How to Run a Sale on Shopify to Boost Your Revenue

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Preparing Your Shopify Store for a High-Traffic Sale
3. Choosing the Right Sale Structure
4. The Technical Execution: How to Run a Sale on Shopify
5. Scaling Your Sale with Digital Products and Memberships
6. Highlighting Your Sale for Maximum Visibility
7. Real-World Scenario: The Art Supply Store
8. Analyzing Sale Performance and Adjusting in Real-Time
9. Post-Sale Actions: Turning One-Time Buyers into Brand Advocates
10. Frequently Asked Questions
11. Conclusion

Introduction

Did you know that the global e-learning market is projected to reach a staggering $460 billion by 2026? While many Shopify merchants focus solely on the logistics of shipping physical boxes, the most successful brands are realizing that the most profitable "inventory" they own is actually their expertise. Imagine a fitness brand running a massive Black Friday sale. They might sell out of their premium resistance bands in hours, leaving potential revenue on the table because of supply chain limits. However, if that same brand offered a digital "30-Day Summer Sculpt" video course alongside those bands, their revenue potential would become infinite. There are no shipping delays, no "out of stock" labels, and no overhead for additional units sold.

The purpose of this blog post is to provide a masterclass on how to run a sale on Shopify that transcends simple discounts. We will cover the technical steps of setting up price reductions, the strategic selection of sale types, and the high-level integration of digital products to maximize your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). We will also explore how to move away from fragmented third-party platforms to keep your customers exactly where they belong: on your own domain.

Running a successful sale is not just about cutting prices; it is about creating a cohesive brand experience that combines physical products, community engagement, and digital learning. By the end of this guide, you will understand how to use the Shopify ecosystem to build a sustainable, recurring revenue model that keeps your profit margins healthy even during deep-discount events.

Preparing Your Shopify Store for a High-Traffic Sale

Before you click a single button in your Shopify admin, you must lay the groundwork. A sale without preparation is merely a recipe for technical glitches and customer service headaches. Preparation ensures that when the traffic arrives, your store is a well-oiled machine.

Conducting a Comprehensive Inventory Audit

For physical goods, your inventory levels dictate the boundaries of your sale. You must identify which items are "dead stock" (slow-moving items that take up warehouse space) and which are "hero products" (best-sellers that drive traffic).

For merchants using Tevello to offer digital products, the inventory "check" is slightly different. Instead of counting boxes, you are checking your content readiness. Are your video lessons polished? Are your workbooks downloadable? Because digital goods have 100% availability, they serve as the perfect "buffer" for when physical stock runs out. If a customer sees that your limited-edition yoga mat is sold out, a well-placed "Back to Basics" digital yoga course can save the conversion.

Setting Data-Driven Objectives

Are you trying to clear out last season's styles, or are you trying to acquire new customers who will stay for the long haul? If your goal is customer retention, a "Buy a Physical Product, Get a Free 7-Day Digital Trial" sale might be more effective than a flat 20% discount.

When we look at how one brand sold $112K+ by bundling courses, it becomes clear that the objective wasn't just a quick sale; it was about increasing the average order value by combining different types of value. Define your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) early. Are you measuring total revenue, new customer sign-ups, or the number of people joining your member directory?

Technical Stability and Site Speed

High-traffic sales can slow down your site. While Shopify handles the heavy lifting of hosting, your theme and third-party apps can create bottlenecks. Test your checkout flow. Ensure your navigation is intuitive. Most importantly, ensure that your customers don't have to navigate away to a different URL to access their purchases. At Tevello, our mission is to turn any Shopify store into a digital learning powerhouse while keeping the customer on your brand's domain. This prevents the "leaky bucket" syndrome where customers get lost during redirects to third-party course platforms.

Choosing the Right Sale Structure

Not every sale should look the same. The psychology of a "BOGO" deal is vastly different from a "Flash Sale." Choosing the right structure depends on your audience's behavior and your profit margins.

Percentage vs. Fixed Amount Discounts

Percentage discounts (e.g., 25% off) are universally understood and work exceptionally well for higher-priced items where the savings feel significant. Fixed amount discounts (e.g., $10 off) often perform better for lower-priced items or when you want to encourage a minimum spend (e.g., "$20 off orders over $100").

Buy One, Get One (BOGO) and Bundling

BOGO is the king of inventory clearance. However, the "Buy One, Get One" model is evolving. In the modern Shopify store, we see merchants bundling physical goods with digital experiences. For example, a merchant selling high-end garden tools can offer a "Mastering No-Dig Gardening" course as the "Get One" component. This costs the merchant zero in additional COGS (Cost of Goods Sold) while providing immense perceived value.

If unifying your stack is a priority, start by a simple, all-in-one price for unlimited courses. This allows you to experiment with unlimited bundles without worrying about rising costs as your sales volume grows.

