Made on
Tilda
A good sale has two jobs at once: make more money now without destroying the perceived value of your product.
If customers come away thinking your regular price was inflated and that they should always wait for a discount, you may gain short-term sales but make future sales harder.
A strong sale should give customers a clear benefit while preserving trust in the brand, the product and its regular price.
Today it is not enough to write “70% off” in red and place a countdown timer next to it. Customers compare prices, remember previous promotions and check whether the price was artificially raised before the sale.
As a result, a deep discount creates not only a desire to save money, but also another question: is this genuinely a good deal or just a marketing trick?
At the same time, the demand for good deals has not disappeared. According to DHL’s 2025 global study, a significant share of consumers shop during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and discounts and savings remain among the main motivators.
So the problem with modern sales is not that people no longer want discounts. The problem is that they want savings they can trust.
It seems intuitive that the lower the price, the more people will want to buy. Research shows that this logic does not always hold.
In a study of nearly 20,000 Groupon deals, researchers found that increasing an already deep discount could reduce sales in some categories. One possible reason is that an unusually low price can increase doubts about quality.
This is especially important in categories where customers cannot fully evaluate the result in advance: services, beauty and cosmetic treatments, education, complex products, electronics and premium goods.
If a cosmetic treatment normally costs ₽15,000, offering it for ₽2,990 may create more than excitement. Some customers may question the quality of the materials, the specialist’s qualifications or the real cost of the service.
If a handbag brand sells a model for ₽18,000 for months and then suddenly drops the price to ₽4,500, loyal customers may reconsider what the product is actually worth.
If a program is listed at ₽80,000 all year but is sold for ₽19,900 every couple of months, the audience gradually starts treating ₽19,900 as the real price and simply waits for the next promotion.
One of the biggest mistakes happens before the discount is even discussed: businesses choose what to put on sale based on company priorities rather than the customer’s current need.
Often, the promotion is built around whatever has been selling poorly, sitting in stock, is easiest to launch technically or needs to be monetized quickly.
Customers think differently. They do not care about your inventory situation. They care about the specific problem your offer will solve for them.
A beauty brand does not have to discount its entire catalog. It can bundle several products into a ready-made solution, such as a winter skin-repair set or a New Year gift set.
The customer gets a clear reason to choose the offer, while the business is not just selling “three jars for less” but a solution to a specific situation.
A beauty studio does not have to slash the price of its core service. Instead, it can create a package with a consultation, the main service and an add-on treatment, so the offer feels special without making the regular price look inflated.
One of the most useful pre-sale tests is simple: if you remove the discount from the page, is there still a clear reason to buy the product?
A strong offer explains what problem the customer will solve, why the format is right for them, why they should choose this brand and what makes buying now especially worthwhile.
A sale can produce record revenue and still leave the business with less money than a normal month if the discount eats into margin while additional costs rise with order volume.
During a promotion, costs can rise at the same time across advertising, payment fees, packaging, delivery, sales staff, bonuses, customer support and service fulfillment.
If you cut the price by 30%, the product will cost ₽3,500. After cost of goods and logistics, only ₽700 remains, so you need to sell significantly more units to preserve the same absolute profit.
A service has no physical product cost, but that does not mean delivery is free. In a service business, the real cost includes specialist time, labor, consumables, fees and other variable expenses.
If you cut the price by 40%, the customer pays ₽4,800. But labor, materials and other costs do not get cheaper. After paying them, the business has only ₽1,100 left.
And if the promotion brings twice as many customers, you will also need roughly twice as much labor time, consumables and operational capacity. That is why service businesses should calculate not only bookings and revenue, but how much money actually remains after all sold services are delivered.
The same logic applies to consulting, photography, repairs, tutor-supported education, medical services and other businesses where specialist time and variable costs are involved.
One person may have followed your product for six months, another discovered your brand yesterday, a third has already bought from you and is ready for the next level, while a fourth does not yet understand why they need your category at all.
If everyone sees the same message and the same product, part of your audience has to figure out for themselves why the offer is relevant to them.
A new customer can be offered a ready-made essentials set.
A returning customer – early access, a gift or a special bundle.
A high-value customer – a multi-item bundle with an extra benefit.
A new client may be offered a consultation or introductory visit.
An existing client – a multi-visit package.
A loyal client – a gift certificate or an upgraded service.
The goal is not to create fifteen pricing tiers. It is to understand the main customer situations and match each one with a clear solution.
A weak nurture sequence is built almost entirely around the deadline: “Black Friday is coming,” “three days left,” “we launch tomorrow,” “last five hours.”
A deadline answers only one question: “why now?” Before that, the customer needs to understand why anything should change, why the problem matters and why your solution is the right fit.
Strong pre-sale content first makes the customer’s problem relevant, shows the cost of doing nothing, demonstrates the approach and provides proof. Only then does it increase desire with a special offer and a time limit.
Even if the marketing worked and the customer is interested, the money is not in the business yet. There are still several steps between interest and payment, and people can drop off at each one.
A customer may not understand the difference between packages, fail to find an answer to an objection, run into an inconvenient checkout, not see a suitable delivery option, or simply decide to come back later and forget.
For product businesses, check size availability, delivery timing and cost, returns and stock. For services, plan booking, available slots, deposits, rescheduling and gift-certificate rules in advance.
Businesses often judge a promotion by a few days of revenue, but it is just as important to understand how it will affect customer behavior after the regular price returns.
If customers see deep discounts too often, they quickly learn to postpone purchases until the next promotion. The special offer stops speeding up decisions and starts teaching people to wait.
Consumer-behavior research increasingly points to promotion fatigue. When special offers become the default way of selling, the sale itself stops feeling like an event.
Customers need to understand not only how much they save, but why that special benefit exists.
A weak setup looks like this:
A stronger setup combines several elements:
That is why a sale is a good stress test for your marketing as a whole. If the product, audience understanding, offer, content or customer journey is weak, a discount may temporarily hide the problem but it will not solve it.
Answer eight questions based on what you actually have right now. At the end, you will see your main risk areas and what you should strengthen first.
In a few weeks, there will be another natural reason for a special offer: New Year bundles, gift certificates, service packages, seasonal products and limited-time terms.
So instead of simply planning another discount, you can review your product, offer, content and customer journey now and build the next promotion deliberately.
Sometimes growth requires improving just one element, such as rebuilding the offer, changing the content or removing leaks on the path to payment.
If several weak points exist at once, a single tool will only create a local improvement because the next weak element will start limiting the result again.
You still have time to prepare your marketing before the New Year season and run the next sale with a clear system instead of relying on luck.