According to the legendary marker Jay Conrad Levinson people buy for 51 different reasons.

Listed below is twenty of those 51 reasons people buy:

• To make more money - even though it can't buy happiness
• To become more comfortable, even a bit more
• To attract praise - because almost everybody loves it
• To increase enjoyment - of life, of business, of virtually anything
• To possess things of beauty - because they nourish the soul
• To avoid criticism - which nobody wants
• To make their work easier - a constant need to many people
• To speed up their work - because people know that time is precious
• To keep up with the Joneses - there are Joneses in everybody's lives
• To feel opulent - a rare, but valid reason to make a purchase
• To look younger - due to the reverence placed upon youthfulness
• To become more efficient - because efficiency saves time
• To buy friendship - I didn't know it's for sale, but it often is
• To avoid effort - because nobody loves to work too hard
• To escape or avoid pain - which is an easy path to making a sale
• To protect their possessions - because they worked hard to get them
• To be in style - because few people enjoy being out of style
• To avoid trouble - because trouble is never a joy
• To access opportunities - because they open the doors to good things
• To express love - one of the noblest reasons to make any purchase

It does not matter what you are selling in your retail store, you are solving a problem.

When someone comes to your store to buy a dinner suit, what they are buying is not the suit but something that will solve their problem of going for dinner.

So when you sell your suit to them, if you sell them just the dinner suit you might have difficulties convincing them to buy the suit.

However, if you teach your sales people to sell the benefit of wearing the suit to the dinner, then you will have completely different outcome and a higher closing rate.

Understanding this is what makes the difference between making a sales and not making it.

So when you are crafting your marketing communication, the question you need to be answering is; why do you exist as a business.

What problem are you trying to solve.

To open a retail store in an area simple because there is high footfall (traffic) in the area as most retailers do is suicidal.

There got to be a gap you are trying to fill in the marketplace.

That gap might be that other retailers are neglecting certain segment of the population.

Whatever, the case, when you create a marketing communication, it needs to answer the question, why do you exist.