A flash sale is a short sale with a hard stop: a lower price for a few hours or days, often on a limited number of units. Run well, it gives people a reason to buy now rather than "later", which in practice means never. This guide covers the Flash Sales feature for PrizeX and BidKing's shop, how to set a sale up, what shoppers see, and how stock and refunds are counted.
Where it lives and who has it
- Included in PrizeX, BidKing Plus and BidKing Pro, alongside the Shop.
- Where it lives: a Flash Sales screen under Shop in your admin panel.
- Turning it off leaves the shop, cart and checkout working as normal. Products simply go back to their regular prices.
Setting up a sale
Each sale has a name, a start time and an end time. You then add the products in it, each with its own settings:
- A sale price. It has to be lower than the product's regular price.
- A number of units at that price. This is the stock cap for the sale.
A few rules keep sales from tripping over each other:
- One sale at a time per product. If a product is already in another sale whose dates overlap, the form tells you which sale and when, so you can remove it or change the dates.
- What's sold stays sold. Once units have been sold at the sale price, you can't set the cap below that number, or drop the product from the sale. To stop selling it, set its units to the number already sold.
The Flash Sales screen sorts sales into Live, Scheduled, Paused and Ended, with per-sale totals. You can pause and resume a sale, end it now, or delete it.
What shoppers see
- A flash sale page with a countdown, at
/flash-sales.php, listing what's on sale. Link it from your menu, banners and emails. - Sale prices and badges in the catalogue, on the product page, in the cart and at checkout.
- The sale price is checked again at checkout, against the database rather than anything the browser sends.
- A cart line at the sale price expires when the sale ends, so nobody pays the sale price after it's over.
How the stock cap is counted
- Only completed purchases count. A unit comes off the cap when a purchase is paid, never when someone views the product or adds it to a cart. Filling carts can't empty a sale.
- When the sale units are gone, the product goes back to its regular price for the rest of the sale. It doesn't disappear from the shop.
- Quantities are checked against what's left. If a cart line asks for more units than the sale has left, that line is charged at the regular price.
- Refunds give units back. When a refund puts stock back, the same number goes back into the sale, so they can be sold again at the sale price. The sale never gets back more than the order counted.
Planning a sale that works
- Pick a few strong products, not the whole catalogue. A short list with a real discount reads as an event. Everything at 5% off doesn't.
- Set caps you can deliver. The cap is the number you can sell at that price, not your total stock. Check the product's own stock too.
- Schedule it ahead. Create the sale in advance with its start time, and it goes live by itself. Pair it with a seasonal theme scheduled for the same window. Our guide to festival and seasonal store themes covers how.
- Tell people. Link the flash sale page from your homepage banner and menu, and email your customers before it starts.
- Be accurate. Show the real regular price and the real end time. Many countries have rules on how discounts are advertised, so check what applies to you.
Common questions
What happens when a flash sale sells out?
The product goes back to its regular price for the rest of the sale. It stays in the shop. Only paid purchases count towards the sale's units.
Can a product be in two flash sales at once?
No. A product can only be in one sale at a time. If the dates overlap, the form tells you which sale already has it.
Do people who add a sale item to their cart keep the price?
Only until the sale ends. A cart line at the sale price expires at the sale's end time, and the price and remaining units are checked again at checkout.
What happens to sale units when an order is refunded?
When the refund puts stock back, those units go back into the sale and can be sold again at the sale price.