Etsy sales and discounts are a good way to get traffic, and sometimes they’re used by Etsy to bring customers back to your shop! Setting up a coupon code is pretty straightforward, and it’s an easy way to increase revenue.
To set up a coupon code on Etsy:
- From your shop dashboard, go to the marketing tab.
- Choose “Sales and Discounts.”
- Click on “create a promo code.”
- In the dropdown that says “percentage off,” choose from free shipping, a fixed percentage off, or a fixed amount off.
- Fill out the amount of the percentage off or the fixed amount off in the box on that line.
- Choose the order minimums if you want to include any limits.
- Set the duration of the coupon, or click “no end date” if you want it to be good until you cancel it.
- Choose an easy-to-remember coupon code for customers and put it in the last box. This is the code that people will have to enter at checkout, so make it as simple and short as possible.
- Click “continue” to go to the next page.
- On the next page, add listings that the coupon code will work with.
- Choose from the dropdown to enter entire shop sections, or search for individual listings in the second box.
- You can also add an entire group, then click X to remove that listing from the promotion.
- Click “review and confirm” to activate the coupon.
For another article with more coupon code information, click here: How Do Etsy Coupon Codes Work?
How to promote your Etsy coupon codes.
Some ways of promoting Etsy coupon codes include:
- Add the code to your shop announcement.
- Put the code in your shop banner.
- Add an infographic to your shop photos.
- Send the code to your mailing list.
- Post the code on social media.
Etsy sends out targeted offers to customers, but not regular coupon codes that are part of a sale.
To promote your coupon code on Etsy, you can post it in your shop announcement to let customers know that it’s available. This is as simple as editing the announcement to include the code.
Another way to promote the code on Etsy is to include it in your shop banner. This is especially good if you have coupon codes that don’t have an end date, because you won’t have to change the banner too often.
You can also create an infographic that has the code so that you can include it in your shop photos.
You can send the coupon code to your email list subscribers to let them know that it’s available, and also share it on social media.
The important thing with coupon codes is that you let people know that they’re available, because if you don’t talk about it, nobody will use them.
One thing to keep in mind is that you can’t send unsolicited coupons or discounts to people using the Etsy convo system, so don’t do that! Read more about that here: Can You Send Coupon Codes To People On Etsy?
How to use Etsy coupons for sales.
To do sales like a buy one get one on Etsy, you have to manipulate the system a little bit. You can use variations in the listings themselves, but that has limitations. Using a coupon is a little better, but sales like BOGOs and volume discounts are still a little tricky.
How to do a Buy One Get One sale using Etsy coupons.
To run a BOGO sale using an Etsy coupon, you would need to set the percentage off at 50%, then add a minimum order amount of 2. This assumes, though, that each item is the same price, so it won’t work if people are buying items that are different price points.
The other drawback to this method is that when you set a minimum for the number of sales required or a fixed amount off, it automatically includes every listing in your shop. You won’t be able to exclude certain listings, so after the first two items, every other item will be 50% off too.
This isn’t such a big deal though, because a lot of BOGO sales are actually just 50% off sales in disguise.
Psychologically, a 50% off sale is a deep discount, but a BOGO has a slightly different effect on people. It seems like a good deal but it might not feel as “desperate” to people, if that makes sense.
When people see 50% off they think “Geez, nobody wants that stuff so I guess they’re trying to get rid of it. But when they see a BOGO they think “I got a great deal!”
Promoting a 50% off sale as a BOGO might end up making you more sales in the long run, so it doesn’t hurt to try it out if you can afford the discount!
But what if you can’t afford that much of a price reduction? I know that I can’t, and you also have to plan for a possible offsite ads fee on top of discounts, so you might not want to do a BOGO.
However, you can also use coupons to do a sale where the discount gets bigger as customers order more items.
How to use Etsy coupons for volume discounts.
To create a volume discount, or a sale that gives customers a larger percentage off if they order more items, you’ll need to create multiple discount codes and promote them together. A lot of digital sellers do this in order to encourage people to buy more then one thing at a time.
First, you’ll need to decide how deep a discount you want to give at the most. If you can afford 40% off as your deepest discount, you could offer 4 coupons for 10% off two items, 20% off three items, 30% off four items, and 40% off five or more items.
Set up each coupon with the minimum item number required to go with the discount.
Each of those coupons would have to be created individually, and you would have to make sure to put all of them up if you’re telling customers about them. This could be as easy as putting them in your Etsy shop in the banner, shop announcement, and listing photos.
When someone ordered two items, they could use the 10% off discount, but the other ones wouldn’t kick in until the minimum number of items were ordered.
So if someone bought 2 things, they couldn’t use the coupons that had a minimum of 3 or more items.
There are a couple of things that are drawbacks to this, though. First, people might not use the coupons, and you’ll have to decide whether to refund the discount yourself.
I personally don’t do this, because some people don’t want to use the coupons, and as long as you’ve made it obvious that they’re available, you’ve given them the information. But if someone wrote to me and said they meant to use the coupon but didn’t, I would manually refund them the discount amount.
The other downside is that some people might use the lower discount amount for a larger number of items. If someone comes along and orders 4 things but uses the coupon for 2 or more things, they’ll get a lower percentage off.
You’ll be in the same position you were in with people not using the discounts. Again, I wouldn’t adjust anything unless the customer contacted me because it will get to be way too much to keep track of.
Other than those two things, using a volume discount coupon strategy can be a good way to encourage people to buy multiples, and it can increase your revenue overall.
Using coupons for new listings.
Another thing that coupons are good for is to provide a way for you to discount new listings that haven’t been listed long enough to legally be on sale.
Because there are consumer protection laws in most places that say you can’t run a sale on things until they’re been offered at a regular price for a specific time period, you can’t put new listings on sale right away. You can offer a coupon, though.
Read more about this in this article about setting up sales on Etsy: How To Run A Sale On Etsy (Even BOGOs)
If you offer your mailing list or your social media followers a coupon for your new products or collection, it will be sold at a discount but still listed with the regular price.
Make sure to check with your country’s laws to make sure this is legal where you are!
Does Etsy stack coupons?
Etsy doesn’t stack coupons, or let customers use more than one percentage or fixed amount off coupon at one time. It lets customers use one percentage off or fixed amount off plus a free shipping option, though.
Some Etsy sellers like the idea of letting customers stack coupons, but it’s most likely that you would only want to do that for people on your mailing list or another select group. That way they feel like they’re getting a benefit for being on your list.
Since Etsy won’t stack discounts, one way to handle this would be to just create another discount code that’s only for the people on your list. Have it be worth more than the coupons that the general public has access to, and tell your subscribers that they’re getting a special coupon for insiders only.
You could also offer a free shipping discount and a percentage or fixed amount off, but that can be risky if people go crazy and order a lot of stuff that will cost a lot to ship.
If you do that kind of stacking, make the percentage off on the lower side, since a large discount plus free shipping might be more than you bargained for.
Using coupons is a good way to bring customers to your shop, but make sure that you can afford them! Read this article about how much it costs to sell on Etsy before you do any discount-setting to make sure you’re not giving away all of your profits: How Much Does Etsy Take? Complete Guide To Etsy Fees
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