Ways to increase sales and profitability for Retail Trade

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my name is kiara burke and i'm here today to talk to you about strategies that you can employ to enhance and develop your own retail business the first point is to be customer-centric and that means putting the customer at the heart of all your decisions and your business operation and making connections with them second point is how you can use corporate social responsibility to reach into the community and the sphere that you operate in to connect with your customers and reach a wider potential audience for your business thirdly we will discuss how you can use visual merchandising to enhance your store environment or your website how you can use it to highlight the products the features and benefits with a view to optimizing sales by enticing customers to purchase fourthly we will discuss digital marketing and how you can use search engine optimization to ensure that you are showing up for your customers and online searches you can't sell to people who can't find you fifth we will discuss how you can use google shopping as a tool six we will look at your business operation and look at how you can reduce the weight within your business in today's fast-paced modern world nobody likes waiting and every minute that a customer has to wait there's the opportunity for them to walk away and you lose the transaction seven we will discuss how you can get personal connecting with your customers will allow you to create a point of difference from your competitors why should somebody buy from you if the product or price is similar and eight we will talk about how to get smart with your remarketing campaigns it's a well-known fact that it is a lot cheaper to retain an existing customer than it is to acquire a new one one of the best strategies you can employ to develop your retail business is to be customer-centric now what does it mean to be customer-centric well ultimately it means putting the customers needs at the heart of all of your business decision making your products your operation and anything related to your retail business should be considered from the customer's point of view this allows you to build strong relationships with your customer and ultimately will give you a sustainable business model you'll have loyalty and retention so how do you go about being customer centric well firstly you need to listen to your customers and importantly to act on what they tell you this could be about anything it could be about your opening hours where they are trying to come in earlier than you're open or stay later because people are traveling home with traffic and child care and pick up it may be related to the customer service that they received in store that they feel that your team is not knowledgeable enough on the products it may be in relation to the wait times product quality anything that your customer can tell you that allows you to make a change to enhance the business to retain that customer to make the customer feel like they've been listened to and want to come back is important the second thing you can do is to recognize the difference between your perception and the reality the customer experiences the quality of your customer experience lives in one place and that is in the mind of your customer the gap between customer expectation and the reality of the experience they have received is something that you need to address the third thing you can do is to use the data that you collect from your customers to make changes and transform your business every day you are collecting data and it's there for analysis and interpretation and to allow you to make changes that will have a positive impact on your business at a very simplistic level you can see what time of the day people are shopping with you when are your peaks and when are your lows so for example if your store opens at 9 00 a.m and you find that you have peak transactions between 9 and 9 30 that would give you an idea to open a little earlier there's peak traffic there people are on their way to work or child care or on route somewhere so if you change your trading hours to open at 8 30 for example you could capitalize on more sales i use that as a very simplistic example you can see in your transactions how frequently people are shopping with you what types of products they're buying what are your best selling products what is not selling for you which brand is most purchased what's the average spend per customer do you have peaks at the end of the month when salaries have hit understanding what's driving your customer behavior and using that information to make changes will help you transform your business the fourth thing you can do to be customer-centric is to optimize the product use for your customers your customers are unlikely to understand all of the features and benefits of products that they purchase and how to get the best value out of them and if you can help your customer to understand what they can do with the product and how to optimize it for themselves it will bring more value to their lives therefore they'll be more satisfied with the product and therefore it will reflect better on your business and strengthen that relationship another opportunity is to follow up with the information both to help them use the current product that they bought but you can offer additional products that complement the product that they purchased this is both helpful in terms of using the product that they've already purchased but also potentially gives you more sales when you're being customer centric you are always trying to be proactive in your approach to customer service to look beyond the immediate transaction and to think for the long term and to enhance the customer experience with a view to bringing them back and sustaining your business let me give you an example of a business that does customer centricity extremely well that is starbucks starbucks listens to their customers and then makes changes to their business model to enhance the customer experience and ultimately grow their sales some of the feedback that starbucks received was in relation to the wait times for their customers for drinks arriving at a destination even in a non-busy outlet waiting in a queue even a short queue and the transaction time to process a drink and have the drink made was just too long for some customers so they launched their in-app ordering service where customers