1. Check your Decompression Zone – the first 5’ to 15’ inside your front door. The purpose of this space is to focus the customer on shopping, therefore, customers will miss anything you place here. Move carts, baskets, and signs to the area just past the Decompression Zone.
2. Station a Greeter, ala Wal-Mart, in your Decompression Zone on busy days. The mere presence of the greeter will delight most customers. The greeter can offer a cart or a basket, or tell customers about in-store goings-on they won’t want to miss.
3. Place Speed Bumps just beyond the Decompression Zone. These displays work much the same way as their brothers in parking lots work: they slow customers down so that they do not miss important merchandise in the front of the store. Small tables, dump bins, and stack displays make perfect Speed Bump fixtures.
4. In America, 90% of customers enter a store and turn to the right. This makes the area just inside the store, and to the right, an important merchandising area. The wall at the front right is key as well, it’s called a Power Wall. Use this highly visible space to showcase new items; tell product stories; and to display high demand, high profit items. You may even want to use this area for demonstrations and makit & takits during events and other high traffic times.
5. Place Merchandise Outposts – displays of product near the aisles – to entice customers to pick up product on impulse. Use Outposts throughout your store to cross merchandise; to introduce a new merchandise; and to feature highly profitable merchandise. Keep a selection of the product in its rightful department, where customers expect to find it.
6. If you sell similar items in various sizes, place the small size of the product on the left, and the larger size on the right. Most customers are right handed, and will often unconsciously reach for the item closest to their right hand, rather than reach across their body or shopping cart. Selling the larger item means more profit for you.
7. Cross merchandise whenever and wherever possible. If, for example, a customer is buying craft paint then she most likely will need a basic paint brush, a foam brush, maybe even brush cleaner. Display these items on clip strips – plastic strips with hooks you can attach to any fixture to house cross merchandised product. Ask associates to recommend which items to cross merchandise.
8. Create a map of your store and apply it to shopping cart seats. Weekly specials, and your “What’s Happening This Month” event calendar work well, too.
9. Keep shopping carts clean and in good repair. When it’s raining or snowing, dry them off before allowing customers to use them. Clean the carts in front of customers – it reminds them that the little things are important to you. And encourage associates to help separate carts for customers. It’s a nice gesture for most; it’s imperative for older customers.
10. If you see a customer shopping with merchandise in his/her hands, get them a cart. Customers will spend 25% more, and stay up to 15 minutes longer, when they can shop “hands free”.
2. Station a Greeter, ala Wal-Mart, in your Decompression Zone on busy days. The mere presence of the greeter will delight most customers. The greeter can offer a cart or a basket, or tell customers about in-store goings-on they won’t want to miss.
3. Place Speed Bumps just beyond the Decompression Zone. These displays work much the same way as their brothers in parking lots work: they slow customers down so that they do not miss important merchandise in the front of the store. Small tables, dump bins, and stack displays make perfect Speed Bump fixtures.
4. In America, 90% of customers enter a store and turn to the right. This makes the area just inside the store, and to the right, an important merchandising area. The wall at the front right is key as well, it’s called a Power Wall. Use this highly visible space to showcase new items; tell product stories; and to display high demand, high profit items. You may even want to use this area for demonstrations and makit & takits during events and other high traffic times.
5. Place Merchandise Outposts – displays of product near the aisles – to entice customers to pick up product on impulse. Use Outposts throughout your store to cross merchandise; to introduce a new merchandise; and to feature highly profitable merchandise. Keep a selection of the product in its rightful department, where customers expect to find it.
6. If you sell similar items in various sizes, place the small size of the product on the left, and the larger size on the right. Most customers are right handed, and will often unconsciously reach for the item closest to their right hand, rather than reach across their body or shopping cart. Selling the larger item means more profit for you.
7. Cross merchandise whenever and wherever possible. If, for example, a customer is buying craft paint then she most likely will need a basic paint brush, a foam brush, maybe even brush cleaner. Display these items on clip strips – plastic strips with hooks you can attach to any fixture to house cross merchandised product. Ask associates to recommend which items to cross merchandise.
8. Create a map of your store and apply it to shopping cart seats. Weekly specials, and your “What’s Happening This Month” event calendar work well, too.
9. Keep shopping carts clean and in good repair. When it’s raining or snowing, dry them off before allowing customers to use them. Clean the carts in front of customers – it reminds them that the little things are important to you. And encourage associates to help separate carts for customers. It’s a nice gesture for most; it’s imperative for older customers.
10. If you see a customer shopping with merchandise in his/her hands, get them a cart. Customers will spend 25% more, and stay up to 15 minutes longer, when they can shop “hands free”.
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