going ahead and ordering something else they know they’ll need soon.

35. Military discount: Consider pushing this beyond active duty military to all who have served. Many businesses advertise discounts for veterans during special holidays, but why not let present and past members of the armed forces know how much you appreciate them daily? Here again, think of the lifetime value of each customer. Loyalty means a lot.

36. Student discount: One thing is certain about young people: they eventually become full-fledged adults – complete with jobs, mortgages, and credit cards. By earning loyalty while they’re still in school, you set your business up for a lifetime of shopping. Apple consistently offers an educational discount to students, that includes 20 percent off on Apple Care+. This is a wise tactic because it gets young adults investing in their products from the start. If a college student’s first laptop is a Macbook Pro, chances are good that they’ll want to stick with Apple for their future computer purchases.

37. Senior discounts: Retired people typically have less disposable income than when they were working, but their influence on others is tremendous. By honoring seniors, you’ll be courting customers who love to save a few dollars and are likely to tell others about your products.

38. Special person discounts: Maybe you sell knives and there’s a certain model that includes a tool for cutting seatbelts in a hurry. By offering a special discount to first responders, you align your product with professionals. Who are the experts in your niche? When they buy and recommend your products, the confidence their actions generate for potential buyers is golden.

39. Customer-generated discounts: Priceline allows customers to specify the price they’re willing to pay for a certain service. Of course, whether to accept or reject the offer is up to the provider, but it’s a surefire way to find out exactly which price point best gets the prospect to accept the offer. Is there a way you can accept bids from customers? The more they feel in control of the process, the more likely you are to get the order.

40. Wholesale pricing: Everyone knows the MSRP (manufacturer’s suggested retail price) is not what most people end up paying, but seeing a significant discount from the MSRP is often a factor in the prospect’s assessment of whether or not the price is fair. Customers love to save money, and the bigger the gap between the “list price” and the “sales price” the more they like it.

41. Employee pricing: Wouldn’t you like to get the employee discount on your next purchase from a favorite retailer? So would your customers. You don’t have to offer employee pricing on all products, though. Try describing a sale item with “employee pricing” terminology. 

42. In-store pickup discount: This one packs double benefits. Not only do you (and the customer) save on shipping charges, but visitors to your store are likely to buy something else while there. To increase that likelihood, don’t send them to the back to retrieve the order at a customer pickup desk. Rather, situate the pickup point at a central location in the store. Let your employees go retrieve the order while the customer shops for more.

43. Gift registry discount: After the bridal or wedding shower, there are typically a number of items remaining on the gift registry. That’s the time to offer a special discount on the things you already know the customer wants. Not only that, but since you’ve collected (hopefully) contact information from those who have already purchased something from the registry, you can let them know about the discount and even open it up to them for personal purchases.

44. Wish list discount: As with the gift registry, wish lists let you get a splendid view of the products a particular customer wants. And since determining what the prospect wants is half the battle in sales, you’re in a position to sweeten the pot a bit by offering a limited time special discount on one or more of the items on that wish list.

45. Take-a-survey discount: Every discount needs a reason. Otherwise, the customer may believe your normal prices are too high. Providing a discount in return for answering a poll or survey is a really good reason, since it requires the prospect to sacrifice some of his or her time. Be sure to ask questions you can use for strategizing, always let the customer know how long the survey will take, and don’t forget to collect mailing list opt-ins during the process.

46. Minimum advertised price: This one is similar to the MSRP discount, but carries a different connotation and is more likely to be trusted. Customers can check to see that your offer is legitimate. When you offer something below the lowest minimum advertised price (MAP) ever, you’re doing something really special. It’s an offer that may never come again.

47. Multiplier discount: This is similar to the strategy used by Restaurant.com, in that the value of your dollars is multiplied. A $10 purchase may buy $20 in meal credits. Is there a way you can double or even triple the benefits your customers get from shopping with you?

48. Inventory-based discount: Straight from the supply vs demand playbook, this discount is greater when plenty of stock is on hand, but diminishes along with the supply of goods. It’s a tactic based on something customers easily understand, and it helps build a sense of urgency in the buyer. The longer the prospect waits, the higher the price.