could place the order for the drink from the comfort of their home or work or whatever destination they're in and arrive at their starbucks of choice and go straight to the pickup counter this eliminated the wait time for those customers the benefits of this is twofold one it allows those customers who don't want to have the wait time to have their needs met and enhances their experience but also it reduces the queue and the wait time for customers who are attending the outlet and looking for service and experience within the outlet another great opportunity for driving your sales performance is to practice some corporate social responsibility within your business csr has been talked about in large companies for a long time but currently many small businesses are implementing csr in their businesses effectively what it means is to reach into your community and engage with your customers and those that live work and shop within the sphere that you operate it's a well-known fact that doing good is also good for business many people care about the environment their community and other people and customers like to shop while supporting a good cause and it can help give you a competitive advantage meaning the customers will go to your business over your competitor that doesn't have any social initiatives additionally they'll often pay more because they care about the social element of the transaction so if you don't currently have any practices of csr within your business you should look at aligning your business to some causes depending on the type of business that you have and the goods and service you can choose things that align with your local brand values or the products that you serve or just your own personal beliefs you can support local initiatives with your time with your workforce with equipment that's available within your business there are many businesses locally that support the elderly support the nhs provide food to the homeless practicing csr within your community does not need to come at a huge cost to your business because you may be concerned about the impact from a financial point of view but there are many ways that you can contribute if you have a food and beverage business you may want to donate leftover food to homeless charities if you operate a business that comes with large facilities you could donate the use of those facilities there's many ways that you can contribute that don't require cash investment but can align yourself with causes that your local community care about by doing this with your business you will be building bonds with your customers and potential customers while at the same time promoting your business all of this will add up to sustainable sales for the future the third strategy that you can use to develop and enhance your retail business is to utilize the value of visual merchandising within your retail business what is visual merchandising visual merchandising is about optimizing the presentation of your products with a goal to highlighting their features and benefits to entice the customer to purchase it's used to influence a customer's decision-making process and creates opportunities to offer more choice to the customers the ultimate goal for any business is to attract more customers to the business to allow more chance of conversion for sales and ultimately drive your sales performance so how can you use visual merchandising to achieve some of your goals one you can use visual merchandising to attract more customers to your business this can be done from the outside passersby to attract them inside your business and also used internally to direct them to certain areas of your business that you want to highlight or promote the use of color and visual displays are commonly used in visual merchandising to promote areas within a business and to attract customers internally the second use of visual merchandising is the optimization of retail space while guiding your customers throughout your whole retail business this allows you to utilize every square inch of your retail store and also allows you to capitalize on space density and use good space management to ensure that you are exposing the customers to as much products as they can while they're in your business and this ultimately allows you to have the potential to convert to more sales thirdly you can use visual merchandising to highlight whatever you want to highlight within your business there'll be natural customer sight lines for your business if somebody is passing by and take a glance or when they walk into your store you can also create focal points bringing attention to certain areas certain products or certain categories within your business lighting is also very helpful in this area another factor of visual merchandising is to use signage to promote your business this can be to promote products within your business to highlight price points within your business to promote features and benefits of specific products for example sizing or fit of products ultimately visual merchandising is used to enhance your whole business and to create an improved customer experience to create excitement in the store and to encourage customers to buy customers make a snap decision when they glance at your business in a fraction of a second and visual merchandising can be used to capture their attention to attract them to excite them and to ultimately bring them into your business you can use the elements of visual merchandising regardless of the retail form that you have if you have a physical store a pop-up store an e-commerce store or an omni channel business you can use the elements of visual merchandising to attract more customers to your business to expose them to more product and to encourage them to shop you can apply visual merchandising to any element of your business if you have a physical store you will have storefronts and layouts in store and signage and physical products and checkout lines if you have an online business you'll have your home page your site layout the navigation tools that you use to navigate your site you'll have imagery and video content all of this will enhance the customer experience expose them to more product and and ultimately give you the opportunity to convert to more sales the improvement should be visible in all aspects of your business you should have improved customer flow customers should spend more time browsing within your business either physically or online your conversion rate