Instead of relying on traditional selling seasons, more ecommerce brands are trying out flash sales and product drops, and embracing the broader idea of driving their own demand on their own timeline.
“[Product drops] give merchants a very good way of controlling demand,” says Christian Mackie, a technical service delivery manager at Shopify Plus. “It helps them control when they release certain items and how much [of a certain product] they release. If they know it’ll never be available again, they can control how much they actually have to spend upfront in producing those products.”
Beyond the actual logistics of managing product availability, running product drops on your own time helps you control your narrative instead of letting the holiday season dominate the conversation, Mackie says. “If the merchant plans their sales for the entire year, it’s very deliberate—they don’t react to the holiday.”
Shopify is now home to more than 100,000 businesses who sell this way—marketing a limited-run product for a low price during a short window of time. These brands are taking advantage of the unprecedented control that the product drop trend gives them over scale, supply and demand, and building customer loyalty.
Curious as to how the product drop model works? This guide explains the process, with inspiring examples of merchants perfecting this innovative sales technique.
A product drop is a marketing strategy in which a company releases a new product, often in limited quantities and for a short time, to create a sense of urgency and excitement. These time-sensitive drops have the power to build brand awareness, increase engagement, drive sales, and build brand loyalty.
Just think back to one of the most iconic examples of a product drop frenzy: In 1996, Tyco Toys’ Tickle Me Elmo caused such a stir when it hit shelves the day after Thanksgiving that multiple store clerks were injured in stampedes of shoppers lunging for the hard-to-get Sesame Street toy. Its original retail value of $28.99 shot to $1,500 among resellers by the end of the next year, and the entire stock was sold out within weeks.
While that was more of a shopping phenomenon, streetwear brands have perfected the product drop for decades now, banking on the rapt audiences just waiting for the latest, greatest items (There’s a reason sneakerhead sites like Complex post a list of release dates for Air Jordan drops).
These days, flash selling has evolved into a sales technique—not so much an overall identity—to help push product while artfully driving and nurturing the brand’s relationship with customers.
A product drop can be a launch, but not all product launches are drops. The difference between the two is how long the item is available. Product drops are often over in minutes—sometimes even seconds. This abruptness maintains that adrenaline rush post-sale that creates urgency and anticipation around the next drop.
A flash sale is a time-sensitive promotion in which customers can grab a bargain during a specified period. Products in flash sales aren’t new, andthe lure is a time-sensitive discount as opposed to a product drop’s limited time frame.
Product drops are most effective when customers are excited about a new product, see other people excited about it too, and feel why they need to act immediately. Ecommerce data analysis shines light on these three elements.
Review your geography and traffic-source analytics to learn where your visitors come from. If 65% of your traffic comes from TikTok, for example, that platform should play a pivotal role in your drop strategy. Consider building out TikTok commerce functionality to double down on the sales channel, such as by syncing your Shopify inventory with TikTok Shop or hiring creators to expand your reach on the platform.
Customer data also helps inform which products make ideal drops and how you’ll make them exclusive. Analyze your current bestsellers and top search terms to determine which products your customers will get excited about. If your best-selling item of the last six months is a hair curling tong, could you drop a limited batch of tongs with a larger barrel or different color wand?
Limited quantities or early access to new products are popular ways to build hype, though you could also:
Finally, use analytics to set a strategic release date that allows for promotion and hype-building. A conversion funnel analysis tells you how long customers tend to linger in the sales funnel.
Drops for a high-consideration product might need a longer time frame for people to buy into it, whereas a convenience or routine product likely only needs a few days (or even 24 hours) to make it uber-exclusive.
The lead-up can create excitement around a product drop, especially when you involve media interviews or influencer engagement over social media (Everyone who saw Kylie Jenner’s Instagram posts about her lip kits wanted them).
Product drops are most effective when the inventory on offer is scarce. Customers are less excited about a product or offer if they know it will be available again in a few weeks. It ruins the exclusivity element, while also weakening the reason for them to buy right now: the idea that they’ll never get the chance again.
Use scarcity marketing tactics to create a sense of urgency and fear of missing out (FOMO) among customers:
It’s difficult to make these changes on the fly mid-drop. Launchpad, an automation tool exclusive to Shopify, lets you schedule changes to your site’s content in advance. If you decide to drop a new product at 11 am, for example, Shopify will automatically switch to your new design at that time.
Frankies Bikinis uses Launchpad to manage the laundry list of tasks required to keep its product drops running like a well-oiled machine. “It’s a lot of little things that don’t take a huge amount of time,” says Frankies’ director of marketing and ecommerce Brittney Bowles. “But they all have to be done at once and correctly.”
“This is why Launchpad is our savior. We schedule everything during normal business hours and Launchpad does all of the work for us automatically.”
A ton of behind-the-scenes work is required to ensure every detail of a product drop is covered:Procurement, supply, marketing, operational and customer care systems should be ready to go when the date of your drop arrives.
As part of your product drop plan, focus on:
The most important requirement is a website that’s capable of handling high traffic and sales volumes during the product drop. The last thing you want is to build excitement for weeks, only for customers to encounter usability issues—or worse, not be able to access the site altogether—when they go to buy the item.
