% off or £ off? It depends on your price point
Use an amount off (£30 off) for prices above £100. Use a percentage off (20% off) for prices below £100. The rule: whichever number looks bigger is more persuasive.
Quick Summary
Research found that people respond best to whichever discount framing makes the number look bigger, regardless of the actual saving. On prices above £100, amount off wins because a larger raw number is shown. On prices below £100, percentage off wins for the same reason.
Match your discount format to your price point. Use "£X off" for high-ticket items and "X% off" for lower-priced products. For store-wide sales, percentage framing works better because it implies unlimited saving potential.
"25% off" and "£30 off" can represent the same discount on a £120 jacket. But they don't feel the same.
Research found that people consistently respond better to whichever framing makes the discount number look bigger - regardless of what the actual saving is.
The rule
Price above £100: Use amount off. "£30 off" beats "25% off" on a £120 jacket because 30 > 25.
Price below £100: Use percentage off. "25% off" beats "£7.50 off" on a £30 product because 25 > 7.5.
Most people don't calculate the exact saving - they compare the number in the discount to some intuitive sense of "big." A larger number feels like a better deal, even when the math says otherwise.
The "was X% higher" trick
You can push this further using a reframing technique: calculate your discount as a percentage of the sale price, not the original price.
If a product drops from £10 to £8, the usual way to frame it is: "now 20% off" (£2 / £10 = 20%). The alternative: "was 25% higher" (£2 / £8 = 25%). Mathematically equivalent. Psychologically, 25 beats 20.
This works any time the percentage doesn't exceed 100 - beyond that the effect disappears.
Store-wide vs product-specific promotions
One final wrinkle: for store-wide discounts (Black Friday, site-wide sale), percentage framing wins because it removes limits. "Everything 20% off" triggers a "the more I spend, the more I save" mindset.
For specific product discounts (£5 off this one item), amount off wins because it's concrete and shows a specific saving.
Research: Gonzalez, E.M., Esteva, E., Roggeveen, A.L. & Grewal, D. (2015). Journal of Business Research, 68(8). EGADE Business School & Babson College.
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