Promotions

Pick the promotion mechanic and the framing that move sales without training customers to wait for markdowns. Gifts, bundles, invented occasions, and small token fees often beat a straight discount, and the wording of the same offer changes how lucky it feels.

When to use

• Launch and pre-order campaigns
• Bundles, free gifts, buy-one-get-one, upgrades
• Seasonal or event promotions and their theme
• Urgency mechanics (deadlines, unit caps, sold-out labels)
• Anything offered "free"
• Loyalty or promotional rewards

When not to use

• Sizing or wording a plain price reduction → the discounts skill
• Setting the everyday price → the pricing skill

Inputs

Collect, or state your assumption:

• Product, price, and any complementary product you also sell
• Goal: pre-orders, volume, new customers, clearing stock, returns reduction
• Launch date (if pre-order) and today's date
• Whether buyers typically take one item or a basket
• Brand strength and whether quality is easy to judge before buying

Classify the product first. Hedonic = bought for enjoyment, pleasure, or the experience (chocolate, fashion, decor, travel, spa, perfume). Utilitarian = bought to do a job, judged on function and value (detergent, appliances, insect repellent, tools, accounting software). If it's mixed, decide by what the buyer is optimizing for at the moment of purchase.

Procedure

1. Pre-orders: gift or discount by launch distance. Launch 3+ weeks out → give a gift (a complementary product, extra content); it beats a discount by a wide margin. Launch within about a week → gift or discount both work. Keep the pre-order window short for utilitarian products; hedonic products tolerate long windows.
2. Bundles: make the wanted product the gift. Pair the product with a complement and frame the target product as the gift: "Buy the scale, get the fitness tracker at no cost" — shown to people searching for the tracker. Only for items of comparable value (not "buy a case, get a phone").
3. Frame the bundle as a gift, not a special price. "Buy X, get Y at no cost" cut returns by up to half compared with "X and Y for a special price". The gift framing is what matters, not the word.
4. Wherever the word "free" would appear, write "for $0". The study tested the numeral: "$0" reminds people of money not spent; "free" reads as a giveaway with no value. "At no cost" is an untested paraphrase — use it only where "$0" can't work grammatically. (The two studies used different wording; combining gift framing with "$0" is the sensible default, but the combination itself wasn't tested.)
5. Upgrades: charge a token fee. A larger size or add-on for a token fee (¥0.1 in the study) was rated a better deal than the same upgrade free (39% better; 17.1% more chose the larger size). The tiny price gives people a reference point to compare the benefit against.
6. Tie the promotion to an invented, fitting occasion. "National Picnic Day Sale" beat "Annual One Day Sale" by 25% for a picnic retailer. The day must be creative and relevant; Father's Day or a generic sale doesn't count. Examples: founding day, customer anniversary/birthday, World Cotton Day (Oct 7, apparel), World Radio Day (Feb 13, electronics), World Chocolate Day (Jul 7), World Pasta Day (Oct 25), International Coffee Day (Oct 1).
7. Urgency: deadline, never a unit cap. A short, justified deadline with a timezone is fine ("ends Sunday 23:59 CET, birthday week"). "Only 500 available" makes people who miss out angry and drives them to competitors. Online, deadlines mostly raise engagement rather than immediate sales — pair them with a real hook.
8. Sold-out options: keep 10–30% visible. Mark sold-out variants as sold out instead of hiding them; sales rose up to 31%. Above 30% sold out, hide some or restock — the effect reverses.
9. Pick-your-price, not pay-what-you-want. Offering 3–4 fixed price options ($25/$35/$50/$100) raised purchases; most choose the lowest, so set it deliberately. Don't use it for basket purchases (fashion, groceries). Pay-what-you-want (any amount, including zero) reduces sales — only for donations.
10. Rewards: make them uncertain. "20% or 80% off your next order" outperforms a fixed reward on repeat behavior, even if fewer sign up at first.

Output

Common mistakes

• Offering a discount for a launch that is weeks away — a gift wins; discounts are boring deferred savings.
• Dropping "FREE" without replacing it — the replacement is "for $0" / "at no cost".
• Bundling with "extra 10% off the pair" — frame the searched-for product as the free item instead.
• Capping units for urgency — use a deadline; unit caps cause anger and switching.
• Hiding all sold-out variants — keep some visible (≤30%) as a quality signal.
• Making the upgrade free — a token fee makes it feel like a better deal.
• Pay-what-you-want "to build goodwill" — it lowers sales; use 3–4 fixed options.

Quick reference

Evidence and effect sizes: see reference.md.