There are four reasons why you need to answer the last three questions.
In order to increase your store sales, you first need to attract shoppers into your store.
When shoppers are inside your store, you need mechanism for retaining them for long in the store because various studies have shown that the longer shoppers stay in a retail store, the higher the possibility of them buying.
Because they stay long in your store does not necessarily mean they are automatically going to buy.
The majority of retailers underestimate the difficulties of getting people to part with their money.
Most of the times people agree with everything you say until it reaches the point of removing their wallets and paying for what you are offering them.
It is at that point that the large majority of sales break down…
So in a way, this is why this reason is the most important element of the four.
If you get this part right, you will be laughing your way to the bank, you get it wrong and you might have to place one of those dreaded signs at your store front.
Unfortunately this is the part where many retailers drop the ball…They drive traffic to their store, they retain them for long in the store but when it comes to the point of persuading them to buy, they fall short.
In our home study course called 'How to Increase Retail Sales' we provide extensive information on how to convert shoppers when they are in your store.
Part two of the buying persuasion process is upselling them…
What do I mean buy upselling?
When someone enters your store, you might have spent a fortune to get them there. Therefore, when they are in the store, you want to extract the maximum amount money from them.
I am sure you might feel uncomfortable with the phrase 'extract the maximum amount of money'.
In the final analysis, you are in business to make money. It is true you make money by providing value to your customers, but when you provide the value, you expect to be fully compensated for it.
I am not suggesting you behave like a used car salesman and pressure them into buying or selling them merchandise they might not need. I am simply suggesting you make them aware of your offers.
This is why it is important you have a sells funnel that automatically triggers upsell whenever someone buys something.
Everything in your store needs to be like a chain…a domino…one thing triggers another thing and that other thing triggers something else…
Example someone buys a suit… automatically triggers shirt… tie… socks… shoe… etc.
That is upselling.
I must repeat this point: I am not suggesting you or your store assistants behave like obnoxious sales people that pressure them into buying something they do not want…
I am saying you offer them the opportunity to buy your other products. Research shows that 20% of people will accept upsell if offered to them.
Just think the difference it will make to your sales and profit margin if 20you're your customers bought additional stuff each time they shop.
The fourth reason you need to answer the above questions is you need to trigger automatic repeat visit after their initial visit…customer retention process.
There are three ways of growing any business:
Many retailers focus on the initial sales and forget about repeat sales. There is one phrase you always need to remember in relation to this subject: frontend (initial sales) make you money while backend (repeat sales) make you wealthy.
Everyone who enters you store needs to automatically be considered a customer for life.
The moment they enter your store, your goal needs to be first and foremost to move them from window shoppers to customers, then from customers to customers for life.
This is a very important process because by having that mind-set and instilling that into your store assistants, you can drastically reduce returns.
Think about this as in the case of a restaurant.
When someone goes to a restaurant, it the food is bad but the service is excellent, chances are they might return to the restaurant.
However, if the food is great but the service sucks, they will never return to the restaurant.
What this means for your store is this: if you already possess the mind-set that says every customer is a customer for life, you will ensure you design a business model in which everyone entering your store is provided exceptional customer service.
Patricia Fripp once said "You don't close a sale, you open a relationship if you want to build a long-term, successful enterprise".
Tesco CEO was drilled about the reduction in Tesco's profit two years running. One of the reasons he gave for the reduction in Tesco profit was Tesco customers being stolen by Aldi and Lidl.
The reason he gave for his customers leaving for Aldi and Lidl was price. If it was all about price, they would have gone to the pound store.
The reason they left Tesco for the competition is Tesco does not have a relationship with them.
I guess the question you might be asking yourself is how do you build a relationship with your customers to prevent them dumping you to pursue the next shinning object?
This is one of the questions this report answers.
As I said previously, to increase your store sales, you need to:
To achieve the above four, you need to know:
In the rest of the report, I will now walk you through the process of how you go about selecting: