How to Add Sale on Shopify to Drive More Revenue

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. The Core Mechanics: Using the Compare-at Price
3. Strategic Discounting: Codes vs. Automatic Discounts
4. Maximizing Profit Margins with Digital Bundles
5. Setting Up Collection-Based Sales
6. The Power of Flash Sales and Limited-Time Offers
7. Promotion and Marketing: Getting the Word Out
8. Technical Best Practices for Large Sales
9. Analyzing Sale Performance
10. Leveraging Shopify Scripts for Advanced Sales
11. Using Digital Products to Protect Your Brand Equity
12. Native Shopify Integration: The Tevello Advantage
13. Building a Community Beyond the Sale
14. Setting Realistic Expectations
15. Conclusion

Introduction

Did you know that according to consumer psychology research, nearly 93% of shoppers use a discount code at some point during the year? Even more striking is that the mere presence of a "Sale" badge or a "Compare At" price can increase conversion rates by over 20%, regardless of the actual depth of the discount. In the competitive landscape of e-commerce, mastering the art of the promotion is no longer just an optional tactic; it is a fundamental pillar of business growth. For many store owners, the "sale" is the primary engine for moving stagnant inventory, acquiring new customers, and increasing the lifetime value of existing ones.

The purpose of this guide is to provide a granular, step-by-step breakdown of how to add sale on shopify, covering everything from basic price adjustments to complex automated promotional strategies. We will explore the technical mechanics of the Shopify admin, the strategic timing of discounts, and how to leverage digital products to maximize your profit margins during high-traffic sales events. At Tevello, our mission is to turn any Shopify store into a digital learning powerhouse, and we believe that a well-executed sale is the perfect gateway to introducing your customers to high-value digital content.

By the end of this article, you will understand how to manipulate Shopify’s native pricing fields, use bulk editors for site-wide events, and implement sophisticated bundling techniques that combine physical goods with digital experiences. The core thesis here is simple: a sale should not just be about lowering prices; it should be a strategic tool used to build brand loyalty and diversify your revenue streams without sacrificing your long-term profitability.

The Core Mechanics: Using the Compare-at Price

The most direct and visually impactful way to run a sale on Shopify is by utilizing the "Compare-at price" feature. This is the functionality that creates the "strikethrough" effect on your product pages, showing the original price next to the new, lower sale price. It provides immediate visual confirmation to the customer that they are getting a deal.

To set this up manually for a single product, you navigate to your Shopify Admin, click on 'Products,' and select the specific item you wish to discount. In the 'Pricing' section, you will see two fields: 'Price' and 'Compare-at price.' To show a product as being on sale, you must enter the original price in the 'Compare-at price' field and the new, lower price in the 'Price' field.

For example, if you normally sell a premium yoga mat for $80 and want to put it on sale for $60, you would enter $80 in the 'Compare-at price' and $60 in the 'Price' field. Shopify automatically calculates the discount and, depending on your theme, displays a "Sale" badge on the product image. This method is excellent for permanent clearance sections or highlighting a "Product of the Week."

However, manual entry is not sustainable for large catalogs. This is where the bulk editor becomes essential. By selecting multiple products in your admin and clicking 'Edit products,' you can add the 'Compare-at price' column to your view and update dozens of items simultaneously. This ensures consistency across your collections and saves hours of manual labor. It is a fundamental skill for any merchant learning how to add sale on shopify effectively.

Strategic Discounting: Codes vs. Automatic Discounts

While changing the base price is effective, Shopify offers two other primary ways to facilitate sales: Discount Codes and Automatic Discounts. Understanding the distinction between these two is vital for tailoring the customer experience.

Discount Codes

Discount codes are alphanumeric strings that customers must manually enter at checkout (e.g., SAVE20, WELCOME10). These are powerful because they give you a sense of exclusivity and allow for better tracking of specific marketing channels. You can create codes that apply to specific products, entire collections, or orders over a certain dollar amount.

One of the greatest advantages of discount codes is their role in list building. Offering a "10% off your first order" code in exchange for an email address is a classic strategy for growing your marketing reach. Furthermore, codes can be limited to one use per customer, preventing "discount stacking" that could erode your margins.

