Sourcing out Products for Your Retail Store

A steady supply of high quality products s what you need to secure a competitive and progressive business. In this aspect, there is a need to be wise with your decision on how to source out and find a good supplier that will benefit your business.

Now, in business we have what we call trends. These will define what will be bought by the public at a particular time. Being able to keep up and produce trendy products can give you a temporary boost in sales; however, you need still need to be cautious for trends, by definition, show “a general direction in which something is developing or changing.”

Change is constant and inevitable even in trends, so you should be aware of this when you source out a fashionable product. Remember that what’s popular today may not be after a year, so be watchful on how that trend develops over time and order your inventory accordingly.

So, after you brainstormed possibilities, generated ideas, and identified what trends your customers might be interested in, you may then have a long list of potential products you could source and stock in your retail store.

The thing is you can’t just go on and sell everything that you could. But it’s also about curating the right products to delight your specific customers.

This is a reality especially when you’re a specialty retailer, or want to build a reputation as a store with the greatest items for a highly niche market. They put their dedication to curating only the best products for their store shelves right on the homepage of their website:

The company only sources products from retailers who pass a strict quality standard. Some also refuses to stock items with ingredients banned from their shelves.

The end result is a store in which customers know exactly what to expect when they walk in the door: high-quality, health-focused beauty products that are made with safety and sustainability in mind.

Aim to curate your products in the same way, so that your shelves offer consistent levels of quality for customers. The items you sell can reflect your brand, so choose them with care.

Now, the next thing you’ll be thinking is working with a supplier. Well, there are a lot of ways to connect with people. If you want an easier transaction, you have the internet to make things easier for you. While if you’re someone who prefers one-on-one up close and personal, you could go to trend shows and other conferences which can make your network wider.

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Validating Retail Business Idea with a Focus Group

The idea of focus group engagement in business is to put customers in an interactive experience that exposes them to your business idea. It’s a moderated session that gathers feedback, opinions, and criticisms based on questions or activities that you create. If well executed, this strategy can provide you a return of invaluable insight and help guide decisions on if and how to approach your new business or launch your new product.

Your primary goal is to know whether your new business idea will click to your customers and if it will keep you going. You can start from this goal to guide you in your further actions.

Finding Participants

Your next priority would be considering who should be involved. You want to be able to identify underlying similarities among the group, but some diversity will allow for insightful and contrasting opinions. When thinking of people to invite, aim for a group of at least 5 to 10 with different demographic profiles and variables for this can ensure that you can strike up a lively conversation. The keyword here is conversation, not debate. Try recruiting participants for free through social media channels or community boards. It is also better to have people who don’t know each other.

What questions should you ask?

Lastly, be very thoughtful about the questions you pose to your focus group. These questions must incite conversation and, ultimately, give you the validation you’re looking for.

Here are some traits of effective questions:

1. Open-ended. You don’t want the conversation to fizzle with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. This will not produce great ideas and will just give you countless nods and head shakes.

1. Clear and Concise. You don’t want participants to hesitate sharing their thoughts because their confused about what you’re asking.  Remember to Keep It Short and Simple.
2. Realistic and Relevant. The conversation should be natural if you want the group to feel comfortable sharing their feedback openly.
3. Focused around one thought or goal. Venturing with many branches of ideas can confuse the participants and lead them away from the primary concept which will make it harder for you to synthesize.

The order of your questions can also influence the outcome, so run a test session on family, friends or partners to capture some quick feedback. Allow for 15 to 20 minutes of discussion per question, so plan for eight questions that will get you the validation you’re looking for.

Focus Group Session Proper

After recruiting an eager group of participants and when you already feel confident about your plan, then it’s time to start things up!

Here are some tips to help you out:

1. Choose a location that’s comfortable and conveys a feeling of openness. Provide light snacks and water to keep participants as focused as possible while you have them. If the location allows, seat participants around a circular table for easier flow of conversation.

1. Ask participants to show up at least 15 minutes before start time so that your session can begin in a timely manner.
2. Use the buddy system. Bring along a friend or partner you can trust to take thorough notes. These will be what you revisit and analyze. If you’re able to record the session, do that as well.
3. Arm yourself with tactics to steer the conversation when it gets off course.

One thing to be especially aware of is a phenomenon where other participants just goes with the flow. This usually happens when one enthusiastic participant offers an opinion and the rest of the group then adopts as their own because they don’t want to be seen as a detractor. In some cases, great ideas can come from participants building off one another, but make sure it doesn’t get in the way of absorbing valuable differing opinions.

There are a few things you can do to avoid this. Give participants an assignment a week prior to the session to give them an opportunity to form opinions before hearing others. In the same vein, it helps to ask participants to write down some of their answers during the session that you can then collect and use to steer the conversation. And finally, when you already see this happening, try challenging the group with the opposite assumption and see where it goes.

Using the Results for your Advantage

Make sure you have fully documented the highlights of the session afterwards. Consider recording the focus group to avoid missing any important idea. This will allow you to transcribe the session and more easily draw valuable insights.

After doing this, you can start categorizing the ideas. Then you can start generalizing to have the whole picture of your findings. Now, you should be able to have a fruitful conclusion that will help you with your next actions.

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The Science of Discounts

DISCOUNTS, DISCOUNTS, DISCOUNTs.

This is a word that instantly brings sparkle to the eyes of a crowd of buyers causing intense change in their behavior, a couple of boosted hormones as an initiation to the process of your transaction.

When it comes to creating discounts that will trigger buying behavior, setting up sale prices is equal parts psychology and marketing presentation skills. So, the question is how can smart retailers move merchandise by appealing to the human psyche and how can they influence the customer’s behavior to favor their business?

There are innumerable strategies used in promotions. Listed below are some of the most commonly used types. Your primary goal is to gain insights into which of these drive sales with your particular customer base. If you must, experiment with each until you find the lift you’re looking for. Trying everything can also help you identify which works the best, suits your business and provide your ideal results.

Percentage Reduction

This is likely the discount type you’ve seen most often, and it can be applied to a specific product or your entire store. For example, get $50 or 50% off. This is also one of the most effective types because the shoppers are encouraged to buy (even more than they ought to) because of the reduced prices of the goods. It also causes a panic buying mindset to the customers. This leads them to buy and buy and buy.

“Buy one, Get one FREE”

This can be used to encourage shoppers to consider additional items in your store. For example, you can advertise “Buy one, get 50% off the second” or “Buy one, get one free.”

Bundle sale

Tempt shoppers to buy multiple items in order to unlock this promotion type. This works best on smaller ticket items. For example, buy five items and get the sixth for free. This can help encourage impulse purchases, and helps increase the average sale amount per transaction.

Rewards for a purchase

Shoppers love freebies. If they’re on the fence about a purchase, or if they’re choosing deciding between you and a competitor, a free gift might be just the push they need to purchase. Providing a more favorable reward can give you an edge to be chosen by consumers.

Rebate

In this scenario, the saving occurs after the initial purchase and is decided by the shopper. Although the barrier to savings is higher, this works well on higher-ticket items, if the discount is worth it.

Testing variations of the above discounts can be costly. Keep your eye on profit margins and ensure you’re comfortable crunching the numbers. Engage with everything only when necessary prevent this from causing excessive expenses or it might leave you with loss of significant assets.

Now, you might be thinking why do discounts work?  Well, business is a persuasion game. People invest their money but also they are looking for the best deal that they could ever find. And because people love free items so much, they will also consider anything that can be as closer to being free.

