What you are about to read is very important. It may be basic, but it is very important. In my younger days I spent a great deal of time merchandising for various retail stores, and I have come up with what I believe to be the TOP 3 WAYS TO SELL MORE WITHOUT SPENDING A DIME ON MARKETING.
It will take up too much space (and too much of your time) to include them all in one blog, so I am going to do something a bit unorthodox: I am going to post 1 tip today, 1 tomorrow, and one the next day. I hope you enjoy!
Onto today's tip:
#3: Make It Easy to Buy Something NEW,
and Harder to Buy Something NEEDED
I want to add a caveat to this tip: you never want to make anything HARD to buy.
What I mean by making something needed harder to buy is this: if someone comes into your store to buy something they NEED, if they have to search for it a bit, it gives your staff and shelves more time to showcase other items. If they see what they want immediately, they will buy it and leave. If they have to look around a bit, they might find something else to add to their basket, thus allowing you to sell more.
If you make it really easy to buy something new, something they have never bought before, you will be getting more business out of each of your clients.
Here is a merchandising secret: buyers are more likely to buy something when it is at their eye level than when it is at their feet. The next time you are at a grocery store, test my theory on yourself.
So, to put this tip into action at your store you just need to do a bit of reorganizing. Walk around and make a note of all the products that pool owners are going to NEED to buy. Where are they in your store? Front and center? They shouldn't be! Your customers will walk in and walk out with ONLY what they NEED! In order to sell more, you need to entice them to buy things they WANT that are in addition to the things that they NEED.
While you are making note of the need-to-buy products, make a note of some of your slower selling products. Where are they? Are they on the bottom shelves? If you want to sell more of them without having to spend a bunch of money marketing them, move them up to the top of the shelf.
I would suggest that you will benefit from placing the need-to-buy products further back in your store, or on the bottom of your shelving units. You know they are going to sell because people NEED them. These items don't need priority placement.
That will leave top-shelf and front-of-store space available for your shoppers to be attracted to new products, or products that are new to them. Place the adorable and benefit-packed Ecosavr on a bottom shelf at the back of your store and few people are going to see it. Put it up front at eye level and it will start selling faster than cotton candy at a fair.
Careful merchandising will help you sell more products to each of your customers - making the most of the business that walks through your door - without costing you a single extra penny in marketing or sales costs.
Tomorrow, I will share with you my #2 tip for selling more: Red Car Syndrome - Coming to a Store Near You!
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