Do BOGO Deals Attract Shoppers?

The short answer is yes.

From what we’ve seen on Ecobunga!, e-tailers who offer a “Buy One Get One Free” deal (BOGO) get a pretty good response on their offers. From a quick look at our site traffic data, we estimate the click through rate on BOGO offers to be about 13% higher than the more typical “percent-off” sales we list.

Of course, there are many variables at play with BOGO offers, including the product you’re selling and how familiar your store is to shoppers. So click through rates on BOGO offers can vary considerably.

As we suggested in “3 Steps to a Great Green Deal”, we encourage e-tailers to run quick, big sales, rather than small, prolonged ones. So if you’re thinking about a 50% off sale on a specific product or product line, try a BOGO offer instead. It works out to the same discount as half-off, but you get the advantage of having the word “Free” attached to your offer. And that’s beneficial for two reasons:

1. “Free” always grabs shoppers’ attention.
2. No one searches Ecobunga! for “50% off”, but they do search for “free”, and guess what comes up in the search results -- a “Buy One Get One Free” offer.

It goes without saying that doubling the price of your sale item before offering a BOGO deal is a no-no. And whether shoppers make a purchase is entirely dependent on the product and their comfort level with your online store. But if you’ve got some extra inventory you want to move quickly, it’s a good bet that a twofer is going to get noticed.