Brands like Live Fast Die Young rely on Shopify’s infrastructure to deliver seamless experiences at scale during peak sales periods. The streetwear retailer, known for its exclusive product drops, experienced technical issues with its old site—a driving factor in its decision to replatform.
Immediately after migrating to Shopify, LFDY had its most successful drop to date, with over 35,000 visitors on its ecommerce site at the same time—and no technical difficulties in sight.
“Last year we had tremendous growth,” says LFDY ecommerce manager Maksim Telkov. “As the number of clicks increased, we were increasingly dissatisfied with our old platform. With our product drops, we always had problems with over-ordering or that payments didn’t go through. With Shopify Plus, these issues were resolved all at once.”
Product drops aren’t a one-and-done thing. While the item you’re selling won’t make a comeback anytime soon, the strategy you used to launch the exclusive product will act as a framework for your next drop.
Once the sale comes to a close, use Shopify analytics to monitor sales data and measure the success of the product drop strategy. Pay attention to metrics like:
Supplement sales analytics with customer feedback to improve future product drops and build brand affinity.
If you received a large number of complaints from unhappy customers who couldn’t access the product, for example, consider bumping inventory levels next time. You’ll still have the same sense of urgency because the time to buy is limited.
A product drop is a great way to build hype, but it’s not always the most sustainable business model. Chasing the next exclusive product can feel like you’re on a hamster wheel, constantly scrambling to come up with new ideas that keep buyers engaged.
A strategic approach is to treat a product drop as a funnel to divert new buyers toward evergreen inventory. To make this possible, personalize the post-purchase experience for drop buyers to turn them into repeat customers, using strategies such as:
The reverse can also prove profitable: VIP customers who’ve engaged with you year-round could receive early access to product drops as a way to recognize and reward loyal customers.
CISE is a streetwear brand that’s perfected the art of the product drop. Ever since launching his business in 2020 as a way to give back to his community, founder Blake Van Putten has used the drop model to create excitement around new inventory.
But as CISE grew, Blake’s time was being pulled in multiple directions—he was invited to Fashion Week and featured in Time Magazine.He needed a way to fulfill orders and build momentum from product drops while ensuring customers were happy when they received their order—no matter how busy Blake got or how many new orders came through.
Blake turned to Shopify Fulfillment Network to outsource the entire fulfillment process. He says, “When we onboarded with Shopify Fulfillment Network, we had 1,000+ preorders backlogged. [They] pushed out the orders in literally a day and a half. We didn’t have to spend any time on it and were instead able to focus on creating a complete, top-notch mobile experience for our customers.”
Now that CISE had freed up extra hours each week, Blake has had time to focus on marketing campaigns that built buzz around new drops—which were so successful, the Christmas drop completely sold out within eight minutes.
Mattel Creations is no stranger to product drops. Products manufactured by the toy brand have become collectable items due to their rarity, with items selling on resale marketplaces like eBay for thousands more than their original retail price.
Mattel Creations recently collaborated with The Frankie Shop on a limited edition run of co-branded Barbie dolls. Barbie fans could grab their doll wearing The Frankie Shop clothing either through the retailer’s website or a collaborative pop-up shop in Paris—an immersive retail experience featuring a life-sized Barbie box, perfect for photo ops that create social media buzz.
This isn’t the first time Mattel has collaborated with other brands to drop limited edition products. Last year, it used Shopify Collective to partner with Funboy, a pool float and accessories brand, to create Barbie-themed floats celebrating the launch of the Barbie movie.
Mattel’s senior director of digital technology Mark Hall said, “Future partnerships are now much more approachable through Shopify Collective’s simplified onboarding process and the ability to quickly meet consumer demand in the market.”
PIRAL is a boutique women’s clothing brand that uses product drops to build hype and anticipation around its brand, which scaled to great heights after beginning with an investment of only $100. PIRAL leaned on Shopify Capital as a way to secure the funding to build a team and meet growing customer demand—and launch more product drops.
“Shopify Capital helped empower PIRAL to become the brand it is today,” says founder and CEO Mehtap Piral. “We hired new employees, accelerated our weekly product drops, and were able to produce higher quantities of our best-selling items without waiting on cash from sales first.
Mehtap adds: “The year before we used Shopify Capital, our revenue was $200,000. The next year, it grew to $500,000.”
Before you can use the product drop strategy as a way to build hype around your brand and sell record-breaking levels of inventory, you’ll need a solid technical infrastructure.
Your ecommerce platform should not only be capable of managing spikes in traffic, but also offer a world-class shopping experience—regardless of how many people are interacting with your site. Shopify makes that possible.
Boasting 99.99% uptime and a total cost of ownership that’s 33% better than its competitors, Shopify is the industry’s most cost-effective ecommerce platform for scaling brands.
A product drop is a sale event for a unique item that is available to buy for a limited period of time. Unlike traditional launches that are continuously available, product drops use scarcity and urgency to drive people to buy. There’s no guarantee that a dropped product will be available for purchase again.
A “drop” is a sales technique that makes a new product available for a limited time only. After the drop ends, the product becomes unavailable—it gives people a strong incentive to buy while they can.
