We know you haven’t gotten through Halloween, much less Black Friday, but we want to give you a heads-up holiday checklist. Print this checklist and keep it handy; you will need it to set the store at the start of the holiday selling season. And you’ll want to refer to it throughout November and December to keep your sales floor fresh.
1. Step outside and consider your store front. Is the customer’s first impression clean and clear of debris? Are your window displays set for the holidays or do they look the same as they did for Halloween? Does your window signing properly represent your brand image? And have you set the appropriate amount of holiday décor throughout the store to put customers in a shopping mood?
2. Stand just inside the front door. Customers should be immediately embraced by your store’s ambiance. Your sales floor should smell like the holidays. Every discounter sells scent diffusers in holiday flavors; pick up a few and place them throughout the store – especially near the front door, so the fragrance immediately impacts customers just walking in. And if you sell candles, cross-merchandise a few on or near the checkout counters. If it smells, it sells!
Another part of your store’s ambiance embrace is music. The right music can actually make customers stay in the store longer and spend more money while they’re there. Choose fun music with a good beat, especially when the store is busy. We like disco – it’s the sound of money.
3. Check your Decompression Zone; the first 5 to 10’ just inside your store’s front door. This is where shoppers refocus and collect themselves for the shopping ahead. They will miss anything you place in the Decompression Zone, so let it do its job and leave this area empty. Just beyond the Decompression Zone is where they begin shopping.
4. Set your Speed Bump displays to sell. Place Speed Bumps – small fixtures or tables loaded with cool product – just beyond your Decompression Zone. Speed Bumps stop busy shoppers and redirect their focus to your merchandise. Your Speed Bump displays work just like the ones in the parking lot: they make you slow down and take notice.
5. Shopping Carts and Baskets: Know why discount store greeter's offers customers a shopping cart when they walk in the front door? Because they’ll spend 25% more than they originally intended to spend, and up to 15 minutes longer in the store.
Place carts just past the Decompression Zone. Baskets should be near the carts, and also throughout the store, so they are within reach when a customer decides she needs one. Encourage associates to watch for customers carrying product, then get them a cart ASAP. If your store doesn’t offer carts or baskets, then watch for customers carrying around product. They tend to stop shopping when their hands are full, so by all means take the product from them and set it aside at the cash wrap.
6. Plan your Impulse Zones: A big percentage of purchases are unplanned. Take advantage of this by placing Merchandise Outposts – displays of product used to entice customers to pick up product on impulse – throughout your store. Use Outposts as magnets to draw customers to different parts of the store, to cross-merchandise, and to display important and high profit product. Each of your Impulse Zone displays should be reset as least once a week, more often if your store is heavily shopped. This sounds like a lot of work, but it’s not: simply moving items from one Impulse Zone to another makes the product look brand new to shoppers
7. Set your End Features to sell with product customers simply have to have: great new items, hot deals, and value buys. Try to display three items or less per end feature, and use Vertical Merchandising – product displayed in vertical rows – as your primary display technique. Vertical Merchandising exposes customers to a greater variety of merchandise at every eye level. When shoppers see more, they tend to buy more.
8. Cross-Merchandise everywhere you can. Cross-merchandising displays complementary product together, saving shoppers time by making it easy to visualize how the items will work together. Cross-merchandise items on clip-strips throughout the store and you’ll encourage add-on purchases and increase your average sale. It’s frustrating for customers to have to make a trip back to the store because they forgot a critical component necessary to complete a project. Cross-merchandise and you both win. Clip-strips and other cross-merchandising fixtures and accessories are available here: http://www.southernimperial.com/
1. Step outside and consider your store front. Is the customer’s first impression clean and clear of debris? Are your window displays set for the holidays or do they look the same as they did for Halloween? Does your window signing properly represent your brand image? And have you set the appropriate amount of holiday décor throughout the store to put customers in a shopping mood?
