Three Simple Ways to Create an Engaged Customer Base

There is one important mantra for every retailer: “Customer relations are essential.” Of course, we all know that relationships build trust—a trust that would eventually turn into sales.

According to research, almost two-thirds of global consumers consider brand trust as one of the most important things that a brand should build. Well, it is actually a pro-retailers scheme. For when retailers build that trust, the consumers would be more willing to do much more than just complete a purchase.

In this light, brick-and-mortar retailers really have a great opportunity to produce “physical communities of those loyal customers.” These communities provide real value that holds the shoppers in stores a little longer, bring them back, and actually share your brand story to others through word-of-mouth recommendations.

Not to mentions, 92% of global consumers trust recommendations. Thus, if you have a whole community who uses word-of-mouth recommendations every to their friends and family, that would be of something good for your brand.

However, building community is more than just building trust. It requires a good physical space, the right cause, and an undying dedication of your whole team.

To give you some ways on how you would move forward in producing a community for your brand, here are some points you might want to consider:

1. Lend your eyes beyond your store

Your community shall not be just bounded to your physical space. Look outside! Create a community that would extend beyond your storefront. When the time comes that you reach your target community—of course, through various communication touch points—your community and relationships with your customers will get stronger.

To give you some ideas on how to actually start on this, here are some examples:

• Produce a personalized newsletter for people who have lent their time to go to your community events and gatherings. Have an interaction with them, but remember, don’t try to sell your products. On that matter, your priority is merely to build the relationships and spark a conversation.
• Be active in an existing community as much as possible. Starting from scratch is not recommended. If you have noticed that there’s already a community around your store, give time to enter it. Perhaps, you can find for some local businesses and organizations in their community that you can partner with.

2. Publicize your Community’s stories

Social Media

Nowadays, social media is a very powerful tool that can be used for information dissemination. Thus, you might have to consider it to be used to talk about your community in an organic way. Through this, you would be able to share your excitement about the community. Well, you don’t have to be too pushy when encouraging people to join. Just the thought that you see the community you’ve cultivated inaction is already an award.

Email

When a shopper shops in your store, take the opportunity to offer a not-too-complicated way to sign themselves up for your email list. Then after that, send them emails them regarding your community, community events, and other related content. Take, for example, your community is comprised of those people who love to bike. Then, send emails with biking tips and techniques. You could also incorporate a call-out to your upcoming activities.

Your Website

Your website would be a powerful tool if you’d maximize it properly. Here, you can promote your community through maintaining a calendar with your events, share your community’s photos; create a portion where people would see your community’s accomplishments, and circulate blog posts that are merely about your community group.

3. Host Community Events

Lastly, you can initiate community-building events.

There are lots of retailers that host event in partnership with local organizations in the community. Here, you have the freedom to be more creative and more precise for your niche.

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Retail Lighting: Tips to Encourage Sales Through Lights

There are a bunch of questions to be answered when you try to work on the setting of your retail store. Perhaps, you are asking the following questions:

How should I display my products?

Where should I put a certain product?

How should my store look like? The ambiance?

Of course, there are a lot more questions to consider. And one of which is about lighting design. Many retailers are leaving this factor behind not knowing that retail lighting can provide much more than simple ambiance and can also impact their sales and customer experience.

A study conducted by Lux states that in-store lighting can be a guide for a customer while roaming around your store and increases the average spend per customer.

“Zumtobel claims a fashion retailer in Germany saw its sales go up by around 12% compared to another local store after it installed a new lighting scheme specially designed to appeal to the personality profile of its target customers.”

Thus, retailers should invest and lend some attention to leveraging their lighting design to bolster their bottom line. And to help you with that, here are 2 simple steps to work on:

Step 1: Discover Your Fixtures

One of the good ways to produce an atmosphere with a strategic lighting is through utilizing the light fixtures. Perhaps, you might want to make a choice among vintage fixtures, chandeliers, or dome lighting if you want to create a more intimate feel. On the other hand, if you want to create more of a professional atmosphere, you can use recess, track lighting, or suspended fixtures.

