Comparative Effect of Promotions (Discounts, 1+1, Coupons, Gifts) on Sales and Brand Margins in Different Retail Formats (Supermarket, Discounter, E-Commerce)

Citation: Ihor Obshta, "Comparative Effect of Promotions (Discounts, 1+1, Coupons, Gifts) on Sales and Brand Margins in Different Retail Formats (Supermarket, Discounter, E-Commerce)", Universal Library of Business and Economics, Volume 03, Issue 01.

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

The study is focused on the systematic identification of how sales promotion instruments—price discounts, buy-one-get-one-free promo mechanics (BOGO/1+1), coupon programs, and gift-with-purchase offers—affect sales volume and the key financial indicators of brands. A substantial emphasis is placed on differences in the resulting effects depending on the retail format: supermarkets, hard discounters, and e-commerce channels. The empirical base pertains to the period of accelerated retail restructuring in 2020–2024 and also includes forecast estimates for 2025, taking into account the expanding application of artificial intelligence and the industry’s shift toward hyper-personalized communications and offers. Within the framework of the work, the categories of incremental revenue and margin erosion are refined and decomposed into components, which makes it possible to separate the uplift truly generated by promotional activity from demand redistribution effects and profitability losses due to price pressure. At the same time, psychological mechanisms determining consumer perceptions of different promo types are examined: features of benefit evaluation under a direct price reduction, the specificity of reactions to an additional conditionally free unit of a product, the influence of coupons on the feeling of controlled savings, as well as the role of a gift as a non-monetary enhancer of value and purchase motivation. The obtained results indicate the heterogeneity of the impact of promotional instruments across channels: the digital environment provides the most pronounced sales growth for specific SKUs due to precise targeting and high controllability of contact, whereas in supermarkets omnichannel approaches more often generate a more noticeable synergy at the category level due to cross-effects, joint consumption, and basket expansion. Additionally, the fundamental significance of shifting the focus of effectiveness measurement from standard advertising metrics, including ROAS, to the assessment of incrementality, including iROAS, is identified, since it is precisely this analytical logic that enables a more accurate alignment of short-term sales growth with the long-term preservation of brand margins.

Keywords: Retail Marketing, Sales Promotion, Brand Margin, Discounters, E-Commerce, Incremental ROI, Price Image, BOGO, Artificial Intelligence In Retail, Consumer Behavior.

https://doi.org/10.70315/uloap.ulbec.2026.0301004