The Great Little Trading Company have had a fab campaign to persuade their clients to shop now for Christmas rather than leaving it any longer. I can’t say I’ve seen the comprehensive marketing that Stu describes with his eBuyer experience, but it’s a compelling sales promotion nonetheless.
You see the problem with sales is that the retail industry has taught us that the longer we wait, the better the deal. And whilst we love the instant gratification of walking home with armfuls of bags, and we persuade ourselves that we need to buy it now or it might be gone, this strategy isn’t helpful for business owners. You need people to buy now don’t you?
And letting people even remotely assume that if they wait, you’ll slash your prices further is bad news for margin, bad news for your conversion rates and bad news for business.
That’s why when I found this promo during a spot of Christmas shopping on Sunday I just had to share it with you. Isn’t it fab? Great Little Trading Company (GLTC) have been completely upfront about the fact that their best deals are available for people that take action now. Wait, and you won’t save as much money. I love the fact that they’re showing all the discounts – past, present and future. It really compels you to take action doesn’t it?
I know I’ll be looking forward to spotting opportunities to use this with our ecommerce clients – how about you? Could you use this in your business?
Postscript: The fallout from not following through
I’m really disappointed. I nipped over to the website to check the URL and look what I saw on the homepage!
I’m so gutted. Why did they do it? I did think twice about whether to reword the whole blog post in the light of this, but I do think it’s important that I share a) what worked so fabulously well and b) how you can undermine it so easily.
What I think is a real shame is that in the grand scheme of things, what difference does 2% really make? Are they going to lose clients tonight just because they are “only” offering 16% off? I really don’t think so. I honestly think the original banner would have trained the consumer to get in early next year (as well as sign up to the newsletter so that they could be the first to hear).
What do you think? Did they make a mistake in backtracking on the offer? I’d really love your thoughts on this one.