Maximize your store’s space through breaking up with a mixture of light fixtures in various parts of which; take, for example, the entrance and the changing rooms. However, whatever the fixtures you select, you should always align your lighting strategy with your brand identity.

Step 2: Select a Lighting Temperature

The lighting temperature is an effective scheme to create an inviting atmosphere. Whether you use a warm or cool temperature of lighting, there are inevitable benefits through utilizing such.

“Cool color temperatures such as cool white make areas appear more spacious whereas warm color temperatures create an impression of smallness and familiarity,” Lux says.

Thus, if your store is a small one and you want to make it look a bit larger, try to use cool lighting. On the other hand, if you want to actually impress a sense of familiarity or nostalgia to your customers, perhaps, you must consider using warmer-toned lighting.

In addition to that, here are some types of retail lighting that might actually help you to set us your store’s lighting designs:

Ambient lighting: This is mainly the “overall lighting concept.” It creates the most of the store’s atmosphere and has the largest impact. Take, for example, if you placed a large light fixture at the middle of your store, perhaps, this would be your ambient lighting within the space.

Accent lighting: This is the “spotlight” type of lighting. Accent lighting permits storefronts to highlight and divert customers’ attention to certain products. This scheme is commonly used in luxury stores.

High-activity lighting: On the contrary with the traditional lighting concepts that get stores into dark corners and shadowy spots, this kind of lighting focuses on lighting up the entire area with bright lights to actually eradicate the probability that customers would miss a chance to see all your products on display.

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Product Packaging: How to Design Every Element of Your Unboxing Experience

In today’s trend of “instagrammable” stuff where people share about the products, they bought through unboxing videos, shedding some uniqueness on your product packaging would be a great help for you to gain extra marketing mileage.

Hence, if you are looking for tips on how to create good product packaging for your product, then you’re reading the perfect article as we are giving you ways to work on your packaging. Here are 5 easy steps you might want to consider that would guide you from creating materials for your brand all the way through the shipping process.

Step 1. Understand Your Brand

If you are at the point that your brand is already well-developed, then this first step is inside the basket. However, if you are still at the point that you’re not yet settled on a firm brand identity that takes account of a logo and color palette, of course, it is vital for you to start off with choosing the right and relevant direction before you actually invest in product packaging.

Step 2. Understand Your Customer

Considering that you now have your brand firm in its place, it is time to see how your brand identity is interconnected with your product’s packaging. Your target market will significantly influence the kind of experience your client will anticipate receipt of your item for consumption.

Take, for example, Amazon customers are looking forward to a not-so-complicated type of packaging. Also, they prefer the well-priced product to be delivered quickly, safe and sound.

On that matter, Amazon responds by surrounding the product with protective packaging like bubble wrap, and place it in a plain cardboard box with Amazon’s name and logo printed on it. Well, that’s basically the simplest form of packaging.

Perhaps, if you are thinking of following what Amazon do to their products when shipping, you can also add more personalized touches to it to make your packaging more distinctive to your brand. However, you have to make sure that all the things you’d be doing would still be in line with what your customers are expecting from your end.

Step 3. Understand what You Need

Well, in general, the essentials you will be needing to actually set up your packaging are as follows:

• OUTER BOX/ENVELOPE: This is to keep your product secured within the shipping process.
• A LABEL/TAPE: This is to keep the package locked during shipping.
• PROTECTIVE ELEMENTS INSIDE THE BOX: This is to keep your product in place while shipping (e.g. bubble wrap)
• DELICATE WRAPPING OPTION: This is to wrap your product inside of the main box. (e.g. Tissue)
• A STICKER/TWINE: This is to keep the tissue paper in place.
• ANY ADDITIONAL INSERTS: This is to actually bring another item into your packaging experience. (e.g. brand’s card, thank-you note, etc.)

