Rethinking ecommerce discounts with Intent
The status quo of ecommerce discounting is broken.
A pop-up offering 10% off before you鈥檝e even looked around. A banner shouting about today鈥檚 limited-time deal (limited or not). Indiscriminate abandon cart emails. If you鈥檝e ever shopped online you鈥檝e seen these tactics. If you work in the industry, you鈥檝e likely done at least one of them.
Discount codes are everywhere. Retailers use them to drive urgency, clear stock, reward loyalty and, more often than not, to hit this week鈥檚 revenue target.
But, despite its shortcomings, discounting itself is a strategic choice. Discount codes themselves aren鈥檛 the problem. The way we use them is.
We recently shared the floor with retail professionals to hear the in-house view on ecommerce鈥檚 discount dilemma. This is our perspective. One that reframes why discounting, as it stands, is failing both customers and brands.
Why online retailers rely on discounting
It鈥檚 not hard to understand why discounting is so widespread. Ecommerce teams have a limited set of levers they can pull. When the goal is fast execution and short-term impact, discount codes often win by default.
They鈥檙e fast to deploy. Easy to measure. Valuable to customers. And they usually produce some sort of lift.
But that default setting is precisely the problem. Discounting isn鈥檛 being used strategically, it鈥檚 being used generically.
Most retailers still rely on a narrow set of triggering rules. Things like page type, category or product viewed, basket value or visitor type (e.g. new vs. returning).
These are blunt instruments. They don鈥檛 reflect how someone is behaving. They don鈥檛 consider their mindset. And they certainly don鈥檛 factor in what stage of the buying journey that visitor is in.
So when these rules are used to trigger promotions, it means most discount codes are offered to the wrong people, at the wrong time.
The immediate problem isn鈥檛 that retailers are defaulting to discount codes for short-term revenue gains. The problem is that these discount code campaigns aren鈥檛 run effectively due to the current limitations of triggering rules that retailers have at their disposal. And this leads to issues.
Let鈥檚 be honest. Blanket discounting does one thing really well: erode margin.
Need more proof? The Intent Gap report found that 83% of online shoppers have used a discount code even when they were ready to pay full price. That鈥檚 not incremental. That鈥檚 revenue left on the table.
Mass discounting also trains customers to expect a deal. It teaches them the rules to trigger offers. It hurts brand perception. And makes it harder to measure what鈥檚 actually working. After all, not every abandonment is price anxiety. Not every visitor needs a financial incentive.
If you can't time your discounts to context, you're not optimising their delivery. You're often just giving them away. This is something intent can solve.聽
Why intent data changes things
People don鈥檛 buy in fixed journeys. And they definitely don鈥檛 all behave the same just because they鈥檙e on the same page.
But today鈥檚 discount logic doesn鈥檛 recognise that. A new customer on a PDP gets the same code as a casual browser with no interest in buying. A focused, high-intent visitor gets the same popup as someone barely engaged.
This is the real issue: discount codes are being fired without understanding what the visitor actually needs. What the context behind their actions is.
Starting to think in terms of customer intent fixes that, by letting you understand not just who the visitor is, but what they need in that moment. Regardless of where they are on site.
This is what our real-time intent agent unlocks for ecommerce teams. But I鈥檓 here to cover the change in thinking, not our product.
With intent data, you can make predictions on your visitors鈥 likely actions. You can identify not only the current stage of their purchase journey and what you need to do for them, but behavioural signals on whether they鈥檙e focused or struggling.
By starting to think about discount codes through this lens, you can move from fixed experiences. You can start to:
- Identify which visitors are likely to abandon but are also likely to convert if nudged
- Spot hesitation in real-time and respond with the right incentive
- Avoid discounting visitors who would have bought anyway
While the possibilities vary by brand and category, this unlocks some fairly universal opportunities. If you are going to do discounts, there are a couple of moments you really should be targeting. And they aren鈥檛 linked to page type or other retrospective data.
Two real-time moments where discounts works wonders
Discounting becomes impactful when it's tailored to real-time visitor context. We鈥檝e seen this play out again and again across brands, and across shoppers鈥 journeys.
With this in mind, two of our Intent Segments are not only popular with our customers, but effective targets for discounting:
Convert | Abandon
- These are visitors deep in the journey, showing signs of exit
- They鈥檙e likely to buy, but not guaranteed
- A timely incentive here can rescue revenue
Maintain | Abandon
- Visitors who鈥檝e built intent but are showing abandon signals
- They might be looping, hesitating, or comparing
- If their likelihood to return to the site is also low, a discount here protects the sale
These are moments when a discount can pay off incrementally. And while they are informed by visitor actions, they are not triggered directly by them but the context behind them.
While our product buckets visitors into Intent Segments from our framework, it鈥檚 just a starting point. Intent data can give ecommerce teams an abundance of datapoints to combine with their existing insights, from affinities to specific behavioural predictions.聽
This gives retailers the flexibility to trigger discounts for the most appropriate segments to maximise incrementality. All based on where they are in their buying journey and how they are feeling in real-time.
This approach isn鈥檛 theoretical. Appliances Direct used this logic to save 42% in margin by only offering discounts to visitors with high purchase intent showing abandon signals. Seasalt Cornwall saw an 89% uplift in conversion by combining these segments with affinity data.
Flipping the traditional discount logic
Let鈥檚 take things further and rethink three common discount triggers based on the typical rules.
New customer discounts. Just because someone is new doesn鈥檛 mean they鈥檙e unsure. Instead, look for signs of struggle. Not all new visitors need a discount to convert.
Product-based discounts. Some people are already sold. Others never will be. Target hesitation, not just product type. Sell the value, not the price.
Time on site discounts. Time alone isn鈥檛 a sign of purchase intent. Look for signals like repeated views, erratic navigation or clear signs of exit.
To summarise, discount codes aren鈥檛 evil. The way we do them is often just鈥 little lazy.
Discount codes should be used to influence behaviour, not to cover for a lack of understanding. They should incentivise action, not act as a tax on uncertainty.
The good news? Most ecommerce teams don鈥檛 need different discounts. They just need better timing. Smarter triggers. And a shift in mindset.
Rethinking retail discounting doesn鈥檛 mean giving it up. It means doing it with more precision, more relevance, and more respect for the customer journey. It means delivering them with intent.
Want to see what discounting with intent looks like in action? Learn more about how 黑料大事记 makes it possible.
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