2. Stand just inside the front door. Customers should be immediately embraced by your store’s ambiance. Your sales floor should smell like the holidays. Every discounter sells scent diffusers in holiday flavors; pick up a few and place them throughout the store – especially near the front door, so the fragrance immediately impacts customers just walking in. And if you sell candles, cross-merchandise a few on or near the checkout counters. If it smells, it sells!
Another part of your store’s ambiance embrace is music. The right music can actually make customers stay in the store longer and spend more money while they’re there. Choose fun music with a good beat, especially when the store is busy. We like disco – it’s the sound of money.
3. Check your Decompression Zone; the first 5 to 10’ just inside your store’s front door. This is where shoppers refocus and collect themselves for the shopping ahead. They will miss anything you place in the Decompression Zone, so let it do its job and leave this area empty. Just beyond the Decompression Zone is where they begin shopping.
4. Set your Speed Bump displays to sell. Place Speed Bumps – small fixtures or tables loaded with cool product – just beyond your Decompression Zone. Speed Bumps stop busy shoppers and redirect their focus to your merchandise. Your Speed Bump displays work just like the ones in the parking lot: they make you slow down and take notice.
5. Shopping Carts and Baskets: Know why discount store greeter's offers customers a shopping cart when they walk in the front door? Because they’ll spend 25% more than they originally intended to spend, and up to 15 minutes longer in the store.
Place carts just past the Decompression Zone. Baskets should be near the carts, and also throughout the store, so they are within reach when a customer decides she needs one. Encourage associates to watch for customers carrying product, then get them a cart ASAP. If your store doesn’t offer carts or baskets, then watch for customers carrying around product. They tend to stop shopping when their hands are full, so by all means take the product from them and set it aside at the cash wrap.
6. Plan your Impulse Zones: A big percentage of purchases are unplanned. Take advantage of this by placing Merchandise Outposts – displays of product used to entice customers to pick up product on impulse – throughout your store. Use Outposts as magnets to draw customers to different parts of the store, to cross-merchandise, and to display important and high profit product. Each of your Impulse Zone displays should be reset as least once a week, more often if your store is heavily shopped. This sounds like a lot of work, but it’s not: simply moving items from one Impulse Zone to another makes the product look brand new to shoppers
7. Set your End Features to sell with product customers simply have to have: great new items, hot deals, and value buys. Try to display three items or less per end feature, and use Vertical Merchandising – product displayed in vertical rows – as your primary display technique. Vertical Merchandising exposes customers to a greater variety of merchandise at every eye level. When shoppers see more, they tend to buy more.
8. Cross-Merchandise everywhere you can. Cross-merchandising displays complementary product together, saving shoppers time by making it easy to visualize how the items will work together. Cross-merchandise items on clip-strips throughout the store and you’ll encourage add-on purchases and increase your average sale. It’s frustrating for customers to have to make a trip back to the store because they forgot a critical component necessary to complete a project. Cross-merchandise and you both win. Clip-strips and other cross-merchandising fixtures and accessories are available here: http://www.southernimperial.com/
9. Highlight Gift Cards with carefully placed in-store signing, and encourage store associates to talk them up. Gift card sales are on the rise; that’s good because they bring customers to your store. Studies show that 80 percent of customers spend more than face value of the gift card, and 40 percent of customers spend more than twice the face value of the card. You can’t lose!
10. Encourage Impulse Buying at the Cash Wrap. The majority of your shoppers are women, and women are infamous for making purchases on impulse. That’s why your cash wrap should be loaded up with product she just can’t pass up. Put the wall behind your cash wrap counter to work with a fabulous display of gift items. You may even want to set up a Merchandise Outpost within eyeball distance of the checkout; so customers can continue to shop while they wait on line to pay for their purchases.
We wish the strong December sales lasted all year long, but they don’t – you only have a limited amount of time to make your Golden Quarter golden. You have to take advantage of the gift-buying frenzy while you can, so take this checklist out to your sales floor and do a complete walk-thru. Note which areas to change, set your priorities and get to work. And if you need a pep talk, we’re just a telephone call away.
© KIZER & BENDER 2006 . ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
