Effective Strategies for Running a Sale on Shopify

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Preparing Your Store for a Successful Sale
3. How to Put a Sale on Shopify: The Manual Method
4. Executing Bulk Discounts for Large Catalogs
5. Implementing Automatic Discounts
6. Creating Strategic Discount Codes
7. Highlighting Sale Items for Maximum Visibility
8. Beyond Physical Goods: The Power of Digital Upsells
9. Strategic Pricing for Digital Growth
10. Post-Sale Retention: Turning Buyers into Members
11. Tracking Sale Performance and Adjusting in Real-Time
12. Maximizing the "Native" Experience
13. Putting It All Together: A Sample Sale Workflow
14. Common Mistakes to Avoid When Putting a Sale on Shopify
15. Conclusion
16. FAQ

Introduction

Did you know that the global e-learning market is projected to reach a staggering $325 billion by 2025? This massive shift in consumer behavior isn't just for academic institutions; it represents a goldmine for e-commerce merchants who are looking to diversify their revenue. While traditional physical product sales are the backbone of many businesses, the most successful modern brands are those that understand how to blend physical goods with high-margin digital experiences. When you combine the psychological trigger of a well-timed promotional event with the infinite scalability of digital products, you create a growth engine that is difficult to stop.

The purpose of this guide is to provide a comprehensive roadmap on how to put a sale on Shopify that actually moves the needle for your business. We will explore the technical steps of setting "compare-at" prices, the nuances of bulk discounting, and the strategic implementation of automatic discounts. Furthermore, we will delve into how you can use these sales events to transition from a one-time product seller to a digital learning powerhouse.

At Tevello, our mission is to turn any Shopify store into a digital learning powerhouse. We believe that a sale shouldn’t just be about clearing old inventory; it should be a strategic gateway to building long-term customer lifetime value. By the end of this article, you will have the practical knowledge to execute a flawless Shopify sale and the strategic insight to integrate digital courses and communities into your promotional calendar, ensuring your brand stays top-of-mind long after the discount expires.

Preparing Your Store for a Successful Sale

Before you ever click a button in your Shopify admin, you must lay the groundwork. A sale without a plan is just a price cut that erodes your margins. To protect your brand and maximize your returns, preparation must focus on three core pillars: inventory, objectives, and infrastructure.

Conducting Thorough Inventory Audits

Nothing kills customer loyalty faster than a "sold out" notification appearing thirty seconds after a promotional email hits an inbox. Before launching a sale, you must audit your stock levels. Identify your slow-moving items—the "dust gatherers" in your warehouse—and mark them for steeper discounts. Conversely, identify your "hero products"—the items that drive people to your store. These should be discounted more conservatively to protect your margins while still acting as a draw.

For merchants utilizing Tevello to sell digital products, inventory management takes on a much more favorable dynamic. Since digital courses and memberships have no physical limit, you can use them as "infinite stock" items to bundle with physical goods. For instance, if you sell high-end cameras, you could offer a "Mastering Manual Mode" course as a free bonus for every camera sold during a flash sale. This adds perceived value without the cost of additional physical inventory or shipping.

Setting Clear, Measurable Objectives

What does a "win" look like for your sale? If you don’t define it, you can’t measure it. Common objectives include:

• Customer Acquisition: Using a deep discount on an entry-level product to get new buyers into your ecosystem.
• Average Order Value (AOV) Boost: Using "Buy X, Get Y" structures to encourage customers to add more to their carts.
• Inventory Liquidation: Clearing out seasonal stock to make room for new arrivals.
• Building Recurring Revenue: Offering a sale on the first month of a membership or community access.

Optimizing Your Site Infrastructure

A sudden influx of traffic can strain your site’s user experience. Ensure your navigation is updated to include a "Sale" collection and that your banners are clear and mobile-responsive. One of our core values is that merchants should own their customer data and brand experience. This is why we focus on all the key features for courses and communities that keep your customers on your own URL. During a sale, you want to ensure the checkout flow is seamless and that customers aren't redirected to clunky third-party platforms that might cause them to drop off.

How to Put a Sale on Shopify: The Manual Method

For small sales or targeted promotions, the manual method is the most straightforward way to change prices. Shopify uses a "Compare-at price" system to show customers exactly how much they are saving.

Setting the Compare-at Price

When you view a product in your Shopify admin, you will see two primary price fields: Price and Compare-at price.

1. Price: This is the new, lower price the customer will pay.
2. Compare-at price: This is the original, higher price.

When you fill in both fields, Shopify automatically applies a "Sale" badge (depending on your theme) and shows the original price with a strikethrough. This visual cue is essential for triggering the "bargain-hunting" instinct in shoppers.

