Driving sales on a consistent basis is probably the hardest thing to do when trying to run a profitable business. If you own or run a store and have noticed a downward trend in sales in recent months or years, it’s time to turn things around. There are a number of ways for you to attack the market and boost sales. Continue reading our helpful guide to discover 5 ways to increase your sales.
Sales, promotions and upgrades
The easiest and most effective way of making more sales is to hold a sale in-store or online. Dropping prices across a wide range of departments is the best way of attracting customers and getting them to spend their hard-earned cash.
It is not as simple as just slashing prices, though, because if customers aren’t alerted to these savings, then they’re unlikely to spend any money to grab a bargain. In order to do this, you must host a promotion in-store and online to advertise the potential savings your customers can make.
The best way to achieve this is through POS marketing, where you can use signage indoors and outdoors around the store to alert customers to the upcoming promotions. Clear, colourful signage grabs customers’ attention and diverts them towards the sale you’re holding.
On top of the sale and promotion you’re holding, make sure to offer plenty of upgrades too. For example, if you’re a clothing store, you could hold a deal on shorts. A specific style of shorts could be priced at £10 pre-sale but have been dropped to £8 after reductions.
Try and get customers to spend more money by then offering discounts on multiple pairs of shorts. You could offer two pairs for £14, or three for £20. It is all about squeezing as much out of a sale as possible, and by offering the customer more savings with every purchase, you’re more likely to make an extra couple of sales.
Loyalty and exclusivity
Once you have a customer through the door and buying items, you want them to keep returning and spending their money. In order to do so, you may have to offer an incentive. Give the customer a reason to return, and to do this you could offer discounts for long-time shoppers.
This could include emailing or sending vouchers in the mail, while you can also offer a store loyalty card. Shoppers can build up points and then use them as discounts against any (or specific) items in the future.
This produces a revolving cycle of customers returning to your store to spend money.
Exclusivity can also drive customer interest, which leads to sales and loyalty. Costco differentiates itself from normal stores as only members can go in-store and purchase items. This offers a sort of exclusivity that appeals to many people. Offering this type of service may cut off a number of potential customers, but the ones you do have will continue to return and may actually spend more money than the average consumer.
Experiential marketing
In 2022, more and more stores are jumping on the technology bandwagon, providing interesting shopping experiences for their customers. This includes leaving out freebies for people to try, like smartphones,iPads and tablets to try out at an Apple store.
This type of marketing has been introduced to the retail world in the past couple of years as more stores are focusing on the customer experience rather than sales. These companies have found that by giving the customer an enjoyable experience, they are seeing an uplift in footfall and sales.
One form of experiential retailing is streamlining the payment process for customers. Some stores (Amazon, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s and Asda) enable customers to scan their items with their smartphone to pay through an app, or to use a handheld device provided by the store. This results in less queuing at checkouts and much quicker shopping.
Implement click and collect in-store
Due to hectic schedules, many people don’t have the time to go shopping, walking up and down every aisle to pick out everything that they need. This is where click and collect has come in handy for so many customers. The ability to order your shopping from your phone or computer and pick everything up in one convenient trip to the store is appealing to many more people.
A one hour shopping trip suddenly turns into a quick online shop and a short drive to store. It means no queuing, and no coming face-to-face with other customers, which is especially difficult for many after the last couple of years due to Covid-19.
Any type of retailer could offer this service; it doesn’t only apply to grocery chains. Some clothing and technology stores already offer a click and collect service, making customers more likely to shop with them again.
With customers choosing their shopping online, they are much more likely to add extra purchases to their order. This is especially true when 2-for-1 and 3-for-2 offers are advertised clearly when selecting products on your app or website.
Make sure products are on point
Finally, the best way to boost your sales is to make sure that your products are on point. If the products you are selling are not interesting enough for a customer to give them any attention, then sales are going to take a hit.
Depending on what you sell, track your sales and see what works best based on the type of product your customers are buying. Stick to what works best for your brand and continue to offer products that your customers like. Not only does this equate to more sales, but it ensures shoppers return to your store time and time again.
POS at Kolorcraft
If you’re in need of any point of sale help, contact us at Kolorcraft on 01924 780780 or email us at [email protected]. Thanks to years of experience, we provide a full service from creative design and marketing insight through to print, finishing and store aftercare.
Whatever your POS needs, we’ll take care of it. We take pleasure in bringing a display to life. No fluff, no jargon – the entire process from start to finish makes us happy, and that’s all we can say. With over 200 people working across our four divisions, we don’t just have a team of designers, we have a team of innovators.
