Halloween Flash Sale is a great tactic to use in promotion during the Halloween season. What should we do to take the most advantage of this to boost sales in your Shopify store? Follow our complete guide to get some suggestions for your Halloween sales strategies.
What is the Halloween Flash Sale?
A Halloween Flash Sale is a discount or promotion offered for a limited period. Customers’ FOMO (fear of missing out) is tapped over by a feeling of exclusivity and urgency, which promotes quick decisions. In Shopify research, customers take advantage of flash sales because of their fear of missing out on the promotion of last-minute deals.
It needs some preparation if you are targeting a big boost in sales. For an effective Halloween flash sale campaign, you need to focus on timing. You cannot hold the flash sale too often, or you will lose the customers’ feeling of urgency.
To get the most out of the ‘buzz’ of Halloween, flash sales should be kept surprising and unusual. After all, where is the motivation for customers to take full advantage of this flash sale if they are aware that there will be another one shortly? That’s why you don’t need to run flash sales throughout the Halloween season.
However, not all businesses should run a Halloween flash sale. If you are trying to achieve one of the following purposes, a flash sale will be a good tactic for promotion for your Shopify store.
- Upload excess inventory
- Acquire customers
- Grow top line
- Lift profits
What Are The Disadvantages And Advantages Of Flash Sales?
Before we start making a Halloween flash sale plan, let’s take a look at its advantages and disadvantages!
Advantages Of Halloween Flash Sale
More space for inventory. Flash sales make it easier to get rid of extra inventory, such as dead stock or items that are out of season. They help reduce operating and inventory costs.
Driving more traffic and sales. Customers don’t like to feel like they’re missing out on something. By running a flash sale, you can encourage potential customers who have been waiting for the right price point.
Make customers loyal. Flash sales help you and your customers become more pleasant. It’s an excellent way to recognize loyal customers. Customers are more willing to purchase from you in the future if they love you more.
Disadvantages Of Halloween Flash Sale
Profit margins are low. The discounts that result from a flash sale could be anywhere from 50% to 70% off regular retail prices. You may not make much money per item if your margins are thin.
Attracts bad customers. One-time buyers are frequently attracted to flash discounts. They take advantage of the offer, but they never return to your store to shop.
Damages your reputation. Some businesses manage flash sales incorrectly, risking their reputation. The increase in web traffic may cause your website to load slowly, giving users a bad experience. Or they don’t offer outstanding customer service after an online purchase.
How To Run A Successful Halloween Flash Sale
Here are some key points that you need to consider when running a Halloween Flash Sale for your business.
The purpose of the Halloween Flash Sale
First of all, you need to target your main purposes for your Halloween Flash Sale strategy. Some specific purposes your business might focus on are:
- Make space inventory for new, in-demand products
- Increase customers loyalty
- Create fear of missing out on a product launch
- Take advantage of a “buzz” shopping holiday
- Attract new customers
Find the best products suited to Halloween Flash Sale
You might simply choose your most popular and attractive product and focus on it; for small businesses with little inventory, this is probably the best option for action.
However, there are various ways you can use to decide which products are most suitable for flash selling if you have a huge selection to choose from:
- Halloween, which marks the start of Winter, is always an ideal occasion to buy high-margin seasonal goods. Either change summer things fast or make space in the warehouse for the Christmas season. In addition, you might decide on popular Halloween-related goods. Anyone for costumes, sweets, and pumpkin spice?
- Another suggestion is to make your sale unique. By clicking on an advertisement, running a keyword search, or going to a product page, you can see items in your inventory that buyers have previously shown interest in.
- A good strategy may also have a niche focus. When choosing products, keep in mind that your target market will be strongly connected with them, especially if creating a foundation of loyal customers is your top priority. The best deals on the products that they like the most are what your potential long-term clients are looking for!
Remember to make your sale reasonable, give it a feeling of limitation, and keep the quantity of products to a minimum. When selecting the items for your flash sale, keep in mind stock levels and customer demands.
Choosing the right time
Timing is everything in flash sales. Why? Because they are clear and effective. If you choose the wrong time, customers can learn about it after it’s too late.
Analyze your analytics for information on trends in purchasing, paying close attention to:
- Days of the week that your customers are most likely to make purchases
- When are your customers most active?
- when your email open rates are at their peak.
The next decision you have to make is how long your flash sale will run after you’ve determined the date and start time.
The quickest solution is to keep it short. Flash sales are all about limiting the purchasing decision and giving shoppers little opportunity to reconsider. They must feel under pressure because they have only a limited amount of time to take advantage of the offer.
