4 million first-time customers
35 million app downloads
These are the record-breaking sales numbers of Flipkart during their previous Big Billion sales event. As you can see from these numbers, customers keenly look forward to such events when the price of their favorite products drops considerably.
However, despite the popularity, many E-commerce owners shy away from organizing such events. Many of them assume that such sales events are only reserved for the Flipkarts and Amazons of the world. This is not true.
With the right planning and strategies in place, anyone can successfully run a sales event for their online store and increase their customer base and revenue.
In this post, we will walk you through the steps involved in running a successful sales event for your E-commerce brand.
Running a successful sales event requires strategic planning and meticulous execution. There are certain steps that you must follow diligently to ensure the success of your sales event. Here are they –
Start by creating a detailed blueprint for your sales event. This is important because it will provide you with a clear roadmap on how to organize and wrap up your sales event without any issues. The blueprint must ideally comprise your objectives, products for sale, and the specific date and duration of the sale.
First and foremost, define the specific goals for your event. It could be improved sales, increased brand visibility, or even a surge in footfall. Whatever the goal, outline them clearly on the blueprint so that you can develop a focused marketing strategy around those goals.
Next, plan the products that you will put up on sale. The idea is to pick products that will be profitable, even at a reduced price. You must also consider factors like stagnant inventory, current demand, waning trends, and overhead expenses while selecting them. But remember – in an attempt to maximize sales and profitability, avoid the temptation to liquidate inventory at a loss.
Lastly, set a fixed date and duration for your sales event. This will help you in the proper execution of the event and you will be able to better organize your affairs, manage inventory, and ensure sufficient staff coverage during the sale hours.
Even if you are offering the best discounts on your products, it won’t be fruitful unless your potential customers know about the sale in the first place. You need to start spreading the word on different platforms to let these people know you are running a sale for them.
Social media is a great space for this. But it is important to pick the platforms where your potential customers are most active. Focus all your efforts on these platforms to maximize your reach. Create engaging content such as infographics, GIFs and videos that highlight the key details of your sales event. Exposure is the key to the success of your event, so send out as much relevant information as possible through content.
Take the case of Nykaa, the popular cosmetics brand. They have been creating constant buzz around their recent HotPinkSale on Instagram and Facebook. Here is one such post from them.
You could also write compelling press releases that highlight the unique aspects of your sales event. You can distribute it to relevant media outlets, both online and offline, so that it reaches everyone you wish to target.
Next, you can start your other pre-event marketing activities. You could collaborate with influencers who align with your brand and have a significant following among your potential customers. You can easily leverage their credibility to promote your sales event. For instance, you can ask them to share exclusive discount codes with their followers and encourage them to participate in your sales event.
The other option is to invest in advertising campaigns across various platforms such as search engines and social media. Most of these platforms also enable you to target a precise set of users by setting different parameters like demographics, interests, and location.
If you have a restricted budget, you can simply post engaging content on social media that showcases your upcoming event. You could include countdowns, sneak peeks, and behind-the-scenes previews of the event.
This is another great way to expose your sales event to relevant audiences. You need to partner with brands that share a similar target audience or are from a related niche. This will enable you to tap into their customer base and mutually benefit from cross-promotion.
Start by identifying related brands that are not your direct competitors. Reach out to them and propose collaborative opportunities for promoting each other’s sales events. You could cross-promote on social media and share each other’s posts or even co-create content.
Bonus if you could create exclusive bundled offerings with this complementary brand and include them as part of your sale offering. End result – better sales for both parties.
This is a given. Just like how retail stores set the table for specific sales items, you need to create a dedicated landing page for the sales event on your website. For starters, this will enable your customers to share the URL of the event directly with their friends and family. The new visitors need not navigate through all the pages of your website to reach the sale landing page.
Place attention-grabbing banners on your website’s homepage and at relevant sections, announcing the sales event. Add striking visuals, engaging copies, and clear CTAs directing the visitors to the sales landing page. Here is Firstcry, the renowned baby care brand in India, effectively using the home page banner area to highlight all their sale events.
Highlight a selection of key products that will be on sale and display them prominently on the homepage. Add enticing descriptions, images, and discounted prices to capture visitors’ interest and drive them to explore further.
To create a sense of urgency, you can even incorporate countdown timers on the website. It should display the remaining time left for the sales event, which will encourage the visitors to take immediate action.
While running your sales event, it’s important to keep the focus on your brand identity. You must highlight your brand’s USP and message throughout the event. Why? Because your ultimate goal is to drive more customers to your store even after the sale ends. By focusing on your brand and its story, you will build better brand recall for a longer duration.
