4 Types of Signage Retailer Shan’t Ignore

Getting noticed is one of the best ways to attracts customers and drives sales towards a successful physical retail business. How? Smart retailers may answer you like, “Start with signage.”

So, why do you think signs play an important role in a store? In retrospect, signage is a good, effective way to increase foot traffic and connect with your market when decorating your store. On the other side, you have to do it right because if not, it can cause confusion.

In creating signage, you might have to consider being specific and clear, writing a headline text, and make a call to action. The color, visibility, messaging, and quality of signs would also create an impact on your target audiences.

Furthermore, as we are discussing stuff about good signage, here are the five most vital kinds of retail signage you should ponder on when starting up your brick-and-mortar store:

Outdoor Signage

Perhaps, most of the retailers would agree that outdoor signage is the most important kind of signage in physical retail. Why? Because basically, it’s what gets customers in the door! Outdoor signage gives the first impression to customers towards your business.

These kinds of signage have to merely say things about you—or your brand—and have to be inviting that even your not-yet-customers would want something from you. Placement also needs a strategy. You might want to place your signage where it is visible all people passing by your store. Also, be patient; for effective signage might have to encourage people passing by many times before they finally give your store a visit.

Outdoor signage can be in form of sidewalk signs, entrance signs, awnings, or window signs.

Informational Signage 

Informational signage—also be known as departmental, directional, organizational, or wayfinding signage—are signage that helps the customer roam around your area easier. Well, customers like comfort whenever they navigate in a store. Through that signage, they would easily find what they came in for, that would also declare a huge probability that they would come back to your store in the future.

Well, directional signage is easy to understand because it merely tells customers where to go. Just as all sorts of signage, informational signage need to be short but understandable. It has to be easy to be read. You might have to consider using large, bold fonts in highly-visible color schemes to maximize its use.

Persuasive Signage 

Persuasive signage—that can advertise a particular product or promotion, create an impact on customer flow, and develop interactivity with unnoticed products—usually utilizes its convincing powers through language or attractive imagery. These signs also announce something about a particular type of product offer, which is an opportunity for a businessman to converse precise details of new, seasonal, or featured items.

Basically, persuasive signage can help a brand to effectively communicate with its customers—making a regular product turn into a popular gold-to-be-dug. Also, effective persuasive messaging can produce greater perceived value for products, improve retail sales, and intensify brand awareness and recall.

Mats

Perhaps, it is unusual for you to see mats being used as signs, but, to tell you, these mats are the most versatile signage above all.

Mats are not just used for safety and cleanliness needs, it can also be utilized for promotional and informational purposes. Take, for example, you’d feature something on it—simply, you can advertise your logo. You may use this stuff for branding purposes, directional wayfinding within the store to lead the client to sale merchandise.

When you try to invest on these kinds of signage, you have to analyze them with such honest manner. It’s like you are entering your store as a first time customer. See with bear eyes and mind what’s flawless and those which may be confusing. Create a consistent brand and practice it throughout your business—be it on your outdoor signage to your website. When the time comes that you can say that you became successful of such, I’m sure; you’ll get a good fight towards leveraging signage to your merchandising benefit and cashing in while you’re at it.

The post 4 Types of Signage Retailer Shan’t Ignore appeared first on POP FUEL.

source http://clipstrip.com/pop-fuel/4-types-of-signage-retailer-shant-ignore/

Five Attractive, Effective Marketing Schemes for Memorial Day

As the Memorial Day approaches, there’s a bit pressure small businesses feel with regard to how they are going to take advantage of this enormous shopping weekend. Well, perhaps, if you are searching for marketing schemes to seize the day, perhaps, you’ve made the right choice in reading this article. Here, we have compressed various marketing strategies that would considerably help your brand to increase brand awareness, widen your customer reach, and ring over social media in not-so-expensive ways.

Create a Social Giveaway

When you are to give away products and/or services in a very conventional and traditional manner, as far as the modernization is concerned, it won’t do much to help you boost your bottom line. But, you can do something about it! Perhaps, turning your giveaways into a social experience will be a good scheme to gain new customers and increase your company’s social reach.

