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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How to Have Impact and Build Customer Trust

The modern day has changed the world and has brought a multi-channel of purchase readily accessible to anyone. This has created an impact to the retail industry and has given the customers plenty of choices for their shopping and purchase. This also resulted to a tighter competition to the retailers.

As we all know it, trust is a crucial factor in the industry because it will define the customer’s actions and decisions towards your brand. Being able to achieve this Holy Grail will surely give any retailer the advantage of getting a closer step to the business’ success.

But, how do we exactly achieve such thing?

It is a tough battle and there are a lot of things that you need to do and handle properly for you to be able to gain the trust and loyalty of your customers.  So in this modern world, you must know to be competent with regards to the use of the available technology to make every purchase and marketing experience remarkable to your prospects starting from their first glimpse of your website.

Professional Site Design and Performance

Aside from the brick-and-mortar, you will spend most of your time and interactions with your customers online because this is the most efficient and convenient platform that both retailer and buyers can use anywhere around the world. The first thing that you must keep in mind is that it all boils down to the totality of user’s experience. This will define the direction of your relationship with a particular shopper. Failing to establish a good relationship and experience can lead you to the end of the line. However, being able to accomplish and perform good at this task will open a lot of opportunities for you and your shopper you can improve this by conducting user experience testing and research.

The golden rule here is: “Avoid a weak website performance.”

Also keep in mind that when publishing content for your customers, you should be engaging, authentic and helpful to them as well as be relevant to your business and customer.

Also beware of the no-no’s and avoid content that is purely self-serving and sensational.

No clickbait!

Instead, have a trustworthy search engine. Remember that your customer’s first impression of you is often through a search result on their favorite engine. It’s crucial to consider this as a point to start building trust online.

Start with your Page Title: Consider how a customer uses a search engine.  Most shoppers often type in a question or keywords describing what they’re looking for.  This is where you can use your page title to answer your customer’s question. Don’t focus only on SEO value, but provide the customer value as well.

Your Meta-description is also crucial. This is where your customers will see the description under your title. This is a key to build trust with a potential customer by using human language, making it straight to the point, clear and concise. Make sure that you will set the proper expectation of what’s to come if they click through to the next page. Also, it could help a lot if you could put something that will persuade them to keep going on. Perhaps a combination of rhetoric and creativity would do it.

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source http://clipstrip.com/pop-fuel/how-to-have-impact-and-build-customer-trust/

How to get Business Investors Love your Retail Store

No one knows what an aspiring entrepreneur can do in exchange of financing and partnership opportunities as these will boost and keep the business from going and growing.

But, pitching your business to investors is like baring yourself to your chosen audience. You show not just the strength and competencies but also the vulnerabilities and weaknesses of your products to your potential investors. Also remember that feeling good about how you presented it doesn’t always mean that it was actually good. Because other people especially businessmen might see be looking at something else and might see it with a more different perspective.

This is one of the reasons why sometimes, we get disappointed when we’re forced to go home empty-handed.

So in this article, we will be discussing about we can make a business more attractive to the investors.

But first, you need to realize how rare retail investors are.

Investing is a total risk that’s why investors are blameless if they are extra cautious or sometimes doubtful because it’s their time and money that they put will be putting stake. Any small thing that will trigger hesitation might ruin it all. That’s why you better be prepared.

But the thing is aside from their instinct, they are also driven by some misconception such as the inefficiency of capital in the consumer and retail industry which we wanted to eliminate to encourage and motivate investors.

Return of investments is primarily what the investors are concerned of.  So, part of preparing your business is to make a fast recovery of your initial investment so you can focus on the return of revenues and other assets which will make a successful business story.

It is also easier if you focus on investors who understand the industry. Through this, you can save yourself in the explaining process and somehow you’ll be able to find your common grounds as baseline.

This way, you can easily know if you have the same vision and if you can smoothly and surely go on along with the investor.

Another trick for your pitching is that you’re always free to go get some help. It’s not bad if you’ll be having a sort of back-up sometimes.

There are a lot of people out there who have business experiences that can help you a lot if you lack the confidence in doing your pitching. You just have to look for the right one that knows how to package your business to be attractive to the eyes of the investors.

