8 Lessons We Can Learn from Promo Sales

Promo fares, piso sale, and big discounts aren’t new these days. They’ve been around for a few years, especially with the popularity of e-commerce in the Philippines. The airline industry (Cebu Pacific, to be precise) actually popularized this marketing strategy with their monthly Piso Fare Sale and has since been adopted in many other markets.

We’ve all been excited and frustrated with every new promo sale as it feels like winning the lottery whenever we get to buy one (comes with the bragging rights as well). But with every new sale (whether it’s 11.11 or 12.12), we just can’t get our lessons right.

Here are eight lessons we need to learn from all these promo sales.

1) There’s always the fine print. Oftentimes, it’s not even in the fine print. The terms and conditions of the sale are hidden somewhere inconspicuous, so potential buyers don’t know the limitations of the sale. It could range from the validity of the sale (or tickets purchased), condition of the items (for open-box sale), expiry or non-transferability, the warranty of the item or service (or absence thereof), and many other conditions the merchant doesn’t really want you to know before hitting the “Add to Cart” button.

2) If it’s an online sale, better have a fast internet connection and be quick to Add to Cart. Everyone else and grandmother will be doing the same. Make sure your payment channel (credit card, GCash, PayPal) is set up and ready, and you have enough credits/balance to pay for it.

3) Online sales mean there will be tens of thousands of other potential buyers. The recent Php2,022USD 34INR 2,921EUR 33CNY 251 Acer Laptop sale had at one time over 42,000 visitors on their website during the peak of the sale period. That could potentially slow down or crash the website. Few people I know who are good at it always have multiple devices connected (PC, laptop, smartphone, tablet) all at once to make their chances of a successful check-out even better. This always happens with PAL or Cebu Pacific’s Piso Sale, so a lot of you are already familiar with this.

4) Sale items are limited. Very limited. We are told that some Piso Sale only has exactly one item available for sale, so your chances of getting it aren’t any better than winning a lottery.

Sales that happen in physical stores have limited items available per branch, but the merchant will never say how many and will let hundreds, even thousands, of would-be buyers line up as early as midnight just to get first dibs (remember the LG Optimus One Sale and the ZTE Grand tablet sale many years back).

5) Promo Sales that offer really huge discounts are a form of marketing strategy. This is to create awareness and virality of the product or service. The brand’s or merchant’s goal is to boost public awareness and not really to sell out their products at a big loss. As such, they will craft the mechanics of the sale to that effect. That’s the reason that will allow customers to line up for hours (for media PR) and not find a way to make the purchase as easy as possible. Otherwise, it will not generate as much impact as they intended. In short, the longer and crazier the line, the better. Some brands still believe that any publicity is still publicity. Unfortunately, this often becomes a recipe for disaster.

6) Promo sale is also a strategy for customers to buy products or services that they would not normally purchase if it wasn’t for the sale price. It’s called FOMO (fear of missing out). Airline promo fare sale capitalized on that, and it has since been the formula of group-buying sites for years until the fad wore out.

7) If it’s too good to be true, chances are it’s not really true. Some promo sales are unannounced, or some people just happen to stumble upon it. This happens a lot in large multi-merchant e-commerce sites like Lazada or Shopee. A product might originally be priced at Php99,999USD 1,704INR 144,459EUR 1,623CNY 12,410, but a typo error could unintentionally make it Php999.99USD 17INR 1,445EUR 16CNY 124. For the most part, even if you successfully added the item on your cart and paid for it at check out, the merchant can just unilaterally cancel the order and declare it out of stock.

8) You can always report to DTI. These promo sales require a DTI permit before they can be launched or offered to the public. If you feel you didn’t get a fair deal or treatment, you can always send a complaint to the Department of Trade and Industry, and they will mediate the issue for you.

We know a lot of people will never get tired of promo sale, piso sale, 11.11 sale, or whatever they’d call it. It’s addicting, we know. Only when we get tricked or (worse) scammed do we realize it is not worth it.