Step 4. Understand Your Budget

Wanting your packaging to look professional doesn’t mean that you have to be all out—especially when it comes to your finances. Well, basically, the customized packaging is expensive and usually requires bulk orders.

Thus, in line with that, you have to be keen in deciding if this investment is worth it for your brand.  If you can see that it is not that applicable to your brand’s current situation—like if you’re just starting off with your business—it is better if you’d just get some standard packaging online and then have it customized through personalized labels or other elements that impress your brand’s personal touch.

Step 5. Get Inspired

The last thing you might have to do is to get yourself inspired. There are a lot of ways to be inspired. Perhaps, you can choose the side where challenges push you to your limits and get yourself inspired to surpass them all.

Here, you can do a little research regarding the current situation of your brand in the industry, what your competitors are currently doing, and the like. These information can actually motivate you to think about various schemes and strategies to stand out above all.

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Brandstory101: Learn from Retail Branding Experts

Storytelling brings a lot of opportunities for brands term these days. But, sometimes, since it is being overused, it might be something of a vague, old-fashioned term when we hear it. Yet, won’t change the fact that it is a powerful tool for retailers.

Of course, all retailers have a story to tell. Be it a story how their business was founded, or the story behind why they chose the line of business they are in as of the moment, or perhaps, a story about a project driven by passion and continued to be a profitable business.

Well, your story is not just a simple story. It can be maximized to be a part of your employees’ passion on their work, or maybe educate and encourage the community brand advocates to actually indulge in your brands’ endeavours—considering that they support your story.

Thus, if you’ve never thought of using the story behind your brand since then, you’re in the perfect spot! Here, let us show you why storytelling is so vital and how you can utilize it by yourself with the help of examples from retailers with solid brand stories to give you an inspiration.

#Brandstory101: What is a Brand Story

Well, first things first. Of course, before anything else, you have to know and understand what a brand story is and how it is actually something of a deeper matter beyond just your website.

Basically, your brand story brags about who you are and what you stand for. It is the first thing that would engage your customers whether they are in a brick and mortar store or online.

“The brand story should define the purpose of the company to both the staff and the customer,” says Taylor Bennett, CEO of branding and marketing agency MESH®.

 

#Brandstory101: Why is Brand Story so Important?

The Managing Director of Orndee Omnimedia—a PR and brand development firm—named Alexandrea Merrell, emphasizes the important role a brand story plays. She said, “[It’s] an essential part of modern marketing… Not so long ago, consumers only cared about price and functionality.”

With regard to the market’s behavior today, we all know that they look beyond price tags and good deals.

Merrell adds: “A [retailer] needs to identify their target market and ensure they are creating and relaying a brand story that engages.”

In addition to that, Paula Conway—President of Astonish Media Group—says, “[A brand story] is the message that creates a powerful emotional connection between your company, customers, and the general public… A good, strong brand message will resound creating consumer goodwill and draw more customers to a brand, sometimes customers that may otherwise not have tried the brand experience.”

Truthful, sincere, and engaging brand stories actually attract new customers especially to small retailers without spending much of their budget.

“When done right, it creates a magical bond and develops a relationship past products,” Bennett added. “If the brand story is effective, it not only has an increase in sales but also allows for the company to scale more quickly and with a culture that fosters the brand experience.”

Cassandra Rosen, a branding professional and co-founder of FK Interactive also stated something with regard to this matter saying, “Effective branding will either convince a customer to buy from you or from your competition… If they’ve never purchased from you before, branding and narrative are what will prompt them to take a chance on your brand.”

 

#Brandstory101: How to Build a Brand Story

To build your brand story is not an easy task, nor a difficult one. It just depends on how you would play with your ideas and incorporate it into your story with creativity. Well, here are some pointers to guide you in building your brand story:

1. Know all your “Whys”

To kick off building your brand story, you might have to consider starting with the why behind what you do. Thus, here are some sample questions to guide you in determining your why:

• Why do we actually exist?
• How do we help the world?
• What is our duty?
• What encouraged me to pursue this line of business?

