I spent thousands on a 20% store-wide discount for Valentine’s last year, just to stay competitive.
This year, I’m also worried it makes my brand feel “cheap” for a romantic gift.
Has anyone tried any other sales promotion strategies, such as free gifts or bundles instead? Or another effective discount strategies???
Does it actually convert better or help boost aov more than just a % off?
Would love to hear what worked for u in the past. Thanks in advance!
Hi, I’m Ellie.
I understand why flat discounts can be risky. For a romantic holiday, a 20% off banner can make the brand feel less premium. Valentine’s success is more about how you frame your story to boost sales.
Based on current Valentine 2026 trends, here are 3 offer ideas you can try:
Many people buying for others feel they deserve a treat too. We call this self-gifting. A small but thoughtful reward can turn a simple order into a much better experience for the shopper.
Offer idea: Gift with purchase. For example: Spend $75, get a free premium leather accessory.
Best for beauty, jewelry, or any brand with products that have high profit margins.
According to an NRF survey, about 32% of shoppers plan to buy gifts for their friends this year. This is a huge opportunity to double your units per order by encouraging people to shop for their besties.
Offer idea: Buy one get one (BOGO). For example: Buy one for you, get one 50% off for your best friend.
Great for accessories, clothing, or food and drinks.
Family remains a very traditional part of Valentine’s. You can nudge customers to buy in bulk for their parents or siblings by giving bundle offers.
Offer idea: Mix and match bundles. For example: Pick any 3 items to build the perfect gift box and save 15%. Giving customers the freedom to choose usually works better than fixed sets.
Best for home decor, kitchenware, or shops with many small products.
Doing this manually on Shopify is a headache because it’s hard to auto-add gifts or show progress bars. Therefore, the best method is still using a Shopify app.
Among all, I recommend using BOGOS: Free Gift Bundle Upsell (3,000+ reviews with a 5.0-star rating):
Hope this helps you find the right setup for the season!
Hi Christinebeauty,
The most important thing: What’s your goal? I recommend tying it to a specific metric:
Once you have a goal, add some restrictions to protect your overall margins without sabotaging your campaign. Examples:
When it comes to discounting, strategy is the most important piece. By far.
Best,
Tobe Osakwe
Founder, Regios Discounts app
This is very impressive. Thank you so much for taking time to give me advice
Thanks so much. I’ll try your suggestions out
Do you have any suggestions on how to determine which offers or discounts would be the most effective for each goal, especially when it comes to balancing profitability with campaign success?
BTW, thanks for the great advice. I don’t think I’d get many valuable insights like this ^^
Hello, @Christinebeauty
We saw the same issue last year, heavy storewide discounts worked short-term, but for Valentine’s, they definitely made the brand feel less gift worthy.
What performed better for our users? Changing the offer type instead of pushing a bigger % off free gifts with purchase, and product bundles labelled as “Valentine Sets” helped increase AOV. Tiered offers like “Spend X, get Y free” also outperformed flat discounts without hurting margins as much.
In testing, % off drove clicks, but bundles + free gifts brought better AOV and more intentional buyers.
We see this often with stores using the Wizio Bundle Shopify app, but the takeaway isn’t the app, it’s that value add offers usually beat storewide discounts for gifting occasions. Curious what others have seen this year too.
Hi there @Christinebeauty I do understand your concerns about the flat discount and honestly I do feel it’s better long term to switch things up a bit year by year and not rely too much on the discounts.
As you mentioned already, bundles are a great way to do that especially for special periods like Valentines. The trick is you need to have the right products in the bundle like flowers mixed with other accessories. If you are inexperienced with making bundles, I suggest that you use an app like the Bundler app in my profile to make things much easier for you!
In my experience, 'Gift with Purchase’ (GWP) or ‘Curated Bundles’ almost always outperform flat discounts for Valentine’s Day. They increase the perceived value without lowering the prestige of individual items.
JTDL: Bundles & Discounts is designed for this; using the ‘Bundle Add-on’ feature, you can keep your main products at their original price while offering a free gift or a discounted add-on item to sweeten the deal.
Don’t do BOGO. Try a Feedback Rebate. It will work much better for you.
Discounts (any kind) tell your customers that there is something wrong with your product; otherwise, you’d be selling it at the full price.
