Ho, ho, ho-lidays.

There are rumors that retail stores have begun playing Christmas music and selling all manner of year-end paraphernalia. We give no credence to these rumors, but they must be acknowledged. Naturally, Cotton Bureau is deep into planning and executing our own brilliant plan to take over the world promote your many wonderful designs. We can reveal, however, that focusing on discounts was not an accident. We want you to have all the tools you need to spread the word. We’ll be doing the same on our end with the usual assortment of promotions, giveaways, and relentless social media pressure. There will be free shipping. There will be surgically-timed campaigns targeting those among us who wait until the very last minute to take care of shopping for loved ones.

In order to be as aggressive as possible this year (which is to say, still quite conservative by the door-busting standards of the greater internet), we’re taking advantage of our new discounts infrastructure to carve up the discount responsibility among multiple parties. Historically, site-wide discounts have been an all-or-nothing nothing affair, with Cotton Bureau taking the “all” and sellers the “nothing”. Honestly, that has severely limited our ability to grab shoppers’ attention with attractive promotions. We’d like to change that.

After accounting for costs, inflation, the rotational axis of earth, gravity, windage, and myriad other factors, we’ve come to the decision that a 50/50 split on general sales and promotions is the most equitable distribution, with the proviso that your share of the discount will never exceed 50% of your cut. As a concrete example, if Cotton Bureau ran a 12 hour and 21 minute winter solstice flash sale on December 21 for 21% off, a seller with the standard $5 cut on a t-shirt would be responsible for: $30 × 21% × 50% or $3.15. With the 50% cut cap, that would be reduced to $2.50 with Cotton Bureau covering the other $3.80 of the customer discount. Similarly, the math for a hoodie would be $45 × 21% × 50% or $4.73, reduced to $2.50.

We see enhanced site discounts as a classic Michael Scott win-win-win. Creators win with additional sales, customers win with better prices, and Cotton Bureau wins too, for having successfully mediated a conflict at work. In our opinion, promotions should be strategic, relatively infrequent, variable, and highly motivating. We hope that by nudging the site slightly more in the direction of customer-friendly discounts, we’ll be able to deliver a better experience across the board. As usual, hit us up with your feedback. We’re in this together.