If it makes it difficult for people to enter your store, it doesn’t matter how attractive the merchandise is, how well it is priced, or how wonderful the service from your staff is; people will choose to buy elsewhere.
Material stored in trash cans or shelves around doors attracts people BUT reduces the width of the doorway. If the customer is worried about taking something down while browsing this, they might decide not to go in. She might as well say to herself “I’m not going to inhale so I can pass this merchandise or go sideways and drag my feet. No way!” Remember, she has many other options.
When a customer looks at clothes and they are so tight on hangers that they cannot easily remove individual items or cannot put them back, they may not even try. Shelves should not be overfilled as customers are unlikely to work hard to search for merchandise on shelves. They have other options. I guess the good news is that if you overcrowd the shelves, you won’t have to restock them frequently … because your merchandise won’t sell (that’s the bad news).
It’s tempting when you have a high level of stock to overfill the screens, full is good but overfill makes browsing and navigating difficult.
As you build your displays, check that customers can easily bend over to see items on the bottom shelf without blocking the aisle.
If customers have bags from other stores, or a shopping cart, it will delay them in narrow aisles. Jan says aisles must be at least 1.2 meters wide so customers can move around unhindered.
While we’re on the subject of accessibility, think about people in wheelchairs and parents with pushers. Get some volunteers representing different types of customers to visit your store and give their opinion. You can record your video comments on your phone and share them with your team. This will have an impact.
Most of the time, when people stock up at the grocery store or do the “homework” of buying Christmas presents, they are on autopilot; they are in the “adaptive unconscious” mode. This is when your brain processes the constant stream of stimuli without your conscious awareness, and is drawn to the familiar while erasing the multitude of other messages.
To counteract this, focus your marketing by showing your best-selling products and high-profit lines between the visual and modern level of your typical customers. And keep renovating it so there’s something new to grab your customers’ attention and kick their conscious mind into action.
Even if you don’t have time to thank all areas of the store, prioritize top positions and end displays. Rotate stocks on these to attract the interest of customers. Start marketing from the front of the store. That way, even if you run out of time to update all the top positions, the section you have made will be visible to the client and will be conveying the message that, “Yes, we have new and interesting articles for you to review.”
As we move into December, the stores are starting to look tired. The shelves are emptied. The merchandise gets dirty. It’s understandable: there are often more customers in the store in December than at any other time of the year. It’s hard to keep up appearances and it can be challenging to maintain store standards.
However, it is a challenge that you must face. How much business can you afford to lose? If your front screens are half empty for just one day, think about the revenue you’ve lost, and not just that day. It means these disappointed customers are unlikely to return in the lucrative pre-Christmas period.
Keep your store fresh and attractive during the festive season and you earn the right to become the preferred choice of your customers at other times of the year.
Find out which lines can be promoted at the counter. They should be low-priced storage fillers that appeal to the most customers. Be careful not to put too much merchandise or information here, as 70% of the space should be available for conducting business. Remove everything and then only replace what is completely necessary.
If you have a showcase, make sure the items in the window are still in stock in a variety of sizes. Imagine how disappointed people will be if you tell them that the merchandise in the window is out of stock. You could have lost a stressed customer with little time to life.
At the end of each day, set aside a half hour to an extra hour for the support staff to clean the store and focus on the store presentation. Fill the shelves. Wipe fingerprints off the glass. Make sure you take pride in being prepared for the next day.
Stay alert, keep thinking like a customer. Every time you and your staff come and go from the bathroom or lunch, see which windows attract you. Ask yourself, “Why is this? What made me stop? What are customers seeing in the windows that will lead them to these retail stores?”