 

Bennett says, “Take a step back and look for the purpose of [your brand] beyond products.”

Seize the story behind why your brand exists and incorporate it into your passion why you actually indulge in your industry in the first place.

But to tell you, understanding the why can be a challenging task especially if you started and go on with your business merely to make money.

“People don’t buy so that you can make money,” Rosen says. “They’re looking for something to solve a problem they have, personally or professionally, or they’re seeking something to enrich their lives in some way. It’s your job as a retailer to figure out how to do this for them and do it in a way that makes them feel good about themselves, and their decision, in the process.”

If you are still confused, Merrell gave us an example of t-shirts selling. A brand story about T-shirt retailer—who wants to cash in on an online trend—must be a sort of boring, but you can twist it and shoot up another brand story. Here’s Merrell’s suggested brand story for that t-shirt retailer:

“I wanted to do more to help my local no-kill cat shelter than just donate food. When I read that videos of cats doing funny or cute things were the most-viewed on YouTube, I decided to see if T-shirts featuring those same funny poses and sayings would also be popular. I posted five t-shirt designs to start and let people know that 20% of the proceeds would go directly to support the Topeka No-Kill Cat Shelter. People really responded. Now, at the end of every month, I put a tally on the website, showing how much money was donated, and I include lots of pictures of the cat shelter on my social media.”

That’s a story that would actually drive your consumers to know and patronize your brand. “When people can see your passion, they want to be a part of it,” Merrell added.

Dig Deeper on your Product

In knowing your brand story, you must first understand your product—how your product fits into the story. A brand story that isn’t that relevant to your product can engage customers but would just create few sales.

Conway emphasizes that the “lack of self-awareness in the product” can be the greatest crime brands would commit when it comes building their brand story. “You don’t sell a Mercedes the same way you sell a Kia. They are both cars, but with different quality, performance, experience expectations, and price point.”

To actually determine how your product would fit into your brand story, Conway suggests that you might have to ask yourself these questions:

• What is the quality and price point of my product?
• Does my product solve a problem, or should it make a consumer feel a certain way?
• How is my product different from competitors’ products?

On this matter, Merrell gave us another good and relevant example:

“If you started your pasta sauce brand in your mom’s kitchen, using your grandma’s recipe and veggies straight from the garden, there’s a presumption that your sauce is natural, maybe even organic. But if today’s version is mass-produced, full of additives and chemicals, the disconnect between the backstory and the current reality will be an issue for consumers.”

Know Your Audience well

Of course, for you to be able to know how to build your brand story, you have to know first who you are talking to—your target audience. Knowing their passions and pain points can lend you a hand determine how you are to build your brand story that would perfectly fit into their way of living.

Conway laid down another set of questions that you might consider asking yourself:

• What is at stake if a consumer doesn’t buy my product?
• Who is my current customer?
• Who is my ideal customer?

 

Getting and determining your ideal customer can of something intimidating, yet, you still have to do it. It is vital to building your brand story that will resonate with assurance. It is a trend among retailers to try appealing to all customers, instead of taking direct dialog to them.

“In targeting ‘all,’ [retailers] get ‘few,’ because very few products are everything to everybody,” Conway says. “It’s okay to appeal to a broad demographic, but too broad can be a turnoff to some customers. Always be mindful of your product and who is a realistic, interested customer.”

For Rosen, “Don’t try to be everything to everyone” shall be a mantra of every retailer who recognizes that identifying the ideal customer for smaller retailers with little to no customer reach is a challenging job. “If this sounds like you, start internally, making a list of values you stand for, and think about the types of customers those values and ideals might appeal to,” she suggests.

Understanding and relating to your ideal customer isn’t enough. You need to ascertain your passion and be certain that you are really the story you are telling other people. This is for your brand story to drive connections that will eventually turn into sales.

