Optimizing Your Profits: How to Do Sale Price on Shopify

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. The Core Concept: Price vs. Compare-at Price
3. Step-by-Step: Setting a Sale Price for a Single Product
4. Handling Sale Prices for Product Variants
5. Bulk Editing Sale Prices (The Fast Way)
6. The Psychology of Discounting: Why "Sale Price" Works
7. Beyond Physical Products: Sales for Digital Goods & Courses
8. Automating Sales: Scheduling and Automatic Discounts
9. Theme Customization: Displaying the Sale Badge
10. Strategic Sales: Increasing Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)
11. Case Studies: Success with Native Shopify Learning
12. Common Mistakes to Avoid When Setting Sale Prices
13. Leveraging a Flat-Rate Model for Growth
14. Strategic Upselling: Combining Sales with Bundles
15. Technical Tips for High-Traffic Sales
16. Conclusion
17. FAQ

Introduction

Did you know that according to consumer psychology research, nearly 93% of shoppers use a discount code or look for a sale price at least once a year? In the competitive world of e-commerce, the difference between a stagnant inventory and a sold-out storefront often comes down to how you present your value. It isn't just about lowering a number; it’s about the visual architecture of a "deal." When a customer sees a price slashed and a lower number beside it, their brain registers a "win," triggering the release of dopamine that often leads directly to a checkout confirmation.

As a Shopify merchant, mastering the mechanics of how to do sale price on Shopify is fundamental to your success. Whether you are clearing out seasonal physical stock or launching a limited-time offer on a digital masterclass, your ability to manipulate these price points determines your conversion rate and your brand’s perceived value. However, pricing is a double-edged sword. Done correctly, it builds urgency and rewards loyalty; done poorly, it can erode your margins and devalue your hard work.

In this comprehensive guide, we will walk you through the technical steps of setting sale prices for individual products and bulk collections. We will also explore the strategic "Compare-at price" logic that drives Shopify’s storefront displays. Beyond the basic mechanics, we will discuss how to integrate these strategies into a broader business model that includes high-margin digital products, courses, and memberships. At Tevello, our mission is to turn any Shopify store into a digital learning powerhouse, and understanding the nuances of pricing is the first step in creating an ecosystem where physical and digital products thrive together.

By the end of this article, you will have a clear, actionable roadmap for managing your store’s pricing strategy, ensuring that every discount you offer serves a specific purpose in growing your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).

The Core Concept: Price vs. Compare-at Price

Before we dive into the "how," we must understand the "what." Shopify uses two primary fields to manage sales: the Price and the Compare-at price.

The Price field is what the customer actually pays. It is the current, active value of the product. The Compare-at price is the original or "anchor" price. For a sale to appear correctly on your storefront—with the original price crossed out and a "Sale" badge visible—the Compare-at price must be higher than the Price.

If you set the Price to $20 and leave the Compare-at price empty, Shopify simply displays $20. If you set the Price to $20 and the Compare-at price to $30, Shopify’s liquid code recognizes the discrepancy. It then triggers the visual "Sale" styling, which typically includes a strike-through on the $30 and a bold highlight on the $20.

This psychological anchoring is vital. Without the higher anchor price, a customer has no context for the value they are receiving. They don’t know if $20 is the standard price or a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. By utilizing these fields correctly, you provide that context instantly.

Step-by-Step: Setting a Sale Price for a Single Product

For many merchants, especially those launching a new digital course or a specific physical item, the manual method is the starting point.

1. Navigate to Products: From your Shopify admin dashboard, click on "Products."
2. Select Your Item: Click the name of the product you wish to discount.
3. Find the Pricing Section: Scroll down until you see the "Pricing" card.
4. Enter the Sale Value: In the "Price" field, enter the new, lower amount you want to charge.
5. Enter the Original Value: In the "Compare-at price" field, enter the original price of the product.
6. Save: Click the "Save" button at the top or bottom of the screen.

