Every business owner would love to sell a warehouse full of product every week and increase the store revenue. While you may feel this is a far-off goal, the truth is there are some changes you can make right now to increase sales as a retailer.
Here are five key guidelines to help accelerate retail sales.
- The easiest way starts with knowing which products draw customers to your store. Buy more of these, and always keep your best-sellers visible and readily available. Should a customer require an order of this product at a certain time and you are unable to deliver, you will lose money, and your competitor may gain a new customer. In many cases, consumers would rather pay more than have to wait to get a product. Their time becomes a premium – for this reason, the chances are very slim that they will return for that product the next day if they got it at their competitors.
- Keeping older stock – that hasn’t found favour with customers – on display will only make your general offering look old as well. This will drive good customers away and cause a negative impact on your profits. You don’t have to throw them away, but marking down all slow-moving items will help. You can choose to minimise losses by selling them at a discount which will move it off the shelf quicker, and then move on. You should think twice before ordering that particular product again (if ever). If you do choose to stock the product again then consider testing another design and style or variant that may do better.
- Always notice how in bigger retail stores all the sweets are lining the aisle where you pay? These clever retailers know to have enticing items available – and strategically positioned – for quick add-on sales. Less effort is required to actively sell the product, they virtually market themselves. This is a form of sales maximisation and is a strategy you too can adopt – by making these additional items more visible and accessible.
This can range from pocket-size lip balms to key rings, and other random items customers can touch, feel and fit on easily while they wait in the checkout queue. The same applies to services – such as a copywriter with a website or e-shop that specialises in creating quality content, and as you navigate to check out or the contact us page you discover useful add-on services. This could be designing of corporate identities or attractive adverts to add on top of the quality content being marketed.
- A very obvious but generally understated point is customer care. Customers are very sensitive to how they are treated in a shop. They sense the atmosphere and decide whether they like the shop or not on the first visit. The service they receive often determines if they will place the product the shop sells on a higher pedestal or not. The business should always make a concerted effort to ensure uniform top-class customer care is practiced by its staff. And remember to have a robust system to attend to complaints, as one bad experience can outweigh many good experiences.
- Sales techniques must be chiselled. Many people think that selling is merely telling the customer about what the product is and how it was made. However, the art of selling is more complex and subtle. For example, salespeople who have detailed knowledge of the products they sell should also have a clear understanding of the items that complement those products.
These are called “add–ons” – but unlike just strategically placing items to market themselves, we are now looking at actively selling these. This is especially important for expensive items or products/services where the benefits are not as self-explanatory as a chocolate bar. This translates to customers leaving with more than they originally intended to buy. The customer is happy because of the greater value-add, while the salesperson and the company make a bigger sale in the process.
This is a win-win approach focused on optimising the synergistic benefits for all. To do this effectively, salespeople need to be trained to see the full picture concerning product lines – as opposed to only the product facts and features.
Therefore, the business should also see to it that proper and ongoing training of staff is a primary agenda, so that the workforce is always motivated in their roles and on the cutting edge of the industry. Employees that are well trained will definitely be an asset to the business. They make more sales and they offer good customer service. All of this will lead to greater retail success and sales in a healthier and more productive environment.
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