10 ecommerce sales promotions we love

If you run an ecommerce business, you’re probably looking for simple and effective ways to

• increase sales
• bring in more relevant traffic
• build brand loyalty
• manage inventory levels 

Keep reading to see six sales promotion examples savvy brands on Shopify and Shopify Plus use to achieve all of those goals and more.

1. Gift With Purchase (GWP)

The idea behind GWP promotions is simple: reward potential customers with a free gift when they spend over a certain dollar amount. The key to a successful GWP promotion is to offer something your customers actually want. 

Gifts are popular for obvious reasons. First of all, they’re free! And who doesn’t enjoy getting something they want for free? Plus, gifts are a great way to boost your AOV. They also help build customer loyalty and keep your loyal customers coming back for more.  

So how do GWP promotions show up in your online store? 

Look closely at the example below from Redline Steel. They’re offering a free Infinity Heart when you spend $20 or more. They promote the gift on their homepage with large, high-quality graphics and clear messaging. It’s the first thing shoppers see when they visit the site.  

But Redline Steel doesn't stop there. They also have a catchy banner at the top of the site to advertise the GWP promotion. That way, customers are reminded of the offer on every page. 

What happens when your order exceeds $20? As you can see, the Infinity Heart gift item automatically appears in the shopping cart. 

Look closely and you’ll notice two price thresholds Redline uses to help pull up AOV as high as possible. For orders of $20 or more, they offer a GWP. Then, for orders of $100 or more, they offer free shipping (which we’ll dive into shortly).

Now, there are a few ways to run your own GWP promotion. You can use a discount code that your customers must apply to the cart manually. Another way is to reprice your gift item to $0. (The customer still has to find the item and add it to their cart manually.) 

Because the customer must do some leg work, those methods don’t offer the best shopping experience. However, if you’re on Shopify Plus, you can create a more seamless GWP promotion when you set up a Shopify Script.

2. Bundle And Save

Bundles are kind of a big deal. 

But what’s a bundle? In ecommerce, a bundle refers to a group of related products sold under one SKU. For example, when you buy a “package deal” of two items for $20 instead of paying $12 for each item individually? That’s a bundle. One of the most popular types of bundles is the Buy-One-Get-One-Free deal, also known as BOGO.

“We're constantly rotating through suggestions...trying different approaches to get relevant pieces in front of our shoppers." - Deven Davis, Roma Designer Jewelry 

One reason Bundle And Save is so popular among top shops is that 66% of consumers say that BOGO is their favorite type of ecommerce sales promotion. Bundles are a great way to incentivize customers, promote a new product line, and generate more sales. Plus, big opportunities exist for brands to use bundles to offload less popular and obsolete products. 

Here's a great example of a successful Bundle And Save promotion. 

Roma Designer Jewelry offers a Milano Twist Necklace in silver and gold. To encourage shoppers to buy the pair, Roma offers a Bundle and Save option. The offer appears via popup, and triggers when shoppers add one of the necklaces to the cart. At that point, the shopper is showing the bundle offer and can accept it by clicking the Upgrade button.

Roma Designer Jewelry has achieved outstanding results using Bundle And Save promotions. “We're constantly rotating through suggestions," says Co-Founder, Deven Davis. "We’re trying different approaches to get relevant pieces in front of our shoppers.” 

3. Free Shipping

A time-tested tactic in ecommerce, free shipping is largely viewed as an extremely effective marketing and promotional tool to increase sales. We agree, considering 84% of global consumers have bought extra items just to avoid the shipping cost.

"By implementing a minimum threshold for free shipping, you will attract the people who are likely to buy more products if it means that the fee they typically pay for shipping will go towards buying a little bit extra from the store." - Jason Wong, Doe Lashes

Many consumers resent paying for shipping costs, and they’ll buy more just to clear a minimum purchase threshold to avoid it. In this study by Forrester, online shoppers listed shipping costs as the #1 cause of cart abandonment. And that was in 2010.

It’s safe to say consumer expectations are even higher today. Free shipping is now considered by many retailers as table stakes just to stay competitive in today’s ecommerce environment. 

Let’s go back to Redline Steel for an example. Below, you’ll see the free shipping bar in the cart at the top. With this visual cue, you can highlight the $100 threshold and encourage customers to spend extra to avoid shipping costs.

Tons of ecommerce retailers we work with include free shipping in their ecommerce marketing strategy. Why? Because it offers key benefits to you as an online store owner. For example, offering free shipping can help you increase your average order value, boost the number of total orders, and help you acquire new customers.