According to the data, 3-hour flash sales appear to have the greatest transaction rates at 14%.
However, this doesn’t mean that you must finish it as soon as possible, because giving yourself more time allows more people from various time zones to participate. You should also take into account how much your things cost and how much thought is often required.
Consider how long it takes the average consumer to research your product and decide whether it’s right for them. Your flash sale should only last for 24 hours, even if your products require extra consideration before pressing the “add to cart” button.
Optimize your Shopify online store
You may attract customers by covering your Shopify website with eye-catching themes, banners, and images. You can even alter the Halloween-specific fonts to highlight your sale promotions on banners or product badges.
Choose one of the many themes available on Shopify for Halloween. On the other hand, you may change your current theme’s fonts and colors to give it a spooky feel.
Choose the primary colors you wish to use for your online shop. You can pick from a variety of dark and orange shades, including black, charcoal, chocolate, pumpkin, tangerine, coral, etc. You can also include highlights in a variety of colors, such as purple, green, yellow, or orange, to add contrast and interest.
Add product badges as another way to draw attention to your Shopify store’s product promotion. Product labels and stickers are other names for product badges. Try the ShineTrust app, which is a simple and easy-to-use app, to add product badges to your Shopify online store.
By selecting from a selection of pre-designed labels, changing some text using a variety of shape badges, or uploading your unique layout labels, you can add a product badge. For example, you could add a product label that says “20% Off” and change the design’s color palette to orange and black.
A countdown timer can be used in addition to product badges to run a Halloween flash sale and advertise it on the site. By making customers feel limited in time and pressuring them to make purchases quickly, flash sales are an excellent strategy to increase sales. You can rapidly add a personalized countdown timer with ShineTrust’s help by following a few simple steps.
See the ShineTrust app’s instructions for adding a product badge and countdown timer.
Promote the Halloween Flash Sale
A high-converting way to do flash sale marketing is to email customers before the offer starts. Continue sending emails while your Halloween deal is still going on, focusing on scarcity (no pun intended).
Here is the Bonobos example that reminds their customers about the Halloween Flash Sale in 2022:
(Source: Emma)
Along with some nice imagery and clever language that refers to the holiday, the first email makes it clear how long the discount will last.
Subscribers get a follow-up email the next day. Although the email’s format is the same, take note of how the copy at the top and the color have both changed.
The text now says, “Ends tomorrow.” Red is an energetic color that speeds up the heartbeat, making it ideal for expressing a sense of urgency.
On the last day of the sale, email three is sent out with a new color and copy. This email campaign doesn’t seem too urgent, but it creates a sense of urgency.
Then, there are SMS and Push Notifications, as well as Messenger bots. These platforms are ideal for creating mobile consumer connections. The sense of urgency needed for your flash sale can be created by connecting with your audience via their phones and highlighting that “this is happening right now and we require your attention.”
On the other hand, you can also promote your flash sales on social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc. as a notification before the flash sale starts.
In the period leading up to your flash sale, try making several ads with various ad copy, images, and messaging. Then, optimize each hour, gradually giving more money to the ads that are performing the best.
A great example of a business that does flash sales and promotes on social media is Mr. Beast.
He decided to engage the audience in the sales process when he first introduced his line of chocolate bars, Feastables.
He announced that customers who purchased Feastables chocolate bars would have the chance to win big prizes, such as Teslas, Seadoos, and a lifetime supply of chocolate, to drive interest and engagement.
In an even more engaging strategy, Mr. Beast invited ten winners to take part in his chocolate factory, which was designed like the famous children’s book and movie “Willy Wonka’s Whimsical Factory”.
MrBeast, dressed as Willy Wonka, led the participants through a variety of challenges that were inspired by the Feastables, and the entire thing was recorded for his YouTube channel.
The flash sale and the associated events were a success, significantly contributing to the brand’s rapid growth. By May 2022, less than a year after its launch, Feastables had already made over $10 million in sales.
Prepare for shipping
Prepare your fulfillment and shipping plan to handle the increased demand of a flash sale. Notify your fulfillment partners about the promotion so they can prepare for an increase in demand during the specified time. A trustworthy third-party logistics can guarantee that your customers receive their orders quickly and have a positive experience in general, keeping them as customers in the future.
In Conclusion
The Halloween Flash Sale is a great opportunity to boost sales and drive more traffic and engagement to your Shopify online store. However, you need to remember these tips as some suggestions to have a successful Halloween sale season:
- Promote value and limited availability
- Define your target market specifically.
- Offer free delivery
- Be different with your sales
- Automate your upcoming deal
Hope that our guide will help you to promote your Halloween Flash Sale plan!