Flash Sales and the Power of Urgency

Flash sales rely on a "blink and you'll miss it" window. They are excellent for re-engaging an email list or clearing out a specific product line in 24 to 48 hours. Using a countdown timer on your Shopify header can trigger the FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) necessary to drive immediate action.

The Technical Execution: How to Run a Sale on Shopify

Once the strategy is set, it is time to implement the sale within the Shopify Admin. You have several tools at your disposal, ranging from manual entries to automated rules.

Utilizing the Compare-At Price

The most common visual indicator of a sale is the strikethrough price. In your Shopify admin, under the "Pricing" section of any product, you will see a "Price" field and a "Compare-at price" field.

• Price: This is what the customer pays now.
• Compare-at price: This is the original, higher price.

When you fill both, Shopify automatically displays the discount on your product pages, often adding a "Sale" badge depending on your theme. This is a powerful psychological trigger that highlights the immediate value the customer is receiving.

Creating Manual Discount Codes

Manual codes (e.g., SAVE30) are perfect for segmented marketing. You might send a specific code to your VIP customers or "win-back" codes to people who haven't purchased in six months. Shopify allows you to set specific parameters for these codes, such as:

• Minimum purchase requirements.
• Usage limits (e.g., one use per customer).
• Specific dates for the code to be active.

Setting Up Automatic Discounts

Automatic discounts are applied at checkout without the customer needing to type anything. These are ideal for storewide events. They reduce friction, ensuring that every visitor gets the deal. However, remember that Shopify typically limits the number of automatic discounts that can be active at one time, so plan your "Buy X Get Y" or "Percentage" rules carefully.

Bulk Editing for Large Inventories

If you have 500 products, you cannot update them one by one. Shopify’s "Bulk Editor" allows you to select multiple products and change their prices and compare-at prices in a spreadsheet-style interface. For even larger catalogs, using a CSV upload or a dedicated bulk-editing app is the way to go.

When managing a large volume of digital content, you need a system that doesn't penalize your growth. We offer predictable pricing without hidden transaction fees, ensuring that whether you are discounting 10 courses or 1,000, your software overhead remains the same.

Scaling Your Sale with Digital Products and Memberships

The most significant advantage of the Shopify ecosystem is the ability to diversify your revenue streams. When you learn how to run a sale on Shopify, you shouldn't limit yourself to physical inventory.

Digital Courses as High-Margin Upsells

Consider a merchant selling coffee beans. Running a sale on beans is great, but the margins are tight. By creating a "Home Barista Basics" video course using Tevello, the merchant can offer a "Starter Bundle": a bag of beans, a hand grinder, and the digital course.

The digital course has all the key features for courses and communities, including drip content and quizzes. During a sale, this bundle looks like a massive discount to the customer, but for the merchant, the high-margin digital component protects the overall profitability of the order.

Membership Models for Recurring Revenue

Sales are often "one and done" events. To turn a sale into long-term stability, consider offering a discount on a membership subscription. Instead of 20% off a single product, offer 20% off the first three months of a "VIP Community" membership. This builds brand loyalty and provides recurring revenue that lasts long after the sale event ends.

Many merchants struggle with fragmented systems where their community is on one platform and their store is on another. We focus on solving login issues by moving to a native platform, which ensures that a customer who buys a physical product and a membership during a sale can access everything with one single account on your Shopify store.

Highlighting Your Sale for Maximum Visibility

You could have the best deals in the world, but if nobody sees them, your revenue will remain stagnant. Marketing your sale requires a multi-channel approach.

Announcement Banners and Pop-ups

Your homepage should scream "Sale" from the moment a visitor lands. A top-bar announcement banner is essential for communicating the core offer (e.g., "Free Shipping and 20% Off All Digital Guides!"). Pop-ups can be used to capture email addresses in exchange for an even deeper "early access" discount, building your list for future promotions.

Email Marketing Sequences

Do not just send one email. A successful sale campaign usually involves:

1. The Teaser: 48 hours before the sale, hinting at what's coming.
2. The Launch: An announcement as soon as the sale goes live.
3. The Reminder: Highlighting specific "Hero" products or "Best of Digital" courses.
4. The Last Chance: Sent 4-6 hours before the sale ends to trigger urgency.

Social Proof and Community Engagement

During a sale, customers look for reasons to trust you. Highlight reviews and testimonials. If you have a community feed, encourage members to share what they bought. This social proof is invaluable. By providing a unified login that reduces customer support friction, you make it easy for customers to jump from your "Sale" page into your "Community" area to see what others are saying about your digital products.

Real-World Scenario: The Art Supply Store

Let’s look at how a practical business applies these strategies. Imagine "The Painter’s Palette," a Shopify store selling brushes, canvases, and paints.

For their Spring Sale, they want to clear out older brush sets. They set a compare-at price for the brushes. To make the sale irresistible, they use Tevello to create a "Watercolor for Beginners" course.