49. Newsletter discounts: Many of the people on your mailing list may be there only because they want to know when discounts are available. Don’t disappoint them. You shouldn’t necessarily include a discount with every email you send, but doing it on a regular basis helps increase your open rate and build more sales. Pier 1 has an attractive pop-up offer that incentivizes users to sign-up for their newsletter in exchange for a 10 percent off discount code to put towards their next purchase.

50. Donate for a discount: Local school and church groups often hold fundraisers at local pizza parlors. Customers not only get discounted prices, but part of what they spend goes to support the group. You can do the same thing online. Find a cause your customers will want to get behind, then set up a fundraiser. Don’t forget to speak with your tax accountant about potential tax benefits of the arrangement. Note how the card below offers tiered discounts over multiple visits.

Freebies and Add-ons Can Generate Excitement

Something as simple as one of these little bonuses can enhance your brand reputation, make you more memorable, and provide extra value to your customers.

On a side note, some types of giveaways and sweepstakes have legal restrictions. If you’re unsure whether those would apply to you, consult a lawyer.

51. BOGO: This really is a buy-more-get-more offer, but it’s often presented as “Buy one get one free.” It’s worth reiterating that a customer who has to buy something to get something is NOT getting something “free.” Our advice is to run that verbiage past legal and save yourself a legal nightmare. That said, “Buy-one-get-one” is a proven and attractive offer. Just avoid saying anything is free unless it actually is free.

52. Free gift for a review: Here’s another area where your legal help should be consulted. Reviews are valuable, there’s no doubt about that, but if it appears you are “bribing” people to get those reviews, the results can be hurtful. Amazon allows sellers to provide free products in exchange for reviews, but with the caveat that the reviewer disclose that information and that the seller asks for honest reviews instead of asking for positive reviews.

53. Free gift with purchase: This is similar to the BOGO, but is presented differently. The same cautions apply, though. If the customer has to buy something to get something, then there’s not really a “gift” involved at all. Run it past legal before going live with an offer like this. The extra sales aren’t worth the extra risk. Alternatives are to talk about the “bonus” the customer will get or the “additional merchandise at no extra charge”. Sephora includes two free gifts (product samples) with each order you place. Despite these just being product samples, they entice the customer into purchasing more products from the company. 

54. Surprise free gifts: You check in at your favorite hotel and find bottled water and candies in your room. Yes, these are included in the price of your room, but they are extra treats that many hotels don’t provide. How can you give your customers little special gifts? Can you include free samples of another product with their next order? Maybe send a branded accessory item? Truly free gifts can build customer goodwill in a big way, but they must fit your products and your customers. Be useful. Be helpful. Be kind.

55. Free shipping: In every segment, ecommerce sites generate higher conversion rates when free shipping is a component of the offer. To find out for certain, test it yourself. Is the shipping really free? Of course not; it’s covered in the price of the goods. The converse of this offer is slashing the price, then tacking on an exorbitant shipping and handling fee. As a consumer, which do you prefer? Free shipping wins the day every time. Bonobos is known for their free shipping on every order policy. No matter where you’re located in the United States, there will be no shipping fee included in your order total

56. Free returns: Online shoppers aren’t as wary as they once were, but a satisfaction guarantee backed up by free shipping serves to dispel fears and get reluctant shoppers to go ahead and place the order. Is this likely to increase your return rate? Probably. Is it likely to gain business and build customer loyalty? Definitely.

57. Spend X, get Y: By linking order amount to special benefits, you can encourage shoppers to add additional items to the check-out cart. The discount or other privilege doesn’t kick in until a certain price level is reached. Amazon ships book orders over $25 free. JCPenney frequently runs specials that lower the price when you buy a certain amount. How can this tactic work for your ecommerce business?

58. Warehouse sale: Overstocks, odd sizes, seasonal goods when season ends – there are plenty of reasons why you might want to move old merchandise to make room for more. Customers understand your predicament and when the price is right, they’re eager to hop in and help bail you out.

