With all the retail competition out there, both online and in-store, it can be challenging to cut through the noise and let customers know what you’re up to. Whether you have a new product launch, a big sale around the corner, or you’re planning a special project, you need to connect with your audience and keep them informed.
There’s good news for established brands with a sizable following: you can use product drops to create hype and sell your latest releases—fast.
But what is a product drop? How do you pull one off? And what strategies are other retailers using? In this article, you’ll find answers to all these questions—plus inspiration to put these product drop tactics to work for your retail business.
Table of contents
What is a product drop?
A product drop is a limited-time or limited-quantity release of a product, often announced in advance to build hype and a sense of urgency. Retailers use them to create excitement, drive sales, and reward loyal customers. Once the product sells out or the sales window closes, the product is no longer available to purchase.
Product drop vs. flash sale
In a flash sale, a discount is offered for a limited period of time. A product drop is a variation of a flash sale, but often lasts for an even shorter time, and is often planned around the release of a previously unavailable product. Flash sales can be planned around already available merchandise and can happen more often than product drops, but they lose urgency if customers come to expect them. When it comes to creating hype with an impromptu sale, it’s best to keep them sporadic and unpredictable.
The core benefits of a product drop strategy
Drive hype and brand energy
For a product drop, brands take a specific approach—stocking their own brick-and-mortar stores, popup shops, third-party retailers, or niche websites with a deliberately limited number of products for a set release date. These launches then draw long lines of customers eager for exclusive merchandise.
Popular streetwear brands like Supreme are known for this product drop trend, which ensures that products sell out and keeps demand consistently high.
Create powerful scarcity and exclusivity
Usually, product drops are special releases, available only for a limited time or in very limited quantities. The benefit to the customer is nabbing something exclusive, getting it early, and/or getting it first. This leverages the scarcity marketing principle—built around a cognitive bias in which people place a higher value on items they believe are in short supply.
Test new products with minimal risk
Limited edition drops are an opportunity to quickly test new products, build brand awareness, and capitalize on the fear of missing out (FOMO), which usually encourages shoppers to act quickly and make purchases. If the product drop is successful, you may decide to bring back the product for a wider release or a second wave later.
Foster brand loyalty with exclusive access
Some product drop models only allow certain customers to buy the limited edition release. Reserve these for VIP buyers—for example, those who’ve spent over $300 or made more than three purchases—to incentivize brand loyalty. Loyal fans feel rewarded, while others are motivated to keep shopping to qualify.
The three most common product drop models
The first-come, first-served (FCFS) drop
With the first-come, first-served (FCFS) drop model, products are made available at a specific time. There’s no waitlist, lottery, or reservation—whoever is first in line gets the product until stock runs out.
The FCFS model works to build hype and urgency because it’s fast-paced and competitive. Everyone gets an equal chance to buy the new item. For that reason, it’s best suited for retailers who want to move limited edition inventory quickly, but not so great for rewarding loyal customers or controlling who can access the drop.
The raffle or lottery drop
With the lottery or raffle product drop model, potential customers sign up for a chance to purchase the product when it’s released. Everyone gets an entry, and when the period closes, a winner is selected at random.
Lottery-based events are great for ensuring fairness since everyone gets an equal shot—no matter their time zone or internet speed. You also collect email addresses when customers register in advance. Plus, they can incentivize buyers to engage with your brand in other ways—following you on Instagram or making a purchase in-store might result in bonus entries and more chances to access the drop.
That said, it can be frustrating for loyal customers if they enter the lottery and never win. It also requires more back-end infrastructure—for example, entry forms, draw logic, and customer notifications need to be factored in to manage the product drop.
The open edition drop
An open edition drop allows anyone to purchase a product during a set time window. The event is announced in advance, and customers can buy as many products as they want during that window. The product goes off sale once time is up.
Open edition product drops work well if you’re tying a new release to a particular campaign or seasonal event. For instance, if you’re opening a new retail location, you could drop a limited edition product during opening weekend to drive foot traffic to the store.
How to launch a successful product drop: A step-by-step guide
- Define your goals and product
- Build anticipation with a product drop marketing strategy
- Segment your audience for exclusive access
- Prepare your tech stack for the traffic surge
- Plan for fairness by managing bots and bad actors
- Create a seamless checkout experience
- Engage your audience after the drop (win or lose)
Step 1: Define your goals and product
The ideal product drop strategy depends on the item you’re selling and the reason behind the limited edition release:
- If it’s to build hype for a new retail location, you might launch a time-sensitive version of your bestselling item that’s only available at that store during opening weekend.
