Let your customers buy as much as they want, when they want it. If you let them tell you how much they want to buy, and how often, the answer may surprise you. In my experience, I have found that many business people presume to know what customers want, but are startled to find out that their presumptions are way off base. People are willing to buy more than they ordinarily do when given the option or incentive.

Customers can have all kinds of reasons for buying larger quantities. Some might simply be taking advantage of a price break or lower unit cost. Others might be buying to assure a season-long supply, to hedge against future price increases, or just to enjoy having an inventory of goods to draw from.

Can you offer a customer a larger unit of purchase - perhaps a family-size month's supply, three-month, six-month or a year? (I've seen "lifetime" supply actually done successfully in certain situations.)

Just giving people a structured offer with volume choices nearly always boosts the business you'd do with a customer on the initial transaction and over time. Photographers offer at least three basic
purchase options. Only about 20% of their customers choose the basic offer.

When you subscribe to a newsletter like mine, you're given an optional volume choice that is only offered after you've already decided that you want the product. With my Business Breakthroughs, that option was a discount on the second year.

You might say that my publisher is enriched by a two-year deal, and technically I would have to agree. But the real beneficiaries are the subscribers. They get two years of valuable business advice for much less than the per-issue subscription price they were initially willing to pay, plus an extra business-building report. And because they sign on for two years instead of one, they will get longer and greater value of the newsletter. They'll become more committed and connected to my business-building strategies.

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