59. Holiday sales: Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Thanksgiving Day, and such… all are not only good reasons for sales, but consumers have come to expect them on those days. You can even combine other discounts to make your sale even more special. 

60. Wacky holiday sales: Every day of the year has at least one wacky or unusual holiday to boast. Some of them, like National Secretaries Day, end up going mainstream. Meanwhile, there’s always a reason to celebrate events like these: Battery Day, Library Lovers Day, Jewel Day, Astronomy Day, and more. Afterpay, the popular buy-now-pay-later company created their own ‘day’ called AfterYay day. Essential, this was a giant sale that a majority of their vendors participated in that proved to be extremely success for both Afterpay and all of their participating partners (see example below).

61. Flash sales: Inspired by the Kmart “blue light special,” flash sales keep the excitement level elevated. Be there at the right time and get a significant discount. You can combine the flash with an email blast to let your customers know about the event. You can make it even more special by alerting your subscribers before others know. Give them an extra hour to save!

62. Seasonal sales: We’ve mentioned seasonal discounts already, but there’s a subtle difference between a discount and a sale. Sales are a bigger deal and typically get far more advertising and general hoopla than do discounts. In addition, seasonal sales occur at predictable times and can be planned for months in advance. Discounts come and go, but sales are more predictable and tend to generate more excitement.

63. End-of-season sales: Remember that there are two sides to each season: beginning and end. You need to move your remaining summer stock out of the warehouse to make room for fall and winter merchandise. Sounds like the perfect time for an end-of-season sale! FinishLine.com declared season’s end the perfect time to get big discounts on their gear (see below).

Get Creative with Special Offers and Events

With a little extra thought, you can come up with ways to build brand, build loyalty, and keep customers coming back for more.

64. Limited editions: These can be exclusive, time-limited editions or special runs of a product. You can tie them to events or celebrities. You can offer them as bonuses or charge premium prices. Limited editions are fun and striking way to add value to your products and services.

65. Special editions: Whether a signed copy of a book or a celebrity-endorsed products, everyone loves to feel special and own something special. Special editions are also viewed as more valuable and collectable.

66. Price match promise: Take away the buyer’s anxiety by offering to match prices advertised by your competitors. This takes some terms and conditions thinking, but is well worth the effort. Stores like Best Buy and Target used price match promises to secure sales that would otherwise have gone to Amazon or another competitor.

67. Competitions: Enter to win! Not only can this fun way to generate buzz boost sales, but it can help build your email list. Here again, be sure to run the plan past legal. Games and competitions can boost sales and help build your mailing list.

68. Store credit: Here’s a tactic worth testing. Instead of offering a discount, give customers a coupon valid towards their next purchase. It’s like having money in your pocket that you have to spend at a certain store before a certain date.

69. Guarantees: Ecommerce stores, especially, benefit from offering guarantees. When customers are assured they’ll get their money back if they aren’t satisfied with the order, they feel a whole lot better about doing business with you. Do everything you can to assure shoppers you’re going to back up your products every step of the way.

70. Upsell offers: The customer is at checkout with a notebook computer in the cart. You can offer upgraded RAM at a discount (for instance). Be careful here. You don’t want to introduce confusion just as the customer is paying. You may be wise to take the order first, then offer the upsell as an add-on to the purchase. Here again, test to see what works best for you and your customer base.

71. Replacement parts: By carrying necessary parts and supplies for the items you stock, you can keep the customer coming back to you on a regular basis. Do most people need ink of a printer every 90 days? If so, get in touch with those who buy a printer at about the 60-day mark. Begin a series of emails designed to get their ink order. If you sell it, back it up with necessary maintenance items.

72. Upgrade notifications: Your mailing list should include information about items each customer orders – if it doesn’t, consider an email platform such as Bronto. Using the printer as a further example, when a new model is introduced, let those who purchased the old model know. You can even offer a trade-in allowance, or you can partner with a non-profit organization to donate the used printers for a tax write-off.

