Periodic Discounting: Running Sales on a Rhythm

Periodic discounting is running sales on a regular schedule, such as the first week of every month or the end of each season, instead of whenever stock builds up. The rhythm gives a sale an audience that turns up on purpose. The same rhythm lets a customer who knows the date wait for it.

Why do stores run periodic sales?

Because some shoppers will only buy at a sale price, and they build up between sales. Martin Pesendorfer studied ketchup prices in supermarkets in Springfield, Missouri, from 1986 to 1988 (Journal of Business, 2002). Demand at sale prices grew with the time since the last sale, and that gap predicted well when the stores held their next sale. A regular sale serves those waiting shoppers at one time, while everyone else pays the normal price in between.

For a Shopify store, the rhythm also brings:

Attention you do not have to buy twice. A sale people expect needs fewer reminders.
Planning. Buying, stock and support can be arranged around a date that is no surprise to you either.
A reason to subscribe. "Members hear first, every month" gives people a reason to join your list.

When does periodic discounting go wrong?

When a regular customer can predict both the date and what will be on sale. If it is always 20% off everything on the first Monday, nobody who knows the calendar pays full price, and the discount goes to customers who were buying anyway.

Over a long period, frequent promotions can also change how shoppers buy. Carl Mela, Sunil Gupta and Donald Lehmann followed more than eight years of purchases in one product category (Journal of Marketing Research, 1997). Over the same years that price promotions increased and advertising fell, shoppers became more sensitive to price and to promotions.

A simple test: could a regular customer tell you when your next sale is and what will be in it? One of the two should be a surprise.

How do you keep the rhythm without the cost?

Rotate what is in it. Same date, a different collection each time. The habit stays, and no product is always on sale.
Change the depth only for a reason. A deeper month because of end-of-season stock makes sense to shoppers. A deeper month for no reason teaches them to wait for the deep ones.
Keep it to part of the catalog. A recurring sale on everything becomes your real price.

How do you know if customers have learned the calendar?

Watch two numbers over a few cycles:

The share of revenue that arrives during sale weeks.
The time between orders from repeat customers.

If the first keeps climbing and the second stretches to match your sale cycle, customers are timing their orders to your sales.

How do you schedule periodic discounts on Shopify?

Create a Bulk price editor campaign for this cycle's collection.
In the Schedule card, set the Start date and Start time, tick Set end date, and set when it ends. The campaign starts and ends by itself, and the original prices come back when it ends.
For the next cycle, open the campaign and click Duplicate, then change the products and the dates.
To give subscribers the sale first, open it to them a day early with an Advanced discount code limited to a customer segment, set to end when the public sale starts, as in our guide to pre-sale discounts. The code is on the Essential plan and up; segments are on the Discounty plan and up. A Bulk price editor sale changes the price itself, so it is the same for every shopper.

To undo it, deactivate the campaign. It shows as Reverting while Discounty puts the original prices back.

How we counted

The Pesendorfer and Mela findings come from their published papers (Journal of Business, 2002; Journal of Marketing Research, 1997), not from Discounty data.

Questions

What is periodic discounting?

Running discounts on a regular schedule, such as monthly, quarterly or each season, instead of whenever stock builds up.

Does a regular sale train customers to wait?

It can, when the same products are discounted each time. Keeping the date and rotating the products reduces that.

How often is too often?

When the share of revenue from sale weeks keeps climbing and repeat customers start ordering on your cycle instead of when they need something.

How is periodic discounting different from a flash sale?

A flash sale is short and usually a surprise. A periodic sale is expected, so it builds a habit, and regulars can wait for it.