In this light, you might want to consider count on the services of Sample App. Not to mention, Sample App puts your samples into the hands of eligible consumers who happen to become brand advocates that publicize the good news about your free product and/or service over all their social media accounts.

Twitter Coupons

If you want to increase your sales this coming Memorial Day with little to no effort rendered, you might want to consider creating a Twitter coupon. One of the excellent tools to maximize this strategy is by using TwtQpon. TwtQpon is a good tool that helps online retailers close sales while enhancing their social media marketing reach via Twitter and other social networks. Well, this is just easy to use, unlike other tools. Here, TwtQpon gives you the benefit of rewarding your Twitter followers with the following:

• Percentage coupons
• Buy one get one free coupon
• QR code coupons

Of course, for the users to actually get their coupon, they must tweet something that concerns it. On this scheme, the idea of “The more, the merrier” applies. Well, the more the coupon is being used, the wider your reach would go. Also, while doing such, you would inevitably be gaining new followers and promote your brand even if you don’t intend to do so.

Give Veterans a Special Offer  

We all know that Memorial Day is the perfect moment to acknowledge a veteran, an active military member, or their family by giving them an exclusive holiday offer. Here, you might want to simply create an offer that would be a symbol of gratitude for the service they have rendered. For fast and extreme ROI, don’t miss the chance to publicize this through posting your promotion on social media. Backing it up with a press release to the local media would also be a great help.

Play with Snapchat

A research reveals that 70% of Snapchat users are women. Also, according to the same research, 58% of college students say that there is a higher probability for them to purchase a product if they were sent a coupon on Snapchat. So, if you’re trying to win them and make them your customers, give Snapchat a shot. Perhaps, you might want to create a distinctive Memorial Day themed Snapchat promotion that would vastly drive your Facebook fans actually to send a “snap” of your beloved staff to your Snapchat account. Then, after that, they would eventually receive a coupon or other kind of reward.

Pin and Win

Well, since Memorial Day weekend starts up summer, it is perfect time to buoy up your Pinterest followers to actually make a summer-themed “wish board” that would show pins about everything they desire for that time of year. This might include a particular product and/or service your brand. Here, when the time comes that your product and/or service pin reaches your desired number of likes/repins, all those who participate would eventually receive a goodie. Also, when somebody buys the product and/or service, they will immediately be headed back to your brand with just a single click.

These 5 easy and effective marketing schemes show that your endeavors during Memorial Day don’t have to be too expensive and hassle. All you have to do is to engage your customers, build up your brand awareness, and create a good relationship with your market by trying to give them a treat this holiday.

 

The post Five Attractive, Effective Marketing Schemes for Memorial Day appeared first on POP FUEL.

source http://clipstrip.com/pop-fuel/five-attractive-effective-marketing-schemes-for-memorial-day/

Same Day Delivery and Its Effects on Retail

In retrospect, same-day delivery’s utilization is rising because of its benefits and customer demand. Knowing that it isn’t new in the retailing industry, some of the biggest brands—such as Amazon and Google—optimizes this practice of offering as it is a benefit to their customers—to get their goods to them quickly and painlessly.

So, basically, there are several factors that contributed to the rise of delivery such as companies having the right technology which enables them to facilitate a same-day delivery service, smartphone proliferation which creates an enormous mobile workforce, and a reduction in terms of shipping costs. Also, commentators regard “instant gratification” and “on-demand” economy as reasons for the need for increased speed.

Thus, does this mean that the physical retail shall take some meds for a creepy situation of falling—perhaps, no? Of course, not all good is fit with same-day delivery services. Also, customers do not always agree to have an interaction with the retail environment merely through Wi-Fi.

Alternatively, the differentiation between goods that are good for same-day delivery and goods that don’t appear to shadow the difference between experience-based shopping and task-based shopping, or shopping for luxury vs. commodity goods. If it’s a fact, shopping that is pleasing for most of the people—like the luxury or desired products—should pursue thriving, while shopping that is deemed to be a chore—like commodities or everyday needs—might have to engage in delivery services. Furthermore, an additional point of differentiation is product categories that aren’t regularly vented online or delivered with UPS or FedEx—like laundry detergent.