should improve the average spend and number of items a customer is purchasing you should see improved loyalty and more customers returning an enhanced experience and improved customer reviews of your business utilized well visual merchandising can enhance your business across the board and give you the results that you want to see another great way to optimize sales is to ensure that your business shows up in online search results if your customers can't find you and they don't know that you exist you can't make sales this means making sure that all of your information is up to date across all of your business listings when it comes to different platforms google is the most used search engine in the world it has almost 65 percent of the world's search engine traffic the next closest thing is safari by apple at 17 but still miles apart so keeping your google maps and your google business account up to date is critical to people finding your business being visible gives you immediate access to customers who are looking for you or those customers who are not directly looking for you but looking for your industry it also encourages people to book directly through you and not through third parties which saves you commission and costs if you work via other platforms there's been recent research published which shows that 76 of people who search for a business online will visit that business and also 76 28 will convert to an actual purchase this huge potential for conversion for sales and some other facts that might astound you 46 of all google searches are looking for local information so if you're a small business and you're trying to reach customers in your area seo search engine optimization is important because it enables them to find you first ninety seven percent of users learn about a local small business online more than anywhere else every day people are searching for the products and services that you're selling in small businesses like yours so showing up first is important to capture the potential sale 75 percent of users never go beyond the first page of a google search so showing up on the first page is critical but also means taking intentional steps to ensure that it actually happens no matter what the size of your business is or what goods or services you're selling customers are looking for products that you're selling every day online and search engine optimization is one of the best ways to reach these potential customers to attract their attention to your specific business to drive them into your store and to convert them to a sale so how can you maximize search engine optimization for your small business search engine optimization is one about being found but it is also about the user experience so firstly you need to ensure that your website is built with search engine optimization in mind if your website is already up and running you should take a look at the website with fresh eyes and ensure that it has some sort of logical structure to it start at your home page and see if you can find and navigate your way through all the pages and information within your business quickly and easily do it from both the laptop and from mobile tablets and mobile phones to ensure all are user-friendly if you currently don't have a website when you are having it built ensure that you consider seo in the construction of the actual website the second thing you can do is to prioritize keywords that relate most to your business you want to make sure that your website is showing up for the words and phrases that people are searching for and the more relevant they are to your business the higher you will rank and the more likely you are to be discovered by relevant customers who are searching for those products and services for example if you sell shampoo don't write shampoo in your key phrase put shampoo for colored hair shampoo for long hair shampoo for dry hair be more specific to the products and then when people are searching for a solution for their actual problem they will type in not just shampoo because it's too generic they will be looking for shampoo for damaged hair and if you've linked that phrase to your business you will show up in the search engine optimization and that customer has the potential to find you and go to your business and make a purchase it all relates back to you cannot sell to a customer who does not know you exist or cannot find you the third thing you can do is to ensure that you update your content regularly and importantly that it's both high quality and it's relevant you can optimize your images and your content labeling the fourth thing you can do is to ensure that your information across all of your business listings is accurate especially on google maps and google my business and the fifth thing you can do is to be extremely active with the reviews and the interaction with your customers online this is both good from a customer service point of view and building connections with your customers but importantly the google analytics will pick up on this interaction and your seo ranking will automatically improve so responding to both positive and negative feedback online commenting when you see customers publish images in any of your establishments all of this will help improve your search engine optimization and ultimately expose you to more customers the more exposures you have to more customers the more people who know about you and can find you the more opportunity you have for conversion to sales another great way to drive your sales performance is to display your inventory via google maps and google search this is called google shopping and google shopping is a paid advertisement tool that allows you to advertise your products and drive sales and traffic to your retail business or retail website it's currently very underutilized in the northern irish market and has scope and potential to substantially increase your sales so why is it so good and why should you use it well firstly it targets customers who are actively searching for the products that you're selling you will only appear in searches when the customer specifically searches for things you've linked to your business via the category management or buzzwords so when the customer is looking for the exact items you have on offer because the focus is quite narrow and you're only attracting people who are searching for your specific products this makes it easier to convert sales the tool allows you to drive traffic directly to