subject: Retail Management [print this page] In fifteen years nearly one fifth of the American people will be sixty-five years or older. Thanks to improved health care, nutrition, fitness and cosmetic surgery, people will look and act younger than their years. This will have a profound effect on current retailing. We are all retail buyers, we all go shopping. We also see different skills applied to customer service and retailing. At the bottom end of the scale there is the studied indifference of the sales assistant and at the top end of the scale there is the professional approach that makes you want to return to the store. Now we know that men and women shop differently. Men tend not to browse in certain shops, women do tend to browse in most shops. This means that when a couple go shopping the husband could do with a seat. If you provide seats you are sending a message that you care about your shoppers. And what is just as important
The first principle behind the science of shopping is the simplest one. You are dealing with people. People have certain similarities and tendencies which the retail environment must take into account. In other words retail stores must be tailored to the specifications of human beings. Have you ever needed to have some plumbing work done on your house and wanted a good plumber that won't rip you off? What did you do? Did you look in your local newspaper for an advertisement by a plumber? Probably not. What about the Yellow Pages, did you look for a plumber in your area? Some people do. Use yourself as an example. Think about the last time you went into a retail store. You obviously went there on a mission to buy something. So what happened? Did you buy? Did you buy because of the salesperson or did you buy in spite of the salesperson?
This list of customer information will enable you to grow your business successfully. Having this list of customer information enables you to communicate with your existing customers frequently so that you can draw them back into your store when you have a sale, products on special, a new product or any other promotion. As you watch customers visiting your store, you will see that there is a zone where the customers make adjustments. They slow their pace, adjust their eyes to the change in light from outside to inside so they can focus on what there is to see. A definition of a well-designed store is one that exposes the greatest portion of its goods to the greatest number of its shoppers for the longest time. In other words the layout and design puts merchandisers in our path in field of vision in a way that invites consideration. Improving your sales conversion rates is a certain way of increasing revenue and profit. Most successful retailers excel in this aspect of their business. You can never hope to be
successful in retailing unless you measure this part of your business.There are only three ways to grow and develop any retail business. Now this may sound a revolutionary concept but work it out for your self. Knowing these three ways to grow your retail business and learning to put them into practice will allow you to expand in these demanding economic times. This is the time where retailers, whether offline or online, take advantage of the sudden influx of the need of consumers for more bargain deals. Below are some of the advantages of this sites to retailers, especially online retailers. When you install your changes to improve your sales, your margins or your conversions, measure where you are at present. This is the only way that you can quantify the changes that you have made. It is always recommended that you make one change at a time so that you can measure the effect of that change.