- If the sole purpose is to reward loyal customers, you might segment your audience and only invite those who meet your “VIP buyer” criteria to participate in the drop.
- If you want to raise brand awareness, consider collaborating with another retailer to launch a joint collection. (Think Grind Coffee’s brand collaboration product drop to celebrate 75 years of the comic strip Peanuts.)
Also, think about where the product drop will take place. Marketplaces like Amazon may be a good solution for everyday sales, but for product drops, it’s better to stick to your owned sales channel (i.e., your website and brick-and-mortar store). This way, you’ll have more control over the customer experience and branding—and create a stronger sense of exclusivity.
Step 2: Build anticipation with a multichannel marketing strategy
A product drop builds hype for a new item in the days, weeks, or months leading up to the launch, emphasizing the date, time, and location of the drop.
Spread the word by sharing teasers on your social media channels, newsletter, homepage, and through word-of-mouth marketing in-store. Share just enough information to pique interest and keep people wanting more. Your hype marketing strategy could include:
- Adding a countdown timer to your website announcement bar
- Teasing behind the scenes in the days leading up to the product drop
- Giving exclusive access to influencers who share details with their own audience
Streetwear brand Live Fast Die Young, for example, teased their product collection drop on their ecommerce website. Customers could preview the new collection and decide what they wanted to buy in advance, so they were ready to fill their carts when the event started.
Regardless of where you’re promoting the drop, encourage people to sign up for notifications via email. This way, you’ll grow your list, they’ll feel like they’re in the know, and you’ll have a direct way to reach customers after the drop—whether they made a purchase or not.
Step 3: Segment your audience for exclusive access
Product drops help reward loyal customers for their repeat business. By giving them priority access to private sales or making the product exclusively available to them, you help customers feel valued and increase their emotional attachment to your brand.
Segmented access also helps manage foot traffic spikes and prevent site crashes, especially for high-demand drops. For example, VIP customers could get early access 24 hours before everyone else. Email subscribers could be next in line, before any remaining inventory opens to the public. Traffic—both in-store and online—is staggered across the three days.
💡Tip: Shopify unifies customer data in a single profile, no matter where that data was sourced from. Use this to form dynamic segments based on criteria customers share. Customers automatically flow in and out of the segment when their information changes.
Step 4: Prepare your tech stack for the traffic surge
You know it’s important to forecast demand for new products, but sometimes projections don’t match reality. Selling out faster than you planned isn’t necessarily a bad problem to have, but it’s important to have strategies in place to make sure it doesn’t hurt the customer experience.
Stress-test your retail tool stack to prepare for the traffic surge:
- Ecommerce platform: Check your website hosting plan to ensure your online store can handle a sudden influx of traffic. If you’re anticipating a significant rush of new visitors, consider creating a virtual waiting room that only allows a select number of people to access the site at any time, which helps maintain site performance.
- Inventory management: If you have an omnichannel business, product drops could wreak havoc on your inventory management system. Unify your data inside Shopify to avoid selling out of a limited edition product. Then use Shopify Flow to create a custom workflow that hides the product automatically when inventory quantities reach zero.
💡Tip: Shopify POS comes with tools to help you control and manage your inventory across multiple store locations, your online store, and your warehouse. Forecast demand, set low-stock alerts, create purchase orders, know which items are selling or sitting on shelves, count inventory, and more.
Step 5: Plan for fairness with bot protection
Bad actors can use bots to snag limited edition products—and resell them at a steep markup, cutting you out of the sale and blocking loyal customers from buying.
To ensure genuine customers have a chance at getting your new product drop:
- Enable CAPTCHA for signup forms. These tools can distinguish between a human user and a bot. hCaptcha is a CAPTCHA service activated by default on all Shopify stores. It prompts the user to complete an interactive challenge to prove they are a person.
- Set purchase limits. Scalpers often buy products in large quantities to resell at a higher markup on resale sites. Prevent them from targeting your store by setting a purchase limit—for example, a maximum of three units per customer.
- Require account login. If your product drop is exclusive to VIP customers, require account login to access the registration page. Bots can’t fake purchase histories or access gated URLs reserved for loyal customers.
Step 6: Create a seamless checkout experience
The last thing you want is for a product to sell out as the customer is entering their card details at checkout. To prevent delays, enable Shop Pay—it allows online shoppers to prefill their payment and shipping details and outpaces all other accelerated checkouts by at least 10%.
In-store, use a mobile point-of-sale (POS) system to make the checkout process faster and more convenient. Customers won’t need to queue at checkout to buy the limited edition drop. Simply download the Shopify POS app and connect a mobile card reader to process transactions from anywhere in-store—reducing wait times and serving more shoppers.