Automatic Discounts

Automatic discounts are applied as soon as the customer meets the criteria in their cart, without requiring any manual input. These are ideal for site-wide events like Black Friday or "Buy One, Get One" (BOGO) promotions. Because they remove friction at checkout, they often lead to higher conversion rates than manual codes.

However, Shopify limits you to one active automatic discount at a time. This requires careful planning. If you are running an automatic "20% off all orders over $100" sale, you cannot simultaneously run an automatic "Buy a Shirt, Get a Hat Free" promotion. You must choose the one that aligns best with your current inventory goals.

Maximizing Profit Margins with Digital Bundles

A common concern when learning how to add sale on shopify is the impact on profit margins. When you discount a physical product, you are still responsible for the cost of goods sold (COGS), shipping, and fulfillment. This is where the "Digital Learning Powerhouse" philosophy comes into play.

By integrating digital products—such as online courses, workshops, or exclusive communities—into your sales strategy, you can offer massive value to your customers with near-zero marginal cost. Imagine a merchant selling high-end espresso machines. During a holiday sale, they might discount the machine by 10%. To make the offer irresistible without further cutting the price, they could bundle a "Mastering Home Brewing" video course.

At Tevello, we facilitate this by keeping customers at home on the brand website. When a customer buys that espresso machine, they don't get redirected to a clunky third-party platform. They stay on your URL, login with their existing Shopify account, and immediately access their digital content. This creates a unified login that reduces customer support friction and makes the "sale" feel like a premium upgrade rather than a price cut.

Using digital goods as a "gift with purchase" or a high-margin upsell allows you to maintain a healthy bottom line while still offering the "wow factor" that drives sales. We have seen merchants generating over €243,000 by upselling existing customers with digital content that complements their physical products. This approach transforms a one-time discount seeker into a long-term community member.

Setting Up Collection-Based Sales

Often, you don't want to put your entire store on sale. You might want to target a specific category, such as "Summer Apparel" or "Winter Gear." Shopify makes this easy through collection-based discounts.

To do this, first ensure your products are organized into a collection (either manual or automated). When you create a new discount—whether it’s a code or an automatic discount—you can select "Specific collections" under the "Applies to" section. This is particularly useful for seasonal rotations.

If you are using Tevello to manage your digital products, you can treat your courses exactly like physical collections. You can put an entire "Beginner Series" of courses on sale while keeping your "Advanced Masterclass" at full price. This flexibility ensures that your promotional strategy remains sophisticated. We have seen brands use these strategies for selling over 4,000 digital courses natively by simply grouping them into promotional collections during peak shopping seasons.

The Power of Flash Sales and Limited-Time Offers

Urgency and scarcity are the two most powerful drivers in e-commerce. A sale that lasts "forever" is just a price drop, but a "24-Hour Flash Sale" is an event. When learning how to add sale on shopify, you must also learn how to manage the clock.

Shopify allows you to set start and end dates for your discounts. For a flash sale, you might set a discount to go live at midnight and expire at 11:59 PM the same day. To maximize the impact, use a countdown timer on your storefront. This visual cue reminds customers that the opportunity is slipping away.

For digital creators, flash sales are particularly effective because there is no inventory risk. If 10,000 people buy your course during a 4-hour window, you don't have to worry about the warehouse running out of stock. This scalability is why so many physical goods merchants are moving toward a hybrid model. If unifying your stack is a priority, start by a simple, all-in-one price for unlimited courses.

Promotion and Marketing: Getting the Word Out

Adding the sale to your Shopify backend is only half the battle. The other half is ensuring your audience knows about it. A successful sale requires a multi-channel marketing approach:

1. Email Marketing: Send an "Early Access" email to your VIP customers 24 hours before the sale goes public. This rewards loyalty and ensures you have a baseline of sales before the rush.
2. Social Media: Use Instagram Stories and TikTok to show "behind the scenes" prep for the sale. Use "Link in Bio" tools to direct traffic straight to the sale collection.
3. Site Banners: Use your Shopify theme's announcement bar to scream about the sale from every page.
4. SMS Marketing: For your most engaged fans, a quick text message about a flash sale can see open rates of over 90%.

