When you have a shop, particularly in the current economic climate
, you need to make the most of every opportunity that walks through your door and every person who walks into the shop is an opportunity to increase your sales revenue. This is especially the case if you are offering an 'early until late' service and you stock all sorts of things that local people need daily and weekly. It is unlikely that you will compete with the local supermarket on the price of every item you sell, but you need to encourage your clients to leave with more than the pint of milk or packet of cigarettes that they came in to buy.
This sort of purchasing psychology can be simple to work on. Take a look at your local supermarket because not only are their prices low but their merchandising, or the way they display items, will be finely tuned. Think about how you display what you are trying to sell; make sure that your shop fittings enable you to show off what you have in stock. Set up your shop so that clients need to walk through the shop fittings to get to the items they buy regularly like milk and bread. By encouraging them to browse or giving them something that catches their eye even if they are on a mission to pick up a sliced white, you increase the chances of them leaving the shop having bought more than they came in for.
Special offers are great - if they can be seen and the area round the tills can be a gold mine. Here at Morplan we have been supplying shop fittings for years and have a wealth of information to share with our customers to help them maximise their profits. The best selling is done subtly so the buyer doesn't even realise.