On having a sale!
I have read how putting a time limit on your offer can encourage customers to buy now.
Sheepstealers.ie has been getting quite a bit of email feedback from customers over the last few weeks. Some really nice comments and suggestions which indicate the makings of a brand that people could become passionate about and want to interact with. If handled correctly.
One bit of feedback I was not expecting was that we are not charging enough. This has been backed up by the distributor we are in talks with. Branded t-shirts expect to retail for about €35. So after a lot of thinking I have decided to put up the price of the t-shirts to €35. In the end I figured now would be the best time before the brand gets firmly established. Later it would always be easier to lower prices but much harder to raise them.
The next question was how to do it. Do we just raise prices over night? Gradual increase? Or make an event of it? I decided to try and make an event out of it and try my first online sale.
The banners went up on Sunday all over the site advertising the last week of a sale. The last few days to grab the t-shirts at €25 before they go (back) up to €35.
Before the sale visitor numbers have been rising nicely on the site. Mostly through word of mouth and little effort on my part which was great. This month is already double on last month.
The orders on the site have also been rising nicely.For the sale I also started the planned ad words campaign which started bringing in a few extra visitors a day. 11 yesterday at a cost of €1.49.
This week after I put the sales banners on the site, sales actually dropped! And I have no idea why. Visitor numbers remain the same.
I don’t think the perceived value of the shirts and brand has been lowered because I am stating where the value is going after the sale. However I could be wrong. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
It will be very interesting to see what happens next week when the prices go up.
The basic rule of retail is too keep putting the price up until people stop buying ;-)
Also considering doing limited edition designs, they go down very well.
Check out: www.threadless.com/ the best t-shirt site on the web.
— Brian O'Neill Aug 18, 11:05 AM #
Thanks Brian, limited edition designs will be coming as soon as i get designs out for the full 32 counties. I love threadless.
— Alan Aug 18, 11:25 AM #