"20% off everything this weekend!" It sounds exciting, it is easy to post on WhatsApp status, and it often brings a rush of orders. Then Monday comes, you add up the numbers, and you realise you worked harder than ever for almost nothing.
Promotions are a powerful tool for small restaurants and shops. Used well, they bring in new customers, clear slow stock and fill quiet days. Used carelessly, they train customers to wait for a sale and quietly eat the profit you need to pay rent, staff and suppliers.
This post shows how to plan promotions with your margins in mind, using simple worked examples, and how to set them up in a Krobr store.
Know your numbers before you discount
You cannot protect a profit you have not measured. Before you run any offer, work out roughly what one sale actually earns you.
Take a simple worked example with made-up round numbers. A burger sells for Rs 800. The bun, patty, cheese, sauce, packaging and a share of gas and oil cost you Rs 500. Your profit on each burger, before rent and salaries, is Rs 300.
Now offer 20% off. The customer pays Rs 640. Your cost is still Rs 500. Your profit drops to Rs 140.
That 20% discount did not reduce your profit by 20%. It cut it by more than half. To earn the same Rs 300 you used to make on one burger, you now need to sell more than two.
This is the most important idea in this whole post: a discount comes entirely out of your profit, not out of your price. The thinner your margin, the more painful every percent becomes.
Do this simple sum for your top five items before planning any promotion. Write it on paper if that is easier. It will change how you think about offers.
Choose a goal for every promotion
A promotion without a goal is just a price cut. Before you create one, decide what you want it to do.
| Goal | A promotion that fits |
|---|---|
| Get new customers to try you | A modest discount with a voucher code shared only with new audiences |
| Raise the average order | A discount that only applies above a minimum basket |
| Move slow or seasonal stock | A discount on specific products or one category only |
| Fill quiet days | An offer that runs only during a short date window |
| Sell more of one item | A quantity offer, such as more off when buying more |
When you know the goal, you can judge whether it worked. "Did we get new customers?" is a question you can answer. "Did the sale go well?" usually is not.
Promotion types and how to use them
In Krobr Partner, the store-management app, a promotion can be a percentage off, a flat amount off, or a tiered quantity offer where the discount grows as the customer buys more. You can apply it to the whole store, one category, or specific products, and you can add a minimum basket, start and end dates, and an optional voucher code. The charges and promotions guide walks through every field.
Here is how to use each one wisely.
Percentage off
Easy for customers to understand, but dangerous on expensive or thin margin items, because the rupee value of the discount grows with the order. If you use it, keep it small and limit it with a scope or a minimum basket.
Flat amount off
"Rs 200 off" has a fixed cost to you, no matter how big the order is. Combined with a minimum basket, it is one of the safest offers you can run.
Worked example: Your average order is Rs 1,500. You offer Rs 200 off orders above Rs 2,000. A customer who would have spent Rs 1,500 adds a dessert and a drink to reach Rs 2,100. You give Rs 200, but you sold Rs 600 more than usual, and the extra items carry their own profit. That offer paid for itself.
Tiered quantity
Great for items people buy in bulk, such as frozen food packs, cupcakes, socks or stationery. For example, 5% off when buying 3, and 10% off when buying 6. The highest tier the customer reaches applies. Make sure your tiers increase sensibly and that even the top tier still leaves you a profit per unit.
Use limits that protect your margin
The safest promotions have guard rails. Krobr gives you several:
- Scope. Apply an offer to the items that can afford it. A discount on fries or soft drinks, which often have a healthy margin, costs you much less than a discount on your mutton karahi.
- Minimum basket. Only reward customers who spend enough to make the discount worthwhile. Note that a minimum of zero simply means no minimum.
- Start and end dates. A promotion with an end date creates urgency and stops you from forgetting it is still running three months later. Dates use your store's own time zone.
- Voucher codes. A code means the discount only reaches people you shared it with, such as your Instagram followers or first time customers, instead of everyone who would have ordered anyway.
Promotions do not stack
When more than one promotion could apply to an order, Krobr applies only the single best one for the customer. A voucher code and an automatic offer do not combine either. If you set priorities, they break ties between offers of equal value.
This is a protection for you. You will never discover that a customer combined a weekend 15% offer with a Rs 300 voucher and a quantity discount to get a meal almost free. Plan each offer to stand on its own.
Also note that changing a promotion only affects new orders. Orders already placed keep the price and discount they were placed with.
Mistakes that quietly eat profit
Running the same offer forever. A permanent discount is simply a lower price. Customers stop seeing it as special, and you cannot take it away without looking like you raised prices.
Discounting your best seller. People already love it and buy it at full price. Discount items you want people to try, not the ones they already order.
Forgetting delivery and packaging costs. On a delivery order, your real cost includes boxes, bags and the rider. Include them in your sums.
Copying a big chain's offer. Large chains buy ingredients and stock at prices a small business cannot match. Their 30% may be affordable for them and ruinous for you.
Not checking results. After every promotion, look at how many orders came in, the average order value, and how many were new customers. Keep what worked and drop what did not.
Why commission matters to promotions
Many owners discover that a promotion on a delivery app hurts twice. You give the discount, and if the app charges a percentage commission, that commission is still taken from the order. Our post on delivery app commission compared with your own website explains why that adds up.
Krobr charges a package fee rather than a commission per order, so on your own store the discount is the only cost of the promotion. That makes your sums simpler and your margins easier to protect. You can compare packages on the pricing page.
A short summary
Know what each item really earns before you discount it. Give every promotion one clear goal, then pick the type that fits it, and protect yourself with scope, a minimum basket, an end date or a voucher code. Remember that only the single best offer applies to each order. Check the results after every promotion, and keep only the offers that brought you more profit, not just more work.