Sep 1, 2026 1 min read
Promotional volume uplift is easy to see and easy to celebrate. Promotional profitability, after supplier funding, cannibalization of full-price sales and incremental cost, is much harder to see and often goes unmeasured.
A disciplined approach requires modeling expected margin and funding before the promotion launches, not just reporting volume after it ends. It also requires distinguishing genuinely incremental sales from sales that would have happened anyway, or from customers who simply bought forward what they would have bought later at full price.
Retailers that build this discipline tend to run fewer, better-targeted promotions rather than a constant stream of low-impact discounting.