The point of discounts, as with any form of advertising is to entice customers to use your service or shop at your business.
Sometimes offering a discount to new customers allows them to try your service or products for a lower price. If customers like the service or product enough, they will happily come back to your business again and again. An even better outcome is that they will tell their friends about it!
Discounts can be given for multiple reasons. For instance, there are discounts for signing up for an e-mail list, for being a new customers, for spending a certain amount of money, for having a birthday, for buying products from last season. There are multiple methods of discounting and each one will bring in a different customer base.
If you are already comfortable with your customer level and you just want them to shop more frequently, discounts offer them a reason to return. I rarely shop at a grocery store across town, because I have plenty of stores to choose from on my side of town. Occasionally, the grocery store across town offers a discount that I just can't pass up, so I travel that much further to pick up those items. I'll also do the rest of my grocery shopping while I'm over there for convenience. This is a discount to bring in an already existing customer base.
Some businesses need new customers. While living at a set of apartments, I encouraged one of my friends to rent in the same complex. When she did rent, I received a discount on my rent and she received a discount on her first month's rent. This referral discount brought in a new customer, while also rewarding an existing customer. This kind of discount encourages word-of-mouth advertising.
When you decide to use a discount, take a minute to think about the purpose of that discount. If your goal is to bring in new customers, reward the customers you already have or sell off a product more quickly, you'll have different discounts available to each category.
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