"20% off everything" is the default move. It is also the laziest. A flat discount across your entire store tells customers nothing about the value of individual products. It trains them to wait for sales. And it compresses your margins uniformly, regardless of whether a product can absorb the hit.

Strategies in Randio let you define a discount range — a minimum and maximum percentage — instead of a single flat number. Each customer receives a randomized discount within that range for each product in their catalog. This is where the real leverage is.

Tight ranges build trust

A strategy with a range of 15% to 20% produces catalogs where every product feels consistently priced. The customer sees five products, each discounted somewhere between 15% and 20%, and the overall impression is: this brand has a clear, fair promotional pricing approach.

Tight ranges work especially well for:

  • Premium and luxury products. A $200 jacket at 18% off feels like a considered offer. A $200 jacket at 40% off feels like something is wrong with it.
  • New product launches. You want to encourage trial without undermining the perceived value of the product. A 10-15% range says "we want you to try this" without saying "nobody is buying this."
  • Repeat purchase categories. Skincare, supplements, coffee — products people buy regularly. Tight ranges set a sustainable expectation. If a customer gets 17% off today and 19% next time, they don't feel cheated either way.
Tight discount ranges communicate confidence in your pricing. Wide ranges communicate excitement about the deal.

Wide ranges create excitement

A strategy with a range of 5% to 40% turns every catalog into a mini lottery. One product might be 8% off — nice but unremarkable. The next might be 37% off — that is a genuine find. The variability itself becomes part of the appeal.

Wide ranges work well for:

  • Fast-moving consumer goods. Products with lower price points and frequent purchases. The excitement of potentially hitting a big discount drives impulse buys on items that don't require much deliberation.
  • Clearance and seasonal inventory. When you genuinely need to move products, wide ranges let the randomization engine assign deeper discounts naturally. Some items get modest cuts, others get aggressive ones — mimicking the variability of a real clearance event.
  • Gamification-oriented brands. If your brand voice is playful and your audience enjoys surprises, a wide range reinforces that personality. Each catalog feels like unwrapping a mystery offer.

Matching range to product type

You don't have to use one strategy for your entire store. In fact, you shouldn't. Create different strategies for different product categories and use them in separate campaigns or with different customer groups.

Here are practical starting points:

  • High-margin accessories (60%+ margin): 20-35% range. You can afford the depth, and accessories are often impulse purchases where a compelling discount closes the deal.
  • Core products (40-60% margin): 15-25% range. Enough to incentivize without eroding your business model.
  • Premium or low-margin items (under 40% margin): 10-18% range. Enough to feel like a real offer, tight enough to protect your margins.
Randio tip: Each strategy defines its own discount range independently. Create a "Premium" strategy at 10-18% for your flagship products and a "Discovery" strategy at 20-35% for accessories and add-ons. Then use them in different campaigns or target different customer segments with each. The randomization handles the rest — every customer still gets a unique catalog.

Single vs. multi-distribution strategies

The simplest strategy is one collection with one discount range. You pick the collection, set the min and max percentages, and you are done. This covers the majority of use cases.

A strategy can also have multiple distributions — each one is a collection with its own discount range and its own chance weight. For example, you could build a strategy with:

  • Accessories collection — 20-35% off, 50% chance
  • Core products collection — 15-25% off, 30% chance
  • Premium collection — 10-18% off, 20% chance

When Randio builds a catalog from this strategy, it pulls products from each collection based on the chance weights. A customer might get three accessories, two core products, and one premium item — each discounted within that collection's specific range. The result is a catalog that mixes product types and discount depths in a way that a single collection with a single range cannot.

The example above uses collection-based distributions with chance weights, but a strategy can also use individual product distributions (pinning specific products into every catalog) and limited quantity distributions (finite supply across the campaign for genuine scarcity). These distribution types are covered in the distribution types guide.

Start simple

Most merchants should start with a single distribution — one collection, one range. Multi-distribution strategies are powerful but require more thought about how collections interact. Get comfortable with single-distribution campaigns first, then add distributions when you want finer control over the mix.

Testing your range

The right range depends on your products, your margins, your customers — and, just as much, on how your store already discounts. A moderate 15-25% is a reasonable starting point for most stores, but calibrate it to your own baseline: if you rarely go below 10% off, a smaller range still feels generous and special; if you regularly run 30-40% sales, customers are anchored to that and a 15% catalog won't move them. The goal is a range that reads as a real offer relative to what your shoppers are used to seeing from you — not an absolute number. Start there, then observe: if conversion is strong but average order value is lower than expected, tighten the range; if open rates are high but add-to-cart is sluggish, widen it — the current range might not feel exciting enough to act on.

If you are on a plan that supports A/B testing, you can test two strategies head-to-head within the same campaign. Split your customer group between a tight-range strategy and a wide-range strategy and let the data decide.

Don't default to "20% off everything." Define a range that matches your product category, and let the randomization make each customer's experience unique within those bounds.

Your discount range is not just a number. It is a brand decision. Choose it with the same care you put into your product photography and copywriting.