This process is identical whether you are selling a physical t-shirt or a digital download. However, if you are looking to maximize your margins, consider how this applies to digital learning. For a merchant selling coffee beans, creating a 'Barista Basics' video course is a high-margin upsell that requires no shipping boxes. When you put that course on sale, your overhead remains zero, making the discount much easier to absorb than a discount on physical beans.

Handling Sale Prices for Product Variants

Many products come with choices—sizes, colors, or membership tiers. In Shopify, these are called variants. Each variant can have its own unique sale price.

If your product has variants, the Pricing section on the main product page will be replaced by a "Variants" list. You must click into each variant individually to set the Price and Compare-at price. This is particularly useful for "tiered" sales. For example, you might offer a "Basic Membership" at a small discount while keeping the "VIP Membership" at full price to maintain its exclusivity.

At Tevello, we believe merchants should own their customer data and brand experience. This is why our system allows these variants to trigger access to specific digital content automatically. If a customer buys the "Sale" version of a course variant, they are immediately enrolled in the same high-quality portal as full-price customers, ensuring no loss in user experience.

Bulk Editing Sale Prices (The Fast Way)

When Black Friday or a seasonal clearance arrives, editing products one by one is inefficient. Shopify provides a built-in Bulk Editor that is incredibly powerful for changing prices across dozens of items simultaneously.

1. Select Multiple Products: In the Products list, use the checkboxes to select all the items you want to put on sale.
2. Click "Bulk Edit": A bar will appear at the bottom or top of the list; select "Bulk edit."
3. Add Columns: If you don't see the "Compare-at price" or "Price" columns, click "Columns" in the top right and check those boxes.
4. Update Values: You can now click through the cells like a spreadsheet. Pro tip: You can click and drag the corner of a cell to apply the same price to multiple rows, or use copy-paste shortcuts (Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V).
5. Save Changes: Ensure you click "Save" before exiting the bulk editor.

For larger stores with thousands of SKUs, using a CSV export/import is the most robust method. You export your product list to Excel or Google Sheets, use formulas to calculate a 20% discount across the board, update the Price and Compare-at price columns, and then re-import the file to Shopify.

The Psychology of Discounting: Why "Sale Price" Works

Understanding how to do sale price on Shopify is only half the battle; the other half is understanding why you are doing it. Strategic discounting is built on three pillars:

1. The Power of Reciprocity

When you offer a discount, especially a "member-only" sale, you are initiating a cycle of reciprocity. Customers feel they are being given a special advantage, which often leads to higher brand loyalty. This is why many successful stores use all the key features for courses and communities to create exclusive areas where sales are announced first.

2. Urgency and Scarcity

A sale price is only effective if it feels temporary. If a product is "on sale" for 365 days a year, the sale price becomes the de facto price, and the Compare-at price loses its psychological weight. Use countdown timers on your storefront or clear "End Date" messaging in your marketing emails to drive action.

3. Lowering the Barrier to Entry

For high-ticket items, such as a comprehensive $500 certification course, a sale price can act as a "tripwire." It lowers the risk for a new customer to try your brand. Once they are inside your ecosystem—experiencing your content on a platform that keeps them keeping customers at home on the brand website—they are much more likely to purchase full-price items in the future.

Beyond Physical Products: Sales for Digital Goods & Courses

One of the most effective ways to use Shopify’s pricing features is by diversifying your revenue streams with digital products. While physical products have shipping costs and inventory limits, digital products like courses and memberships provide recurring revenue stability.

At Tevello, our "Native Shopify Integration" ensures a seamless checkout experience. When you set a sale price on a course in Shopify, that price is reflected in the standard Shopify checkout. There are no redirects to third-party sites that might look suspicious to a customer. They stay on your URL, use the payment gateways they already trust, and get immediate access to their learning dashboard.

If unifying your stack is a priority, start by a simple, all-in-one price for unlimited courses.

Our model is built for growth. While other platforms might penalize you for your success by taking a percentage of every sale, Tevello charges 0% transaction fees. This means that when you run a massive sale and move 1,000 units of a digital course, every cent of that revenue (minus Shopify’s standard gateway fee) stays in your pocket. This allows you to be much more aggressive with your sale pricing because you aren't calculating "success fees" into your margins.

