As online shopping becomes ever more popular, the ways of saving money evolve with it.
In the early years on the internet, just having an online only shop was enough to guarantee low prices due to lower costs. However, as more large corporations caught onto the online world, economies of scale allowed these big guys to undercut the smaller online only shops. If you look at HMV, there won’t be much price difference compared to 101CD despite HMW having much higher costs due to nationwide stores and better marketing.
Retailers are now being selective in how they reduce prices. Instead of sitewide sales, they are now cutting prices on certain areas or brands or products. The easiest way to do this is to use a voucher or discount code. These codes (known as coupon codes in the US) are usually an alpha numeric string that the customer enters in a special promo box at the checkout to activate a discount of special offer. Usually the codes give x% off, but can also offer extras like free gifts or free delivery.
Marketing these codes is important and perhaps more effective than purely a normal price reduction. By using a discount code, customers may believe they have a bargain that isn’t available to everyone. This does increase conversions and return visits.
One of the best ways to market the codes is to use viral marketing and affiliate sites. Viral marketing of codes can be sensational such as Threshers recent discount code that allegedly got out of hand. It was mistakenly leaked, or so they say, giving the impression of a superb deal. Needless to say, sales rocketed.
Affiliate sites love discount codes, and a whole sub section of affiliate marketing has developed around them. Sites such as ShopShark , an online shopping directory, have a specialist discount code blog where it lists the latest codes for UK shops. Users can subscribe to an RSS feed or an email newsletter to keep receiving latest code updates. It is possible to save a huge amount over the course of a year with these codes.
Discount codes are here to stay and as long as usage stays sensible, then it will remain an effective way of increasing conversion.
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