Instead of just selling brushes at 30% off, they offer a "Beginner Artist Bundle." It includes the brushes and the course for one flat price. They use strategies for selling over 4,000 digital courses natively to ensure the checkout flow is seamless. The result? They move their physical inventory faster because of the added value of the course, and they acquire a new group of students who will likely return to buy more paint in the future.

Analyzing Sale Performance and Adjusting in Real-Time

A sale is a living thing. You must monitor your Shopify Analytics dashboard closely throughout the event.

Key Metrics to Watch

• Conversion Rate: If your traffic is high but conversions are low, your discount might not be compelling enough, or your checkout process might be too complex.
• Average Order Value (AOV): Are people just buying the one discounted item, or are they exploring your digital add-ons?
• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) vs. Lifetime Value (LTV): If you are spending heavily on ads to drive sale traffic, ensure the customers you are bringing in have a path to becoming repeat buyers.

Making On-the-Fly Adjustments

If a particular product isn't selling, don't be afraid to change its position on the homepage or increase the discount. If your digital "Intro" course is flying off the shelves, consider upselling those buyers to a "Masterclass" bundle halfway through the sale.

When comparing plan costs against total course revenue, you should look at how much you are saving by avoiding transaction fees. Unlike other platforms that take a percentage of your hard-earned sale revenue, we believe you should keep 100% of your earnings. This gives you more "margin for error" to experiment with deeper discounts to win over new customers.

Post-Sale Actions: Turning One-Time Buyers into Brand Advocates

The work doesn't end when the countdown timer hits zero. The post-sale period is the most critical time for building long-term loyalty.

Seamless Fulfillment and Access

For physical goods, get those tracking numbers out fast. For digital goods, the access must be instantaneous. Because we believe in seeing how the app natively integrates with Shopify, your customers should receive an automated email that allows them to log in to your store and start learning immediately. There should be no "Where is my login?" support tickets.

The "Thank You" Sequence

Send a follow-up email a few days after the sale. Don't sell anything. Simply ask how they are enjoying their purchase. If they bought a digital course, ask if they have completed the first lesson. This personal touch differentiates you from faceless big-box retailers.

Migrating and Unifying Your Data

If the sale brought in a flood of new users, now is the time to ensure your system is scalable. Many merchants come to us after migrating over 14,000 members and reducing support tickets. They realized that having their customers split between three different apps was a nightmare. By unifying your digital and physical sales on Shopify, you own your customer data and can market to them more effectively in the future.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I run a sale on digital products and physical products at the same time?

Yes! Shopify allows you to set discounts across your entire catalog. By using a "Native Shopify Integration," you can ensure that a single discount code applies to both a physical t-shirt and a digital training video in the same cart. This creates a unified experience for the customer and simplifies your backend management.

Will running a sale hurt my brand's perceived value?

Not if done strategically. Instead of "cheapening" your products, frame the sale as a "Welcome Event" or an "Anniversary Celebration." Incorporating high-value digital content (like a "Getting Started" guide) actually increases the perceived value because you are providing education alongside the physical item.

How do I handle "Compare-At" prices for items already on sale?

In the Shopify admin, you can simply update the "Price" field to a lower number while keeping the "Compare-at price" the same. If you want to end the sale, you just move the "Compare-at price" value back into the "Price" field and clear the "Compare-at" box. This is easy to do in bulk for your entire course catalog.

What is the advantage of 0% transaction fees during a big sale?

During a high-volume sale, even a 2% or 3% "success fee" from a third-party platform can eat thousands of dollars of your profit. By choosing a plan with predictable pricing without hidden transaction fees, you ensure that as your sales volume spikes, your software costs stay flat. You keep every penny of the extra revenue you generated through your hard work.

Conclusion

Learning how to run a sale on Shopify is a fundamental skill for any e-commerce entrepreneur. It is the lever you pull to clear inventory, acquire new customers, and inject cash flow into your business. However, the most successful Shopify stores are those that look beyond the simple discount. They are the brands that turn their expertise into digital products, build thriving communities, and keep their customers engaged on their own brand's URL.

By combining the technical power of the Shopify admin with the high-margin potential of digital courses and memberships, you create a business that is resilient and scalable. Remember to prepare your store thoroughly, choose a sale structure that protects your margins, and market your offer with urgency and social proof. Most importantly, focus on the post-sale experience to turn those one-time bargain hunters into lifelong brand advocates.

Our Unlimited Plan is designed to support this growth. For $29.99 per month, you get unlimited courses, unlimited students, and unlimited video hosting—all with 0% transaction fees. We provide the tools for drip scheduling, quizzes, and community features to ensure your digital products are just as professional as your physical ones.

Start your 14-day free trial and build your first course now to see how easy it is to add a new revenue stream to your store before your next big sale. Build your entire curriculum, set up your community, and test the checkout flow without paying a cent during the trial period.

To build your community without leaving Shopify, start by reviewing the Shopify App Store listing merchants install from.