There are many ways you can use free shipping to increase AOV. Consider experimenting with free shipping on purchases over a certain dollar amount, for high-margin products, or for other special campaigns. Because it’s so effective, it behooves you to offer free shipping in some capacity. Plus, it feels good to reward customers! 

4. Complete The Look (Frequently Bought Together)

“Sell the outfit, not the shirt.”

This is the idea behind the Complete The Look promotion. You might recognize this ecommerce promotion from the brand that made it wildly popular—Amazon. Complete The Look is essentially Amazon’s “frequently bought together” cross-sell section, but with a title that suits visually compatible verticals like clothing, furniture, and jewelry.  

Look at Pura Vida.

When you add the Sunshine ring to your cart, Pura Vida encourages you to “complete the look” by adding complementary items to your cart. Adding each item to your cart will give you the full 4-piece set. 

While it’s perfect for fashion and apparel brands, Complete The Look performs well in other verticals, too. Just consider experimenting with the title text to send the right message to your shoppers. 

For example, if you sell something like kitchenware or protein powder, you might decide to change the title from Complete The Look to Recommended. 

Ideal for your product pages, Complete The Look is a fun, simple, and creative way to increase AOV.  

5. Mystery Gift

Everybody loves a good mystery. With the Mystery Gift promotion, you invite your shoppers to solve a mystery by buying a little extra. This promo works because it piques your shoppers’ curiosity so effectively and in a fun way.  

Looking to clear your overstock? Offering a Mystery Gift in the checkout is an excellent way to clear excess inventory and push specific SKUs. 

In the example below, Fanjoy features a Recommended section in the cart. That’s where they cross-sell not one but two mystery gifts at a significant discount. A hoodie for $15 is a steal. A hoodie for $15 from a brand you love is even better. And who doesn’t like getting a surprise gift in the mail?

This promotion serves a practical purpose, too. Looking to clear your overstock? Offering a Mystery Gift is an excellent way to clear excess inventory and push specific SKUs. 

6. Skip The Line 

There’s something incredibly satisfying about walking past a looong line of people, showing your VIP card, and entering the building. The Skip The Line promotion helps your customers associate that feeling with your brand.

The idea is this: when a shopper buys a Skip The Line product, their order gets shipped before other orders.

To run a Skip The Line promotion, simply flag one of your products as a Skip The Line product. Then, create a Shopify flow to prioritize orders that include that product. When a shopper checks out with a Skip The Line product, your new Shopify flow will trigger fulfillment to ship those orders first. 

Here’s an example of Skip The Line in action.

Notice the product required to skip the line here is a service called Rush Processing. Dao Drops promises to ship within 24 hours if Rush Processing is added to the order. That reassurance is a good way to inspire your customer to purchase right now, resulting in a higher AOV for your shop. Win-win! 

Common Pitfalls To Running Ecommerce Sales Promotions

So far, we’ve looked at 6 popular sales promotions top Shopify stores use to increase AOV. But the road to ecommerce success is littered with slapdash marketing campaigns and online sales promotions that have caused unintended consequences for hapless shop owners. Here are three pitfalls to avoid when attempting to increase your AOV with sales promotions. 

Confusing Discount Pricing With Promotions

Promotions offer added value. They sweeten the deal by throwing in something extra your customer wouldn't otherwise receive. A free gift with a full-price purchase, for example.

Both discount pricing and promotions aim to create urgency, but there’s a big psychological difference between the two. Discounting leads with Price. Promotions lead with Value. 

Offering discounts seems like a great idea because it often leads to better conversion rates and more sales in the short term. And while it’s not always a bad idea to use price discounts, Laura Bosco explains how using them can have painful long-term effects like: 

• Draining your margins 
• Training customers to expect (and wait for) steep discounts
• Attracting less-than-ideal customers
• Lowering customers’ perception of quality

However you decide to use discounts and promotions, just make sure your efforts align with your overall strategy. 

This brings us to our next common pitfall. 

Forgetting About Strategy

The best promotions drive results that support your overall sales strategy. Outlining a promotion strategy early on can help you use promotions to achieve your current business objectives. Winging it can waste time, tank morale, hurt your brand, and leave money on the table.

And if it gets really bad, you might find your sales have dropped 20%, as JC Penny did after they botched their new pricing strategy.

For example, if your business objective is to increase AOV by 5% over the next 3 months, slashing prices across the board might draw some eyebrows from your sales team. (To increase your AOV, pass on the deep discounts and try intelligent upsells and cross-sells instead.)

Going Wild

It’s easy to get excited when you see things working. You may want to add a Bundle and Save popup on every page in hopes of drastically raising profits. It works, right? Let’s add them everywhere! But, resist the urge to throw in the kitchen sink.