Remember, the goal of the sale isn't just the immediate transaction. It’s an opportunity for retention strategies that drive repeat digital purchases. If a customer buys a discounted product today, how are you bringing them back tomorrow? By offering an engaging community or a drip-fed course alongside their purchase, you give them a reason to log back into your store every single day.

Technical Best Practices for Large Sales

When you're expecting a surge in traffic—such as during a major Black Friday event—your site's performance is paramount. Shopify is incredibly robust, but there are steps you can take to ensure a smooth experience:

• Test Your Discounts: Always run a test transaction using a "Bogus Gateway" or a real credit card (then refunding it) to ensure your discount codes and automatic discounts are firing correctly.
• Check Mobile Responsiveness: Over 70% of e-commerce traffic now comes from mobile. Ensure your "Sale" badges and banners don't obstruct the "Add to Cart" button on smaller screens.
• Inventory Accuracy: If you are running a deep discount on physical goods, ensure your inventory counts are 100% accurate. Overselling a sale item is a fast way to damage your brand's reputation.

For those selling digital products, these technical concerns are largely mitigated. With Tevello, you get predictable pricing without hidden transaction fees, meaning even if your sale goes viral and you sell thousands of courses, your platform costs stay the same. This stability allows you to focus on the marketing and customer service aspects of the sale rather than worrying about server crashes or "success fees" eating your profit.

Analyzing Sale Performance

Once the sale ends, the work isn't over. You must analyze the data to understand what worked and what didn't. Shopify’s "Analytics" section provides a "Sales by discount" report that is invaluable.

Look for the following metrics:

• Conversion Rate: Did the sale actually move the needle on conversions, or did it just lower the average order value (AOV)?
• Total Discount Amount: How much margin did you give up in exchange for the volume?
• New vs. Returning Customers: Did the sale attract new people to your brand, or did it just provide a discount to people who would have bought anyway?

The most successful merchants use sales as a "hook" to increase Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). For instance, how one brand sold $112K+ by bundling courses shows that the initial sale of a physical product can be the start of a much larger journey. If a customer buys a discounted knitting kit, and that purchase includes an "Introduction to Knitting" course hosted on Tevello, that customer is now much more likely to buy premium yarn and advanced patterns from you in the future.

Leveraging Shopify Scripts for Advanced Sales

For merchants on the Shopify Plus plan, Shopify Scripts offers a level of customization that goes far beyond standard discounts. Scripts allow you to write small pieces of code that run in the Shopify checkout. This enables complex logic like:

• "Buy two items from Collection A and get a free item from Collection B."
• "Tiered discounts: 10% off $50, 20% off $100, 30% off $150."
• "Free shipping for VIP customers only."

While most merchants can achieve their goals with standard Shopify features, Scripts are the "pro" level of how to add sale on shopify. Even if you aren't on Plus, many apps can mimic this functionality. However, we always recommend sticking to native Shopify features whenever possible to maintain site speed and security. Our "Native Shopify Integration" philosophy at Tevello mirrors this; we believe the best tools are the ones that feel like they were built into Shopify from day one.

Using Digital Products to Protect Your Brand Equity

One danger of running frequent sales is "brand dilution." If you are always on sale, your customers will never want to pay full price. They will simply wait for the next 20% off coupon. To combat this, you can use digital products to create value without "discounting."

Instead of a "20% off Everything" sale, try a "Bonus Bundle Week." Every purchase over $50 comes with a free digital guide or access to an exclusive webinar. This maintains your price integrity for the physical product while still giving the customer a high-value incentive to buy now.

This is a strategy used by some of the most successful creators on our platform. By securing a fixed cost structure for digital products, they can afford to be incredibly generous with their digital "bonuses." This keeps the brand feeling premium while still driving the urgency required for a successful promotion.

Native Shopify Integration: The Tevello Advantage

When you decide to expand your Shopify store into the world of digital learning, the technology you choose matters. Many platforms require you to send your customers away to a different website to access their courses. This breaks the "sale" experience. The customer just bought from "YourBrand.com" but now they have to log in to "SomeOtherPlatform.com/YourBrand."