Not to mention, same-day delivery also gives rise to various breaks for brick-and-mortar retailers to widen and improve their product mix. Limited on-site storage space won’t be a big deal already if retailers can take a grip on neighboring inventory and deliver to customers within the day. This can also be a good benefit for merchandising, which has been more exciting yet tough thing to do online. Perhaps, retailers can utilize the additional floor space in their physical establishment to produce ground-breaking ways for customers to physically interact with products, and give them brand new whys and wherefores to go back to your store.

A single area that would be fascinating to see concerns the possession of the customer data. Basically, the retailer is the best person who understands the customer—what he/she has purchased same-day delivery amenities will deliver retailers with an extra understanding of consumer preferences. It lingers to be understood whether this will drive to a better alliance in the consumer data space or to the augmented rivalry for who recognizes the consumer the greatest.

One more thing that would be exciting to certify over time is that whether same-day delivery is really healthier for the current setting. While same-day delivery proposes a smaller amount of packaging and less shipping since transfers are most of the time getting a room in a local area, it could also push through to an upsurge in terms of undesirable effects accompanied by a bigger amount of distributions. In reality, the “less packaging, less shipping” dispute doesn’t precisely rub on to services—like Amazon Prime where merchandises are often delivered from not inside the local area.

It continues to be understood whether businesses can create same-day delivery money-making while charging values clienteles are ready to pay. Above the distribution value, clients are heartened to drop a tip for those who transport their products, which influences the absolute value the customer pays, and probably prompt to an inferior ceiling for distribution values. Notwithstanding the propagation of delivery amenities, creating knowledge and acceptance of these services deems to be a trial for the suppliers, and seemingly will remain to perform as an added trial to their total success.

 

The post Same Day Delivery and Its Effects on Retail appeared first on POP FUEL.

source http://clipstrip.com/pop-fuel/same-day-delivery-and-its-effects-on-retail/

Getting and Retaining Right Employees

As a retailer, of course, there are lots of challenges that you face every single day—one of those is finding the right person to help you out with your workloads. While finding and hiring the right retail talent is a tough challenge, still, it isn’t impossible to gain one. Thus, here are some tips on how to hire, train, and retain employees to lend you a hand to not get you costly recruiting and turnover costs.

We’re Hiring!

You can’t eradicate the fact that competing with big-box retailers when it comes to hiring talent for your retail store is really not an easy task. However, to help you deal with this matter, you might want to consider the advice of customer service expert named Anne. M. Obarski, who actually gave these starting points for you:

“Great employees are not born, they are developed in a business atmosphere where training is stressed, individuality is encouraged and personalities are respected. Word travels about the work environment in all sizes of stores. The key to recruiting quality employees is promoting and possessing a positive work environment no matter how large or small you are.”

In line with that, you might really have to develop criteria for the perfect retail employee as an initial step. This shall be in a form of a certain and solid job title and job description.

To do that, take Retail Associate job posting by Taylor Stitch as a reference. As you review its examples, you would surely notice a few things to address in your retail job description which includes the following:

• Daily duties and responsibilities
• Personality traits
• Physical requirements
• Qualifications or experience level

By the time that you have already identified what kind or type of employee you’re looking for, perhaps, it’s already time to work more radical things out.

Usually, to let other people know that you’re hiring, you are posting a signboard in front of your window saying “Hiring” or “We’re Hiring.” But, due to the modernization, that conventional scheme might leave you with applicants that can’t actually comply with your expectations.

Thus, you might want to level it up. Let’s consider that you don’t have enough resources to kick this off—but, costly hiring tactics are actually not necessary. Hence, here are some cost-efficient, effective ways to advertise your job opening:

• Maximizing social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram
• Consult your family, friends, and professional networks for referrals
• Do “poaching.” Meaning, you can go to other retail stores and mention the opportunity to the sales rep that you think is fit for the position.

We’re Retaining!

