B2B Product Discounts: When and How to Use Them

B2B marketing is challenging—and today’s crowded marketplace is filled with tough competitors—but there are many ways to make your business stand out from all the rest, and offering product discounts is one of them.

Product discounts, even in the B2B sector, hold immense power in sales and marketing. In fact, the right discounts and offers can help you gain attention, drive revenue, and build customer loyalty.

According to research conducted by PriValEdge, companies that exercise good discount rules can see a 5% increase in volumes and a 60% increase in profit.

For the majority of B2B industries, product discounts represent a company’s largest marketing investment. For this reason, it’s important to have effective guidelines in place to ensure your discounts and offers create the value you actually want.

Let’s look at some of the most popular ways to offer product discounts with your online B2B store and how you can use them most effectively.

How and When to Use Product Discounts and Coupons to Drive Sales

Here are some of the flexible ways the B2B Wave eCommerce platform makes it easy for your online B2B store to boost sales with discounts and coupons.

Product discount

One of the most commonly used forms of discounting, the product discount offers your B2B customer an incentive in the form of a percentage reduction of a specific product’s value. You can choose to make the discount available only for a limited time if you wish, as well as apply the discount to any price list you create.

Online eCommerce stores often use a time-limited product discount to create a sense of urgency—if your customer doesn’t buy the product now at the discounted price, they know they’re likely to miss out on saving money if they wait and buy it later.

A great example of a product discount in action is when you have a product you want to promote, clear out, or reduce the inventory of by putting it on sale.

Product category discount

If you have a group of products within a specific category that you want to discount for a period of time, the product category discount is a perfect tool. The product category discount allows you to apply a percentage-based discount to an entire category of products in your online B2B storefront. You can also specify different discount percentages based on quantity volume breaks, as well as make your category discounts private to send only to specific customers.

A good example of the product category discount in action is when you want to promote seasonal goods in your product line at a specific time of year.

‍Customer discount

Another commonly used form of discounting is the customer discount, where you offer a flat discount to a specific customer on their whole order, with or without a minimum order quantity. When you want to boost loyalty with an existing customer or attract a new customer, offering a customer discount is an effective and strategic way of establishing and solidifying a strong relationship.

Price list discount

An alternative to the individual product discount, product category discount, and customer discount is the price list discount. With the price list discount, you can apply a discount to all products in your product line to any price list you create, or you can set rules for the discount that apply to a specific category(ies) or a specific product(s), or both. You can even make the price list private and send it only to specific customers.

Coupon

The coupon discounting option lets you generate a code that specifies a percentage or fixed dollar amount discount. You then make that coupon code available to all customers or to just a specific customer(s). You can also set a minimum order amount if you wish, as well as an expiry date for the coupon.

Getting Creative with Your Product Discounts

Better pricing doesn’t always mean dropping your prices instantly, and there is a subtle art to making it seem as though you’re offering a better price without sacrificing your bottom line. This is where offering discounts and coupons can really help your B2B online store achieve its revenue goals. Product discounts may not be the right strategy for your business in every situation, but when you manage them the right way, they are an effective way of driving online revenue and influencing customer loyalty.