In the second chapter of this series on marketing strategy reinvention, we begin with further ideas for your sales floor.
Complete a 360-degree pass-by every morning before you open for business.
Start at the front door and walk every aisle in the store, finish with a look at the service counter, cutting tables, and restrooms.
Take note of areas that need attention before the store opens for the day. Encourage all your employees to make the same observations.
Utilise a daily store opening checklist that lists the tasks to be completed the next day.
Set a daily sales goal and post it at the sales counter. Your staff will perform better when they know what’s expected of them each day.
Hold a 10-minute ‘jog your memory’ meeting each morning or at the start of each shift.
Discuss products, policies, promotions – anything store staff need to know that day.
Take time to visit other retail stores for ideas — not just stores similar to yours but all types of stores.
Visit popular chain and indie retail websites and social media. With your creative mind, we guarantee you will come up with dozens of ideas you can tweak to use in your own store.
At the counter
The policy should be framed and displayed prominently at the counter. Your return and exchange policy should be comparable to that of other retailers in your area that sell what you sell.
Try to eliminate the word ‘no’ and write your policies in a friendly voice. For example, “No refunds or exchanges without a receipt” becomes customer-friendly when changed to “We gladly accept returns and exchanges within X days. Your receipt guarantees it.”
Place a variety of impulse items at the counter.
High-margin, inexpensive items work best; you should give them a selection they can’t resist.
Sell gift cards year-round at the counter. A small display is all you need. Remember that most gift card shoppers spend more than the face value of the card and require more than one trip to your store to spend it.
That’s good news for you!
Use the wall directly behind your counter to display products. You never want customers to stop thinking about products, even when checking out.
Instead of notes taped to the wall and piles of merchandise, use that space to display featured items, new arrivals, and impulse products.
Keep a stash of frequently forgotten items at the counter. When a customer says, “I forgot to get X, I’ll get it next time,“ you can reach under the counter, grab that item, and save the sale.
Store operations
Your store should be open when customers expect you to be open.
There is no perfect answer to when you should be open because the answer depends on the time of year, your competition and what shoppers expect.
It’s important to note that many retail sales happen after 7:00 pm, which explains why shopping centres and chain stores stay open until 9:00 pm.
You should be open some evening hours and on Sundays as well.
Answer your telephone within three rings. Choose how you want your phone answered and share it with all associates.
A simple answer might be, “Thank you for calling X! This is X. How may I help you today?”
Don't hide behind voice mail, and don't make staff tell customers about a sale, hours, or whatever is happening in the store that day before asking how they can help - this drives customer crazy!
Manage your customer response times. Best practices recommend returning phone calls, responding to email requests within 24 hours, and replying to text messages within an hour.
Don’t hide behind an automatic reply unless it’s necessary. Not being responsive gives a wrong impression of your business.
Control your backstock. Before you reorder, ensure there are no additional quantities of that product in your storeroom.
If you need a physical reminder, place a green dot sticker on the shelf or bin ticket indicating that there is more of this merchandise in the stock room.
When there is no more of the item in the stock room, replace the green dot with a red dot indicating that it needs to be reordered.
Add a black dot if the item is not to be reordered, or mark it down and move it to the clearance aisle.
Don’t wait too long to take a markdown. Merchandise that isn’t selling doesn’t do you any good collecting dust on a shelf. It needs to free up cash to buy fresh, saleable products.
Add a ‘sell by’ date to price tags and bin tickets, and mark down items as soon as sales slow down. Packing away products for next year is rarely a good idea.
In the next issue of Jeweller, the marketing overhaul continues with part three.
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