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Online Contests for your Retail Giveaways

Almost everyone have engaged at least once using the social media. It is indeed a part of our daily lives to exist in the online world. Given that, business owners also adapted to use this reality as to achieve their goals for the growth of their business. Many strategies are now being produced to satisfy and maintain the interest of the online audience.

Well, who wouldn’t like a free stuff? This is one of the primary reasons why online contests are a thing nowadays. However, giveaways aren’t just great for the winner — they’re an opportunity for you to grow your retail business. With a little bit of product as a prize and some marketing effort, an online giveaway can help your business grow your email newsletter subscription list; increase awareness of a new brand or product; drive customers to your website or into your store; gain valuable data from existing and future customers; increase social media followers; and get rid of excess inventory as prizes.

These are just some of the possible benefits that you can derive from running an online giveaway gimmick. Now, let’s dive into the steps you’ll need to take to run a flawless online contest.

First, you have to identify what’s the goal for your giveaway. While there are many reasons you might launch a giveaway, your objective might look something like one of the options in the list above. Whether it’s increasing website traffic, growing your social presence, or increasing sales, it’s important to clearly define the goal from the beginning of the campaign. Being specific can also help you in determining if you are achieving progress with your objectives.

It’s important to also make sure that the success of your campaign is traceable and that you’re set up to analyze this data throughout and at the end of the giveaway. Nail down what metrics are most important before you launch your online contest, as these will be based on your goals for the overarching campaign.

Next, you’ll need to identify the prize or prizes you’ll be giving away. Remember, better prizes can help further boost engagement and shares. However, stay away from offering some generic prize. Instead, make the prize relevant to your brand or products. This will establish your relation and connection with your customers.

It would be better to give away your own products as prizes to ensure that you’re attracting entrants who are interested in your brand. Giving away a TV might just attract people that like big TVs and aren’t really interested in your business or its offerings. Giving away some of your own product is also a way to clear some hard to move items in your inventory that is cluttering up your shelves.

Now, there are countless types of contests for eager retailers to try. While we’ve included a roundup of some of the most common types below, you may still need a bit of inspiration to come up with the perfect contest content. If you’re planning your next round of giveaways for the year, consider planning your online contest around one of the following factors.

This strategy would render great benefits to your business as long as you know what you’re doing and you understand the needs and wants of your customers. This will be a key to a progressive growth that will make your brand stand out among all others.

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Tips to Lower Expenses Without Compromising Quality

For the past years, Cross-cutting in the business industry has always been about compromising the quality of your product or having to say goodbye to the kindest people working with you. But, the reality is, this doesn’t always have to be the only outcome. In fact, this could result to something beneficial for the business. So stop swallowing the hard path because there is another way to come around and achieve success.

Reducing expenses is one of the priorities of business owners. This is another way to boost the revenues in your business. It’s an important, but not necessarily straightforward, issue to tackle. On one hand, cutting costs can happen in a variety of ways. But on the flip side, you could be sacrificing quality.

Quality should never be compromised or sacrificed because it will have a huge impact on your business. Believe it or not, lower quality of goods or services will also harm the way your customers behave when having transactions with you. A bad impression can be earned by doing so. And just for your information, many business paid the toll by falling into bankruptcy or if not, suffered a major reduction in their income.

So, what should you do? You might be thinking that this is a dead end where you are cornered with no other choice.

The key is no other than turning efforts to customer retention could reap more financial rewards, and more importantly, be a more cost-efficient means of boosting sales. Repeat customers are likely to spend more, too, and that amount is likely to increase over time. Profits also increase and operating costs decrease with this additional spending.

Retailers can improve their customer retention rates through loyalty programs, reaching out to customers who reach milestones (such as a year since their last purchase or an upcoming birthday), and improving customer service. Learn how to implement these and other customer retention strategies.

Now one of the simplest yet important ways is to keep close and watch your expenses and then perform an audit for you to determine the unnecessary which you can cut out. Many of these unnecessary expenses are from the operational expenses that we incur either daily or monthly.

After being able to cut off some of these, you might want to support your income and boost to maintain the arrival of revenues. You might also take advantage of this by engaging to business relationships such as partnerships with trustworthy entities.

Another strategy that you can do is by automating vital tasks in your business. Just make sure that when you do this, you will be able to cut the expenses and focus them on more important tasks. All you need to remember is you must determine repetitive tasks that are not necessary to be man-handled.

Lastly, you can resort to outsourcing of services. Through this you can make sure that your processes will be handled with expertise by consulting firms. Another suggestion is to outsource your logistics and supply channel instead of maintaining your own distribution center.

There are a lot of opportunities tied to cutting the expenses. Though there is no one-size-fits-all solution for cutting costs while maintaining product quality. Problem-solve the areas where your costs are generating the least value so you have more capital to focus on growing your business.

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Cash On The Streets: Off Store Retailing

Many trends arise in business particularly in retailing. Going on the streets and off store may be unexpected but believe it or not, it is one of the most successful nowadays. As you can observe, many retailers already transferred from their brick and mortar store to a wheeled property to distribute and market their goods and services.

Food trucks are the most common example today. This is particular to food business whereas more and more of them are opting to serve their meals on wheels. This is due to the outstanding reviews and studies which places food trucks on top of the lists of the greatest strategies in business.

Annual revenues for this kind of business has now reached billions not only in the United States but also all over the world. Truly mobile business has made an impact in the retail industry whereas it has shaped how business engages in the transaction with the buyers.

Now, let’s examine the factors and the reasons why this major turn has made a huge difference in marketing and how it can truly benefit the retailers. We will also find out the proper strategy on how you are going to be able to implement it.

First, you have to consider the costs that it will take comparing it to the start-up costs of a brick-and-mortar store. You also might want to include the costs to rent such a space, purchasing displays and equipment, hiring staff, etc. This is on top of the overhead costs which include insurance, inventory and maintenance — are also much less expensive than those of a storefront. Take into consideration the money saved on advertising alone. Traveling retailers are often hard to miss, and your storefront is what introduces you to your customers first.

So, knowing our economy, it is undeniably not friendly especially to business owners so if you are considering or wanting to be more practical, then it will be easier to decide.

On the other hand, mobile retailers have the luxury of working with a smaller amount of real estate and a smaller inventory. As a result, they can be agile in their approach by testing the waters of a particular market before committing to something more permanent either in location or with inventory. So it could be a better choice then.

But the most important thing that you must consider is the overall experience that you will be giving to your customers. This is what will make the greatest impact. Well, Mobile retailers are in a position to offer a unique and fun retail experience that stands apart from fixed storefronts.

Customers prefer things what will give them the best convenience and comfort. That is one of the rules of business. That is why we can say that it is an automatic advantage of turning into mobile because it is rich with that particular factor. Given all this information, make sure that the next decisions will be worth your while and your money. Off you go!

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Running Your Retail Business More Efficiently Through Outsourcing

Owning a retail business requires you to know a bit about everything. It also means that you definitely be doing a lot of everything. But, just like most retailers, you might be missing a very important secret that will help you with your business. This involves delegating and outsourcing some of the tasks that are keeping you busy.

As a business owner, time among all others is one of the topmost important resource. Itis highly perishable and cannot be restored. So it is a priority to use it wisely and save it when necessary. This is where outsourcing, or offloading some tasks off your to-do list, can come in handy. The formal definition of this concept says that as outsourcing occurs when a business pays an outside supplier to provide goods and services, rather than doing the work in-house. The practice started in the 1970s and grew popular in the 1990s as a way for companies to reduce their internal cost structure.

