Retail Discounts and Loss Leaders

Comments discuss retailer strategies using discounts, coupons, and loss leaders to attract customers, enable tracking, manipulate perceptions of value, and encourage upsells or higher spending.

➡️ Stable 0.6x Startups & Business
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Keywords

SEO e.g i.e BOGO PayPal QFC wikipedia.org coupons discount coupon discounts loss walmart honey leader store products

Sample Comments

mesozoic Oct 3, 2022 View on HN

They pay you a discount to be allowed to track you while shopping.

BossHogg Apr 22, 2024 View on HN

You forgot "give customer a meaningful discount for doing the labor of checkout."

alwayslikethis May 19, 2023 View on HN

Can't this by circumvented by giving cash customers with a discount? It's like how things are sometimes offered interest-free, but a discount is given if you pay for it outright.

yesplorer Jul 6, 2020 View on HN

perhaps they are banking on the person buying other profitable items while in the store for gift cards.

ChrisRR Apr 1, 2025 View on HN

Because people will buy things if they think they're getting a bargain, even if it's a totally fake discount

Godel_unicode Nov 1, 2018 View on HN

What value are you getting for the discount and convenience you're giving up?

scrimps Apr 28, 2020 View on HN

You mean a like a loss leader?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_leader

malfist Sep 10, 2023 View on HN

That's because it's a loss leader to get you into their system

nekgrim Feb 13, 2014 View on HN

"Don't do discounts, but bundle and sale other people's discounts."

freehunter Jun 5, 2017 View on HN

I'm trying to show a progression from "discounts" to "more discounts" to "we'll give it to you free just to get more 'sales'" That's why I called it a natural conclusion.The only difference between giving someone a coupon to entice them to buy something from you and buying it yourself is how much money you're losing in the short term. It's on the same spectrum, just at different ends.