“‘I want to be the biggest T-shirt manufacturer’ is not a goal that people support,” Merrell says. “Instead, try ‘I want to provide jobs for 500 people and help renovate and reinvigorate the community around our manufacturing facility.’ This is a goal that people can get behind and become a part of through purchasing your products.”

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Father’s Day Impact on US Retail

The National Retail Federation reveals that Americans are planning to spend an average amount of $134.75 for their Dads on Father’s Day which falls on June 17 this year. The digits are up from $125.92 in 2017 and this year, the total spending on the said occasion may reach a record as high as $15.5 billion.

“It’s encouraging to see consumers spending on special occasions such as Father’s Day,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said. “This is a positive sign of strong consumer confidence heading into the second half of the year.”

Prearranged Purchases by Shoppers 

To understand the consumer behavior during Father’s day, here are the Top 5 gift categories you might want to ponder on:

1. Of course, gift category for dads varies from time to time as the years go by. Not to mention, still, the most common and popular gift category for dads during Father’s days are special outings such as dinner or brunch.
2. Consumers are planning to actually spend $3.3 billion on experiences, which comes higher from $3.1 billion in 2016.
3. Consumers are planning to spend about $2.2 billion on clothing. Almost, the same amount goes with the gift cards (which are anticipated to get a sales increase of 10% ($200 million) from the past year.
4. On the other perspective, consumers who are fond of giving electronics or computer-related gifts came as the fourth-most-popular category wherein with consumers are expected to spend up to $1.8 billion.
5. The last gift category that would complete the list is greeting cards wherein consumers are expected to spend approximately $0.9 billion.

While they represent only a small fraction of dollar spend, greeting cards are the most commonly purchased Father’s Day gift: 64.3% of consumers surveyed plan to buy a card for their Dad. Some 48.0% of consumers expressed a desire to bring their Father out for a special dinner or brunch.

Last year, Prosper Analytics suggested that “Personal Care Products” is the category that reigns over consumers spending decisions. The analytics says that planned spending on personal care products for men—such as aftershave, cologne, and razors—will actually increase by a considerable 20% year over year, overtaking the development in every other category for Father’s Day.

 What do People Shop?

Most consumers who are shopping for Father’s Day headed to department stores to get a gift for their Dad, followed by getting their gifts online, and going to discount stores. There is a noticeable incessant change with regard to the probability to do shopping offline for Father’s Day. According to the survey, 33% of smartphone users say that they use their device to research for gift ideas, but only 18% of them uses the device to complete a purchase.

To wrap it all up, Americans are self-assured that they can actually spend more money on Father’s Day this year than previous years which is a good opportunity to the entire retail industry.

 

 

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Satisfying Consumer Expectations Through Knowing Gender Effect of Technology Disruptors

When it comes to shopping preferences, men and women are actually taking different paths for such genders react inversely to technologies. In reality, in accordance with the findings of the study, men are less likely to indulge in disruptors such as mobile shopping, Amazon.com, discount retail, and the like than women.

Not to mention, 44% of the study’s male respondents said—non-verbatim—that “being able to touch and feel a product as the main driver that takes me in-store.” While on the other side, the same sentiment was shared by only 33% of women their respondents. Unexpectedly, the finding reveals that men are much more likely to complete a purchase at full-priced retailers which posted 42% than discount retailers that gathered 18%. On the other hand, women have a high level of probability to shop at discount retailers which posted 38% than full-price retailers, 31%.

In addition, only 22% of the survey’s male respondents said that they often shop through mobile devices which is considerably far less than that of women with 40%. Also, only 46% of male respondent are regularly doing their shopping on Amazon while women posted 60%.

Well, with all that being said, amid the struggles the retail industry is currently facing with regard to the consumer references, the result actually illuminated the goodness of knowing schemes on how products are dispersed between stores and online to the retailers.

Women are Notable Online Shoppers

Men are not just “shopping less frequently” than women, they also do lesser purchases. 67% of the survey’s male respondents completed two or fewer purchases through a mobile device within the month prior to the month when the survey was made—it was elbowed buy women’s 62%. Furthermore, 22% of women completed five or more acquisitions on Amazon within the month prior to the survey, while only 14% of men did the same thing.