Automating Sales: Scheduling and Automatic Discounts

If you want to run a sale that starts at midnight while you are asleep, Shopify’s manual price editing won't work unless you use third-party automation or Shopify’s "Automatic Discounts" feature.

Automatic Discounts vs. Manual Price Changes

It is important to distinguish between changing a product's price and applying an "Automatic Discount."

• Manual Price Change: You edit the Price and Compare-at price. This shows the "crossed-out" price on the product page.
• Automatic Discount: You create a rule (e.g., "Buy X, Get Y" or "20% off entire order"). This discount is applied only at the cart or checkout level.

Usually, for a "Sale Price" look, merchants prefer the manual price change because it is more visually apparent to the customer while they are browsing the collection. If you are on the Shopify Plus plan, you can use "Shopify Launchpad" to schedule these price changes. For everyone else, it is a manual process or requires a dedicated scheduling app from the Shopify App Store.

Theme Customization: Displaying the Sale Badge

Once you have updated your prices, you need to ensure your theme is doing its job. Most modern Shopify themes include a "Sale" badge or label. If yours does not appear, check your theme settings:

1. Go to Online Store > Themes.
2. Click Customize.
3. Navigate to a product page or a collection grid section.
4. Look for "Product Card" settings or "Labels."
5. Ensure "Show sale badge" is toggled on.

You can often customize the color of the badge to match your brand. A bright red badge might work for a "Flash Sale," while a subtle gold badge might be better for a premium brand’s "Annual Event."

Strategic Sales: Increasing Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)

Sales shouldn't just be about moving units; they should be about building a long-term business. We often see merchants focus solely on the first transaction. However, the true value of a Shopify store lies in recurring revenue and repeat purchases.

Consider the example of how one brand sold $112K+ by bundling courses. By using sale prices to make their initial bundles irresistible, they brought thousands of customers into their ecosystem. Once those customers were "in the door," the brand could offer subsequent products at full price, knowing the customer already trusted the quality of their digital content.

When you use predictable pricing without hidden transaction fees, you can reinvest those savings into your marketing. You can afford to spend more to acquire a customer on a "sale" item because you know your backend—your community and your courses—will keep them coming back.

Case Studies: Success with Native Shopify Learning

To understand the power of a unified Shopify experience, look at migrating over 14,000 members and reducing support tickets. When a merchant moves away from fragmented systems and brings their community and courses directly onto their Shopify store, the "Sale Price" strategy becomes even more potent.

Why? Because the customer only needs one login. If they see a sale on a new course, they can buy it in two clicks using their saved Shopify payment info. This frictionless experience is why we see such high conversion rates for merchants who use strategies for selling over 4,000 digital courses natively.

Furthermore, solving login issues by moving to a native platform means that when you run a sale, you aren't inundated with "I can't access my purchase" emails. Everything lives inside the Shopify ecosystem, handled by the same robust infrastructure that manages your physical sales.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Setting Sale Prices

Even experienced merchants can stumble when managing discounts. Here are the most frequent errors we see:

• Forgetting the Compare-at Price: As mentioned, if you only lower the Price, the customer sees no "deal." Always fill in both fields.
• Thin Margins on Physical Goods: Always calculate your shipping, packaging, and advertising costs before setting a sale price. This is where digital products offer a massive advantage; you can't "run out" of a digital course, and the margin is nearly 100%.
• Mismatch Between Ad and Storefront: If your Facebook ad says "50% off" but the product page only shows 30% because you forgot to update a variant, you will lose trust immediately.
• Legal Compliance: In some jurisdictions, there are strict rules about how long a product must be sold at the "Compare-at" price before it can be listed as "on sale." Ensure you are following local consumer protection laws.

Leveraging a Flat-Rate Model for Growth

As you scale your sales efforts, costs can spiral. Many digital platform apps charge per-user or per-student fees. This effectively taxes your growth. At Tevello, we reject this model. Our Unlimited Plan provides a flat-rate plan that supports unlimited members.

