If you’ve ever shopped online, there’s a good chance that you have several of these emails like- '24 hours only. Get it while it’s hot!“, “ENDS SOON: 2 hours to go!“, “Last day for 40% off!” sitting in your inbox: brands driving you to buy RIGHT NOW to take advantage of an amazing deal.
Flash sales are a well-used strategy within the e-commerce toolkit to generate sales and encourage impulse purchasing behavior. Yet flash sales are often poorly executed, resulting in high customer churn and a loss on sales due to aggressive discounting practices. But a strategically designed flash sales helps to stand out from their competitors, boosts brand awareness and drive sales quickly. 9666
A flash sale is a short-term discount or promotion that usually lasts anywhere between 24 to 72 hours. And they’re great for bringing in some quick revenue.
The key to any successful flash sale is knowing what your objectives are, Flash sales can be used to accomplish several different goals, including:
While some of these goals may overlap with each other, you’ll need to prioritize the target audience of your flash sale and how your product selection, timing, and marketing strategy will work together to achieve it.
Flash sales always run for a short period of time, but it’s up to your brand to decide what’s going to work best for your business model and products.
The shorter your flash sale is, the easier it is to create FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) in online shoppers. A study by Experian Marketing found that 3-hour flash sales had an email open rate that was 59% higher than average. But if your flash sale is too short, there won’t be enough time for potential customers to see your email marketing or social media posts and complete their purchase.
In addition to the length of your flash deal, you also need to consider when is the right time to launch it. For example, starting a flash sale at 3 am when website traffic is down will result in low demand – not to mention unhappy customers who feel like they’ve been cheated out of a good deal.
Here’s an example: the calendar of ecommerce holidays for August 2023:
Pro tip: Use Google Analytics to see what days/times of the week are the most active on your store and when your highest email open rates are.
The goal of your flash sale will play a role in determining which products make the most sense to discount.
For example, if you’re hosting a post-holiday season sale, you’ll want to focus on clearing out seasonal stock which doesn’t have much shelf life beyond the end of January. It’s a good idea to discount this merchandise steeply to clear it, since the loss of profit margin will likely be less than the ongoing storage costs.
If you’re wanting to draw attention to a new collection or product launch, a well-targeted flash sale can result to create the illusion of scarcity, therefore increasing demand for your product.
Running a successful flash sale is all about the discount that you’re putting on the table. If consumers are going to sit up and take notice, you need to offer a promotion that makes it worth their while to interrupt their day and go shopping.
The question if ‘how much’ to discount depends on your target market. For example, your approach to targeting loyal customers versus new customers will require totally different strategies.
To win over first-time customers, it’s a good idea to include high-margin products with either excess inventory or high inventory quantities that you can discount generously to make a good impression. Existing customers will be more discerning in looking for higher-value purchases, so consider supplying these customers with a discount code sent via flash sale emails to segment this offer away from direct visitors.
Choosing to offer free shipping alongside your flash sale is an easy way to get more shoppers to convert. It’s worth noting that over half of consumers say they’ve abandoned carts due to ‘unexpected extra costs’ at the checkout. So, even if you’re offering a really generous discount, you could end up losing sales if free shipping isn’t offered.
If your flash deal is eroding your profit margin, offering free shipping on all orders placed within the duration could cause you to make a loss on some sales. Instead, you can choose to put a free shipping threshold in place to help your business reach a higher average order value. In fact, 58% of customers have added additional items to their cart to qualify for free shipping!
Once you’ve decided on what your flash sale is going to be, it’s time to market it. If you haven’t launched a flash sale before or do so very rarely, you want to give yourself a decent runway to drum up the excitement so that by the time your flash sale goes live, your customers are ready and eager to start shopping.
So, what does successful flash sale marketing look like?
Email marketing: Sending a flash sale email at regular intervals once your sale has begun is a great way to drive urgency. Flash sale emails see some of the highest open rates, thanks to consumers’ eye for a good deal. Make sure to optimize your subject line with the details of your flash sale (duration and promotion) and provide.
Onsite pop-ups: If your flash sale is available to any website visitor, consider using a pop-up to alert them of the promotion while it’s still ongoing.
For example, The Knitting Network uses the onsite notification feed for time-limited offers such as flash sales. In this example, they had three promo campaigns in the feed:
Social media: Your social channels are one of the best places to amplify discussions about your flash sale. Consider offering your followers an incentive in the form of a giveaway or other social discount in exchange for tagging friends in your posts.
For example: This flash sale announcement post from Steve Madden, one of the best Shopify stores, is a good example of a straightforward Instagram promotion:
Product pages: Flash product pages are a key promotional strategy in their own right because they are visible in Google search. Be sure to use exact keywords that reflect the features of your flash products.
Here’s an example of how an online store shares a flash sale announcement:
A successful flash sale can:
Levi’s has taken a novel approach with its 48-hour flash sale by marketing it as a ‘surprise’ offering that online shoppers must interact with to discover more details. By building up anticipation for their sale, Levi’s can generate more engagement from their product pages.
The attraction of this flash sale by Barcelona Designs isn’t just the discount, but the free shipping that comes with each online purchase. Given how expensive large items like furniture are to ship, this flash sale email campaign is especially effective at driving buyer interest.
Outdoor brand Black Diamond uses a targeted approach in its flash sale by only discounting one specific product for a limited period. They’ve also introduced a limit of three units per customer to avoid inventory from running out too quickly.
Sephora is driving buyer urgency with this flash sale on Huda Beauty eyeshadows. Because the offer is only live for 4 hours, this encourages consumers to act fast and engage in impulse purchasing behavior to secure the flash product.
An unsuccessful flash sale can:
Choosing to run a flash sale offers you a fair mix of risk and reward. While flash sales are a great way to increase sales and raise brand awareness across channels, they can also shape customer perception in the wrong ways. Developing a reputation as a discount retailer by over-using flash sales can be harmful to your brand in the long term, thanks to creating high levels of customer churn.
But by using flash sales sparingly and with a solid marketing strategy to build demand, they’re a highly valuable tool to assist your brand in standing out from the crowd and building a base of loyal customers. By following the tips listed above, you can create a solid flash sale strategy that maximizes buyer urgency while controlling for cost and supply chain challenges.