Men Don’t Usually Check Price Tags

The survey revealed that only 21% of men regularly use mobile devices to actually differentiate the prices at the time they are in a physical store while 31% of women did the same. Also, 54% of men say that they review online for products and prices before they go out, canvass, and purchase somewhere else, while 67% of women did the same.

Women are Into Discount Retailers than Men, But Online Discount Retailers are having its Toll on Men

According to research, top discount retailers see certain female inside a store as a client. 13% of men respondent says that they regularly visit TJ Maxx compared to women’s 30%. On the other hand, since 30%of male respondents regularly shop at online discount retailers, it can be safe to say that online discount retailers are actually gaining a pull with men compared to traditional brick-and-mortar discount retailers which just posted only 22%.

Of course, understanding and mastering the preferences and pricing will still be a demanding and tough test considering that the tastes of consumers constantly changes. But though, those who are capable of understanding that “mind the gender gap” by reaching out consumer-driven information to deliver distinguished and unique merchandises that are rightly and justly priced will be of a great plus amid these swerving shopping behaviors.

 

 

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Smooth Payment: Thinking Social, Acting Social

At this point of time, running a maintainable payment frame is a nice and smooth scheme. Not to mention, at the time of Mobile Commerce 1.0, that imposes an idea that consumers could complete a purchase on their phones at any moment. But now, since we are into Mobile Commerce 2.0, we can compensate for real-time products and services while using the brand’s application—take, for example, Uber or Starbucks. Well, the marketplace today is all though, near, far, and wide, and imperceptible.

Smooth payment drives the customers through distressful shopping and checkout, precise and exact, speedy, and without any useless information needed. Customers give worth on the idea of “speed and convenience.” Also, AI helps the growth of social commerce and voice-activated apparatus that would immediately be the table stakes for retailers. Customers visit to purchase by a chat window and for their smart device to actually lag behind and deal with the procurements for them.

Hitherto, US business people are creating enormous steps in utilizing technology. In line with that, Zebra Technologies’ Retail Vision Study 2017 says that 79% of US retailers capitalized in AI or Internet of Things technologies in the past year, and more have indulged on mobile-first, digital retail—proposing an answer to emergent purchaser demand.

Simultaneous with the arising demand, US financial institutions have also improved on their real-time competences together with lots of others who now offers same-day ACH payment and generating brand new payment schemes like Open APIs. Digging deeper on the scenario, innovations in technology can actually push outgoings quicker compared that how it is before. Thus, here are two of the enormous trends that have placed themselves as relatively easy to execute schemes that retailers must apply—as soon as possible—to actually receive and give real-time payments all over your networks.

Shopping Through Online

We all know that social media has dominated this generation. Indeed, that gave a a feeling of being left with overloaded information, but also, that’s the powerful wonder of having Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and all other social accounts—that are all lined together—that are one click away around-the-clock: It produces and delivers both consumers and retailers non-stop pointers to ponder on. Photos of your merchandise, discussions regarding your retail, consumer insights, and a lot more occurs all in the same place each day, each hour, each minute, each second. Here are some things we recognize regarding consumers’ interaction with brands:

• 74% of consumers turn to social networks to guide their purchases
• 75% of Instagram users take action, such as visiting a website, after looking at a brand’s post
• 47% of Facebook users in the US have made a purchase directly from a social media post since October 2017

Also, in accordance to a report made by Statista, the chance to complete a purchase has to be in the mix as well as worldwide social commerce income is $20 billion. Well, we can actually set in APIs into the retail online involvement to allow customers to buy and pay straightaway—not leaving their IG, Messenger, WhatsApp, or Pinterest in arrears.