After all your efforts and perseverance in finding the right person that fits for the position—considering that you went through thorough interviews and deliver training to new employees—it is not just upsetting when they leave, but also costly. When that happened, of course, you have to go start the hiring cycle again from scratch.

Yes, it’s costly. The Small Business Chronicle released a statistic on this that says, “on average it costs $17,000 to replace an employee that is at the median income in the U.S., which was $56,516 according to 2015 data from the U.S. Census.” You might not want to lose good workers—and money.

In addition, here’s a statistic served by Hay Group:

• 26% of retailers said their employee turnover costs have increased
• 74% of retailers said their workers leave for better opportunities, rather than higher salaries
• Retailers averaged 67% turnover for part-time employees

So, the question now is how do you retain retail employees? Well, here are some tips to get you to drive on the right road at with a right tactic:

Generate an Advancement Roadmap – As what the above statistics say, the employees leave for better opportunities—usually not for better salary. So, you might want to consider outlining an advancement plan for your employees to see what future opportunities are waiting for them in your company.

Give your Employees Regular – Performance reviews don’t need to come many times annually or for the purposes of conversing about a raise. It is vital to provide your employees a regular check-in to give feedback and acquire your employee’s sentiments and concerns with consistency.

Build Trust and Transparency – Your employees would probably stick around if you try to make yourself available through an “open-door” policy. Also, you can always convey a sociable manner that would surely give a good impression to them.

The post Getting and Retaining Right Employees appeared first on POP FUEL.

source http://clipstrip.com/pop-fuel/getting-and-retaining-right-employees/

5 Faulty Habits Businessman do with Facebook Advertising

It is no longer a secret that Facebook offers a good way for either small or big businesses to easily connect to their target market. But on the contrary of most of the businesses’ perspective that Facebook is just a basic online stuff, there’s a fact that it is complicated to use.

If you are a businessman, and you’re trying to work on your Facebook page, can you imagine how much trial and error do you have to go through to learn the art of Facebook? Basically, it is a waste of time—and of course, money.

So, to shudder these things, here are some of the common—that are sometimes, costly—Facebook advertising mistakes and how do we fix them.

Targeting too Broad Audience

One of the most common mistakes with regards to advertising—not just only on Facebook but also with most of the advertising schemes—is reaching out too broad target market.

It is not recommendable to think that everyone is a potential consumer. Basically, you are paying for your ads for your page’s or post’s reach and when you target your audiences broadly, perhaps, you are paying for the wrong persons.

If for now, you are taking a large target audience, you might want to consider narrowing it down in consideration with their interests. On the other hand, if you are currently targeting a too small market, maybe you have to try incorporating interests in order to reach larger number users until and from there, you may have the chance to find your sweet spot.

Being too Impatient

This is a problem of many—impatience. Ringing your brand online through Facebook is not just an overnight process. It really takes time.

Sometimes, when we can’t see positive results right away, we tend to do something that’s not really necessary because we think we are just wasting our money. But to tell you, at first, it is really hard. But the main thing to put your focus on is the gathering of data and insights. That’s why; you have to know how much you are willing to spend to obtain even a single customer.

You might have to work out to not make decisions about your ads. Refrain from pausing, or tweaking them until such time that you have already reached at least 1000 people. By that time, you would have enough data to be analyzed if your ad is really working—even if it doesn’t manifest yet on your sales.

Not Isolating What You Test

When it comes to marketing, insights are somewhat, somehow not being valued unlike the other aspect of marketing schemes. Of course, it is highly encouraged that you do experiment with your ads for you to be able to learn. Not to mention, learning will just take place when you came to the point that you test one variable at a time.

As much as possible, consider separating an ad before working out another. Test one variable at a time. This is for you to go forward with enough knowledge you can act upon.

At first, specifically, you must test at the Advert Set level with your targeted audiences.

Always remember that it is possible for you to change and test at each level of your Ad Manager account:

Campaign: Your goal where Facebook will base its optimization. Some of its examples are add to cart, purchases, etc.

Advert Set: These are your targeted audiences, the placements, and schedules.

Ad: The prime examples of this are the links, format, creative, etc.

