locirodrawsstuff: Hey! I’ve been considering offering deals on the first day of a big anime convention, but was wondering what some good sales would be? I was thinking $10 prints (compared to $15) or a free pin of choice with any purchase, but are those too… big of deals? What are some Friday deals that have been successful for you (or some sales you’ve seen) in the past? Thanks so much! :D
Kiriska: I think those are fine? The extent of a deal and how appropriate it is will always be up to you, ultimately. This is definitely something you should play around with and see what works for you, your audience, your sales patterns, and what specifically you’d like to promote.
For example, someone who primarily deals in prints but who does a few buttons on the side may not get a lot of initial interest for a deal that where the purchaser gets a free button with a print purchase because it isn’t their main sell and the cross-product promotion isn’t helping them. But if buttons is something they want to push more, having a button-specific deal might benefit them, whether that’s having the buttons cheaper overall on Friday or having a buy x get y free deal that’s only applicable Friday. Again, it just depends on what you’re trying to do.
As I’ve said before, the only early bird deal I run is on color commissions. I do this specifically because I almost never fill up on commissions and because I really, really want to incentivise customers to buy color commissions earlier. Prints and other merch I can always bring with me to the next con, so I’m not usually concerned about pushing for those sales by discounting them and losing on margin. But the time I’m not spending on commissions at a con isn’t going to benefit me at the next con, so I want to push commissions.
And honestly, this early bird deal currently doesn’t do as well for me as I’d like, but I suspect it’s mainly because I’m not that great at pushing it. It’s on my commission signage, but it’s easy to miss among all the other info, and pushing the deal verbally is still a bit difficult for me. This is definitely the hardest part of any deal – informing customers that it’s a deal.
If you just price your prints for $10 on Friday but don’t mention that it’s a discount, no one’s going to know. You gotta really push the fact that it’s a limited time offer for it to catch on, and I think that matters a lot more than the specifics of the deal itself or the type of item it’s on.