Use these easy Etsy discount ideas to give your sales a boost

For LHS members who sell on Etsy, if your sales slow, Etsy makes it easy to create sales and coupons to help give your sales numbers a boost.

The process of setting up sales and coupons on Etsy is super straightforward and takes less than a minute to do. There are several types of discount campaigns you can create, all of which can make your Etsy shop and offers more appealing to customers.

To learn more about all of the Etsy discount options you have at your disposal, keep reading below. I’ll go over everything you need to know about how to set each type of campaign and how it can help your store.

Let’s take a look…

How to set up automatic Etsy coupon campaigns

There are a few different types of automatic coupon campaigns I suggest creating on Etsy:

1. Abandoned cart
2. Recently favorited
3. Thank you for your purchase

Here’s how you can set up each type:

Abandoned cart and Recently favorited

To set up these two campaigns…

• Go to your Etsy Shop Manager
• Click Marketing
• Select Sales and coupons

That will bring you to the following screen:

To create your targeted campaigns, click where it says Set up campaign next to Abandoned cart and Recently favorited.

Choose either Abandoned cart shoppers or Recently favorited shoppers (I recommend setting up campaigns for both – just rinse and repeat this process for whichever option you don’t choose initially).

Next, select the type of coupon you want to create:

• Percent off
• Fixed amount off
• Free standard shipping

If you choose either Percent off or Fixed amount off, you need to specify how much you want the discount to be (e.g. 20% or $10). And if you choose free standard shipping, you have the option to select Domestic only if you don’t want the discount to apply to international orders with pricier shipping.

Next, you need to specify what you want your coupon code to be called. For example, for an Abandoned cart campaign, you might make your code DONTLEAVE or MISSYOU. And for your Recently favorited campaign, you could make your code something like FAVORITE or OURTREAT.

When you’re done, click the Review and confirm button.

If everything looks good, click Launch campaign, and you’re done!

You can then return to the Sales and coupon section of your Shop Manager and manage your campaigns.

As you can see from the screenshot above, Etsy gives you a link that you can copy into your emails or social media posts. You’ll be able to assess how your campaigns are performing. And if you want, you can choose to stop sending the offer, or you can deactivate the coupon permanently.

Thank you for your purchase 

This is the third type of automatic Etsy coupon campaign I recommend creating.

To do this…

• Go to your Etsy Shop Manager
• Click Marketing
• Select Sales and coupons
• Click +New special offer
• Select Create a coupon
• Choose what you’d like to offer customers

You can choose…

• Percentage off
• Free standard shipping
• Fixed amount off

If you choose either percentage off or fixed amount off, you’ll then need to specify the amount. If you choose free standard shipping, you’ll be able to check a box if you want the discount to apply only to domestic orders.

Next, you need to say whether there’s a minimum order to qualify for the discount (you can select None, Quantity, or Order total).

Then, check the box next to where it says, “Send as a thank you.” Now, your coupon will automatically be sent to customers within two weeks of their orders’ estimated delivery date.

Below that, specify your deal’s start date and duration. In this case, I’d recommend checking No end date.

Lastly, you need to customize your coupon. In other words,  you need to name it. I’d suggest something like THANKYOU or THANKSALOT.

Click Review and confirm when you’re done. If everything looks good on the next page, click Confirm and create discount. Your discount will then go live on your specified start date.

Creating other special offers on Etsy 

‘Abandoned cart,’ ‘Recently favorited,’ and ‘Thank you for your purchase’ aren’t the only special offers you can create on Etsy. You can also run a sale and create special coupons to share with your customers.

Just click the + New special offer button in the Sales and coupons section of your Shop Manager (you’ll find it under Marketing). Then, choose the type of offer you want to create. You can create a coupon, which you can share with anyone you’d like. Or you can run a sale (the sale can be for specific items in your shop or it can be for everything you offer.

Here’s more information about those options:

Create a coupon 

The process for creating a special coupon code for shoppers is pretty much exactly the same as creating a ‘Thank you for your purchase’ coupon.

The only difference is you might not want to check the boxes that say…

• “Yes, automatically send this coupon to buyers within two weeks after an order’s estimated delivery.”
• No end date

For special coupons, you’re more likely to want to only give out the coupons to certain customers, rather than every single person who buys from you. And you’re also more likely to want to set start and end dates, although both of these decisions are completely up to you.

Then, set the duration for your coupon’s availability (you can also make it so there is no end date) and create your code. Etsy says the following:

Shoppers can enter this code for the discount, but you also get a custom URL to share so they don’t have to. Each code must be unique and use only letters and numbers.

When you’re done, hit the Review and confirm button. Then, on the next page, click Confirm and create discount.

Add coupon codes and URLs to Etsy saved replies

When you create your coupon code, you’ll have both the code itself, such as THANKYOU or SAVEBIG. Plus, you’ll get a shareable URL, both of which you can add to your Etsy saved replies so you can quickly and easily share them with customers.

To learn more about setting up Etsy save replies, click here.