There are times that outsourcing means hiring staff to handle some of your workload, or delegating more tasks to trusted employees. But even entrepreneurs who run their business entirely by themselves can outsource some of their more tedious or time-consuming jobs to part-time, external helpers. Of course you also have to consider if the costs will be worth it. If that’s the case, then you’re doing a great job and a wise move. Otherwise, you have to stop and come to think of it more thoroughly because your decisions will highly affect the outcome of your business.

Now, going through the process of outsourcing, you have to follow a clear and straight path to achieve success. To help you out, we have listed some important things you have to keep in mind to have a smooth transition from traditional operations to outsourcing. Well, first thing’s first is you have to figure out what tasks are the most important use of your time. As the boss, you’ll know best what tasks need your attention and what can be the responsibility of others. Consider outsourcing tasks that are commonly delegated (there are entire industries created around helping small- and medium-sized businesses free up more of their time), tasks that are cost-effective to outsource (opposed to those that would cost heavily to delegate), and those that are simple for others to do. It’s easy to take for granted how well you know the ins-and-outs of your retail business, so be sure to create materials to get anyone you bring in up to speed quickly about your business and needs.

The point here is that outsourcing serve as a great way for you to find the time and resources to be able to focus on more important and more general issues in your retail business, and hopefully also free up time for a healthy work-life balance.

So, having now a deeper understanding about outsourcing tasks, you will be able to decide better if you really are in need to outsource for your retail business.

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How to Identify Automate-able Retail Process

Saving up time and resources is one of the top priorities of any retail owner. Aside from plainly earning and boosting up sales, being able to skip the hardest processes in the business is their greatest accomplishment.

On the modern time, almost anything runs and is developed with technology. Retail processes is of now exception to this. So instead of shedding unnecessary sweat and blood, some of these tasks can be automated to make life simpler and the processes smoother for you. But, how would you know what among these tasks can be automated? Of course, you cannot just invest without knowing where it is best to exert your resources. So, let’s help you out with some of the tips where you can start determining what tasks you can automate based on your business.

CUSTOMERS

Of course, most of all, they are the lifeline of your business. Without them, you won’t earn or won’t exist at all. So better start asking them whether it’s in person or through email, uncover areas of your business that customers might feel can be run more smoothly. Automating some tasks can address some of their pain points and streamline workflow — which frees up more of your time and helps out your customers.

EMPLOYEES

As your workforce and your staff, they help and aide you throughout your business process which makes them sometimes more familiar and exposed with the issues and problems with your system more than you are. Also, they can be full of ideas when it comes to being more efficient. Solicit anonymous feedback to draw out the most honest answers.

SCHEDULE

It is also important to keep track on your schedule. You can do this by performing an audit on your work activities. Write down every task you do over a week and the amount of time you spend doing them. Identify where you’re spending time that doesn’t direct benefit from your energy. What else can you be doing?

COMPETITORS

Lastly, be observant of your competitors. They are the one who’s always up for something that will make them better than you. Through them you can learn things that you can also consider for your own business.  You can then develop these strategies to avoid being just a copycat but instead perform better in your business.

Now, apart from knowing these, you also consider other things before you automate tasks within your business. You start by asking some questions which can help you determine whether it will be helpful to automate it. The following listed below are some of the factors that most businesses consider when automating a task.

Repetitive – tasks that just goes over and over again and doesn’t require a person to do them is one of the tasks that you must automate instantly.

Simple- Easier and simpler workflows can be automated to give faster and better performance in your business.

Time and money Saver- You’ve got the magic words. If automating this can benefit you big time, then there’s no doubt in doing it. Just remember that it must always be worthy of its costs before doing it.

Scale-able- as your company grow, there are tasks that aren’t as plausible as you grow so it is better to keep them with little manpower. This is where automation takes place.

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Booming your Storefront with A Pop-Up

Pop-up stores are now one of the latest developing trends in the retail industry.  This concept offers a unique buying experience and the novelty alone can be enough to attract buyers. And when it comes to competing for attention at giant expos where retailers are set up shoulder-to-shoulder, many forgo the crowded expo hall floor and focus just on temporary storefronts.

Being able to run a pop-up store instead of plainly attending the expo also means less elbowing for shoppers’ attention, and potentially capturing more foot traffic from all the other. At this time, with the advancement of modern technology, sticking to plain traditional ways will leave you far way behind your other competitors. That is why now is the perfect time to insert new and more effective strategies to make you stand out among all others. Here’s how:

Standing out with your Pop-Up Store  

While the pop-up shop provides an interesting alternative to the traditional expo, not all retailers can opt out of major events entirely. Many businesses rely on expos to increase brand awareness, boost sales, and form new partnerships and connections.

Come to think of it. With those retailers all around the marketplace all catching the attention of the potential customers, how do you increase visibility and compel passersby to stop and shop? How do you compete with the other retailers selling similar products?

Now, you may not be able to skip expos entirely. But you can make them more successful if you bring the pop-up store experience to the event and make your business stand out.

First, you have to create the right vibe with both your product and the people.

Obviously, your first goal is to draw the eye of the crowd. But, this doesn’t mean putting up flashy (and potentially gaudy) signage or hustling people into your booth. It’s more about creating a vibe that reflects what your brand is about, why you sell what you do, and who you want to provide products for.

For pop-ups and events, we usually offer a more visual experience of what the brand stands for.

Remember that part of what goes into the experience is the people themselves who run the booth. It’s important to bring the right team to the events, who can speak to the brand and the product in a way that encourages people to come back to us online.

Second, utilize the small shopping space.

Pop-up stores can pop up anywhere. You can find these little shops on popular sidewalks, in a corner of another store, in a private room at a swanky restaurant, and even at markets inside converted vans and trucks.

Customers can step right in and shop like they would at a traditional brick and mortar store. The beauty of the mobile boutique is that I can bring the shopping experience almost anywhere.

Try observing local pop-up stores in your area, and note how they maximize the use of small spaces. You can get efficient display ideas from looking at what these mobile, on-the-go retailers create and replicate that for a similar experience at an expo.

Lastly provide the customers a chance to try before they buy.

Nothing’s better for a customer than the best quality of product and service. By giving your potential customers the chance to try the actual product first before their purchase, you can assure them the best quality that they can get from you. Pop-up stores don’t hustle customers in and out of their tiny spaces. They invite shoppers to jump into a wonderful little hidden world where their products become delights to enjoy. Through this, you can assure them high quality product and service experience as well as reduce returns and refunds.

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Shaping the Future of Your Brick-and-Mortar Store

The impact of e-commerce created a major explosion and change to the retail industry. And ever since the first product was sold online, we knew our lives were changed forever. At first it seemed as though the days of brick-and-mortar businesses were numbered. But it continued to exist because many we still fighting for it.

Nowadays, everything seems to depend on technology such as the internet. It is really hard to do things the way they used to be done. Having physical stores requires a struggle because an even greater competition is existent. And it is somewhere we cannot physically see.

So, here, we’ll discuss what the future of brick-and-mortar stores will look like and how to adapt and make changes in order to keep your business growing in the time of continuous technological innovations.

Providing Better Customer-Experience

Brick-and-mortar retailers need to offer so much more than “stuff.” Shoppers want engaging and personalised in-store experiences, ones that go beyond the traditional retail space. A growing number of major retailers have started offering complimentary workshops and classes to client.

Pop-up shops are another way to attract customers to your store for an experience they wouldn’t find online or at any other retailer. These temporary, short-term retail events have been a growing industry, accounting for approximately $10 billion in sales, this according to many major companies who have all started hosting pop-ups as a way to increase brand awareness and draw customers in store.

