Beyond the Discount: How SKU-based Loyalty Wins Black Friday

Black Friday and Cyber Monday have become synonymous with deep discounts, long lines, and a race to the bottom on price. But competing solely on discounts isn’t your only path to winning.  What if there’s a smarter way to capture customer attention, drive bigger baskets, and grow loyalty during the busiest shopping season of the year?

That’s where SKU-based loyalty comes in. Instead of broad promotions that slash margins across the board, SKU-based loyalty allows you to target offers on specific products, categories, or bundles—creating value that feels personal to the customer while keeping your profitability intact. Think of it as strategic precision instead of across-the-board markdowns.

Examples of SKU-based loyalty in action:

• Double points on high-margin items to drive sales without gutting profits
• Bonus rewards on seasonal or overstocked SKUs to clear inventory efficiently
• Bundled SKU promotions like “Buy any 3 skincare products, get 200 bonus points” increasing basket size while rewarding behaviour

Why Discounting Alone Isn’t Enough

Sure, discounts drive traffic. But they also:

• Train customers to expect lower prices year after year
• Cut deeply into margins, especially in competitive sectors
• Blur differentiation – When everyone is running 50% off, what makes your brand special?

Loyalty built only on discounts is fragile. Once the sale ends, so does the relationship. To win long-term, you need to go beyond the discount.

How (and Why) SKU-based Loyalty Works

1. Drive Bigger Baskets

Shoppers are already primed and prepared to spend more during Black Friday, with the expectation that the best deals of the year will happen during this period. With SKU-based loyalty, you can nudge them even further. By spotlighting specific products with points multipliers, you make it a logical decision for customers to add “just one more item”.

Examples: 

• 3X points on accessories (e.g. headphones, phone cases) with every electronics purchase
• Run “Buy 2, get 200 bonus points” on holiday staples like wine or baking ingredients to increase cart size

2. Protect Margins

Instead of slashing prices across the board, SKU-based loyalty lets you push customers toward SKUs where you can absorb promotions without hurting profitability. Unlike blanket discounts that devalue your entire assortment, SKU-focused campaigns keep pricing integrity intact while still delivering meaningful value to customers.

Examples:

• Fashion retailer: Instead of running a sitewide 30% off sale, offer double points on in-season jackets or accessories (higher margin) to encourage upsell without cutting into core essentials.

• Electronics retailer: Promote bonus points on headphones, chargers, or accessories that carry better margins, rather than discounting big-ticket items like laptops or TVs.

• Grocery chains: Offer loyalty boosts on private-label brands or seasonal SKUs (e.g.  in-house products, holiday cookies, or prepared meals) that have higher markups compared to national brands.
  
  

Why this works:

• Customers still feel like they’re winning because they’re earning extra rewards, but your margins stay intact.

• It subtly guides customers toward SKUs that contribute more to your bottom line, while maintaining the perceived generosity of the promotion.

• Over time, this builds a culture where customers expect value through your loyalty program, rather than constant markdowns.

3. Offer Differentiated Value

While competitors fight to out-discount each other, SKU-based loyalty provides smarter value by tying rewards to items your customers genuinely want. Promotions built around specific products or categories highlight the uniqueness of the deal, building excitement around what you’re offering instead of just how much you’re marking it down.

An example would be Shoppers Drug Mart’s Shoppers Beauty+ Event offering bonus points for purchasing over $X amount or 2 or more participating products. 

Why this works:

• Value perception: SKU-based promotions highlight value in select areas, so customers still perceive your brand and products as premium.

• Anchoring effect: Customers anchor on the highlighted SKU and perceive it as a better deal compared to everything else. This makes the promoted product more attractive without devaluing the whole store.

• Scarcity effect: When a deal is tied to a specific product category (e.g. “double points on skincare”), it feels limited and special. Scarcity creates urgency. Blanket discounts feel generic and risk training customers to wait for discounts.

64% of Canadian consumers say they choose where to shop based on relevant, timely promotions or rewards. SKU-level loyalty doesn’t just preserve your margins—it taps into behaviour that drives higher purchase intent, increases basket size, and builds emotional relevance with customers.

4. Personalize By Product Category 

The real win with SKU-based loyalty is that it ties directly into customer data. By rewarding purchases on products your customers already engage with, you make offers feel tailor-made.

Depending on the customer data and segments you have, you can control how personalized your offers are:

• Light Personalization (broad categories): Offer double points on a general category like “all beverages” or “all beauty products”. This casts a wide net but still feels more relevant than a blanket storewide discount.

• Moderate Personalization (preferred segments): Use past purchase data to target loyalists with promos like “Earn triple points on skincare” for beauty shoppers, or “Double points on plant-based products” for health-conscious customers.

• Advanced Personalization (specific SKUs or behaviours): Deliver one-to-one offers based on purchase history, like “500 bonus points when you buy your favorite oat latte again this week” or “Earn rewards when you try this new lipstick shade, curated from your past preferences”.
  
  

80% of consumers say they are more likely to make a purchase when offers are personalized, and 49% admit to buying items they hadn’t planned on thanks to relevant recommendations.

Whether you start broad or drill all the way down to individual SKUs, personalization makes promotions feel intentional and thoughtful, rather than generic. The more relevant your offer feels, the stronger the lift in both engagement and sales.

Your SKU-based Loyalty Checklist

Here’s how to make the most of SKU loyalty this Black Friday and Cyber Monday:

• Plan early: Identify SKUs you want to feature and align them with customer segments.

• Make it visible: Promote SKU-specific offers across email, social, and in-store signage so customers understand the added value.

• Stack incentives: Pair SKU promotions with gift card bonuses or referral rewards for maximum engagement.

• Personalize where possible: Use customer data to highlight SKUs that match past purchase behaviors.

Final Thought

By shifting from blanket markdowns to SKU-based loyalty, you can drive bigger baskets, protect your margins, and create value that actually resonates with your customers. Instead of training shoppers to wait for the next sale, you’re building habits, strengthening emotional connections, and rewarding behaviours that last well beyond the holiday season.