One of my assistants adds coupon codes and coupon URLs to her saved replies thanking customers for their business and asking them to leave honest reviews. If you do this, just be careful about shilling, aka offering discounts in exchange for biased reviews. You can check out the exact saved reply my assistant uses here.

Another saved reply you could add coupon codes and coupon ULRs to is for bulk orders inquiries. If customers want to place a bulk order for one or more of your items, you might offer them a coupon for 10-15% off as an incentive to get them to purchase.

Run a sale 

If you select this option, this is what you’ll see:

As with the other types of discounts previously discussed, you first need to choose what you want to offer shoppers:

• Percentage off – Choose the percentage amount from the drop-down (ranging from 10% to 70%).
• Free standard shipping – You may also select the box that makes your offer for domestic orders only.

Next, you have to decide whether there has to be a minimum order to qualify for the special offer. Etsy makes the following recommendation:

If your goal is to get shoppers to spend more than normal, consider setting a minimum that’s 20%-50% higher than your average order value (AOV). Calculate your AOV by dividing your total revenue by your total orders.

Then, you must set a duration for your sale by including a start and end date. (Note: Sales can run up to thirty days.) Etsy also offers a list of key shopping dates that are good times to run your sales.

If you have any special terms or conditions for your sale, there’s a place for you to specify them.

Lastly, you need to give your sale a name (shoppers won’t see this).

When you’re done, click Continue.

On the next page, you’ll see this:

From the Add multiple listings drop-down, you can select whole listings of categories or you can search for a single listing to put on sale. (Note: If you choose to add an entire listing category, such as “mugs,” you’ll be able to go through and remove any individual listings you don’t want to include.)

When you’re ready, choose Review and confirm.

If everything looks good, click the Confirm and create discount button.

You might also consider using EtsyOnSale to schedule and run mass sales on your listings. Plus, you can use this tool to manage your Etsy shop in other ways too, such as scheduling listings to automatically renew, editing all of your listings’ tags at once, and backing up your photos so they don’t get lost. As a shop owner, you get five free credits to start.

Father’s Day sale 

Since Father’s Day is coming up (June 20), I decided to run a sale on all of my dad-related products starting now and lasting for the next 30 days (Etsy’s maximum). The sale is for 10% off with no minimum order to qualify.

To set the sale up, I followed the exact process outlined above. And when it came time to include listings, I typed keywords like ‘dad,’ ‘father,’ ‘stepdad,’ grandpa,’ et cetera into the search bar and then selected all of those items.

Running holiday-specific sales is a great way to drum up extra business for your store. You know people will be actively searching for gifts around that time and if they come across your items on sale, that can give you a leg up on other stores whose pricing may be higher.

You can also feature some of your Father’s Day sale items, making them show up at the top of your shop’s homepage, giving them greater visibility to shoppers.

To feature an item, click where it says Listings in your Shop Manager. Then, search for the item(s) you want to feature and click the star icon beneath the listing.

Other types of sales you can run 

In addition to holiday-specific sales, like Father’s Day, you can also run…

• sales for out-of-season items
• long-lasting sales for every item in your store
• quick sales lasting for only a short period

Out-of-season sale

I typically recommend creating designs that can be sold year-round and aren’t seasonal. But it’s still okay  to have some seasonal designs — for example, it’s okay to have some holiday-specific designs that say things like “Happy Valentine’s Day” or “Merry Christmas 2021.” You just don’t want to have tons of these types of designs.

For any seasonal items you do have, though, you can run an out-of-season sale once the holiday or season has passed and people are way less likely to be searching for those particular items.

For instance, with Father’s Day coming up, if you have any designs that say “Happy Father’s Day,” you could run an out-of-season sale on all of your Father’s Day-specific merchandise. You could even throw some dad-related items that do have year-round potential into your sale to beef up the selection.

Out-of-season sales are a great way to move stagnant merchandise and give even seasonal items the potential to be sold year-round.

Long-lasting sale

As previously mentioned, Etsy lets you run sales for up to 30 days, and you can make the sale for all of the items in your shop.

If your sales have been slow lately, running a long-lasting storewide sale can be a great way to get your sales flowing again. And putting everything in your store on sale ensures there will be something for everyone.

Quick sale

Quick sales have their advantages too. Running a sale for only a couple of days creates a sense of urgency for customers. If they want the discount, they can’t hem and haw; they have to act now.

But one of the downsides to quick sales is that Etsy doesn’t let customers know how long sales are going to last for so customers won’t know your sale is going to last for only a limited amount of time.

So if you decide to run a quick sale on Etsy, you need to find another way to get the word out.  You can do this by promoting  your sale on social media a few days before it’s scheduled to start. You can say something like…

Get 10% off EVERYTHING in our store (mugs, shot glasses, pillowcases,  and more great gift ideas!) starting May 22. But hurry — the sale lasts 3 days only. Don’t wait. Shop now: https://www.etsy.com/your/shop #EtsySale #ecommerce #GiftIdeas

I hope you find these Etsy sale and coupon ideas useful! Leave a comment below and let me know what you think! Also, if you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it with your friends and followers.