When it comes to brick-and-mortar retailers, hosting a pop-up shop at your store not only creates a unique and limited experience for clientele, allowing you to potentially attract new customers, but helps you test out new revenue streams and develop relationships with other retailers in your community. Consider partnering with another business selling complementary products or items with a similar aesthetic. In order to keep customers coming back and attract new ones, it’s time to start thinking beyond the typical sale and start offering your customers immersive, memorable experiences.

Innovate Personalised Shopping

The future of customer retention for brick-and-mortar stores lies in personalised experiences. One way is to offer tailored shopping experiences or personal shopping services. Another method is to truly home in on who you’re trying to target as clientele and build a shop curated specifically to them.

Utilizing Advanced Tools

Customers are more tech-savvy than ever, and so much of the reason why e-commerce businesses are crushing it is because shoppers are increasingly comfortable in a digital world. In order to survive, brick-and-mortar retailers must start incorporating digital elements into the in-person shopping experience.

Radio frequency identification, or RFID, is also useful to retailers and shoppers alike as an easy way to track inventory digitally. Similarly, Augmented and virtual reality as well as wearable tech are already popular in the gaming and entertainment industries. It’s only a matter of time before shoppers expect to see their retail experience transformed with this technology. Augmented reality may assist customers in navigating through larger stores or provide additional product information, while virtual reality can allow shoppers to seamlessly experience and “test” products before purchasing them.

Technology enables a smoother, more personalised experience for shoppers in store, and in return, helps retailers understand their customers and provide a better experience.

 

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Reputation Management and Knowing About PR

In retail business, marketing is process of communication where there is a message to be delivered to possible clients. Also, this is where the business’ reputation and branding will be instilled to the customers which they will also discuss among each other.

It is important in marketing how people will perceive your brand. So the question is how can you influence your brand and what other people say about you. This is what we will discover and discuss below.

Good Public Relations, can go beyond maintaining a positive image in the public eye. It gives you a way to engage in reputation management while increasing the reach of your business.

But there’s also potential drawbacks here: this involve PR firms or marketing agencies who promise to help with public relations but gets a little bit pricey. That’s why outsourcing PR may not be a realistic option for retailers with limited budgets.

Thankfully, the world of PR doesn’t look the same as it used to — and that’s good news for retailers, especially those who don’t want to pay for press exposure.

Understanding Reputation Management

PR can be referred as any activity that helps you manage your reputation, or how the public perceives your brand. Ultimately, this depends to good — and frequent — communication.

PR is all about an entire process of communication between you and your audience through various mediums. It’s not just about buying advertisements or paying for people to give your company attention.

This is also why PR can provide considerably more value for you than traditional advertising. You receive attention from a third-party, be it a media outlet or an event or another type of influencer. That provides validation and makes the story you want to tell about your brand more believable.

Clearly, you have a exerted interest in positioning yourself in the best light when the news comes directly from you. By getting press and media attention, a separate entity is sharing information about you. It’s a great way to practice reputation management in a way that lends more credibility to your brand.

Public relations relies on earned attention. Which begs the obvious next question: How do you earn attention from decision-makers, media influencers, writers and reporters, industry insiders, and event organizers who can all help shine the spotlight of publicity on your brand?

And how do you earn that attention in the right way, so that you retain the control of your business’ reputation?

Handling Your Own PR and Reputation Management

In reputation management, there are three important elements to handle your own PR as a retailer: This refers to a compelling, interesting, and truly newsworthy story to share.

While great, high-quality content to help you communicate the story (which includes a press release, pitch emails, and supporting content for your PR campaign)

Also, strong connections and sincere relationships with members of the press can help you communicate your story to your audience.

Finally, here’s a bonus tip for you: the ability to clearly, quickly communicate when something unexpected comes up. Most of PR is proactive, meaning you’re actively managing your reputation by creating and sharing stories deliberately.

 

 

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Putting Your Retail Products into the Starlight

Whether your are eyeing for your retail business to grow or just to start it all out, any business can actually benefit with the boom of popularity or increase in sales from a trending product. But how can a retailer do to achieve this kind of buzz for one of their products or services?

Sometimes it’s nearly impossible to predict what will go viral, but there are some things you can do to help your product reach must-have, viral status with your audience. Before you decide to invest the time and effort into trying to make a product explode online, make sure that the product you’re promoting is worth the effort. When something becomes popular, it inevitably comes under more scrutiny, so quality is key.

Business nowadays has become more than just the capability of being able to supply according to the current demand. But by creating impact to actually make more demands yourself by putting your brand into the limelight.

So now, let’s take a look at some things that you can do to make your retail product go viral.

Almost everyone knows that timing is everything. You’ll need to plan when your product will hit the market and when your marketing campaign will run. Timing is crucial when it comes to how to go viral.  For the purposes of creating a lot of buzz, you’ll want to center your launch around a relevant event. For example, launching a holiday item a few weeks or months before Christmas, rolling out a clothing item in time for the appropriate season, or launching a product in time for a relevant event — like a concert or local festival.

If your product doesn’t naturally tie to a specific event or date, then make one for it. Centralize your marketing campaign around the big launch date — give the date a product-centric name and make sure it’s hitting shelves or online everywhere on the same day. This single message helps customers remember the day, builds a sense of urgency to be an early adopter, and increases the chances of your first wave of inventory selling out.

Next, you’ll want to build anticipation for your launch through paid and organic marketing. If you anticipate your product going viral, put the majority of your paid marketing behind building anticipation before the launch and let the organic, social buzz take over from there.

Uniqueness

It’s not enough to simply offer the same products as everyone else in your market.

You can capitalize on the power of differentiation by offering a product that is distinct from your competitors. Products that go hand in hand with other trendy and up-to-date materials that people use day by day. Surely, products like these will never come out of light.

Sharing is the key 

Sharing on social media platforms is a necessity to be able to achieve success. And there are a lot of ways to motivate social sharing, this includes coming up with a contest where entrants must follow your account and share the contest information with their followers.

You can also encourage your followers to share your product by creating a content that makes them laugh or creating visually engaging content that people are more likely to summarize and share. Also, ensure that your content is topical and current (i.e. relevant to an upcoming holiday or news event.)

Social sharing is important — many retailers are stumped on how to go viral with organic social media reach. When it comes to organic sharing, people tend to share content that connects with them. In a similar article it says that the importance of connecting with your audience and telling a story is stressed and if people are going to share your product, they need to be able to tell its story. That can be as simple as a clear statement about what the product does, or as complicated as a really interesting origin story.

Emotional Connection

The thing is, people are more likely to share something that they connect with on an emotional level as much as they’re likely to develop brand loyalty and recommend your product to a friend. In addition, eliciting an emotional response to your product is a great way to make consumers feel good about using the item.

Many entrepreneurs highlight the emotional relationship that the brand has forged with their consumers. From their nostalgic holiday campaigns, their brand have become a master at pulling at the heartstrings and creating content that people love to share.

When building this connection with your audience try to create content that really connects. People build real relationships with brands that they can trust, that appear authentic and have a defined brand identity.

Consumers were also put into ties with brands that effectively make them feel nostalgic. These brands have had great success with nostalgic content that reminds people of another time or their childhood.

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CUSTOMER COOLDOWN: Dealing with Angry Customers

A fact that everyone in the retail industry must accept and understand is the fact that that we cannot please everybody. There will be times that things won’t go as plan and we will be facing the consequences in the  of a furious customer. So, the only choice you have is to be prepared.

