Last week, we discussed some of the different types of ecommerce coupons. Of course, knowing which type(s) you want to offer is only the first part of a successful ecommerce coupon strategy.
When it comes to offering ecommerce coupons, merchants walk a fine line between potentially gaining a sale and a customer or potentially losing money. In part two of our three-part blog series on ecommerce coupons, we’ll explore how to offer coupons in ways that appeal to consumers and won’t break the bank.
Don’t Limit Yourself (Or Your Customers)
Of course, you will need to impose some limitations on how and when your coupons, can be used, but imposing too many unnecessary limits and making your coupons too specific is not a good strategy. In other words, be wary of offering coupons that are only valid for specific products in specific categories and come with so many fine-print exclusions that potential customers will end up abandoning the idea of using them before they even navigate to your site.
Avoid Complications
Complicated and/or long coupon codes can be difficult to remember and can cause frustrations and problems during the checkout process. Consumers want codes that are short and easy to remember, so avoid using special characters like ampersands (@) and quotation marks. When in doubt, stick to basic codes no longer than 6 characters.
Be Realistic
In terms of how much of a discount to offer, both being too greedy and being too generous can come back to haunt you in the long run. Offering a small discount or a discount that requires customers to purchase a large amount of items in order to qualify for it isn’t likely to yield good results. Offering a substantial discount may attract the customers, but it will probably also result in lost revenue for the merchant.
Limiting the use to one per customer, and limiting the number of redemptions are smart coupon practices for any ecommerce merchant, as is requiring a minimum order amount for the coupon to be used in some cases, particularly for stores that sell big ticket items.
Keep in mind though, that while minimum spending requirements are a subtle way to get customers to spend more, many ecommerce merchants make the mistake of creating minimum spending requirements that are larger than their average site orders. Take the time to study your site analytics and any other data tracking applications that you use to identify the average order size on your site before you take the time to create and offer a coupon that none of your customers can afford to spend.
These are just some of the ways that ecommerce merchants can offer coupons to their customers and enhance their chances of increased sales, conversions, and customer loyalty. Later this week, in part three of this three-part blog series, we’ll focus on tips for creating and promoting ecommerce coupons.