73. Free trials: Sales managers know it as “The puppy dog close.” Once you put your product in the potential buyer’s hands and they have received good results, it’s going to be difficult for that person to return the item. If it’s working great, does what I need done, and is fairly priced… why should I return it?

74. Payments or installment plans: The easier you make it for customers to own your products, the more of them you will sell. Of course, a certain percentage of customers will fall behind on payments or stop making them altogether. Test and compare. Can you segment your customer list to call out “preferred” customers? Paying attention to data can help you fine-tune anything. Sweetwater is known for their interest-free ‘Easy Payments’ plan. You choose between a 3- and 6-month Payment Plan so customers don’t have to wait to buy the products they need.

75. Give back to the community: Perhaps you donate a pair of socks to a homeless shelter for every pair of socks a customer purchases from your website, like Bombas does. The list of needs and organizations is huge. Be sure to choose charities that resonate with your audience. How do you know what they are? Ask and test!

76. Gated shopping events: Invite your best customers to participate in a sale designed just for them. You could even offer buddy passes and extra-special discounts to those who bring a friend. Everyone likes to feel “special.” This is one way you can show your loyal customers how much you appreciate them.

77. No special reason discounts: Out of the blue, send your subscribers a special discount offer just to say “Thank you for being our customer.” You can’t over-play this tactic, of course, but it can draw big results. No reason can be the best reason of all.

78. Family-centered specials: Phone companies sometimes offer free calling to “friends and family.” Is there a way you can leverage relationships to draw more attention to your ecommerce store? Getting your current customers to recommend your site to others is one of the quickest ways to build confidence and get new business. As an example, Amazon allows sharing of Amazon Prime benefits with family members, increasing the likelihood that those family members would purchase.

Ecommerce Sales Promotion Strategies: How to Sell More Online

Do these discount, sale, and special offer ideas get your creative juices flowing? Our aim isn’t to create the end-all list of sales promotion ideas but to create the start-all list. Armed with these ideas, we hope that you’ll be able to come up with the best sales that fit your target audience perfectly.

At The Good, we’re committed to finding the best optimization plan for your digital product. If you’re interested in improving your ecommerce sales without discounting, consider getting a free 5-Factors Scorecard and reviewing with an expert from our team.

That’s the path towards increased sales and more profits.

Every time.

The post The Essential Guide to Ecommerce Sales Promotion Ideas [78 Tactics] appeared first on The Good.

That goal gives rise to two pertinent questions:

• Isn’t it bad business for brands to compete against their retailers?
• Why would consumers prefer to buy direct, even if they have to pay more for the privilege?

The days when manufacturers focused on manufacturing and left the selling to sellers are quickly disappearing.

Let’s look at what’s fueling direct to consumer sales and why consumers, manufacturers, and retailers all stand to gain from the trend.

Why Traditional Wisdom Got Tossed out the Digital Window

Prior to the expanded access to markets provided by the internet, few manufacturers or wholesalers sold directly to the consumer. The road from factory to home or office generally followed a strictly defined and protected route.

Consumers who tried to purchase direct were gently, but firmly, pointed towards the appropriate outlet: manufacturers sold only to wholesalers and wholesalers sold only to retailers.

Online shopping provided a way for consumers to go to the store without leaving home. Email gave brands a cheap and easy way to communicate with those interested in their products. Advances in distribution allowed quick, doorstep deliveries.

And now, as new companies are formed, it is more common to sell direct-to-consumer from the start. Platforms like Kickstarter help generate DTC awareness prior to even manufacturing a product, and SaaS ecommerce platforms like Shopify make it easier than ever to start selling online without the need to find a retailer to stock the brand’s new product on their shelves.

Direct-to-consumer selling was the logical outcome: not only is an intermediary no longer necessary (in many cases), but messages are most clearly communicated face-to-face, without the potential skewing imposed by the old system.

Resource:

• 7 Simple Ways Ecommerce Brands Can Frustrate Retailers

Ecommerce is Reshaping the Concept of Branding

Ecommerce forced brands to shift their focus from designing a more appealing logo or a more memorable television commercial to the in-your-face world of social media buzz and consumer reviews.