We built Tevello specifically to solve this. We believe that you should own your customer data and your brand experience. When you install Tevello from the Shopify App Store today, you are adding a professional-grade Learning Management System (LMS) directly into your existing Shopify environment.

This native integration means that when you are setting up your sales, everything works together. Your Shopify discount codes apply to your courses. Your Shopify customers are your Tevello students. There is no manual syncing, no Zapier workarounds, and no technical headaches. It is a seamless ecosystem where digital products live directly alongside physical stock.

Building a Community Beyond the Sale

The ultimate goal of adding a sale on Shopify should be to build a community. A discount might get a customer through the door, but a community keeps them there. Tevello’s "Unlimited Plan" at $29.99 per month includes robust community features—member directories, social feeds, and profiles.

Imagine a merchant who sells gardening tools. They run a spring sale: "Buy a shovel, get access to our 'Green Thumb' Community." Now, instead of a one-time transaction, they have a platform where customers can share photos of their gardens, ask questions, and interact with the brand. This engagement drives recurring revenue and brand loyalty that no 10% off coupon can ever match.

The transition from a "store" to a "powerhouse" happens when you stop viewing sales as a loss of margin and start viewing them as an acquisition of a community member. By seeing how the app natively integrates with Shopify, you can see how easy it is to start building this for your own brand.

Setting Realistic Expectations

While a well-run sale can lead to a significant spike in revenue, it is important to set realistic expectations. Success in e-commerce is rarely a "get rich quick" scenario. It requires consistent effort, data analysis, and a commitment to customer value.

A sale is a tool to amplify your existing efforts. If you have no traffic and no brand presence, a 50% off sale will still result in zero sales. You must first focus on building your audience and creating products that people actually want. Once you have that foundation, learning how to add sale on shopify becomes the "turbocharger" for your business growth.

Our goal at Tevello is to provide you with the tools to build a sustainable, long-term business. We don't charge "success fees" because we want you to reinvest that money back into your marketing and product development. Whether you are selling your first course or managing 10,000 students, your costs remain predictable and transparent.

Conclusion

Learning how to add sale on shopify is a vital skill for any merchant looking to scale their business. From the simple "Compare-at price" to complex digital bundling strategies, the options are vast. By combining physical products with the high-margin, high-engagement world of digital courses and communities, you can create a unique shopping experience that stands out in a crowded market.

At Tevello, we are committed to helping you turn your Shopify store into a digital learning powerhouse. We offer an all-in-one ecosystem where physical goods and digital education live side-by-side on your own URL. With our Unlimited Plan for just $29.99 per month, you get unlimited courses, unlimited students, and 0% transaction fees. We believe you should keep 100% of what you earn.

You can start building your curriculum today without any financial risk. Take advantage of our 14-day free trial to explore all the features we’ve discussed, from drip content scheduling to community social feeds. To build your community without leaving Shopify, start by reviewing the Shopify App Store listing merchants install from.

FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions about Shopify Courses and Sales

1. Can I use Shopify discount codes for digital courses created with Tevello? Yes, absolutely. Because Tevello is natively integrated into Shopify, your courses are treated as standard Shopify products. Any discount code or automatic discount you create in your Shopify admin will work perfectly for your digital courses, allowing you to run flash sales or offer bundles with ease.

2. How does the "0% transaction fee" benefit work? Many platforms take a percentage of every sale you make (sometimes as high as 10%). Tevello does not. We charge a flat monthly fee of $29.99 for our Unlimited Plan. This means whether you sell one course or one thousand, you never pay us a penny more. You only pay your standard Shopify payment processing fees (like Shopify Payments or PayPal).

3. Do I need a separate website to host my online courses? No. One of the primary advantages of Tevello is that it keeps your customers on your own Shopify URL. You don't need to manage a separate WordPress site or a third-party LMS. This creates a much more professional and seamless experience for your students and keeps your brand front and center.

4. Can I offer a course for free as a "bonus" for buying a physical product? Yes, this is one of the most effective ways to use Tevello to drive sales. You can set up a Shopify automation (using Shopify Flow or a similar tool) to automatically grant access to a Tevello course whenever a specific physical product is purchased. This adds immense value to your "sale" without costing you anything in extra shipping or inventory.