This is a game-changer for "how to do sale price on Shopify." If you know your platform costs are fixed at $29.99 per month, you can run a "90% off" sale to gain 5,000 new students without worrying about a massive bill from your course hosting provider at the end of the month. You keep 100% of your earnings, and your students get a world-class learning experience.

Before committing to a pricing strategy, we recommend checking merchant feedback and app-store performance signals to see how others have leveraged these tools to build sustainable, high-growth businesses.

Strategic Upselling: Combining Sales with Bundles

A "Sale Price" doesn't have to exist in a vacuum. One of the most effective strategies is to use a sale price as an incentive for a bundle.

Imagine you sell yoga mats. You could put the mat on sale for $40 (Compare-at $60). But even better, you could create a bundle: "The Pro Yoga Set." This includes the mat plus a "30-Day Morning Flow" video course. By putting the bundle on sale, you are increasing the Average Order Value (AOV) while introducing the customer to your digital community.

This creates a "sticky" customer. A customer who owns a yoga mat might buy their next one anywhere. A customer who is halfway through your 30-day course on your Shopify store is much more likely to buy their next block, strap, or advanced course from you.

Technical Tips for High-Traffic Sales

If you are expecting a massive surge in traffic (for example, during a holiday sale), Shopify is the most stable platform you can choose. However, there are a few technical housekeeping items to address:

1. Check Your Navigation: Ensure your "Sale" items are easy to find. Create a "Sale" collection and add it to your main menu.
2. Optimize Images: High-resolution images are great, but during a sale, speed is king. Ensure your product images are compressed so the page loads instantly on mobile devices.
3. Mobile-First Check: Most shoppers will see your sale on their phones. Before launching, go through the checkout process on a mobile device to ensure the sale prices and badges look correct.

By install Tevello from the Shopify App Store today, you can begin setting up these digital components and testing your pricing strategy with our 14-day free trial. You can build your entire curriculum, set your sale prices, and design your community space before you ever pay a cent.

Conclusion

Mastering how to do sale price on Shopify is a foundational skill that bridges the gap between a product existing and a product selling. By utilizing the Price and Compare-at price fields, you tap into powerful psychological triggers that drive consumer action. But as we have explored, the most successful merchants go beyond simple discounts. They use sales to introduce customers to a broader ecosystem of value—one that includes physical products, digital courses, and vibrant communities.

At Tevello, we are here to help you turn that vision into a reality. Our platform is designed to give you total control over your brand, your data, and your profits. With 0% transaction fees and a fixed-price model, we ensure that your hard-earned revenue stays with you, allowing you to focus on what you do best: creating incredible content and products for your customers.

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

FAQ

1. Can I put an entire digital course on sale in Shopify?

Yes! Since Tevello integrates natively with Shopify, your courses are treated as products. You can change the "Price" and "Compare-at price" in the Shopify admin just like you would for a t-shirt or a book. The discount will automatically appear on your storefront and in the customer's cart.

2. How do I schedule a sale for my digital products?

While Shopify doesn't have a built-in "scheduler" for standard plans, you can use automatic discounts to set a start and end time. Alternatively, many merchants use scheduling apps from the Shopify App Store to automatically update the "Price" and "Compare-at price" fields at a specific time, ensuring their digital course launch goes live exactly when planned.

3. Does a sale price affect how much I pay Tevello?

Not at all. One of the biggest advantages of our platform is that we charge 0% transaction fees. Whether you sell your course for $5 or $5,000, and whether it’s at full price or on sale, you keep 100% of your earnings. Your only cost is our simple, flat-rate monthly plan.

4. Will my students see the original price inside the course portal?

The Tevello student portal is designed to be a clean, focused learning environment. While the sale price and "Compare-at price" are used on the Shopify storefront to drive the purchase, the internal portal focuses on the content itself. However, you can use our community features to announce new sales or exclusive discounts to existing members, further increasing your store's LTV.