Consumers have always held the real power (if they don’t buy it, you can’t sell it), but the Information Age amplified that power and made it stronger. Like never before, shoppers look for the proof in the pudding. Wild claims are uncovered quickly and disappointment is broadcast widely.

Price comparisons are easy to find. Many retailers rallied against “showrooming,” and tried to prevent consumers from using smartphones to price-check while in the store. Others launched low price guarantees. Many tried to browbeat customers into buying locally.

And while some say the best way to compete is to cut margins and join the race to the bottom of the pricing barrel, something else is strikingly apparent from the direct-to-consumer movement: consumers still want (and are willing to pay for) security, quality, and service.

Here are 3 things consumers want and will pay for.
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Why Consumers Want to Buy Direct

There was a time when consumers seeking to buy directly from the manufacturer or wholesaler were looking primarily for a price break. Big-box stores capitalized on that desire, designing retail stores to look like warehouses and leveraging bulk discounts to drive sales.

There’s more to the picture, though. Today’s shoppers are accustomed to enhanced access. For instance, they can chat directly with a brand’s support team on the brand ecommerce website prior to making a purchase, ensuring they receive the most knowledgeable answers to their pre-purchase research questions..

But shoppers are also well aware of online scams. They’ve either been caught by, or heard stories of, faked goods. They look like the real thing. They are branded like the real thing, but they aren’t.

For example, Apple says these products not only infringe on their brand, but can be dangerous. Following independent research, they filed suit this year against one of the Amazon third-party vendors (see screenshot below).

At The Good, we’re constantly listening to the audiences our clients serve. Those observations inform our conversion optimization experiments and help us understand the needs of consumers.

Resource:

• Optimization: Test, Grow, & Repeat

Here are some of the primary factors we’ve found to explain why many consumers prefer buying directly from the manufacturer – even if the item is more expensive there!

1. Shoppers love it when brands interact directly with them.

It’s like the difference between reading a book and meeting the author. Once there’s a personal connection, you’re not only much more likely to buy more product, but to encourage others to do likewise. The more accessible you are to your customers, the more likely they are to become not just buyers… but fans and brand evangelists through online reviews or similar.

2. Buying direct relieves the anxiety about being swindled by a knock-off distributor.

Birkenstock decided to stop selling on Amazon, citing the inability to police companies selling price-cutting counterfeits and diluting the Birkenstock brand with their inferior goods. A CNBC report said, “Birkenstock will be telling consumers to purchase only from authorized retailers, and that any products listed on Amazon can’t be trusted.”

The publicity surrounding the move sent many would-be online buyers to the Birkenstock USA website, where they could be sure their money would go to the purchase of authentic Birkenstock sandals.

3. Brands carry every product; retailers typically don’t.

This is especially important to customers already impressed with the brand. They already love one of your products, now they’d love to find out what else you offer.

The retailer may carry your fishing poles, but the customer wants to get the tee shirt and ball cap too. Where better to get a look at the entire line than via the brand website?

4. Brands carry every color, size, and style.

Retailers stock the most popular sizes and colors. By purchasing directly from the brand, you can shop the entire selection. This factor is especially important to those who don’t fit the standard mold.

And here, again, these customers can quickly become brand advocates – especially to those who share their size or style preferences.

5. Direct-to-consumer shoppers get direct access to the most accurate information and support.

Shopping on the manufacturer’s website or brand location gives you access to people who work only with that brand and know it inside out. Shopping on a retailer’s website gives you access to people who may know very little about a whole lot. Information gleaned directly from the company site or company customer service is more likely to be accurate and complete.

6. Brands are more likely to stock what you need.

Spending time searching for just the right product can turn frustrating when you get to checkout and discover the item isn’t in stock – or worse yet, you place the order and then get notified of a shipping delay. Your chances of getting what you need when you want it are normally better when you go to the source.

7. Replacement parts are easier to find on the brand site.

When the retailer stops selling the particular model you bought, it may be difficult to find replacement parts. The manufacturer will typically stock parts longer than any other outlet. They may also be able to sell them without an exorbitant markup.