Most importantly, do your job well to make possible investors realize that you are worthy of their time and money. Highlight the strengths and competencies of your business and make sure you impress them without boasting too much.

Just tell them about your unique qualities and strategies that will show your company’s potential for success.

Tell them the opportunities and possibilities that you could have together because these can be the most important for you to make your investors love your brand.

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source http://clipstrip.com/pop-fuel/how-to-get-business-investors-love-your-retail-store/

SHOW and SELL: Why Retailers Prefer Showrooming

Who could’ve imagined that shipping can be combined with traditional shopping?

That people would refer going to stores to experience the actual products but then leaving their purchase behind only to have it delivered to their hone directly afterwards?

Online megastores arise along with the concept and practice of showrooming. But, as years passes by, even offline retail businesses now have managed to operate and use ‘showrooming’ as an effective way to deal with their clients.

More and more retail companies have found out that it could be effective in improving the purchasing experience of every customer.

Not like its web rooming counterpart, which is when a shopper browses websites to research and compare brands and products, but then completes the purchase in store, Showrooming provided the shoppers with the capability to see, touch and even try the actual product and then have it packaged and delivered safely and properly directly to their home.

Showrooming has been popularised to show a very efficient shopper-friendly feature of a business. It eliminates the possibilities of sending the wrong color, size or product as well as damages or factory defects because the customer has examined and choose it himself. It also eases the burden of the customer in carrying bunch of shopping bags. At the same time, it will surely give satisfaction to your customers making your buyer-to-seller relationship stronger and better.

This is also where you can build loyalty and earn the trust of your clients and of course, purchasing online can make it easier for you to give promos and discounts which can motivate then to spend more to your brand.

Now, let’s see some of the perks why a bigger number of retailers are choosing this trend.

Smaller Spaces!

With showrooming, there’s no need for a huge area of your brick-and-mortar as well as any extensions as you don’t need to display and pile up each pieces of all your products. This way, you can totally be save from all your utility as well as your building costs.

Targeting Millennial Shoppers

The youth nowadays are living their life on their own time. So we can’t expect them to always follow the traditional ways. Instead, it is now on us how we can encourage and catch their interest to purchase our brand which is exactly why showrooming can be the best choice.

Utilization of modern technology and ways can bring bigger revenues to your business.

This way you can be attractive to customers and you will surely be earning more!

Ultimate Customer Experience

Just like what have been mentioned above, showrooming is different from web rooming because it makes the shoppers experience the actual product even before their purchase at the same time still offering the convenience of online purchase.

Letting them know your Brand

Lastly, as a retailer, there is no other way other than going forward. Your goal is to make your brand known as this is what will establish you in the retail industry. Through showrooming, your brand will have more interaction with the customers and they will know about your business better in a more personal aspect.

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source http://clipstrip.com/pop-fuel/show-and-sell-why-retailers-prefer-showrooming/

GOING WITH THE GREEN BUSINESS: Starting your Own Eco-friendly Business

Most people think of companies as the main destroyers of the nature that whenever they think of businesses, many of them have enormous power plants excreting poisonous clouds of gas or toxic waste materials going through rivers in their mind. Of course, this is way too exaggerated. But if you come to think of it, there is really a need even for the smallest companies to engage in more eco-friendly but still effective operations of their business.

Now, you might think that this is very complex for an owner to think about. But you might be forgetting that there’s a lot of ways for you to start saving and earning at the same time with almost everything around you. So, we will discuss some of the most basic and useful ways where you can start with a greener and fruitful retail business.

One of the most common is just above your head. Referring to Energy-related costs, these are frequently set aside and ignored by most business owners thinking that is just normal for their company to spend with this. However, they also became unaware of the huge toll that this was taking from them because of the loss due to their inability to think of energy-saving strategies that they can do to their company to make the costs turn the tables and convert it to additional revenues.

Getting started with this timely plan, you have to start from the baseline. Knowing where and what costs you the most is the start of everything.  You can do this with an audit with your energy consumption. With this, you can easily think of ways to save energy and cut your consumption. So what can you do?