Disregarding Some Relevant Effects of Your Ads

For most of the business owners, of course, the basis of the success of a campaign is its manifestation on the sales. But, sales is not the only thing that could possibly be brought to you by your ads.

Actually, there are lots of underrated values of ads that we tend to miss because the only thing that matters to us is the customers brought by our ads.

But, not to mention, here are some of such:

• You can collect emails from those people who visited your profile.
• You can gather a number of likes and comments on your posts to create social proof for your ad as time goes by.
• You can actually reach for those people directly who left a comment on your ads and aid them to complete a purchase.
• You can invite people who have liked or reacted to your post to actually like your Facebook Page buy just clicking the invite button at the side of their names.

Also, if I am to recommend something on this matter, perhaps, it is to set up your Google Analytics and Hot Jar which are both free to access. Using those, you can take a look at the behavior of your website’s traffic. This will also lend a hand for you to actually identify your real problem—maybe your audience, your website layout, and the like.

Ad Creative for Attention and Clicks are Not Optimized

When you came to the point that you already have identified your target market, a good creative for your ads is a good help to make the results somewhat overwhelmingly better.

It is not easy to create a good ad. Of course, there are lots of good things about it but there are difficulties that you have to go through before you could simply say that you did a great job.

Nonetheless, here are some things that might help:

• Create in your image, copy, or video thumbnail a good point of convergence that would really be an eye-catcher.
• You might want to use emojis to incorporate feeling, personality, and visual elements to your copy.
• Gather social proofs such as likes, comments, shares every time you run an ad. It would make your ad stronger, impactful, and successful.
• Do an experiment and make various ad formats over the same Advert Set. You might want to consider creating a video since Facebook is known for this kind of format.

The post 5 Faulty Habits Businessman do with Facebook Advertising appeared first on POP FUEL.

source http://clipstrip.com/pop-fuel/5-faulty-habits-businessman-do-with-facebook-advertising/

Tips on How to Get a Place Inside a Retail Store

Simultaneous with the change that’s currently happening in the world day by day, there’s also a not-too-mainstream trend that’s arising in the retailing industry: more and more retailers are trying to enter the doors of big-box retailers.

Of course, there are lots of benefits that you can gain when you work with an established retail brand. I bet, there’s no retailer that doesn’t want their brand to be exposed to a bigger audience and receive larger orders. But the question is, how can you get in there?

Make your Product Unique

The first thing that you have to do here is to know your product—all its aspects, strength, weaknesses, uniqueness, and the like. Aside from you, there are a lot more brands that are pitching to be in big-box store. So, the challenge here is how you highlight the strongest aspect of your brand that is simply exceptional compared to the current brand they hold.

Perhaps, you might want to focus on how your brand would create more foot traffic in their store because in the first place, aside from added revenue to them, they are looking forward to additional foot traffic in their stores. If you could convince them through various schemes you can do—those in favour of them—do so.

Persistence is a must!

Simply, go to their store and pitch in person!

Since you are just starting up, the best thing to do is to approach their stores and make yourself—together with your brand—visible.

Of course, before you enter a store, you have to be ready. Never do neither unprepared nor half-baked pitching. It will just ruin your name and your brand’s. You might want to share your story, your uniqueness, and how do you deserve to be in line with the store’s current customers and stocked items. Do it with love, consistency, and passion!

Trade Shows are Helpful

When you get to the point that you have laid all your cards on your local and regional options and your mind is actually thinking to have more connections with retail buyers who look for the Next Big Thing, trade shows are one of the best ways to nail it!

Perhaps, trade shows must be injected into your marketing schemes if you are thinking of making retail as a big part of your distribution. In doing this, the most important thing is to know the best show for your brand where your community of buyers gathers. Of course, before you will be able to do such, you really have to study your brand. Know your industry and where are you within it.

The last thing, you have to know and understand that attending a trade show—as either a person or as a brand—isn’t free.

Don’t Depend on your Retail Placements-Alone

Despite the fact that your brand was stocked in a major retailer, still, you can’t afford to be too confident and dependent on it. You brand being displayed on their shelves isn’t an assurance or even an indication that your work over your brand is already through.

