The retail environment is more dynamic than ever, with customer preferences continuously evolving and new technologies reshaping the business landscape. Therefore, whether you operate a brick-and-mortar store or an eCommerce business, it’s crucial to leverage tools like logo makers and Facebook advertising, and techniques that enhance the customer experience and streamline operations to attract and retain customers.
In this article, we’ll cover the top 5 impactful retail sales tips applicable to both online businesses and physical stores. Let’s dive in!
Top 5 Retail Sales Tips to Drive More Sales
1. Cultivate Customer Loyalty
Customer loyalty drives customer retention and increases lifetime customer value, which are crucial for sustained sales growth. Research shows that a 5% increase in customer retention can boost revenue by 25% to 95%.
Loyalty programs incentivize customers to return to your store and encourage repeat purchases by offering rewards, discounts, or exclusive deals and access. A POS can help retailers handle loyalty programs effectively by gathering customer data, updating customer profiles with reward points, unifying loyalty schemes across channels, and tracking the program’s impact on sales.
Another strategy to build customer loyalty is to provide exceptional customer service. You should train your staff to deliver personalized and attentive service, address customer concerns promptly, and ensure a positive shopping experience.
2. Personalize Marketing Efforts and Customer Experience
According to McKinsey, 76% of consumers are more likely to purchase from retailers that personalize, and 78% are more likely to recommend and repurchase from those businesses. This is because a personal touch can make customers feel valued and understood.
Personalization can lie in subtle but impactful details, such as addressing customers by name in emails, recommending products based on past purchases, and offering personalized discounts on frequently purchased products.
At the heart of personalization is customer data, including purchase histories, preferences, and behavior. Remember to ask for customer consent before collecting data, as 90% of U.S. consumers are concerned about online privacy. The data helps retailers segment their customer base and craft personalized messages, product offerings, and promotions that are highly relevant to each segment’s needs and interests, leading to higher engagement and sales.
Besides personalization in marketing, a personalized customer experience is a rising differentiation strategy in the competitive retail landscape. For example, the beauty retail chain Sephora uses data from customers’ digital profiles on their mobile app to help customers find the products they have viewed and sampled online when shopping in physical stores. Because this reduces friction for customers in finding items in-store and saves time for both sides, it positively impacts the bottom line of Sephora.
3. Invest in a point of sale (POS) System
Using a POS system is a top retail sales tip to drive more sales because it helps you streamline your business operations, from handling transactions, managing inventory, and building customer profiles, to monitoring real-time sales data.
A POS system is vital to retailers in the modern omnichannel retail landscape for its inventory sync and other omnichannel features. Research has shown that approximately two-thirds of customers shop online and in brick-and-mortar stores. Moreover, in the U.S., more than 30% of customers regularly opt for omnichannel shopping options like click-and-collect or curbside.
Furthermore, POS complements a payment terminal to transform your transaction processing into a comprehensive sales and data management hub. For instance, if you’re already using a payment terminal such as Global Payment, you can consider using Global Payment POS to enhance your store’s sales performance.
Key features of a POS system that helps retailers drive sales include:
- Automatic inventory management and low stock notifications to minimize unnecessary markdowns and improve customer experience
- Order management and omnichannel order fulfillment options such as store pickup, buy in-store ship to-door
- Customer data collection and automatic customer profile updates to manage customer relationships and retain customers
- One-step checkout to speed up checkout processes, reduce wait times and improve overall customer satisfaction
- Product, order, and customer data sync across channels to ensure smooth omnichannel retail operations
- Reporting and analytics to help retailers make informed decisions and optimize product offerings
- Various payment methods support, such as major credit and debit cards, buy now, pay later services, and digital wallets to the diverse preferences of your customers, enhancing their shopping experience.
4. Enhance website design and brand identity
Your website design can significantly influence your sales because 75% of customers judge a company’s credibility based on its website design.
Check out the factors of a website that encourage customers to make purchases:
- Smooth user experience (UX): easy navigation, intuitive layout, and fast loading times
- Appealing visuals: high-quality graphics, high-resolution images, engaging videos, etc.
- Responsiveness: make sure your website design is responsive to multiple devices, such as desktops, tablets, and especially smartphones. Research has shown that more than half of all website traffic comes from mobile phones.
- Persuasive copy and calls-to-action (CTAs): compelling product descriptions and prominent CTAs that align with your objectives. For example, if you aim to increase conversion rates, your CTAs should encourage customers to take actions such as “Buy Now”, “Place order”, “Shop Now”, etc.
- Unified brand identity: sync your online brand identity with your overall brand identity, from the logo design to the color scheme. This is because a consistent brand identity helps customers recognize you easily and makes your business stand out and look credible.
The best part is that having a website that drives sales does not require in-house expertise or an overwhelming budget, as retailers of all sizes can turn to professional web design services or freelancers.
5. Improve your retail store display
As the name suggests, retail store display refers to the way retailers display products and merchandise in their stores. A carefully curated retail display can draw the attention of customers, build brand awareness, promote your products, and drive sales.
Check out the top tips to engage and convert with your store display:
- Encourage impulse purchases by placing small and add on items near checkout counters
- Attract customers by putting new arrivals or best-sellers in prominent, high-traffic areas
- Increase the amount that customers spend by cross-merchandising. This means placing complementary products on the same display, like displaying socks near the shoe shelf or organizing the cereal section next to the milk section.
- Emphasize products and create the right atmosphere by strategically utilizing store lighting, such as ambient, accent, and decorative lighting
- Entice customers and increase footfall in your store by engaging all five senses in the retail experience, namely sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound
Conclusion
Retailers should always be updated in new and upcoming technologies that make retail and selling a lot easier and better. By improving your selling process, you build a better brand identity.
Some techniques are laid out in this blog post, but as a business owner, it’s your job to learn more and adapt to changes. Your top priority? Constantly improve and revise your strategies to adapt to the evolving retail landscape.
Written by DesignCrowd on Thursday, June 20, 2024
DesignCrowd is an online marketplace providing logo, website, print and graphic design services by providing access to freelance graphic designers and design studios around the world.