
First-Order Discounts: Do They Buy Loyal Customers or Bargain Hunters?
The welcome discount is universal advice. But do discount-acquired customers become loyal — or just trained to wait for a code? The cohort math is uncomfortable.
From the team
Notes on recommendations, attribution, and growing revenue from your store.

The welcome discount is universal advice. But do discount-acquired customers become loyal — or just trained to wait for a code? The cohort math is uncomfortable.

Your discount code doesn't stay on your site. It travels to coupon aggregators, browser extensions, and Reddit — and the people who find it are often your own best customers.

A 10% discount looks cheaper than free shipping. But compare them by incremental cost instead of face value and the answer flips.

AOV and revenue-per-visitor can both go up while you quietly make less money. There's one on-site metric that can't be gamed — and almost nobody tracks it.

You don't need 20%. You need the smallest number that changes a decision — and there's a formula for the maximum discount your margins can afford.

Cannibalization isn't just full-price buyers who'd have paid anyway. There are three kinds — and most stores only ever measure one.