How to
Increase Sales in Retail: (COVID-19)
1.
Make customers feel safe in your store
In the age of COVID-19, one of the best things you can do to drive
traffic and sales is to install confidence in your customers. Because of the
pandemic, many of your customers are worried about their health and
safety.
To win them over, start by clearly communicating your health and
safety measures. Explain all that you’re doing to keep people safe in your
location, then use multiple channels to get the word out.
Target is one example of a store that covers all of its channel
when communicating COVID-19 updates. The retailer keeps shoppers posted by
delivering health and safety info via:
§ its website
§ email marketing
§ social media
§ its mobile app
2.
Ensure that your store shows up in online search results
Now more than ever, consumers are turning to Google to find stores
and products. Make sure that you’re showing up whenever they conduct a search
relevant to your business. If you sell baby clothes, for example, then you want
nearby customers to find your business whenever they run a search for “baby
clothing store near me.”
3.
Display your local inventory in Google Search and Maps
Take your Google listing to the next level by displaying your inventory
in Google Search and Maps.
Leverage a solution like Pointy, which allows you to display your
in-store products on Google without manually re-entering your inventory
data.
4.
Implement click-and-collect
Click-and-collect has been around for a while now, but COVID-19 has
accelerated its adoption.
Offering this service will help drive in-store traffic and sales.
Click-and-collect not only gets people through your doors, but it’s been proven
to increase in-store sales as well.
5.
Consider mobile ordering
Mobile ordering isn’t just for restaurants. Inventory-based
retailers can also offer these services — and reap the rewards.
6.
Hire and develop employees who can provide exceptional customer experiences
Your employees are the people who are doing the selling,
so if you’re looking to increase sales, you need to invest in your staff.
Make sure that every member of your team wants to be there
and are passionate about and know their products. If they are passionate, they
will want the customers to have the same experience as them. If they are knowledgeable,
they will share their passion with confidence.
7.
Promote corporate social responsibility
Doing good is good for business. Multiple studies have shown that
today’s consumers are more inclined to shop at stores that are associated with
a good cause.
Giving back and being more responsible with your practices doesn’t
just help the world, it can also increase your sales.
So, if you’re currently not engaging in Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR), it’s high time to find a good cause to support.
There are numerous ways to do this, including:
§ donating a portion of your sales to
charity
§ being more ethical with how you source or
manufacture products
§ supporting an initiative or community
project
§ investing in your workforce
§ creating or participating in events that
promote good causes
8.
Have strong in-store visuals
People won’t
buy unappealing products, which is why having strong in-store visuals is key.
Here’s are some general guidelines to follow:
§ Make your displays multidimensional by varying their visual elements. Add height,
colour, or depth whenever possible.
§ Have a focal point so people know which items or
details to focus on. Displays
that are too busy or distracting will just overwhelm your customers.
§ Make them useful or interactive. Help people see your products in action.
Create displays that show your products in use or allow shoppers to try them
out.
§ Keep things neat and tidy. An organized space doesn’t just look good, it also
allows customers to find what they need faster, thus aiding the buying
experience.
§ Display your best products front and centre. Always have a display of your best products at the store
entrance, regardless of price.
9.
Update your visual elements regularly
Having a great-looking store is just the first step. To continue
driving traffic and sales, you need to keep your visuals fresh. This means
updating regularly to keep up with the latest trends and seasons.
10.
Eliminate the wait
Long wait times will send guests packing and kill sales.
11.
Have a simple loyalty program
Do implement a loyalty program that’s customized to your audience
that can track and incentivize customer lifetime value and higher ROI from your
top 20% of customers.
12.
Use product returns to your advantage
Product returns can leave a bad taste in a retailer’s mouth, but if
you handle them the right way, you can turn product returns into sales or
opportunities.
Retail strategies to boost sales
Multiple
strategies adopted by multiple retailers in order to boost the volume of
sales in the business. Although most of the retail businesses differ from each
other more often than not, they employee the following common strategies in
order to increase their sales.
1.
Partnerships
The
easiest way to promote yourself would be to partner with similar businesses.
This store can achieve this by using different techniques like partnering with
different retailers of different businesses in the same location who will
provide a reference to that particular retailer when the customer walks to
other retailers of different businesses.
The
associate retailers with the direct customer to that particular retailer and he
will get a new customer. Partnerships can also be done with different stores in
a different area so that the customers are directed to the retailer.
This
partnership can be mutually decided for paid depending on the terms of
business. Every customer referral may be chargeable by the other retailers, or
the retailer can return the favour by directing the customers to his reference
when they ask for a product which the retailer does not have.
2.
Social media
The
easiest way to reach a particular set of the targeted audience is social media.
With
the help of social media, unwanted advertising expenses can be avoided, and
only specifically filtered customers can be targeted, and the store can be
positioned. Using Facebook has become very common to promote a business.
Facebook
offers large exposure to multiple people in the neighbourhood and with a
customer is set of targeting an audience selection preference in Facebook
advertising it is easier and effective for an advertiser to promote his product
or service or in case of the retailer is business.
Starting
a Facebook group is also not uncommon where the retailer can promote different
offers and schemes that are running in order to pull the customers. Paid
Facebook ads are also another retail sales strategy wherein the
business can be promoted with minimum cost and reach a tremendously high number
of audiences.
Instagram
these days is in the neck-to-neck competition with Facebook, and most of the
businesses from fashion industry prefer Instagram over Facebook in order to
target their audience. With high-quality photos on Instagram, it is easy to
promote the business to a particular set of audience.
Different
tools from Instagram like using proper hashtags making different stories in the
Instagram profile, help to promote the business effectively. Many businesses
also use other social media like Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and even Google Pay
Per Click campaigns in order to promote their retail businesses.
3
Referral campaigns
The existing customers of a retail store
can be asked to refer for new customer after which both the existing and
referred customer will get a discount on a few products, or the retailer can
also offer freebies. Referral campaigns proved to be successful because getting
a new customer would be the job of the existing customer, whereas the retailer
can focus only on strategies to retain the existing customer.
Referral campaigns are similar to word-of-mouth campaign
which is promoting to different customers by the existing customers, but the
difference is that in case of referral campaigns the customers get paid for
every successful referral which is not the case in word-of-mouth campaign.
4 Instore advertising
Many retail stores have fantastic
advertising inside the store, which instantly converts walk-in customers. These
stores utilize their windows with large displays of the products highlighting
offers and the best of their stuff so that it attracts the window shoppers.
Window advertising is seen commonly in
tourist places where the tourists are unaware of the local products, and the
store can help themselves promote with window advertising. Part of in-store
advertising is also to have multiple variations of the same product which will
cater and be to the liking of most of the customers.
Using merchandise which matches the products is also seen in many stores and can be used as a strategy. Use of bright lighting, bright interiors which complement the store and the products can help in faster conversion of the customers.
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