E-Commerce Trends Guide to Strike-through Pricing to Boost Sales during Amazon Peak Season

For Amazon consumers, product price is an important factor in making a purchase decision. As an Amazon seller, planning and implementing pricing strategy is crucial to the success of your Amazon business. Amazon is a marketplace with tons of sellers competing for the attention of potential customers. In such a competitive world, one strategic tool can make all the difference. One strategic tool that Amazon sellers often use is "strike-through pricing". This simple but effective tool can be a game-changer when it comes to attracting customers and driving sales. In this article, we will cover what a "strike-through pricing" is, how to set this pricing on Amazon, and how it works as a tool to boost sales.

1) Strike-through pricing
Strike-through pricing is a sales strategy that displays the original price of a product next to the discounted price. This can be an effective way to increase sales by making it clear to potential customers that they are getting a good deal.

On Amazon, strike-through pricing is performed by crossing out the list price and displaying the discounted price next to it, along with the discounted information. Strike-through pricing can help consumers understand the value of a discounted price offered by a seller and can thus increase sales.^[2]

2) How strike-through pricing works
When an Amazon consumer sees one product with a strike-through price and one without, their eyes are immediately drawn to the lower price. This is because most of all, strike-through pricing creates a sense of urgency in the consumer, making them feel like they have to make a decision quickly because the discount may not last for a long time and the sale quantity is limited. Second, it also creates a sense of fear, like you are going to miss out on a good deal, and you are going to lose money if you don't get it. These factors can drive the consumer's buying behavior to make a purchase decision. ^[3][4] On Amazon, strike-through pricing can be used in search results and product detail pages to drive consumers to purchase without any interruption.
Consider two trumpets below with similar product descriptions that are being sold on Amazon for the same price of $119.

The green-colored $20 off coupon badge garners attention in both products.
The strike-through price clearly catches the eyes of consumers in the pricing information of the product detail page. Let's take a look at the detail page of the example product below.

The pricing information in the detail page for a product with a strike-through price shows the discount information -20% in red text and the current sales price, with the list price crossed out. The price information for normal price products shows only the current sales price.
Now that you know how strike-throughs appear in Amazon search results and in the product detail page, let's take a look at how to apply strike-through pricing.

3) Setting of Amazon strike-through pricing that appeals to consumers
Amazon offers more detailed product pricing information to its consumers, especially competitive pricing information. There are three main forms of strike-through pricing: one that displays the discount percentage, one that displays the discount percentage with a deal badge, and finally, the most visually striking form, which displays the "Lowest Price in 30 Days" badge and the discount percentage. Let's take a look at the example of a strike-through pricing with a 30-day lowest price badge.

Amazon Strike-through Pricing Workflow Adjusting the price of your Amazon products can be done by editing the listing information for each product. To edit the listing information for an individual product, first go to the Manage Inventory page by selecting "Manage All Inventory" from the Amazon Seller Central inventory menu. On the Manage Inventory page, select the products that you want to reprice.

On the listing page for the selected product, you can see the price adjustment section under the Offer tab. Set the price discount to a sales price that applies for a certain period of time.

Key to setting a strike-through price: Price discount must be at least 5% Importantly, the "Lowest Price in 30 Days" badge should appear on the price information of detail page, but sometimes the badge does not appear even if sellers set the best price for 30 days. In some cases, the discounted price is displayed with no strike-through and no discount information.

According to Amazon's guidance, the only information available is "the lowest featured offer price for the item sold on Amazon in the past 30 days."[5] There is no specific guidance on when the badge will appear for the lowest price within a certain discount range.

Based on our consulting experiences, the badge appears at "the offer price discounted by 5% or more". As this is merely a rule of thumb and may not apply to all categories of products, it is recommended to use this only as a reference.

The product in this example has a current price of $127.9 but has been sold at a discounted price in the past. Therefore, the price shall be set at $108 with a 5% discount from $113.99. You may try adjusting the price by 5% or less to verify that the badge actually displays at the 5% discount.

[Example of strike-through pricing]

1. Current selling price: $127.9
2. Previous discounted price: $113.99
3. Test 1 Price with a 5% discount or more: $108
4. Test 2 Price with a 5% discount or less: $109.9

Let's start with Test 1, which has adjusted price with a discount of 5% or more.
On the Amazon search result page, the price information shows a discount percentage and the price information in the product detail page shows a strike-through price with the "Lowest Price in 30 Days" badge.

Let's look at Test 2 for price with a discount of 5% or less.
If the price is reduced by 5% or less, then only the discounted price information is displayed without the strike-through price.

Clearly, the strike-through pricing is a valuable tool that Amazon sellers can use to increase Amazon sales. While the strategy is fairly easy to implement by tapping into the psychological triggers of consumers, the visual impact it can have on consumers’ purchase behavior is dramatic. However, there is one thing sellers must keep in mind: The strike-through pricing must be used in an ethical manner. The strategy should be regarded as a tool to make it clear to consumers that they are getting a good deal. If you are transparent with product pricing and use the information as a way to clearly deliver more benefits to your customers, you will see great results. We hope that these tips will help you increase your click-through and conversion rates, which in turn will increase your sales. # References [1] Price Strategy You Must Know to Successfully Launch Products on Amazon, Cello Square
https://www.cello-square.com/kr-ko/blog/view-862.do
[2] Show a reference price on your products by providing a List Price, Amazon
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/G27XM55CQM3SBMD2
[3] Create Strike-Through Price on Amazon – Boost Your Sales with STP, ecomclips
https://ecomclips.com/blog/create-strike-through-price-on-amazon-boost-your-sales-with-stp
[4] The Ultimate Guide to Strikethrough Pricing for Amazon Listings, onramfunds
https://www.onrampfunds.com/resources/amazon-strikethrough-pricing-guide
[5] Strike-Through Pricing and Savings, Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GQ6B6RH72AX8D2TD

▶ This content is protected by the Copyright Act, and the copyright is held by the contributor.
▶ This content is prohibited from secondary processing and commercial use without prior consent.