Step-by-Step Manual Update

• Go to Products in your Shopify Admin.
• Click on the product you wish to discount.
• Scroll down to the Pricing section.
• Enter the original price in the Compare-at price field.
• Enter the discounted price in the Price field.
• Hit Save.

This method is perfect for a merchant who wants to highlight a few select "Deals of the Week." For example, a fitness brand might put their flagship yoga mat on sale manually to draw attention to their new digital "30-Day Flow" challenge hosted on Tevello.

Executing Bulk Discounts for Large Catalogs

If you have hundreds of SKUs, manual updates are a recipe for burnout. Shopify offers built-in bulk editing tools, but you must use them carefully to avoid pricing errors.

Using the Shopify Bulk Editor

The Bulk Editor allows you to view your products in a spreadsheet-like interface within the admin.

1. Select all products you want to edit from the Products list.
2. Click Bulk edit.
3. Ensure the "Price" and "Compare-at price" columns are visible. If not, click Columns to add them.
4. Update the fields as needed.

While efficient, this still requires manual entry for each cell. For a truly massive sale, such as a storewide 20% off event, many merchants prefer to export their product list to a CSV file.

The CSV Export/Import Strategy

By exporting your products to a CSV, you can use Excel or Google Sheets to apply formulas. You can quickly calculate a 20% reduction across 5,000 items and then re-import the file to Shopify. However, be warned: CSV imports can be finicky. Always back up your current product list before importing a modified one.

If unifying your stack is a priority, start by a simple, all-in-one price for unlimited courses. Having a fixed cost for your digital infrastructure allows you to be more aggressive with your physical product discounts, as the digital side of your business maintains a nearly 100% profit margin.

Implementing Automatic Discounts

Automatic discounts are a powerful tool for reducing friction. Unlike discount codes, which a customer might forget to type in, automatic discounts are applied at the cart or checkout level once specific criteria are met.

Why Automatic Discounts Win

The modern shopper is easily distracted. If they have to leave your site to search their email for a code, they might never come back. Automatic discounts ensure that the "reward" is immediate. Common types of automatic discounts include:

• Percentage Off: "15% off all orders over $100."
• Fixed Amount: "$20 off when you buy three items."
• Buy X, Get Y: "Buy a bag of coffee beans, get our 'Home Brewing Masterclass' for free."

Setting Up Automatic Discounts in Shopify

1. Navigate to Discounts in your Shopify admin.
2. Click Create discount.
3. Select Automatic discount.
4. Choose your discount type (Percentage, Fixed Amount, or BOGO).
5. Define the minimum requirements (quantity of items or purchase amount).
6. Set the active dates. Note that you can only have one automatic discount active at a time in the standard Shopify settings, so choose wisely.

Creating Strategic Discount Codes

While automatic discounts are great for general sales, discount codes are superior for targeted marketing and building exclusivity.

Targeted Campaigns for VIPs

You can create unique codes for different segments of your audience. For example, you might send a "LOYALTY25" code to your top 10% of customers or a "WELCOME10" code to new newsletter subscribers. This allows you to track the effectiveness of different marketing channels.

Rewarding Community Engagement

With the rise of social commerce, rewarding your community is paramount. We emphasize keeping customers at home on the brand website so they feel like part of an inner circle. You could create a specific discount code that is only revealed inside your Tevello community feed. This not only drives sales but also increases the "stickiness" of your community platform.

Highlighting Sale Items for Maximum Visibility

Once the sale is technically live, you need to shout it from the digital rooftops. Visibility is the difference between a record-breaking weekend and a "quiet" promotion.

Creating a Dedicated Sale Collection

Don't make customers hunt for deals. Create an automated collection in Shopify that includes any product where the "Compare-at price" is greater than the "Price." Link this collection prominently in your main navigation menu.

Using Urgency and Scarcity

Human beings are wired to avoid loss. Use countdown timers on your homepage or product pages to indicate when the sale ends. You can also use "Low Stock" alerts to show that items are moving fast. These tactics, when used ethically, provide the necessary nudge for a customer to complete their purchase.

Visual Cues and Badges

Most Shopify themes allow for sale badges. Ensure your badges are high-contrast and easy to read. If your theme doesn't support them, there are many "Product Label" apps in the Shopify ecosystem that can add these visual indicators automatically.

Beyond Physical Goods: The Power of Digital Upsells

While learning how to put a sale on Shopify for physical items is essential, the real "magic" happens when you incorporate digital products. Traditional retail is a constant battle of margins, shipping costs, and inventory headaches. Digital products—courses, templates, and memberships—remove these barriers.

