Coupon codes like any other sales promotion technique has its share of pros and cons. One of their major benefits of these codes is that they allow customers to make substantial savings on their purchases. These coupons are primarily perceived as temporary trade discounts as against a long term price reduction. As a result, the withdrawal of the coupons does not have an adverse impact on the sales. Additionally, they also have the power to fetch more traffic to the retailer sites that can even double or triple the value of manufacturer coupons, at their own expense in a bid to generate more traffic. Today within the scope of this post we’ll learn how companies have utilized the online vouchers to boost their profits. But before that, let’s take a look at some concerns surrounding them as well.
Demerits of Coupon Codes
While it’s true that companies have very intelligently incorporated the coupon codes in their marketing strategy realizing their immediate benefits in the modern e-commerce landscape, they do have their share of risks as well. In fact, critics of the online vouchers have put several questions to the fore. While some of them have questioned whether at all this technique is successful in triggering incremental business from new users or not, there are others who fear that the outrageous distribution of coupons may even lead to misredemption. Most of them opine that the vouchers introduced by well known brands are only explored, utilized or redeemed by loyal users who would have purchased the item without the coupons as well.
In a bid to avert chances of fraud or misredemption you should ensure that you’re availing trustworthy websites like www.dealcatcher.comand discount-monster.co.uk
How have Businesses Used Coupon Codes?
Now the online vouchers are part of the crucial marketing techniques adopted by businesses. Not only are they used to encourage regular customers to make substantial savings and redirecting customer traffic to websites of retail stores, but they are also utilized for converting trial users to the regular ones by means of introducing cents off coupon as a sample. Coupons have been historically successful in encouraging customers to try out new items by minimizing the risks inherently associated with this kind of practices (read trying out new products). Some of the leading businesses distribute special discount offers to partners so that they can be further introduced to their audiences. The “partners” in this case, enthused by the promises of commission, embark on full-fledged promotions of the offers.
There are various ways (read both online and offline) employed by companies to distribute these coupons including:
- On pack or in pack
- Print media
- Direct mails
- Retailer advertising
- Others
Generally those offered via direct mails provide higher discount rates than that offered by retailer advertising. Coupon mailer remains one of the most popular ways of distribution vouchers by small businesses.
Even if coupons can’t exactly be termed as unassailable profit spinners for businesses, they can be explored for tracking customer behavior online. You can even create custom codes for your partners and then experiment with variant discount formats in a bid to maximize conversions which are based on real data.