The thing is, it is not as complicated as it may seem. In fact, you can view dealing with angry customers as an opportunity to put these great customer service tips into practice to make a lasting impact on your business and your customers. Every time a customer offers their feedback, good or bad, it’s an opportunity for retailers to address customer needs.

This is now your chance to transform someone’s mindset about your brand from negative to positive through your way of handling their concerns aside from just solving the problem itself.

So, The next time you come across a shopper who’s less than pleased, keep these strategies in mind to diffuse the situation and turn the interaction into a great customer relations.

Listen

The usual problem when people started to argue with someone is that, both parties will close their ears and will not listen but instead they set their focus on how to come up with a rebutt which often makes the situation worse.

So, to avoid being caught up with all the commotion, the lesson is to practice active listening instead.

Active listening refes to a structured form of listening and responding that focuses the attention on the speaker. The best practice in active listening is to genuinely pay attention to what the speaker says — and then repeat the speaker’s words back to them.

But, this doesn’t mean you will just parrot what your customer says. It means, in your own words, you repeat what they tell you. Practice better listening through paraphrasing, as it also increases your understanding of their point of view. This way because you demonstrate that you received what they said, understood what happened, and get how the situation made them feel.

Most people simply want to be heard and understood. And with this form of listening, it will allow you to do that for your customers, which can quickly bring the energy down in a heated conversation and lead them to a point where you can engage in a dialogue about solutions.

Be Cool

We all know that the customer is not always right. It is frustrating to know that they’re to blame for the problem that’s causing their anger. But you must not fight fire with fire. Matching their emotions won’t get you anywhere except deeper into a bigger argument or fight.

You and your employees can practice techniques that make it easier to maintain composure (even when the customer loses theirs). Just like active listening takes practice, so does keeping your cool.

Try these tactics and allow your company time to practice these before anyone is confronted with angry customers:

Take a deep breath. Holding your breath from time to time is an effective response to stress. Simply taking deep breaths can keep you calm during these tough situations.

Ask questions. Instead of simply reacting to the customer’s emotions, you can start by collecting their information. This can give you time to calm down. Also, asking questions can soothe customers, too. It forces them to articulate their problem and situation without receiving any blame or accusations from your end.

Receive and acknowledge the customer’s communications. You don’t have to agree with all the things that the customer says, but you can just acknowledge them by saying, “I got it,” or “I understand.” Though staying calm doesn’t immediately solve the problem, but it’s one customer service tip that can contain the situation and prevent it from escalating.

Be Responsible and offer Solutions

If you’ve followed the above customer service tips, you can likely handle the situation to a point where you can open a dialogue about solutions to a customer’s problem.

You may not be able to completely rectify the cause of the customer’s anger, but you can invite them to talk about potential alternatives that work for them. You can also suggest possibilities as appropriate for the situation.

Admit that your store did make a mistake so start with an apology and take responsibility for it. When there’s an error on the retailer’s end, sometimes just taking ownership of the mistake can help calm a furious customer.

So, with that being said, you might need to also eat any costs you incur to resolve the customer’s frustrations. You can use this as an opportunity to audit whatever process caused the problem in the first place, and make adjustments as necessary to prevent future issues.

Set your level of Tolerance

During tensed times, you will be dealing with irrational and emotional customers. So, you need to determine how much of their behavior you’ll tolerate.

What you need to do is to give them a chance to calm down. You may also have to take the lead on de-escalating emotions when they run high. Then, that’s when you invite them to work with you to resolve the problem. You can express that you want to help, and you’d like their cooperation in addressing their concerns. Finally, if a customer is being rude, hateful, or just plain mean, you can politely ask them to leave. You’re not required to solve everyone’s problems — and with some customers, there’s no solution you can offer.

Their anger is not about you, your team, your products, or your company. If they refuse to deal with the situation in a respectful, reasonable manner after you’ve given them a chance to communicate their anger and invited them to seek a solution with you, it’s time to walk away.

Most importantly, your best way to deal with these angry customers is by preventing them to be mad entirely. Though, it’s not always possible, but if you proactively think about your customer experience, this can help you think of potential problems and positively impact how people interact with your products, employees, and your company. Proactively setting up a successful shopping outing saves time and energy that you won’t need to waste on dealing with angry customers.

 

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Incorporating Brand Identity into the Retail Store

Brand identity is one of the very most important when it comes to business. Even experts agree that brand identity is essential for retailer success. They say that brand identity is crucial, because that’s what separates you from your competition. Also, the brand is the aspiration the customer wants to buy; it’s the core truth of the brand.

Studies suggest that shoppers build relationships with brands because of shared values. As every customer put more importance on that, and less on price, retailers have an opportunity to distinguish themselves from competitors. In fact, it’s not only an opportunity — it’s a necessity.

Your brand is a story you tell to the world with the hope that it will resonate, and consumers will want to associate themselves with your brand. Because nowadays, retailers are no longer just product suppliers because they’re now becoming lifestyle partners, entities with which consumers are building relationships with the customers.

While for retailers with brick-and-mortar shops, it is way beyond just having a brand identity. It is a must to bring that identity to the shopping experience. Here are some ways retailers can do just that.

Here are the puzzle pieces or the components which builds the totality of your brand identity. These are the factors that you need to focus on and establish in order to build a good image and identity.

These actually play around the 5 senses of the human meaning you have to master every aspect for you to have your effective brand identity.

Let’s start with your Logo. Along the topic of visuals, your logo is an essential component to your identity. As part of your brand identity process, you will have a logo that embodies that identity. And that logo needs to play a part in the in-store experience.

A brand’s identity should be backed up by a strong logo. Also, the whole package needs to work together in order to be successful.

So, what you must keep in mind is that it’s not a matter of slapping the logo everywhere there’s a space for it. It must be strategic. Your logo can be placed anywhere on product displays, receipts, shopping bags, price tags, and more. It’s important to not overwhelm customers, but not underwhelm at the same time. This all depends on your brand identity.

Next on the list will be about your Color Scheme. Consumers can step into a target store and see red in a good way contrary to what they say that it represents bloody and negative images. In fact, color increases brand recognition by up to 80%.

But smaller retailers can use color to establish their brand identity as well. Choosing colors is extremely important, and it can have a psychological impact on customers. Certain colors evoke certain emotions.

Red evokes excitement, boldness and youth. Health and wellness retailers might go for grays or greens, to spark feelings of peace, calm, balance, and health. Blue on the other hand is associated with trust, purple with creativity, orange with friendliness, and yellow with optimism. Choose the colors that represent your identity and the impression you want to make upon consumers.

Then you have Music. Having the right music can also enhance your brand identity through the shopping experience. It goes beyond the type of music — thinks about the volume as well.

While you may not want your storefront to sound like a loud club, the point is that creating a soundscape in your store further solidifies your brand identity. So, offer due consideration to the background tunes playing in your shop.

Of course, we can’t set aside Scent. What gives advantage to many stores is when they utilize scent. If you pass by the store in a shopping mall, for instance, you might smell it before you see it. Because they spray fragrances in the stores, it creates a specific identity and emotional reaction from customers. That’s the power of scent marketing.

Much like colors, it’s been scientifically proven that smells affect mood and perception and can have strong effects on emotional reactions. That’s why yoga studios often use calming lavender scents to create an experience for students.

Think about how you want your customers to feel and identify scents that will evoke that feeling. Bonus points if you sell those fragrances!

Last but not the least is Lighting. Lighting doesn’t only help customers see your products; it also contributes to the shopping experience. While some retailers may think bright lights helps the products shine more, it may not be an accurate representation of the brand.