Although taking your brand in big-box stores gives you immediate brand awareness, still, you can’t rely on a store to sell your products for you. Yes, we’ve got the fact that when a person is roaming around the store looking for something—or nothing specific—they will surely find you. But, there are a lot of products with you. Perhaps, you a customer would just find you if there’s really a notable uniqueness in you, or a customer service crew would recommend your brand.

The best thing to do is to retain the thing you are doing as of the moment—or before you took your brand into big-box stores. Meaning, your retail placement is just an additional marketing scheme and not—or shall not be—your main and only.

A strong online presence might even be the thing that convinces those buyers you’re meeting with that it’s time to add you to their list of stocked brands. Even if you’re still working on getting your first placement, the community of happy customers you’re building and the brand you’re creating are going to be assets that serve you well either way.

Perhaps, a strong online presence would be a good back-up to your brand on or before getting in big retail stores. It’s recommendable to indulge in strengthening your brand awareness online and maximize its power to raise brand awareness and impose call to action.

The post Tips on How to Get a Place Inside a Retail Store appeared first on POP FUEL.

source http://clipstrip.com/pop-fuel/tips-on-how-to-get-a-place-inside-a-retail-store/

Paid Memberships Shudders Brand Loyalty with Love

Currently, various loyalty programs are being patronized. Not to mention, the consumer loyalty management market arises up its value at $1.93 billion in 2016. And with a radical perspective, it is expected that by 2023, the mentioned figure would reach nearly $6.95 billion. Plotting it on a good loan, it is an annual compounded growth rate amounting to 21%.

Of course, all the retailers want to have loyal customers that would actually lead new ones into stores. Research says that customers that are coming back spend 67% more than that of first-timers do. If you think it’s not yet enough, perhaps, it would be certain that even a small, yet considerable, drop with regards to loyalty has got the power to put a business down. The value of loyalty stays the same—and perhaps would stay the same until forever—and would basically encapsulate us in a box of inconvenient truth.

Loyalty is a Beautiful Lie

Loyalty programmes don’t usually create loyalty in the hearts of your customer. A benchmark study conducted by Edgell Knowledge Network in 2012 revealed that retailers’ that offer a loyalty programme doesn’t make more recognizable loyal customers compared to others. Digging deeper on it, in accordance to the same study, 81% of those customers that get membership in loyalty programmes don’t even know what is it for and the benefits it can give them.

Furthermore, the said study was backed-up by another study conducted by Accenture in 2017 which suggests that almost a quarter of customers have either a “negative or non-existent response” towards loyalty programs.

In addition to that, a 2015 study by Colloquy reveals that only 42% of loyalty programme members are actually active or engaged. It was supported by a further research showing that consumers are, in all probability, seeking out loyalty programmes with brands they already admire and enjoy.

Hence, retailers are somehow, somewhat putting their money in vain when they are investing in loyalty programme without the certainty that loyalty will creep in their way.

The Best Thing to Do? Make Brand Love Rather than Loyalty

Of course, before anything else, retailers must know the difference between brand loyalty and brand love.

Loyalty, in a simple perspective, means you have got the power to insert a card into your customers’ wallets or bags. Love, on the other side, means you’ve managed to have a security to have a place in the customer’s heart—that is through paid membership.

Well, membership, whether attained just by not-too-pricey amount, creates a sense of exclusivity and gives your members an exclusive experience that traditional loyalty programmes actually can’t give. Having a customer give out a penny from her pocket for a fee creates an entirely amazing and inevitable feeling of commitment. On the other side, since the customers paid a fee, the retailer thus is obliged to render valuable, improved, and a way better service or products due to customers heightened expectations. Nevertheless, membership fees are real and, are revenues a retailer should do keep.

Lastly, maybe, the most enthralling reason for retailers to consider membership over loyalty is that customers merely want it—want you. In fact, a research conducted by Loyalty One states that “sixty-two percent of consumer respondents said they would consider joining a fee-based rewards program if their favorite retailer offered one.” Also, among the Millennials, the digits are merely overwhelming that “75 percent of 18-24 year-olds and 77 percent of 25-34 year-olds saying they’d pay to belong.”

