Five Minute Friday: Retail Tips - The REAL Difference Between a Sale and a Promotion

Boutique Chat

Ashley Alderson

Business, Marketing, Retail, Boutiquetips, Fashionindustry, Fashionbusiness, Entrepreneurship, Businessstrategy

5 • 853 Ratings

🗓️ 5 September 2025

⏱️ 3 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode of Five Minute Friday, we’re answering another frequently asked question from retailers and small business owners: What’s the difference between a sale and a promotion?

It’s one of the most common points of confusion in retail—and getting it wrong could be costing your business profit. In this episode, Sarah from The Boutique Hub explains how to tell the difference, when to use each strategy, and how to protect your margins while driving customer engagement.

🔑 Key Takeaways:

What Is a Sale?

A permanent price drop designed to clear inventory quickly.
The faster an item sells, the more profitable it is.
Avoid blanket discounts; instead, target products, vendors, or seasons.

What Is a Promotion?

A temporary price reduction meant to create urgency.
Customers respond to short-term excitement without long-term devaluation.
Items can return to full price once the promotion ends.

Why the Difference Matters

Misusing promotions as sales can erode margins.
Sales should move old product out; promotions should drive traffic in.
Using the right strategy helps protect profit, save employee time, and improve customer loyalty.

Not a member yet? These are the kinds of retail strategies waiting for you inside The Hub to help you grow smarter.

Want more? Join the Boutique Hub: https://tbhub.co/podcastjoin

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey guys, it's Sarah with the Boutique Hub, and I'm here today to answer yet again another one of our frequently asked questions.
0:05.8	No, this is not a dumb question. We get asked this all the time. And, you know, if you're above and beyond this and your point of retail, great.
0:12.5	But getting started, one of the biggest things that people get confused about is what is a sale and what's a promotion?
0:19.7	Easily said, right? So a sale is something that you are dropping the price of your inventory, and the result is you want it gone. You don't ever want to see it again. That thing that might have been $40 is now going to be $20, and it's not going back to 40. You price it to move. You price it to get it out of your store. You're putting it on sale.
0:39.5	Hopefully it's going to generate movement immediately, right? You don't want to like kill the
0:44.2	discount by slashing that $40 item to 35, down to 30, down to 25, down to 20. No, you want to take a
0:52.1	discount on it right away that's going to result in a sale.
0:56.2	The less time that it takes you to move it, the more profitable you are. The less time your
1:00.1	employees touch it and move it, re-merchandise it, re-photograph it, the more profitable you are.
1:04.9	So if you're going to do a sale, and I'm not a fan of blanket sales, right? I'm a fan of
1:09.9	individual type sales, classifications, products, vendors, seasons, things like that.
1:14.6	Price things to make a move.
1:17.6	So on the turn of that, let's talk about promotions.
1:19.6	What is a promotion?
1:21.6	Well, a promotion is something that you usually don't run sales on
1:25.6	to generate excitement, to get people to flood into your store
1:28.7	or onto your site to take action and get something while it is at a discount. So the thing about
1:34.5	promotions is that $40 top that you've put on promo price at say $30, it can go back to $40. It doesn't
1:42.8	have to live at that $30 price point forever. That's a promotion.
1:47.8	You think about department stores. They might run specials or promotions on fragrances or beauty
1:53.2	supplies. They don't last long, right? It's a get it or it's gone type situation. So basically,
2:00.0	that's the difference between sales and promotions.
	...

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