your business website if you have one or to give them the name address and details of your store in their local vicinity once you've directed traffic to your business via the website or via physical location this allows you to complete add-on sales and additional cross-selling to increase your sales customers like the tool because it provides them with images and information and also very importantly for them price comparison so if they're searching for a product that's available in five or six different outlets within their vicinity this allows them to make an informed choice about where to go and buy the product they can tie it into the end of a another shopping trip or the end of a work day or choose proximity for themselves an example i've used recently is whereby i was searching for clark's toddler shoes for my child once i had put clarks into the search engine both the obvious ones like clarks stores near me but also distributors in all the small towns near me appeared this allowed me to look at the product range and do comprise comparisons and make informed decisions about where i wanted to go and complete my purchase this can be applicable to any goods and services that you sell there will always be competitors in markets and there will always be other distributors selling near you using the paid advertising tool to become more prominent and aware to your customers will help increase your sales the great thing about google shopping is that it's designed to be easy to use for businesses regardless of whether you're an online retailer or physical retailer you can also use software to attach your inventory in real time to the system to ensure customers are receiving up-to-date information regarding availability and also pricing it is very important when you're selecting your categories with your business that you are careful in your choices to ensure that you only appear in relevant searches from a cost perspective in a business point of view it's very cost effective as you're only paying for direct clicks that direct traffic to your business by displaying your inventory via google search and google maps you're capitalizing on a wide reach a potential audience that you just couldn't otherwise reach and regardless of your business format you should see an increase in sales performance for your business another area that you can develop within your retail business is to take a wide look at your retail business and try and reduce the weight for your customers within your business the european retail report suggests that bad q management and wait times are one of the main reasons customers abandon their purchases and they estimate the loss to retail businesses is over 14 billion pounds another british survey has emphasized that stores lose approximately 10 of their footfall due to long queues the lost sales and the potential for conversion would have a huge impact on your profitability for your retail business the reality is there are many challenges that retailers face that result in wait times for customers in physical stores there is q management there will be the allocation of resource across various departments for example if you have a fashion apparel store you may have only one staff member working on footwear and they may be serving a customer another customer approaches they don't want to wait if you have a hair salon and your employees are currently made haircuts when another customer enters and they're not engaged with within one to two minutes often they'll just walk out of the business and there's a lost sale or a lost booking in any type of business and an employee is dealing with the customer on the telephone another customer enters the business again if that telephone call is deemed too long and the customer who has entered the retail premises is not served they'll often walk away if you're trying to contact a retail business and the phone lines are busy and you can't get through after a couple of times often you'll move on about your day and forget about what you're going to do or you'll find an alternative way to do it if you have an e-commerce business the customer could be experiencing slow wi-fi the website is not refreshing quick enough the payment method is stalling there are many reasons inside and outside a retailer's control that impacts the waiting time for a customer understanding what these are and what areas you can impact and reduce the wait time for those customers will enable you to capitalize on more sales and convert more transactions so what is it you can do to eliminate or reduce the weight within your own retail business i'll break it down into three areas one is to look at the efficiency of your operational processes within your business the second is to see if you can upgrade these service levels within your business and the third is to look at distraction techniques when you look at the operational processes within your business you should look at how they enter your retail business how they search and find product availability how efficient is your self-service how efficient is your replenishment system your stockroom management your q management system at your till points how can a customer quickly enter your physical business or your online business search for what they're looking for find it and purchase it and exit your business the second area you can look at is upgrading your service levels within your retail business in a physical retail business this could be adding additional till points providing your employees with ipads for swift service in busy periods taking appointments for customers allowing them to shop at a time that is convenient for them and hopefully at times that are outside of your peak trading hours because you schedule appointments it means that you can plan your manpower around this if you have a complex business you may want to set aside areas where those complex transactions can be completed allowing for swift servers for easier transactions you could implement click and collect which again will take some of the transactions outside of your busy trading periods and hopefully give you additional sales allowing the people in store to shop and be served in a swift manner you can use messaging apps to communicate with your customers for product selection availability sizing and other queries again this takes some of your trading outside of your business hours and allows the customers and employees in-store to physically transact for an online retailer you will