Shopping Through Voice

The “Internet of Things” has turned out to be a backbone in a lot of homes, with voice-activated smart operators piling up proficiency and gives a modified, and all-in-one shopping experience. A study conducted by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners in 2017 discovers that a minimum of 8.2 million US shoppers possesses a device—which is roughly 175% higher compared to last year’s. Parrallel to that, a study conducted by Adobe, discovers that voice-assistant sales raised up to 103% every year from Q4 2016 to Q4 2017. Lastly, a fresh finding by National Public Media and Edison Research stated that 57% of consumers asked have actually tried to order items by the means of a smart speaker.

Through applying either of these augmentations, perhaps, you would deliver your consumers the payment experience they are looking for since then—and by reforming the operator’s involvement, you could considerably upsurge transformations which research amplified to gather a hit when consumers experience friction at checkout. And that high-value, smooth marketplace is what we are all looking for.

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Four Tried-and-tested Methods to Keep Up with Demand

If you’re a retailer, and you are trying to accept orders through a physical store, online, at markets, pop-ups, or festivals, perhaps, you might want to bank on the idea that customers are really into fast shipping.

Considering that there are lots of retailers that actually offers free shipping and same-day delivery, there’s a high level of pressure and demand to get orders out quickly and efficiently that is really visible.

So, when the time comes that sales are rapidly increasing and orders are on hold due to some unwanted circumstances, try to get your senses and do these four (4) tried-and-tested methods to fulfill your must-fulfilled tasks to your consumers:

Get Some Perfect People for a Perfect Position

The first thing you might want to play your focus on is with your staff. Perhaps, you have to check if you are properly staffed to keep a good customer service, to manage the inflow of shoppers, and to focus entirely on shipping.

A retail consultant and Senior Partner at McMillanDoolittle, Mara Devitt, says that it’s vital that companies lend a concrete attention to the trends with regard to their line of business.

“What does that mean regarding your workflow on the customer satisfaction side and product flow in and out?” she says. “You don’t want to be overstaffed at the wrong time.”

Communication is a Must

I bet, you have to check if you are excelling in this aspect because if there’s something that would test your capability of being succession during your busy season, it’s communication.

With regard to staff, that does mean that you have to discuss the to-dos for today and about key promotions in store and online.

In line with that, Devitt says, “take time throughout the day to celebrate good ideas and successes… It really keeps employees focused and engaged.”

It would also be a good scheme if you are keeping up with your suppliers and vendors. Get in touch and keep them posted when you forestall gaps in product stock or perhaps, a quite idle response time. They are playing a vital role in your gameplay, so keeping them posted would also keep you on track to your success.

And, of course, you can’t pull out the most important people in the picture which we call “customers.” Keeping up with your customers [directly]—especially when you anticipate that there would be delays—would actually create in them a heart of a loyal customer.

Give Solutions to Problems Even Before They Happen

“It’s so important to organize your team to deal with exceptions,” says Devitt.

Putting your mind on issues like productivity and producing solutions even before that pop-up within your staff would actually turn your busy time into a smoother one.

“Take a hard look at the customer journey and make sure you’re handling them well. Do you dedicate a specific team to returns? Do you have the right staff and resources for in-store returns? Many companies forget about the impact this has on frontline [employees]”.

If there is one thing that would surely cost you both time and money, it is Fraud. LexisNexis states that the average number of ecommerce monthly fraud attempts amounted to 33% just between 2015 and 2016.

Incorporating a fraud protection tool to your site is a helpful scheme—most especially for new staff who actually don’t know where to put their vantage point.

#Cliche: Learn from your Mistakes

Make it a practice that every time your launch, promotion, or holiday rush ends, have a comprehensive discussion with your team with regard to the things that worked well and those which didn’t and how you can actually apply this the learning you obtained from such in your next gameplay.

For a good reference, Mara Devitt gave this example: “After one busy season, Best Buy noticed a higher number of returns on certain TV models that were showing up cracked. They solved the problem by sending them out double boxed.”

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source http://clipstrip.com/pop-fuel/four-tried-and-tested-methods-to-keep-up-with-demand/