How to run a sale without training customers to wait

Export last year's orders and split them into full price and discounted, month by month. Then look at the weeks just before each sale. If orders dip before a sale and jump during it, customers are already timing you. Write down the share of orders at full price; that is the number this whole plan is trying to raise.

Pick the sales you will run and put them on the calendar now: end of season to clear stock, your anniversary, Black Friday. A reason customers can understand makes a sale feel like an event rather than a habit. Sales that come at the same few points each year are easier on your full price than codes that turn up at random, because nobody needs to wait for a sale that is months away.

Frequency also has legal weight in some markets. If you sell into the EEA and cut prices more than once in 30 days, you have to think about which earlier price you are allowed to compare against. source, checked 28 September 2026

Keep your core products, the ones people come back for, out of most sales or at a shallow discount. Put end-of-line stock, last season's colours and slower sellers at the deeper cuts. A gift with purchase or a bundle can make a sale feel generous without cutting the price of the product people would have bought anyway.

A struck-through price is a claim. In the UK the regulator's view is that a genuine reference price is one you expected to sell at, and usually did, in significant numbers. A price you listed for a week so you could discount from it does not qualify, and if a product has spent longer on sale than off, the sale price has become the real price. source, checked 28 September 2026

In the EEA the rule is more mechanical: when you announce a reduction, show the lowest price you charged in the previous 30 days or more. In the US, the FTC applies its usual truthfulness standard to sale claims and points to its Guides Against Deceptive Pricing. source, checked 28 September 2026

For a crossed-out price on product and collection pages, set the product's Compare-at price to the genuine earlier price and lower the Price field. The compare-at value has to be higher than the price or the sale does not display. A discount, by contrast, shows its saving at checkout but not on product pages unless you add an app. source, checked 28 September 2026

Check every variant. If some variants have a compare-at price and others are blank or set to zero, the collection page will not show the product as on sale even though some variants are. source, checked 28 September 2026

Announce the end date and end the sale on that date. Extending it by a day because it went well teaches everyone that deadlines move. The same goes for countdown timers: the UK regulator took action against a retailer over clocks that gave shoppers a false sense of urgency, and made it commit to clocks that do not mislead about acting quickly. source, checked 28 September 2026

Most of the emails in your monthly email calendar should sell without a discount: new products, how-to content, reviews, restocks. Reward loyal customers with things that are not money off, such as early access to a launch or a small gift in their next order. When every email carries a code, the email itself teaches people to wait for the next one.

When the sale ends, clear the compare-at prices, end any codes, and remove banners the same day. A month later, compare the share of full-price orders in the four weeks after the sale with the four weeks before it. If full-price orders recover, the sale did its job. If they stay low, the next sale should be smaller or later.