Children’s stores can get more creative and playful with the lighting, while Sephora needs the bright lights so customers can test out cosmetic products and see them clearly. If you want customers to feel relaxed and calm, dim the lights. If your identity is more energetic, go brighter.

 

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Point of Purchase Marketing: POP-ing up for Higher Sales

Many retail owners believe that when doing marketing efforts, you only aim to help a prospective buyer understand solutions to a problem, evaluate product or service options, and decide to make a purchase.

There have been lots of methods used which vary between initially buying a consumer’s attention or earning it as part of a strategy to build a larger brand audience. But the goals of each are the same: educate, inform, and persuade buyers to make a purchase.

However, a secret that is usually not known to many is the ‘Point of purchase marketing,’ which is a breath of fresh air in marketing.  This strategy attempts to market to shoppers who are already in the store and ready to make a purchase and it provides a last-minute way for retailers to influence the details of that decision. Through this, you are trying to boost and increase your revenues by convincing your buyers to shop for more.

So, the question is where is it best to Deploy Your Point of Purchase Marketing Strategy?

Actually, placing even just small, inexpensive, and relevant items on the counter can boost sales. So can using displays of these items to create an area where customers can queue while waiting to check out.

Many stores are using physical displays to create a path for customers to wind down on their way to check out. They place small items that cost significantly less than the rest of the store’s inventory here.

This point of purchase marketing technique is known to work because customers have already made a decision to buy something, making them more likely to buy an additional product if it does not significantly add to the total price of their purchase. Also, “Add-on” type items that are highly relevant to your customers can trigger impulsive purchases or serve as reminders for customers.

You can turn a long check-out line and wait time in shopping into an extended shopping experience for your customers. Your displays can keep them engaged and interested as they wait, which maintains their decision to buy a product and reduces the chances they’ll walk out empty-handed simply because they saw a long line at the register.

The job of point of purchase marketing includes your cash register and checkout counter, but you’re not limited to just these areas in your store. Because you can get creative with strategies in places like various places throughout your sales floor, directly on specific displays or sections of products, and the customer’s smartphones that they use as they browse.

Now, there are several options to see how you can go beyond the impulse buy at the checkout counter and use point of purchase marketing throughout your store to increase your sales. Here are some:

Creating your own inventory “Pop-Up Shop”

Pop-up shops usually allow other brands to temporarily set up within another retailer’s store. But you can use this technique to showcase a particular line of products or segment of your own inventory.

The store’s customers probably didn’t come into the store specifically to buy barware. But the pop-up-inspired display creates a sense of fun and novelty, which can inspire customers to make additional purchasing decisions once in the space. So, try highlighting a new brand or creating a seasonal-inspired shop will increase the chance of sales of a limited-time item. Not only will you be marketing right in store, but with the seasonal strategy you’ll create a sense of urgency around the fact that buyers need to make a purchase decision now before the product is gone.

Optimizing Point of Purchase Areas

Taking advantage of all the opportunities and optimizing your entire retail space for point of purchase marketing increases sales while feeling like a benefit for shoppers, through added value, information, and deals.

Point of purchase marketing can span your entire store, from useful displays that influence shoppers to indulge in unique or novelty items to stations where they can sample the products or at least test them out via a demo.

Now, you are far more than ready to pop up your sales with a brighter idea and knowledge about Point of Purchase.

 

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SIGNS OF SUCCESS: Effective Strategic Visuals

Signage is not just about simple designs or wayguides because a simple sign can do a whole lot more such as increasing the revenues as well as drawing attention to your iinventory which maybe you’re hoping to offload. Simply put, each sign that you create is an opportunity to communicate with potential customers about your products and your company.

Every business should consider using a defined style guide for their brand story when creating both permanent and temporary signage design to keep everything consistent and on brand.

So, how do you master the art of signage design to tell your brand’s story and boost your sales in the process? Let’s examine the types of signage designs commonly used in retail stores, and further highlight their potential benefits.

Signage Designs

Signages can either be promotional, informational, or even entertaining. These different kinds of signs do different things. Here we will outline the types of signage you should be focusing on as a retail store:

#1. Outdoor Signage: Best for creating awareness of your store, and getting people interested enough to come inside.

#2. Informational Signage: Provide the customers with much needed information (i.e. directions to the restroom), but also make the overall experience smooth.

#3. Persuasive Signage: These are signs that drive the customers to make a purchase.

#4. Mats: Great in helping orient the customers within the store, and drive traffic to specific areas of interest.

A good signage drives customers into the store while gives passersby a glimpse of your products and your brand, while a great signage even increases sales. On the other hand, a well-designed sign has a clear message, an appealing look, and is placed in just the right location.

Also, effective signage can even save you significant amount of money by acting as your salesperson, directing customers to what they’re looking for and answering questions they may have. This in turn frees up more time for the team members you do have on the floor to do other tasks and help customers in other ways — saving your business time, effort, and money. Successful signs provide others benefits, including creating a path for customers to follow through your store that drives them towards inventory that you’re looking to offload.

So now, let’s take a look at what you can do to create the best signs that will help boost sales for your retail business. Here’s how to optimize signage design for your storefront

The Size

Every sign has an ideal size. Outdoor signage should be large enough that passersby notice it on foot or in their cars, billboards need to be big enough to see quickly from afar, tabletop signage should be small enough to fit on countertops but big enough for the average person to read. So, what’s the magic recipe for designing the message on these signs?

The Benefits

What’s the goal of this particular type of signage? Compared to informational or entertaining signs, those that attempt to drive a sale have the hardest job. There are certain kinds of signs that catch people’s attention, including clearance sales and massive discounts. But if the goal is to drive sales for a specific product, then you’ll want to focus on the features and benefits of that item.

It’s tempting to tell customers about the features and expect them to understand the benefits of the product, but it’s better to speak to the benefits of the product directly. Letting people know that this product solves a problem for them, makes their life easier, or fills a need for them or someone they love is the best way to pique their interest.

Obviously it’s all in the phrasing of your message — and it doesn’t hurt to include a clear call to action that explains how your potential customers should move forward to enjoy the benefits of your product.

Keeping  It Short and Simple

As for the message and images that you select, the simpler the better. In the world of retail, the industry standard is that most signs should not contain more than 15 words. If you need more than 15 words to convey your message, then try to edit it and get it under that mark. Anything longer and you risk losing the attention of your audience or overcomplicating your message.

If you have something like a complicated promotion that you just can’t explain on a sign, then boil the message down to one CTA to get customers interested enough to come inside and ask salespeople for more information.

Once you’ve decided on your message, identify the graphics/images (if any) that are needed on the sign. Again, be short and to the point — lose any images that aren’t absolutely necessary or don’t add intrigue to the sign.

Finally, select a font that is readable and ensure that there’s a sharp contrast between the font and background. You’ve done the work to write great copy and you want to make sure that it’s legible. Pick a font that isn’t ornate, has consistent spacing, and doesn’t distract from the message. When it comes fonts, Design Shack explains further: “Other typography considerations include the use of bold or italics. Bold lettering can help aid in readability from a distance. Just make sure letters are properly kerned so that there is no confusion from a distance. Italics are troublesome and can be difficult on the eye; avoid them on signs.”

Being Eye-Catchy

People are bombarded with signs everywhere they go. When they see the same thing all the time, they start to tune it out. Keep your signage interesting and unique to stand out from the crowd. Witty signs that make people laugh are a great way to break through the noise and be eye-catching.

There’s a design trend recently to move towards neutrals. The truth is that there’s a popular emotion response to every color. Companies have been using the psychology of color to help design their brand logos and signs. So, have you already thought what you want your brand to represent and what you want people to feel when they look at your signs? Do you want people to be excited about a new product? Or feel like they can trust your business and products? Ask yourself these questions during the design stage and align your signs with the emotional response you’re trying to elicit.