look at your own business efficiencies and this will be a lot to do with the efficiency of your actual website the site navigation tools and the easel with the customer can find and transact and exit your retail business they'll be the same challenges but in a different format once you have improved your operational efficiencies and reduce the weight as much as you can and you've increased the service levels as much as possible within your business the third thing you could do is to try and distract your customers the perceived wait time in a business can feel longer if the time is not occupied so keeping customers busy is a way to make them not feel the wait time within your retail business and hopefully you will lose fewer customers who walk away and allows you to capitalize on more sales you could add more mirrors to your retail establishment you could have a good impulse purchase section where people can be distracted by products that they review as they're waiting you could have funny or interesting information posted which again allows them to pass the time using these techniques this allows you to lose less customers from the wait time within your business and capitalize on more sales and will have a direct impact on your bottom line another great way to drive your sales and to boost your performance is to get personal with your customers now what does this mean and how can you do it there are many ways that you can achieve this one of the ways that has grown substantially in the retail industry between retailers and consumers is the use of messaging apps in smaller businesses customers already spend a lot of time chatting with family and friends and consuming online content so this new way of talking to the customers means retailers can increase their exposure it is a chance to offer the customer more personalized service retailers can sound more conversational rather than a brand just trying to sell something this can apply to customers having product queries about availability sizing sending imagery many of the large international brands have started to offer video consultations but this can also be used in smaller businesses for example if you are selling makeup you can offer to do a video consultation on skin type and coloring and then arrange for the sale of those products you can also offer to do video styling being in direct contact in an informal in-hand way on the phone allows a lot of potential for conversion to sales for your customers by finding the needs that they have and satisfying them another great way to engage with your customers and make it personal if you have any kind of online presence or an e-commerce business is to a chatbot to be retail assistant to your customers for example the skincare brand keels initiated questions to their customers via the chat bot and asked them how their winter was treating their skin when customers answered the e-commerce chatbot would ask them about their skin and offer them products that aligned to their needs this was a great way to drive uninitiated sales another way to personalize your business is to try and be locally relevant if you're taking product images you can use local backdrops if there's local slang that's used you can use it in your text and your social media just small ways that you can get the customer to emotionally attach to your business another great way to bring your products to life is with video whether it's a simple video showing the fit of your clothing or something more creative that involves an emotional storytelling component there's so much room to create an experience that resonates with your customer there is a local northern irish business i've seen called the dresser based out of bambridge it's a ladies apparel store and they use their customers their staff and the management team to take imagery and video content of people trying on product obviously with their permission it's a great way to get local get personal and make a connection with the customer and non-customers alike such as myself they have effectively built their brand presence in my mind and i'm sure other consumers minds and this will lead to sales in the long term regardless of your business format what type of products or services that you're selling you can take a look at your business and get personal with your customers find ways to engage with them to bond with them and lead them to more interactions that will lead to more sales another opportunity for you to drive your sales performance is through creating smart remarketing campaigns to target your existing customers retail requires repeat custom to be sustainable in the long term so what exactly is remarketing remarketing is a way to connect with people who have previously interacted with your business this can be in your physical store location via your website or any omnichannel version of your business that you operate it is cheaper to keep an existing customer than it is to spend money on marketing and acquire a new customer existing customers also spend more money than new customers as you've been trading your business i have no doubt that you've been already collecting customer data be it through your transaction history your loyalty programs the use of wi-fi in-store communication via your newsletters and you're likely to have a large amount of customer data and the question now becomes how do you use that data and how can you create smart remarketing campaigns to your existing business so here are some examples if you sell makeup or cosmetics you could look at the size of the bottle and the usage and on a regular basis be it 50 days send out a reminder to your customers to place an order for their desired product another example could be if you own a footwear business and sell children's footwear again at set intervals you could send a communication to parents offering the service of an at-home foot measurement for the child and any response that you receive to this will be an opportunity to create sales for your business it's about analyzing your own business and finding the patterns and segmenting your own customers and then launching some specific remarketing campaigns to capitalize and drive yourself performance i'd like to thank you for your time and for joining us today i hope you found it useful as you work through all of the strategies and decide which ones will be most beneficial to your business and impact your business commercially that you can find some improved commercial success you