To wrap it all up, if you really want your customers to go back-and-forth your brand through various platforms at all cause, try to build brand love. Invest in where you know will create love for your brand—and paid membership a perfect scheme.

The post Paid Memberships Shudders Brand Loyalty with Love appeared first on POP FUEL.

source http://clipstrip.com/pop-fuel/paid-memberships-shudders-brand-loyalty-with-love/

Five Simple and Effective Ways to Utilize a Pop-up Store and Boost your Revenue

There are many reasons to be anxious about selling offline. There are these reports and creepy stories about retail that deals with customers in person. But, perhaps, most of the retailers are missing out a great opportunity that requires just willingness and some minimal costs. That’s what we are going to talk about.

The marketing scheme that gives satisfaction to a retailers’ thrifty hearts is what we call “pop-up stores.” Storefront says that pop-up stores—or also known as temporary retail—are has got this high probability of generating $80 billion on an annual basis.

In addition to that, there are lots of benefits that pop-up store would probably bring to your brand—depending on your brand and the type of pop-up store you chose to build. Thus, here are some tips you might want to consider to make a buzz for your business and boost your revenue through utilizing pop-up stores:

Test a New Channel of Revenue

Hosting a pop-up store is a great way to experiment with your business’ offline sales that may provide a new revenue stream to your current ecommerce business. Also, this would cost you a way lesser compared to indulging in traditional storefronts where there are lasting rental expenses and other mandatory investments.

Learn to Reach Out Customers in Person

A research from ReadyCloud states that 88% of shoppers are “webrooming” regularly. Meaning, they are browsing online and purchases in physical stores. Thus, you might have to consider your markets pleasure of trying your products/services before they complete a purchase.

Thus, pop-up stores’ existence is perfect to address this dilemma wherein webroom shoppers would have the chance to experience your products in person. Also, it will be a good instance to immediately address their concerns, questions, inquiries, and the like, to have a more direct drive for them with regards to their purchasing decision.

Engage Mass-markets and Urge them to Purchase ASAP  

Naturally, when a customer senses urgency—incorporated with the idea that there will be a scarcity—there’s a big probability that they will do panic buying. And since pop-up stores are naturally temporary—meaning, the store would just stay in a place for a certain, considerable span of time—customers are most likely to perform a purchase as soon as possible.

That is, when you know that the store you have entered is just a pop-up store, you’d actually come into your mind that you have to purchase the things you really want knowing the fact that it would be available in the same place soon.

Unique products would receive a good in-return feedback on this scheme especially when those products aren’t able to be found elsewhere.

Be There Where your Customers Are

One of the essential and relevant assets of pop-up stores is that you can be dynamic at all times. Since a pop-up store can be in a form of a food truck, a mobile store, and such, you can go wherever your customers are. Here, you could freely choose where to embark your store. It’s at your discretion whether you are to stay at a street side, or in any vacant space—as long as your products would be suitable and appropriate in there.

Market Products Depending on their Season or Holiday

This strategy is probably the most effective way to utilize a pop-up store. Not to mention, a Pop-up Republic report states that over 61% of shoppers consider seasonal products as the main reason to enter a shop over the holidays. So, if you are thinking to market a party wear for Christmas, of heart-shaped sweets for Valentine’s Day, or anything that would probably give the customers the drive to purchase your product because of the season, it is a great opportunity to indulge in hosting a pop-up store to gain good revenue.

The post Five Simple and Effective Ways to Utilize a Pop-up Store and Boost your Revenue appeared first on POP FUEL.

source http://clipstrip.com/pop-fuel/five-simple-and-effective-ways-to-utilize-a-pop-up-store-and-boost-your-revenue/

The Hope for Small Businesses amid Big-Box Stores’ Recession

Each day, more and more reports about big-box retailers shutting down due to the rise of e-commerce are resonating among various media platforms. One of the latest examples is the Sears and Kmart case wherein, lately, they have announced that they are closing 20 stores.

