Flash Promotions - How they can work for your business

10th Dec. 2015

Flash promotions, sometimes also known as deal of the day, are special, deeply discounted sales that run for a specified period, usually 24 to 36 hours. These types of eye-catching promotions were originally used as marketing tools to generate more traffic to a web-site and build brand image. Many flash promotions were done through so-called ‘daily-deal operators’, which promote the flash sale widely and in return share the revenue with the web-site operator. However, many shopping web-site operators found themselves making losses with these types of deep discount deals and are now moving away from this model.

Instead, merchants are using targeted flash promotions, aimed specifically at existing customers or new customers. Building brand loyalty is becoming more important than attracting one-off buyers. This means sending emails or messages via social networking sites on flash sales to existing customers. These sales run for a fixed period of time, usually a maximum of 24 hours, some shorter, such as several hours. 

Flash sales are a good way of reducing inventory on specific products, as well as attracting web-site traffic during a fixed period of time. However, merchants need to be ready to respond to flash sales properly, with extra staff on hand to handle increased orders and queries. Specifically attracting consumers via flash sale and then disappointing them with bad service will quickly alienate consumers. And to top it off, nowadays bad reviews spread quickly and can have a negative impact on retailers.

A lot of research has been done on the value of flash promotions and the bottom line is that consumers are looking for good deals, but not necessarily rock bottom prices. This means that retailers do not need to offer big loss-making deals to promote their products, but attractive deals, especially to existing customers to reward their loyalty. This way, both retailers and consumers win.