Sprinkle In Discounted with Regular Priced Items

Discount prices in order to preserve sales. But don't give up profit dollars needlessly. Apply discounts to selected items, not to every item. Use your sales data to discover where discounts make a difference and where they don't.
     Then, since you've one set of items you'll be discounting and another set you won't, sprinkle in discounted items among regularly priced items on the shopping floor. In the place where the customer takes the item off the rack or pulls it from the shelf, surround the discounted items with regularly priced items. Here are some reasons why:

• Locating the discounted items feels to the customer a bit more like a treasure hunt. We don't want to make it difficult for the customer to find featured items. In fact, make it easy. But we want them to feel lucky, since associating good fortune with their shopping at your store makes it more likely that they'll want to come back soon.
• The value of the discount is made more apparent to the shopper by the easy comparison with surrounding items that are not discounted. This, too, adds to the positive excitement.
• When merchandising is done well, the customer is likely to see surrounding items that they want to purchase. Because these other items don't carry the discount, they produce greater profit for you. The customer who has just selected one or more items at a good price now becomes much more likely to say, "With my money savings, I can buy some other items I need at a regular price, and getting them here instead of going to another store gives me another kind of savings—a savings in time. Plus, I'm happy to reward this store with my business for giving me a good deal on the discounted items."