There’s a freshly revealed report from retail think tank Fung Global Retail & Technology that conceals an estimate of pervasive shutting down of stores. The study shows that approximately 400 stores between only four (4) chains will leave over $2.5 billion in sales up for grabs and $1.6 billion of such sales will be only in apparel.

Basically, well-known online retailers such as Amazon, Target, and Walmart would have their heads up on this matter—giving so much effort to dominate the market share and create a good and considerable revenue. However, there’s still hope and a good opportunity for the small business retailers. They could still grab up some of the floating revenue with various strategic marketing and active technology implementation.

To gain and retain customers who are actually not finding convenience on brick-and-mortar big-box retailer to complete a purchase anymore, here are three steps small businesses can follow to be competitive enough amid the current situation:

Customer’s Smartphones are their Breakfast, lunch and dinner

In this drastically changing modern world, smartphones are really vital for an individual. Thus, you might want to consider junking the idea of filling out tedious paperwork for various loyalty programs that actually contradicts to the fast paced life of your consumers.

To compete equally, or perhaps, get a one step ahead or your competitor, you might want to maximize your resources and invest for a smartphone app. Through such, you can maintain your customers’ loyalty to your brand without much effort. In this regard, Business Insider had release a report on mobile wallets saying that through merging a mobile wallet and a loyalty program, the sales are most likely to grow at a five-year compound annual growth rate of 68%.

If then, customers have to bring their punch cards—always—to avail or personalize their rewards, mobile apps can work on it with so much convenience on both parties. Essentially, this is one of the things that customers consider in coming back—a good in-store experience and the convenience that they are always after and looking for. On the other hand, it can bring a good impact on the side of the retailer in a sense that most of the time, mobile orders decreases in-store lines of waiting customers that would reduce staffing crunches and paper waste from physical receipts.

The technology is really accessible now and even small businesses can indulge in such. Meaning, they don’t have to just let the huge and well-known retailers catch-all the customers, but they could also have them and create a name.

Capture New Customer’s Hearts and Never Let them Go 

A good course of sales, discounts, and deal offers is—by all means—a good marketing scheme that’s in favor of the consumers. However, giving out a financing plan for expensive purchases can also be an important tool to keep your customers.

Financing deals is a working mechanism of retaining new customers and convince them to push through with big-ticket purchases. In accordance to a report released by MMR Research, there are nearly two-thirds of previous users of store financing come back and finance at least one additional purchase of $500 or more and 33% do so three (3) to five (5) more times. In retrospect, there is a considerable situation that small businesses were not capable of offering those kinds of offers due to inadequate time and resources to keep the financing program moving. But, again, a hope arises for the small businesses. There is this new POS financing technology that allows retailers—with limited means—to get partnerships that let them introduce these programs.

Anytime, Anywhere is a Marketplace

When the technology is strategically utilized—most especially when combined with financing plans—then net tremendous results for small retailers would probably be materialized. Forrester Consulting discovered through a study into the impact of retail financing that a 15% increase in the usual order value when financing was presented, and an 18% overall sales increase when e-commerce websites exhibited “six months to pay” banners. Moreover, a comScore survey of shoppers who actually are utilizing POS financing for online procurements shows that 30% of the consumers spend more than that of their purchase limit before completing a purchase when offered with financing opportunities.

Thus, companies do make an effort to make the retailers and consumers conduct transactions from virtually anytime, anywhere and let the small retailers optimize their sites with fresh offers and tools. Take, for example, Square lets the small retailers reduce to bare bones on the conventional, complex methods of meting out credit card dealings.

Also, freshly revealed technologies allow small retailers to shudder walls from some structural advantages that big-box retailers normally acquire. Well, when the time comes that the small retailers learn to take control on those technologies—incorporating it with the nature of a small business—then, perhaps, they could possibly play a good game within the retailing industry with sustainable marketing schemes and produce reliable revenue.

The post The Hope for Small Businesses amid Big-Box Stores’ Recession appeared first on POP FUEL.

source http://clipstrip.com/pop-fuel/the-hope-for-small-businesses-amid-big-box-stores-recession/