8. Pertinent accessories are easier to search and find.

You’re buying a new camera that’s worth every penny you paid. Do you want to settle for a generic case to protect it? By shopping with the manufacturer, you can probably find a case made especially for your camera. Not only that, but the logo on the case will add value to the purchase. You’ll feel more a part of the brand family.

9. Direct to Consumer returns and service issues are often better handled.

When you complain to a retailer about a purchase, they may return your money and take the product back. When you buy from the brand, though, there’s more incentive to not just settle the financial claim, but to keep you coming back to them for more.

10. Bundle consumer sentiment together, and the general consensus is that the brand is more likely to “do the right thing.”

If I sell you a product made by someone else, I can always pass the buck on to the manufacturer when there’s a problem. If I sell you a product manufactured or sourced in-house, however, the buck stops here. Consumers feel more comfortable dealing directly with brands because there’s no wiggle room.

Consumers have plenty of reasons to prefer purchasing direct, but brands did not – until ecommerce changed the rules of the game.

Direct-to-consumer sales provide a classic win-win situation.
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Benefits to Brands When Consumers Buy Direct

Computers, shoes, shaving gear, even cars can now be purchased online from the manufacturer. Many brands combine virtual stores with branded retail outlets and are learning to make both presences work together to deliver the optimum customer experience.

Examples are numerous:

• Amazon launched brick and mortar bookstores
• Tesla Motors bypasses traditional car lots
• Nike is playing the direct-to-consumer card in a big way
• HP allows you to select and customize your computer via their online store

How can the traditional manufacturer > wholesaler > retailer > consumer flow be so blatantly violated without incurring retail sales loss backlashes, though?

Resource:

• Creating a Personalized Customer Experience

We’ve already listed consumer benefits from direct-to-consumer. Now let’s consider benefits to brands. Here are our top five findings:

1. It allows brands to retain control of image.

By selling products from their own websites and retail outlets, brands don’t risk image dilution from third parties who don’t have as much reason to champion their goods.

2. It gives brands maximum relationship-building potential.

When you sell direct, you have direct access to the consumer. Macy’s knows the value of making the “magic” happen in every transaction – but it’s Macy’s magic, not brand magic.

3. It makes customers happy.

For years, consumers asked for the ability to buy direct. When you give them that option, you’re giving them what they want.

4. It means brands don’t have all their eggs in one basket.

By expanding sales to company sites, the base broadens. You no longer have to rely on retailers to finalize transactions. You can make your own sales.

5. It opens up a mailing list goldmine.

When customers buy from retailers, you get access to their information only if there’s a warranty registration involved. When customers buy direct, you know who they are, where they live, and how to contact them. Never before has there been more opportunity for brands to build ongoing relationships with consumers.

Consumers want it, brands benefit by it, but how about retailers? Are they getting the short end of the stick?

Turns out, direct-to-consumer can be good business for them too.

16 Powerful Benefits of Selling Direct-to-Consumer Online
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The Direct to Consumer Boom Effect on Retail

The direct-to-consumer boom doesn’t spell the end of non-manufacturer retail stores. There’s plenty of room and plenty of demand left over.

For one thing, consumers appreciate the ability to compare different brands side-by-side. Best Buy, for instance, gives consumers a place to see HP and Dell in the same store. That’s not the case at brand-only outlets. You get the company pitch only.

But there’s another way retailers gain when brands open up direct-to-consumer access: DTC makes brands more savvy about the market. It provides a window to the consumer that’s bigger and clearer than ever before. When that information is shared with retailers, sales increase for both parties.

Brands and retailers are partners, not competitors. When they work together, everyone wins. Direct-to-consumer selling isn’t the brand versus retailer conundrum we once feared. Instead, it’s a symbiotic means of bringing both closer together.

If you’re an ecommerce leader looking to improve direct-to-consumer sales, we can help

The post 16 Big Manufacturer Benefits of Selling Direct-to-Consumer appeared first on The Good.