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High-Tech Tools to level up Customer’s Shopping Experience

When you ask people to think of a high-tech shopping experience, online shopping is what automatically pops up their mind. Not knowing that for years, the ecommerce shopping experience has already evolved to include personalized recommendations based on purchase history, up-to-the-minute inventory trackers, and more advancement that feel like we’re living in the future.

In contrast, much of the brick-and-mortar shopping landscape seems to have stayed pretty much the same. But, if you look more closely at a few stand-out retailers, in fact, high-tech shopping is driving customers back into stores for personalized shopping trips.

In this competitive field, retailers need to offer an exceptional experience to draw the crowd. Obviously nothing could do it more than by providing high-tech shopping. So, what kind of high-tech advancements are retailers currently using? Let’s take a look at some of the available technologies that your retail business could integrate to create a better shopping experience for your customers.

Enhanced Visual Tech

In a certain instance exploration of high-tech shopping, one customer at a high tech store was able to eye clothes on the rack like at a traditional store, but the difference is that he can also use touchscreens around the store and in fitting rooms to select the size and color for any item. This is where you provide them with a feeling and sight of the future. You can do a lot of things with today’s modern technology and augmented reality.

For some instance, minimalist aesthetic can be used so when customers walk in— it won’t overwhelm them instead it will allow them to interact with the clothing without having to flip through large racks looking for the correct size. Additionally, the intuitive, digital interface and clothes that arrive almost magically in the changing room help anyone overcome social anxiety that they may have speaking directly with a sales associate.

Augmented reality shopping isn’t limited to in-store installations either. As demonstrated,, augmented reality is a useful high-tech tool that allows shoppers to better envision how your products fit into their lives. The more clearly customers can see your products meeting their needs, the more likely they are to make a purchase.

Interaction

Without embracing technology, only time can tell when will the doors will close for you, especially if you are going into brick and mortar. Because as many shops close, it is being more obvious  that now is the time to embrace technology and figure it out.

One of the newest trends nowadays is the use of fitting rooms with interactive mirrors, which make personalized recommendations, allow customers to connect with sales associates to request new sizes and ask questions, and even make purchases. Whiles providing your customers with a customized, tailored shopping experience, these interactive mirrors also provide you with valuable customer data to help predict sales and order inventory accordingly.

High-Tech Data Collection and Storage System

Video displays showing product commercials, express coupon distributors, and digitized prices and product information are just some of the high-tech advancements that you’ve probably seen in aisles and shelves of retailers over the last few years.

“Smart shelves” are digitized and connected to retailer’s inventory management system. So, when an item runs out of stock, you’re notified to replenish your shelf. Retailers can also use these sensor-powered shelves to collect other engagement data like what products are and aren’t selling.

The future of smart shelves could include targeted recommendations based on customer data and accounts. With this kind of technology, retailers could make recommendations based on previous purchases, track what items customers remove from shelves, and collect invaluable customer data based on activity over time.

User Experience

A high-tech customer experience is today’s real deal.  If the sales associate helping you already knows your shoe size, and can accurately predict your problems and needs when they approach are you more likely to try on a pair of shoes to see if they’re correct? Are you more likely to make a purchase? Many of the big retailers are betting on this kind of high-tech personalization to help boost in-store foot traffic and sales.

However, remember that high tech shopping isn’t about fancy gizmos and gadgets. High-tech toys may certainly help, but the real thing is they just help retailers work toward a greater goal which is to provide an unparalleled retail experience for your customers and attracting new people your shop.

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Optimizing POP Areas for Higher Sales

Do you believe that marketing ends once a customer already sets foot in your store? That’s where you’re wrong because this is just the beginning of what you should accomplish. Marketing efforts aim to help a prospective buyer understand solutions to a problem, evaluate product or service options, and decide to make the purchase. However, every methodology varies between initially buying a consumer’s attention and earning it as part of a strategy to build a larger brand audience. But, primarily, your goals are the same: to EDUCATE, INFORM, and PERSUADE your buyers to go and make the purchase.

Point of purchase marketing, on the other hand, has a different kind of magic, along which the strategy is to market to shoppers who are already in the store and ready to make a purchase and provide a last-minute way for retailers to influence the details of that decision.

In deploying your point of purchase marketing strategy, placing small, inexpensive, and relevant items on the counter can also boost sales big time! So can using displays of these items to create an area where customers can queue while waiting to check out.

This point of purchase marketing technique works because customers have already made a decision to buy something, making them more likely to buy an additional product if it does not significantly add to the total price of their purchase. Point of purchase marketing does include your cash register and checkout counter, but you’re not limited to just these areas in your store. You can get creative with strategies in places like various places throughout your sales floor, or on specific displays or sections of products whereas customer’s smartphones can be used in their browsing.

Another effective strategy is to provide Samples, Demos, or Other Experiences on the Sales Floor. Setting up your own stations throughout your store will allow customers to actually try your product before you buy can influence buying decisions and increase sales. You don’t actually need to sell food items in order to allow customers to try before they buy. You can allow them to sample most consumable goods and you can even work with your suppliers to see if they’ll send sample-sized inventory to your store for free to support your efforts to increase sales.

Just be careful when setting out samples. Studies show when given too many choices, we simply make no choice as the solution to deal with the overload. That means shoppers may buy nothing at all if they need to make too many decisions. If you sell items that can’t be consumed, a demo could work in place of providing samples. Best Buy is constantly practicing point of purchase marketing with most of their products because customers can see, touch, and interact with them via sectioned displays.

This gives customers the same try-before-buying experience that can influence their decision. Adding salespeople to the mix, who can suggest additional items and demonstrate how those add-ons will provide more value to the initial purchase, can increase sales even more.

How Create a “Pop-Up Shop” for Your Own Inventory?

These Pop-up shops allow other brands to temporarily set up within another retailer’s store. But you can use this technique to showcase a particular line of products or segment of your own inventory.

Build an App for Customers to Use In-Store

Customers today are more motivated to seek out the absolute best prices and deals before they buy because almost 90% of millennial people use smartphones in stores to assist them in a purchasing decision.

So the best way is to meet them with a branded retail app they can use to shop with you. Along with the specific features of your app which will largely depend on your store and the products you sell, you can also audit other retailers’ apps to brainstorm ideas for your own.

 

 

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Getting POPPED UP: Starting with Retail Point-of-Purchase Display

POP or Point-of-Purchase display is a marketing material or advertising placed next to the actual merchandise. These items are usually located in the checkout area or other location where the purchase decision will be made. More commonly abbreviated to POP by retailers, this is one of the most under-utilised tools in retail.  Though this has become a staple strategy for manufacturers as most vendors will have some sort of POP material they can provide for free use in retail stores. These materials also highlight the product and draw the customers’ attention to it, which is important in a retail store crammed with similar merchandise.

POP displays are as simple as a sign or as elaborate as a display carton. For example, a retailer may use a  a sticker stuck to the end of the shelf to draw attention as the customer walks down the aisle of a grocery store which is a small visual item or they can even create a full display of where the vendor’s products are merchandised inside it. Think of a free-standing display with the vendor’s branding on it, with only its merchandise on display inside.

Not to be confused with other retailing terms, POPs have moved from its traditional location of the cash wrap to other hotspot locations in the store. In its earlier forms, POP displays and materials would only be found in the cash register area. But today, manufacturers and retailers have discovered that POP displays can be placed throughout a store with great success.