Ensure that all your marketing materials for the sales event align with your brand’s visual identity. You must use consistent colors, fonts, and logos on all your marketing collaterals to create a cohesive and recognizable brand presence across all communication channels. You must also use the sales event to reinforce your brand’s key values, mission, and positioning.
This will help in building lasting relationships with them. By spontaneously addressing their inquiries, you can enhance their satisfaction and increase the likelihood of repeat business even after the event ends
Keep a close eye on your social media handles during this time. Respond promptly to customer comments, messages, and mentions. Address any concerns, answer questions, and express gratitude for their participation and support.
It’s also worthwhile to implement a live chat feature on your website to offer real-time assistance to customers. Ensure that knowledgeable representatives are operating behind the scenes who can provide quick responses to inquiries, offer product recommendations, and resolve any issues that may arise during the event.
Most importantly, tailor each and every communication to individual customers wherever possible. Use their names in messages to create a more personalized experience. Referencing specific purchases or preferences can also show that you value their unique needs.
If you have completed all the above steps successfully, you are bound to attract huge volumes of visitors during the sale. But this poses a unique challenge – How to ship and manage thousands of orders without delays and errors?
To overcome this, you must clearly communicate the shipping timelines, return policies, and any potential delays to customers during the sales event. Some brands have a separate shipping timeline and return policies during the sales event due to the huge influx of orders. There is nothing wrong with this. Ultimately, the goal is to reduce frustration and improve the overall order experience for customers.
You must also constantly update your inventory levels to prevent overselling or running out of stock once the orders are placed. This is quite common during a sales event. Implement real-time inventory tracking to ensure adequate product availability throughout the sales event. Consider using inventory management software to streamline this process.
You must make sure that your site is able to handle the increased load during the sales event. The last thing you want is your server crashing and your loyal customers leaving negative reviews all over the internet about their experience.
You must ensure that you have a reliable hosting provider with expansive bandwidth so that your website is completely scalable when it comes to the number of users. Also, try improving your website’s loading speed by optimizing and compressing files and images. On the technical front, you can embrace various caching techniques to minimize server load and leverage browser caching to store static resources locally on users’ devices.
You could also conduct load testing to simulate high-traffic conditions and identify potential bottlenecks or performance issues. There are many tools like Apache JMeter or LoadRunner that can help you achieve this.
But the easiest and most effective way to handle high website traffic to your site is to build your online store on a reliable E-commerce platform. Robust E-commerce platforms employ techniques like load balancing and caching mechanisms to distribute the load across multiple servers and ensure smooth performance even under heavy traffic. One such powerful platform is Kartify. Thanks to its robust architecture, Kartify can easily handle over 1 million concurrent users. This makes this the perfect choice for your sale events as you can continue to attract as many users as you want without worrying about performance issues.
There are different types of E-commerce sales you can run. Here are the top 4 –
A pre-launch is a type of sale that is employed just before a product is officially released. The goal of this sale is to generate buzz, build anticipation, and incentivize early purchases of such products. Businesses offer special discounts and exclusive access to pre-launch customers, creating a sense of exclusivity and rewarding loyal customers. Such a type of sale is usually employed by E-commerce businesses handling electronic items.
A limited-time offer is a type of sale that runs for a fixed duration. The timelines could range from a few hours to a few weeks. In this, you create a sense of urgency, which encourages customers to make quick purchase decisions by taking advantage of the discounted price or exclusive offer. Flash sales, seasonal promotions, and holiday deals are classic examples of LTO. But remember, it is important to communicate the limited availability or duration of the sale to customers effectively.
A Buy-One-Get-One (BOGO) sale is a type of sale where customers receive an additional product for free when they purchase a specific item. This type of sale is often used to increase sales volume and move stagnated inventory. BOGO sale typically triggers the customers’ desire for more value, which, in turn, encourages those who were in two minds about purchasing a product.
A tiered discount sale is a kind of sale that offers different levels of discounts based on the customer’s total order value. This type of sale encourages customers to increase their order value to unlock higher discounts. For example, a tiered discount promotion might offer 10% off for orders above ₹500, 20% off for orders above ₹1000, and 30% off for orders above ₹1500.
Before running a sales event, you must make sure that you don’t leave anything to the last minute. As long as you have followed the above steps and are prepared to handle the huge influx of fresh orders, you should be able to run a successful E-commerce sales event and reap benefits such as improved sales and better profitability.
If you need further help in running a successful sales event or even managing other aspects of your E-commerce store, you can partner with ANS Commerce. A Flipkart group company, ANS Commerce is India’s leading E-commerce service provider that offers end-to-end solutions to streamline your daily E-commerce operations. To know more about us and how we can help, book a demo now.