Turning Any Store Into a Learning Powerhouse

At Tevello, our mission is to "turn any Shopify store into a digital learning powerhouse." This means we enable you to sell more than just a box in the mail. For a merchant selling gardening tools, a sale on shovels is great. But a sale on a "Complete Garden Design Course" that lives right next to those shovels is a game-changer.

This is where you see the benefits of our Native Shopify Integration. Because the course checkout happens through the same Shopify gateway you already trust, there is zero friction for the customer. They don't need a new login or a separate account; they just buy and learn.

Case Study: High-Margin Upselling

Consider the success of brands that have moved beyond the physical. For example, you can see how merchants are earning six figures by simply adding a digital component to their existing Shopify store. One merchant, Fotopro, excelled by generating over €243,000 by upselling existing customers on digital content. This wasn't achieved through a "get rich quick" scheme, but through a calculated strategy of offering high-value digital training to people who had already bought their physical hardware.

Strategic Pricing for Digital Growth

When you are planning your sale, you have to consider your own costs. Many course platforms charge "success fees" or take a 5% to 10% cut of your hard-earned revenue. We believe this is inherently unfair to the merchant.

The Tevello Pricing Advantage

We reject complicated tier structures that punish you for succeeding. Our model is built on transparency and stability:

• The Unlimited Plan: $29.99 per month.
• 0% Transaction Fees: You keep 100% of what you earn.

This predictable pricing without hidden transaction fees allows you to run aggressive sales without worrying about your software costs scaling alongside your revenue. Whether you have 10 students or 10,000, and whether you sell one course or one hundred, your cost remains a flat $29.99. This is how you achieve securing a fixed cost structure for digital products.

The Unlimited Plan includes:

• Unlimited courses and students.
• Unlimited video hosting and bandwidth.
• Community features (profiles, member directories, social feeds).
• Drip content scheduling and quizzes.
• A 14-day free trial to build your entire curriculum before paying a cent.

Post-Sale Retention: Turning Buyers into Members

The biggest mistake a merchant can make is letting the relationship end when the sale does. The period immediately following a sale is the best time to build long-term brand loyalty.

Implementing Retention Strategies

Instead of just sending a "Thank You" email, invite your sale customers into a community. By using the community features within Tevello, you can create a space where customers can share photos of their products, ask questions, and interact with your brand experts. This builds a sense of belonging that makes them much less likely to shop with a competitor in the future.

We have seen retention strategies that drive repeat digital purchases become the primary driver of growth for many stores. When a customer joins your community, they are exposed to your other digital offerings and physical products in a non-salesy, helpful environment. This increases Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) and provides recurring revenue stability.

The Power of Success Stories

Don't just take our word for it. There are numerous success stories from brands using native courses to transform their business model. These brands have moved away from the "transactional" model of e-commerce and into a "relational" model. By providing educational value alongside their products, they become an indispensable part of their customers' lives.

Tracking Sale Performance and Adjusting in Real-Time

A sale is a living thing. You cannot just "set it and forget it." You must monitor the data to see what is working and what isn't.

Key Metrics to Monitor

• Conversion Rate: Is the increased traffic actually buying? If not, there may be a disconnect between your ads and your landing page.
• Average Order Value (AOV): Are your bundles working? If AOV is lower than usual, you might need to add a "Spend $X more for free shipping" nudge.
• Discount Code Usage: Which codes are being used most? This tells you which marketing channels (Email, SMS, Social) are providing the best ROI.
• Add-to-Cart vs. Checkout: If people are adding to the cart but not checking out, your shipping costs might be too high, or your checkout process might be too complex.

Using Shopify Analytics

Shopify’s built-in analytics provide a real-time view of your sale. During a major event like Black Friday, keep the "Live View" open to see where your customers are coming from and how they are navigating your store. If you notice a specific product is flying off the shelves, consider moving it to the top of your "Sale" collection to capitalize on the momentum.

Maximizing the "Native" Experience

One of the greatest technical advantages of using a native solution like Tevello is the unified login experience. In a fragmented system, a customer might have one login for your Shopify store and another for a third-party course platform like Teachable or Kajabi. This leads to "password fatigue" and a massive increase in customer support tickets.

By seeing how the app natively integrates with Shopify, you ensure that once a customer is logged into your store to buy a physical product, they are already logged into their learning dashboard. This "Single Sign-On" (SSO) experience is a hallmark of high-end, professional brands. It reduces friction, builds trust, and makes your store look like a cohesive, well-oiled machine.

