The Secret Strategy to Maximize Etsy Sales: Why Your Discounts Should End at Midnight
If your Etsy store does not have discounts, you are likely “losing the game”. Most successful stores on the platform utilize sales and promotions, and sellers who lack them have often either forgotten to set them up or are new and unaware of how “critical” discounts are for their success.
Roberts, the co-founder of Alerio Print, shared a highly effective strategy for setting up discounts that creates urgency and maximizes buyer conversion. Here is how you can implement this strategy for your own shop.
Step 1: Setting Up the Sale
To begin setting up your discounts, navigate to your shop dashboard.
- Go to the Marketing and Sales section on the left main menu.
- Select Discounts.
- Choose Run a Sale.
It is generally advised to set the discount percentage starting from 25%, as this is what Etsy recommends. However, if your product margins do not allow for that, you can certainly set a custom lower discount.
Step 2: The "One-Day Trick" for Urgency
The core of this powerful strategy lies in setting the duration of the sale to just one day.
By limiting the discount to a single day (e.g., setting it to end on the 1st of October), you are effectively “tricking” the buyers. You are showing them that the promotion will expire soon—specifically at midnight.
This sense of urgency compels customers to act immediately, as you are telling them, “you have to buy because the discount will expire soon”. This is particularly effective if your customers are located in the USA, where sales are most likely to come in during the night.
Step 3: Sustaining the Daily Discount
Since the goal is to have an ongoing discount running throughout the month, you must immediately set up the next discount.
After reviewing and confirming the first day’s sale, you need to set up a new discount for the following day (e.g., October 2nd). Roberts explains that this process needs to be done for all the dates of the month.
While this sounds tedious, it is remarkably efficient: You only need to do this task on the first date of each month. The entire setup for the whole month will take you only about 10 to 15 minutes.
Pro Tip: While there are paid tools available to run these types of sales automatically (which cost around $20 to $30 per month), if you have 10 or 15 minutes, you can easily use this manual method for free.
By dedicating a small amount of time on the first day of every month, you can ensure that your store constantly features a discount, driving urgency and avoiding “losing the game”. Good luck!
Want to learn more about creating a successful Etsy store? You can log into Aario Print and get their free Etsy seller course.
