Now give your customers limited period offers with Flits Store credit

When a customer hears a 'Limited period offer', to him/her, it means exclusivity. It means that if I don't act on this now, I may lose a fantastic deal. Words like ‘’Hurry before stocks run out’’ and ‘’Last chance’’ trigger a sense of urgency in the mind of the customer. If something is a limited edition even if it is highly-priced people are tempted to buy it. The factor that they are one of the few people who possess that item has a certain charm.

Limited time offers are rooted in the psychological phenomenon known as Loss aversion, which is the idea that people prefer avoiding losses over acquiring gains. It means that if there is an option to gain or avoid losses, people will choose the latter. “Losses hurt about twice as much as gains make you feel good - Daniel Kahneman.’’ So when a limited period offer appears on the customer's screen, he thinks if he doesn't take it, will be a loss.

There is an episode of Seinfeld (Do watch the show if you haven't'), where Julia Dreyfus wants to buy a Chocolate babka for a party they are going to. But she misses out on buying the last Chocolate babka. She finally ends up purchasing a Cinnamon  babka but is extremely upset about not being able to purchase Chocolate babka. There could be two reasons, A. Ofcourse Chocolate is delicious, and B. Because chocolate is delicious, the store ran out of it. We can see how Loss aversion worked here; she wasn't happy about what she got but was more upset about what she couldn't.

If this didn't help think of the time when your favourite celebrity was in your favourite restaurant, but you missed him/her by a few seconds. This theory works even when there is no actual loss involved. We also feel bad for the things we don’t get to experience. Fear of missing out is also a significant contributor when it comes to limited period offers.

Offering your customers limited-time offers can up the sales game. Exclusive deals not only make the customer feel special but also forces them to buy things which they would not have in general. No one wants to miss out on an opportunity to have something for a reduced price or that comes with a cool bonus. Sense of urgency also drives flash sales. Studies have shown that 50% of flash sales happen in the first hour. Flash sales offer discounts or special offers for a concise period of time.

Offering a limited period offers to customers during festivals is a guaranteed measure to get more sales. People tend to buy more during festivals. If a customer is willing to shop for 100 dollars and if you offer him 10 or 20 dollars as credit he may be ready to shop for 30 dollars more. They are thus giving you a sale of 150 dollars.

‘’Shopify merchants break records with $2.9+ billion in worldwide sales over Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend. Since BFCM sale lasts only a few days you can see the surge in overall sales.’’

Throughout the Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) shopping weekend, November 24th to the 26th, Shopify merchants collectively made over $1.5 billion USD in sales.

On the basis of this and the request of many Flits users, we are now introducing a 'Limited period feature'. You can give limited period offers in 'Days' to your customers with Flits store credit. You can provide store credits with a limited period offer to all the customers or a few customers. You can set the number of days for which you wish to run the offer. At present, you can upload CSV up to 2MB. If your file exceeds 2MB You can contact us at support@getflits.com.

You can offer limited period credits in two ways :

Bulk credit: You can give credits to all your customers or a select group of customers by uploading a CSV.

Credit to specific customers: If you want to give credits to a handful of customers you can adjust their credit individually through the customer section.

Conclusion:

Limited period credit offers can nudge the customers in buying more from you. Loss eversion+ Fear of missing+ Nudge theory, these psychological tactics can be used during high demand periods. Of course, one must not overdo it. Offering discounts and offers all the time will only be harmful to your business.