One of the most elaborated POP is a vendor shop. This is tagged as a “store within a store” idea where a particular vendor places a section in the retail store that sets its merchandise apart from the rest. Probably one of the most powerful forms of POP is a signage. In fact, one research study conducted found that displays with signs outperformed displays without signs by 20 percent. This just means that sales of each item with signs were 20 percent higher than the sales of the times without signs.

What’s even more incredible is the fact that regular priced merchandise which is not even on sale was able to outperform sale or clearance priced merchandise by 18% when it was signed and the sale items were not. In short, signs as part of a POP display draw attention to the items. So, when the customer takes notice, they tend to buy it. These signs can take the form of hanging displays and posters or they can be mounted on store shelves as long as the signage doesn’t interfere with or annoy your customer, it’s a great way to draw attention to a new product, or one that’s on sale, as well as seasonal items.

Signage can be thought of as a silent sales agent who can keep a customer in a store and interested when the store is busy and the salespeople cannot instantly get to them. So if you consider that some 70 percent of retail purchases aren’t decided until the customer actually is in the store, it’s clear what impact something as simple as a POP display can make a major difference and boost to your business.

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Retail Franchising Opportunities and How to Seize it

Franchising has been a model for expanding any business and distributing goods and services through a licensing relationship. When talking about entrepreneurship, it is basically the opportunity to work for yourself but not by yourself.

In franchising, there are two main forms identified. Along which one refers to product and trade name franchising, this is where a so-called ‘franchisor’ sells or licenses the right to use a particular company name or trademark. While the other type is the business format franchising, this is where the ‘franchisor’ will provide a full range of services and support to his/her franchisee.

Want to know what franchising can offer to the growth and development of your business? Read on.

Faster Opening

Launching and having a franchise is much faster than opening a sole proprietorship business. Through this you can start a business immediately and let the revenues come in!

Training and Support

The franchisee and the employees he/she hires can rely on tried-and-true training and ongoing support. This assures a high quality service and product that can be provided by the workers in your business.

Location Scouting

Scouting out a location for a business can be one of the trickiest parts of retail. Of course, as a competitive owner, you want an area that offers some healthy competition but isn’t over-saturated with similar businesses. This is more achievable through franchising.

Brand Recognition

You launch a new retail business and know you offer a great product, but how does the public know? It takes years for entrepreneurs to build up a reputation and a solid customer base, but a franchise business already has one. So you already saved yourself years needed to establish a brand name. All you have to do is to choose for the right brand that will help you achieve what you want.

Group Purchasing Power

This is another benefit that might not be as obvious to business owners but actually, with franchising, there are lower costs associated with group purchasing.

Perhaps one of the biggest benefit to opening a franchise is having a network of fellow franchisees that can provide advice and moral support to you. Having these kind of connections will help a lot in your growing business. Its good to feel that you’re not just by yourself because you have some people that are ready to back you up.

Many people doesn’t believe and cannot appreciate franchising and the opportunities that can be derived from it. But many small-time business owners achieved success by starting with franchising. Through the years they are able to achieve success and are now more capable of engaging into more bigger ventures in the retail industry.

This can be the best options especially for beginners in the business industry. If you dream of being a successful and big-time business owner, you should acknowledge that there is no ‘overnight success.’ Instead, you have to exert perseverance and hard work.

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Writing Persuasive Product Copy

Writing may be difficult especially when you’re on a business but it is indeed a critical skill in making sales and generating revenue from your products.

A ‘Copy,’ which is composed of written text appears in your product descriptions and on your website pages, in your social media posts and in your advertising — any place you use the written word for your business, you create copy. This plays a huge role in the overall package of your marketing.

People nowadays are not that easily compelled by pure rhetoric. They get easily bored with just your product alone. What they crave about are stories that you could offer. These stories serve them feelings something which your product alone won’t be able to provide.

So, what you need is to capture the attention of your audience.

Educate them and provide answers to their questions or solutions to their pains.

Inspire them: give them a feeling that they desire and paint a picture of what a better life (in one way or another, but usually through the purchase of your product somehow) could look like.

Knowing how to tell stories and evoke emotion anywhere your online store uses written words can increase conversion rates. It’s a far more persuasive approach than simply listing a bunch of product features.

Here are 3 tips that you can that can be useful to aim your goals and help your business

Tip 1: Turning the tip of the knife

Playing on a shopper’s emotions can be a really effective way to get them to take action — especially if you hone in on their pain points. It is actually not bad at all as long as you will be responsible. All you need to do is to have that marketing mindset, be a businessman and have the right strategies. Know what your customers think and use it to help you provide what they want and need.

Tip 2: A Picture of How Life Could Be

Sometimes customers need a little more handholding to really get why they need your product. This is where you can get creative and go all-in with your storytelling. Paint a picture in their mind as to what they can experience in availing your product. You aim to make them realize that they realize need your product and life could never be the same without it.

Tip 3: Mentioning the Cupholders and what They Mean

Consider an example of a van that a salesman wants to sell to a family. It’s easier for him to list out the countless functions, capabilities, and widgets included with the vehicle. But, if he just stuck to these facts, he wouldn’t be very persuasive.

But think just for example this salesman pointed out a few functions and not only explained what they did, but why they were there and what it meant for the parents considering buying the van, he might have a better chance of making the sale.

This is the correct strategy that you must follow. Just keep in mind that it’s not just about all the knowledge of skills but it is also how you handle the situation and effectively apply all that you know through the right strategies.

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source http://clipstrip.com/pop-fuel/writing-persuasive-product-copy/

Optimize your day-Unload All Unnecessary Workloads

‘Busy’ might be the keyword for most retailers. This has been what they aim to be because they might think that it will mean that they are actually doing something for the company. However, they need to identify being ‘busy’ against being ‘productive’ because believe it or not, these two words speaks a whole different story.

In the retail industry, not all actions can make you productive because some are just irrelevant distractions that will backfire instead of bringing something good. Sometimes, you become too occupied that you have no room left for more important tasks to be done.

That is why as a retailer, you need to have the right mindset and possess the right strategies that you can use to filter every task that you will accomplish to make sure that you give focus to the most important jobs. To help you more, here are some tips:

Multitasking is a very advantageous trait and can be very beneficial to have as a retail entrepreneur. But it has to be handled properly by choosing tasks that are really worth the time and effort and will deliver the best results because doing one thing at a time will take a lot of time.

Just remember that you should never skip meals and deprive yourself of sleep for this can hardly and severely affect your health and your performance. Always remember to still give yourself some time to rest and think and that short breaks are very important.

Proper scheduling and time management is also crucial to make sure that you will be able to utilize your time and deliver the best results implementing a strict time limit on yourself will help you fulfil your tasks on a shorter period of time with the best that you can.

You also need to be specific on what you need to do and accomplish. You can do this easier by listing everything that needs to be done. Doing this is more efficient and time-saving than thinking all day about what you must be doing.

Another trick is by utilizing the use of technology. Nowadays, it is easier to do things with the help of automation. Through this you can have computers doing the job for you with lesser errors and time needed. Starting with this you can slowly eliminate all the unneeded work and focus on the more important tasks that can benefit your business more.

Most importantly, it is vital that you know how to motivate and encourage others as well as know how to recognize hard-work from your employees. This is a key to a better and stronger working relationship between you and your staff and this could surely push them to work harder knowing that you appreciate their contribution to your company. Through this, every work that you will exert effort to is surely worth it because you know that you already eliminated the unneeded workloads and you have a clear focus and goal that you will reach for the growth and the success of your company

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