For most brick-and-mortar shops, a proper amount of lighting is always needed in the overall presentation of your store as a whole. Now, you can get as much as natural lighting as possible this is through proper positioning of your store windows which you must assure free of obstruction from outside. But for the rest of the set-up, you can save energy by switching to energy efficient lighting. You can also find lamps and lights which last longer than the traditional bulbs and minimize the harmful effects.

But if you are ready to invest more for the reduction of costs and increase in energy efficiency, it is advisable to give your lighting an upgrade by the use of solar panels which can give you a natural source of lighting. There are many shops around offering the materials needed along with the set up itself.

Imagine the difference that you can make with these simple steps. Starting with your lighting, you can continue taking bigger steps as time pass by and if you are considerate enough, you might want to also include reducing paper use and eliminating plastic if possible. These are also big game changers for the retail industry and a lot of good things and benefits will surely follow for your business.

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Three Relevant Tips to Start going International

Above all, one of the major concerns of every retailer is to how to attract new customers. Well, there’s a good opportunity waiting out there—all you have to do is to think a little more global.

According to a Forrester Research, cross-border B2C e-commerce is expected to more than double to reach $629 billion by 2022. And with the growing numbers of people who are indulging into purchasing online, added with broadened internet availability, then, perhaps, you could achieve your goal in making a name internationally.

But before anything else, of course, you have to get all things in the right place—strategically. Thus, here are some useful tips on how to start your product’s international journey:

Know your Target Markets

The first thing you should understand is your target market. Finding them is not a really difficult job. However, you should learn who your international customers are, what they buy, and how they shop.

Also, you might want to consider how these customers want to pay. Then after that, you can start thinking about how you would get paid. With regard to that, there are two things you should remember in working on this matter:

• Do a comprehensive research on payment providers and check their reputation.
• Choose a payment provider with a reputation for security.

Lend some attention to the regulations

Of course, going international would also get you into being liable for a whole new set of rules. When the time comes that you have already decided the country wherein you’ll sell your products, make sure that you’d also pay attention to their specific rules and regulations. In line with that, here are some of the key areas to consider:

• Duties and taxes
• Customs
• Free-trade agreements

Create a good plan for shipping and returns. 

One of the basics of going international is the shipping and returns—unless, you want to deliver it door to door. Practicing the best schemes on this matter would be of great responsibility—and help at the same time—in selling internationally. Thus, you might have to set clear delivery expectations. Also, you should establish a return policy. When getting things together in place, here are some points to think through:

• Any requirements as detailed by local consumer laws
• Refund stipulations, like when you’ll issue them and whether you’ll give store credit or cash refund
• Time limit for returns
• Restocking, return delivery, or other fees

Strategize your market entry. 

Once you have done all the things you need to do, and when your indications tell you that you are ready to start on international selling, your option now is to plan your entry.

In line with that, here are some options you might want to consider in entering the international market when selling your products online:

• Starting small on an existing online marketplace.
• Optimizing your current website.
• Creating a custom website for certain markets.

There you go! Go out and seize your future in an international market! Your future customers are waiting.

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source http://clipstrip.com/pop-fuel/three-relevant-tips-to-start-going-international/

Boosting Customer Engagement through Gamification

It has been a fact for many retail business owners that people are naturally reward-driven, Competitive and always aim to win. So this trait has been used to think of a strategy to boost sales and engagement.

For customers, gaining something even if it’s just virtual is fulfilling. Reward system is the a key in driving new and returning customers to your store. Making them stay a little longer and spend more time to your store while being exposed to your products. This somehow affects their behavior towards their purchase transactions with your brand.

However, the usual and traditional way of selling is not as effective anymore as it is before. As new competitors arise, there is a bigger need to come up with strategies that will continue to hook your customers.

One effective way is through Gamification.

It is about making simple tasks feel like games to add excitement and to be more enjoyable for your shoppers. This has been proven effective by many famous and well known brands. It can also suit your business whether you have an actual physical shop or more on e-commerce. There are just different approaches, though. Here are some guides to help you.