Putting It All Together: A Sample Sale Workflow

To help you visualize how this all comes together, let's look at a practical scenario for a merchant selling specialty tea.

1. The Objective: Clear out summer tea blends and increase membership in the "Tea Connoisseur Community."
2. The Offer: 30% off all summer blends + a "Free Digital Tea Brewing Guide" with every purchase.
3. The Infrastructure: Create a "Summer Sale" collection. Install Tevello and set up the brewing guide as a digital course.
4. The Execution: Use the Shopify Bulk Editor to set the "Compare-at prices" for the summer blends. Set up an automatic discount that grants free access to the digital guide when a summer blend is added to the cart.
5. The Promotion: Send an email blast to your list. Post the "insider" discount code for physical tea infusers inside the Tevello community feed to reward existing members.
6. The Follow-up: After the sale ends, send a series of "Drip Content" emails through Tevello to the new guide owners, teaching them about the history of the tea they just bought.

This workflow doesn't just result in a one-time sale; it educates the customer, brings them into a community, and sets the stage for their next purchase.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Putting a Sale on Shopify

Even seasoned merchants can stumble during a sale. Avoid these common pitfalls to ensure your promotion runs smoothly.

1. Over-Discounting

While deep discounts drive volume, they can also train your customers to never pay full price. Use sales strategically and avoid running them so frequently that your brand becomes synonymous with "cheap."

2. Forgetting the "Mobile" Experience

Over 70% of Shopify traffic often comes from mobile devices. If your sale banners are too small to read or your discount code box is hard to find on a phone, you will lose sales. Always test your sale flow on a mobile device before going live.

3. Ignoring the Shipping Costs

A common reason for cart abandonment during a sale is high shipping costs. If a customer feels they are getting a "steal" on a product, but then sees a $15 shipping fee on a $20 item, they will likely leave. Consider offering free shipping thresholds to encourage larger orders.

4. Not Checking App Compatibility

If you use multiple apps for discounts, loyalty points, and digital products, they can sometimes conflict. Before a major sale, run a "test purchase" to ensure that the discounts are calculating correctly and that digital access is being granted immediately. By reviewing the Shopify App Store listing merchants install from, you can see our compatibility details and ensure our app fits perfectly into your existing ecosystem.

Conclusion

Mastering how to put a sale on Shopify is about more than just lowering prices; it is about creating a strategic event that accelerates your business growth. By combining the technical tools of Shopify—like compare-at prices and automatic discounts—with the high-margin, high-engagement power of digital courses and communities, you can build a brand that is both profitable and sustainable.

Remember that a successful sale is a bridge to a deeper relationship with your customer. When you use Tevello to provide educational value and community engagement, you transform your store from a simple shop into a destination. You own your data, you own your brand, and most importantly, you own the relationship with your audience.

We invite you to experience the difference that a native, all-in-one ecosystem can make for your Shopify store. Whether you are looking to clear out physical inventory or launch your first digital masterpiece, our platform is built to support your ambition without the burden of transaction fees or complex pricing.

To build your community without leaving Shopify, start by reviewing the Shopify App Store listing merchants install from. Install Tevello today to start your 14-day free trial and build your first course now. You can build your entire curriculum and set up your community before you ever pay a cent. With our 0% transaction fee policy, you keep 100% of the revenue from your sales. Start your journey toward becoming a digital learning powerhouse today.

FAQ

1. Can I sell both physical products and digital courses in the same Shopify sale?

Absolutely. This is one of the most effective ways to use Tevello. You can set up a "Buy X, Get Y" discount where a customer buys a physical product and automatically receives access to a digital course. Because Tevello is natively integrated, the customer receives their digital access immediately upon checkout, creating a seamless and professional experience.

2. Does Shopify charge extra fees for running a sale?

Shopify does not charge an additional fee specifically for running a sale or using discount codes. However, you will still pay your standard payment processing fees (e.g., Shopify Payments or PayPal fees) on the final transaction amount. This is why using an app like Tevello, which charges 0% transaction fees, is so beneficial—it ensures you aren't being double-charged by your app providers.

3. How do I stop a sale once it has started?

To stop a manual sale, you simply need to remove the "Compare-at price" and update the "Price" back to its original value. For automatic discounts or discount codes, you can set an expiration date when you create them, or you can manually "Deactivate" them at any time in the Discounts section of your admin.

4. Can I offer a sale specifically to my community members?

Yes. This is a great way to build brand loyalty. You can create a unique discount code and share it exclusively within your Tevello community feed or member directory. This makes your members feel like VIPs and gives them an incentive to remain active in your digital ecosystem.