💡Tip: Use your smartphone to process payments with Tap to Pay for Shopify POS. It turns your iPhone or Android device into a credit card reader. Customers can make contactless payments without the need for additional hardware.
Step 7: Engage your audience after the drop (win or lose)
There are two broad segments of people after a product drop concludes: those who got their hands on the item and those who didn’t. Define these segments inside Shopify and personalize the approach for each.
To keep the conversation going with customers who missed out:
- Use "notify me" apps. Evaluate whether there’s enough demand for a potential restock by gathering a list of people interested in buying the product but unable to purchase during the initial drop. This can prevent overstocking while still keeping inventory scarce—if you still have 500 people on the waitlist, for example, you might order another 350 units for a follow-up drop.
- Offer priority access to the next drop. It can be frustrating for customers who were excited about a product but were unable to buy it during the drop. If you’re using a lottery system, keep them excited about future releases by giving them extra entries for the next one.
- Provide an alternative. Recommend similar products or bestsellers they haven’t tried yet. You could also offer a consolation perk, such as free shipping or a discount on their next order, as a gesture of goodwill.
Encourage user-generated content for those who did manage to buy the limited edition product, whether by posting about it on social media or leaving a review. You could even upsell related products or offer early access to the next drop as a loyalty reward.
Examples of retailers creating hype with product drops
Looking for inspiration from other Shopify merchants who have successfully built hype around product drops? Here’s how three retailers sparked excitement and strengthened their brands.
Live Fast Die Young: Migrating just in time for their biggest drop
Leading streetwear brand Live Fast Die Young is no stranger to product drops. They reward loyal customers with exclusive access to new apparel, but struggled with technical issues as the popularity of limited-edition products grew.
“Last year we had tremendous growth,” says ecommerce manager Maksim Telkov. “As the number of clicks increased, we were increasingly dissatisfied with our old platform. With our product drops, we always had problems with over-ordering or payments that didn't go through.”
Live Fast Die Young migrated to Shopify to solve these issues and build a more reliable infrastructure to power their product drops. “With Shopify Plus, these issues were resolved all at once,” Maksim says. The data proves it: Live Fast Die Young migrated in just 12 weeks and soon saw peaks of 35,000 people shopping at once—all with zero additional resources required to maintain, update, and scale its ecommerce website.
Glossier: Local marketing for product drops
Cosmetics brand Glossier didn’t want to stick to the traditional online-focused marketing approach for their new product drop. Instead, they wanted to engage customers in the flesh, so theyr worked with Shopify to create billboards in key cities where their customers live: New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Each billboard had a QR code to access the new product through the Shop app.
But it wasn’t just sales that Glossier drove with this local marketing campaign. The location-specific technology meant that only those who scanned the code could access the drop. Hype spread, as viewers who saw the billboards from afar went on scavenger hunts to locate the billboards and get access to the product drop.
“Our goal with this campaign was to be disruptive, find a fresh way to bring a new brow product to the market, and generate engagement within our community,” says CMO Kleo Mack.
J Balvin: Concert-exclusive product drops in the Shop App
J Balvin is just one musician leveraging his audience to sell products and strengthen fan relationships. His team created limited-edition merchandise to sell at each show—starting with the first show at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles.
Concertgoers saw a huge screen with a QR code they could scan to access a “special gift” in the Shop app. Those with an existing account could confirm their purchase and get back to the concert within seconds.
This geo-gated exclusivity gave J Balvin’s team complete control over who could participate in the product drops. Only those within scannable distance of the QR code could access the merchandise.
It worked: J Balvin’s in-concert activation contributed to one of the largest merch drops of all time. Over 7,500 fans placed an order, and 90% of them were first-time customers.
Product drops FAQ
What is a drop in marketing?
A “drop” in marketing is a tactic that draws attention to a company or product through a sudden, unexpected release. It typically involves releasing a new product or limited-edition item at a specific time and place, often with little or no prior notice. The goal is to generate buzz and create a sense of urgency and excitement around the product or brand.
Why do brands do product drops?
Brands run product drops to create hype, boost sales, and build loyalty. Drops create limited editions and exclusive items, which can be highly desirable to brand loyalists and collectors. Drops also create urgency and scarcity, which can drive sales and increase demand.
What does “drop” mean in retail?
In retail, “drop” refers to the release of new merchandise. It can also describe the launch of a new product line or collection.
How do I make my product drop fair?
To make a product drop fair, require signups in advance. If quantities are scarce, you can give loyal customers first access or use a lottery system to determine who gets access.