Implementing gamification on your brick-and-mortar shop may seem impossible and irrelevant. But believe it or not, not all shoppers are on the buy-pay-run mode. Some can be persuaded to stay a little longer or even spend more with your products when you are able to find that sweet spot in them.

In-store games can be a fun and exciting specially to families and adventurous buyers. Providing them with something to do more than just the usual roam around shopping could make a lot of difference.

One effective example is through the use of Stamp Cards or Progress Bars. Through these, you’re making them experience some kind of progress that they are fulfilling something and with a reward after every accomplishment, it will encourage them and excite them more to visit your store and purchase again and again.

Another strategy is by giving them the privilege to try and experience services, products and other new things you can offer. This is how you make them develop a good feeling to your products and services thus, making a bigger chance for them to purchase it.
On the other hand, those who are more on e-commerce have the advancement of technology as a primary weapon. Now that almost everyone is exposed to the modern technology through gadgets, it is easier to engage with them. Many software and mobile applications can help as a platform for your games that will promote your brand to your target audience. You can also use these on your websites to make it more interactive. We now also have the Virtual and Augmented Reality where you make your customers experience extraordinary things. Through these, you can level up their overall in-store experiences, while the use of Progression bar and Virtual Currency can do the magic of putting excitement and urge to come back and purchase again.

Gamification delivers a lot of promising rewards for retailer.  It varies from increasing loyalty, engaging new customers, creating a fun shopping environment, or to just plain driving of sales.

Gamified shopping experiences also allow retailers to track and gain insights into their customers, test new products and promotions, and keep overall customer experience high. Plus, it will surely serve a better and happier moment for the shoppers.

 

 

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Packed up for Pickup: Reducing returns and Encouraging In-store Pickup

Returns feel is the bad omen for retailers. So, many stores implement the “No Refunds and No Return Policy.” however, as a businessman, you also want to be fair, because it is necessary as to maintain the good relationship between you and your shoppers. This is what will improve their shopper loyalty.

The solution for this is to offer flexible shipping options. Because, with this, a business can minimize the need for returns and exchanges and keep the sales smooth sailing. Now, let’s introduce, “click and collect.”

What’s with all the click, click, click?

Ordering online is now one of the most convenient forms of purchase in the modern time and as time pass by, it continuously assures the convenience that it offers.

With the increasing popularity of this shipping option, more customers place trust brands and more people are using it with confidence that the will be able to get what they’ve purchased in time.

Many people are now also hooked with same –day delivery. There is an evident boost to the sales of those companies who offer this shipping option next to “free delivery.”

With click and collect, customers can enjoy all the best bits of online shopping, with the benefits of a real store transaction.

No wonder people like it and is considered the best of both worlds.

Reducing returns and exchange

Now, a customer can check the size, color, and shape before walking out and upselling at the same time, thousands of stores are decreasing returns and selling more, all while offering highly valued flexibility.

It can also eliminate the threat of damaged goods securing the favor to both seller and buyer. This also helped a lot to retailers of perishable and delicate items to assure customer satisfaction. You can now wave goodbye to complaints!

But what you should remember is that no matter how attractive your offers are and convenient your shipping system may seem, what will matter is still the overall quality of your service and product.

The importance of getting the correct order and preparing it for them:

Remember they’ve travelled a certain distance for that so you don’t want your customers to get pissed with an incorrect of poor quality item. So it’s your responsibility to assure that your service and your product is worth every penny paid by your dear shopper.

Knowing this could is just the half of the whole puzzle. Being able to apply it is what will make the difference.

SALES UP!

Another good thing about offering store pick-up is that you’re gaining high possibility of upsells and extra revenues.  This is by also taking advantage of the visit of your customer, where you can maximize the opportunity. In short, you’re indirectly luring them to buy for more.

In-store pick up is a total game-changer when handled properly. It opens a lot of opportunities to the merchant to boss the sales and further establish the connection with the customers.

So if you’re one of those who believe in the many benefits of store-pickup, you can now start getting ready to pack some more!

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source http://clipstrip.com/pop-fuel/packed-up-for-pickup-reducing-returns-and-encouraging-in-store-pickup/