Offering things to “sweeten” the deal will not solve this. BOGOs are only good for existing customers, when people already know you have a good product and are trying to decide how much to buy. Send BOGOs via email. Don’t put them in the top site banner. Here is why…
If I’m a new website visitor, I don’t know the quality of your products yet. My goal is not to get a better deal (get more stuff); it’s to determine if your product is worth buying at all. I don’t want to regret my purchase. That’s my #1 concern. Your BOGO does nothing for me.
The best thing you can do is to show me that you have skin in the game, that you stake something of value on my satisfaction after the purchase. I also want to see that your prior customers left good reviews, and you have proof that those reviews are real.
I want to feel confident buying from you. Give me a good reason to trust you, not another marketing gimmick.
Here is how you can do this:
Replace your “Buy now and get 20% OFF” offer with this:
“Buy now and get 20% cashback for your honest review after purchase”
Now, when looking at your product, I know that if I buy, in a few days I will get a special link, leave a review, and automatically get my 20% partial refund.
This is what a Feedback Rebate is, and here is why it’s better:
I’m more likely to buy because I can see that you, the seller, genuinely believe that I will be satisfied after purchase. I know you would not make this offer otherwise. I know you want 5-star reviews, not 1-star reviews. This means you actually care about my after-purchase experience, not just the sale. You have skin in the game. It sends me a strong high-quality signal. People are more likely to buy (about 30% more) when they see a Feedback Rebate than when they see a discount.
A 20% rebate will always cost you less than a 20% discount. Everyone gets the discount, but not everyone will leave a review to redeem the rebate. This means you’ll keep more of your profits.
You get a ton of customer reviews for free. The reviews are third-party-verified and guaranteed to be from your real customers (no fake reviews) because no one can leave a review (redeem your rebate) without buying the product first. Reviews will help you convert more visitors into customers.
People can trust your reviews because rebates don’t bias reviews. They are NOT review incentives (like coupons, gift cards, etc.). They are sale incentives, just like your usual “20% OFF” discount. You offer them BEFORE, not after, the sale. No one feels like they need to leave a better review for a product just because they got it “on sale.” This means you’re getting reviews people can actually trust.
To sum up: you improve trust, make your products look better, increase sales, save money, and get a ton of reviews.
I made a private YouTube video recently to show one Shopify seller how it works. See if this helps: https://youtu.be/fbPIUorbDhg.
I’ve seen quite a few stores run into the same situation. The challenge with a storewide 20% discount is that while it may help increase conversions in the short term, it can also train customers to wait for sales and potentially reduce the perceived value of your brand—especially when you’re selling products that are meant to feel thoughtful, premium, or gift-worthy.
Instead of focusing on bigger discounts, I’ve found that value-added promotions often perform better because customers feel like they’re getting more rather than simply paying less.
One strategy I really like is offering a free gift based on a spending threshold. For example, “Spend $50 and receive a premium gift box” or “Spend $75 and get a complimentary mini product.” This encourages customers to add more items to their cart while maintaining a premium brand image.
Another approach is creating Valentine’s gift bundles. Rather than discounting individual products, you can combine complementary items into a curated gift set and offer a better value when purchased together. This tends to work particularly well for jewelry, beauty, candles, chocolates, self-care products, and other gift-focused categories because customers are already looking for a complete gift solution.
I’ve also seen strong results from upselling directly on the product page. For example, if a customer is viewing a $15 product, you can offer premium gift wrapping, a personalized card, an upgraded gift box, or other complementary products. Even a modest upsell acceptance rate can have a significant impact on AOV.
If you’d like to implement this type of strategy, you might want to check out Easify Custom Product Options. The app allows you to create Checkbox options such as “Add Premium Gift Box”, “Add Personalized Card”, or “Complete Your Gift Set”, then use the Product Add-ons feature to link the corresponding upsell products. When customers select the checkbox, the add-on product is automatically added to the order, making the upsell process seamless and visible directly on the product page.
If your goal is to increase AOV from around $15 to closer to $40, I’d personally prioritize strategies in this order: Bundles > Free Gift Thresholds > Product Add-ons/Upsells > Storewide Discounts. In my experience, these approaches tend to increase both revenue and average order value more effectively while preserving the premium feel of the brand during occasions like Valentine’s Day!
