Everyone in retail is facing the question of how to maintain and also grow retail revenue in these uncertain times. In particular, our Charity Retail customers are constantly looking for new ways to generate and conserve income streams to support the great work they do.
There are some really innovative ideas coming to light turning the challenges of the new retail environment into a positive and winning experience as well as a great shopping experience for customers. We thought we’d share some ideas for you to build upon and find ways to grow in the new normal.
Growing footfall in the new normal
The first thought with the new Social Distancing guidelines is the lack of footfall into the stores. But there are real positives to this! Less customers means you can really concentrate on those customers. Don’t ‘oversell’ but just take an interest, and make them feel wanted and valued. Remember pieces of information they share with you and make sure you ask about it next time they visit. Done sensitively, customers will really value this interest.
Shift style shopping
Another way to give your customers a real “boutique” shopping time is to extend opening hours by an hour or two with a shift arrangement. You could offer customers to ‘book’ a shopping time early or late. This would enable those that are currently working to visit the high street in the evening. Remember, if you’re one of the only shops who offers a unique and flexible experience, they will remember you and are much more likely to return!
Shifting Talent
It may be an obvious statement, but could you manage with less staff on the shop floor? It’s not just a case of making redundancies, but rather shifting talent across multiple stores, or even into a different area of the business whose capacity is stretched. Why not ask your staff if there is another area in the business that they’ve always fancied joining, you may never know what will come out of the woodwork
Rewarding Retail
Your regular customers are the ones who will shout about your brand on social media and share positive vibes about the work you’re doing. Reward them well and what better way to do this by offering VIP incentives? These could be something like offering 3 for 2 or 10% off over £XX spend. You could offer them the incentive with the condition that they visit at a ‘quiet time’ :)
Inspiring window displays
Make your customers want to step through your doors by improving your visual merchandising in your window displays! It would be great to make your windows relevant to today’s world, so think Rainbows, NHS support, and share inspirational messages of hope!
Vertical Merchandising
Encourage link sales by utilising vertical merchandising! Why not place colour coordinating shoes on top of your gondolas, or have floor to ceiling displays of items like cushions, throws & linen, or cutlery, tea cups & serve ware? If they are looking for that item that will finish their collection, it’s likely they may be tempted to buy more than one!
Christmas comes early
RSPCA Christmas Window Display, one of our winners from our 2019 Charity Window Competition
Why not encourage customers to do a bit of early Christmas shopping now, while the shops are quiet? You could play on the fact that there will be greater choice, and they won’t suffer from inflated pricing, especially during this economic hardship. It will also help them to spread the costs across months instead of major outlay during the last few months of the year.
The pavement is your playground
Could you (space permitting) play with some creative ideas on the area outside your shop? Think A frames, chalkboards, pavement signs, or maybe some stickers to draw the eye to your store front? The pavement is your playground. Make it an extension of your visual merchandising display! And a safe place for social distancing too!
Remember to make the most of free resources too to get hints and tips on how to create exciting displays that are topical or on trend. Check out these visual merchandising guides you can find here.
Hopefully this has planted some seeds of imagination which you can adapt & use in your particular circumstances. Put one or two of these into practice & you will almost certainly find that your average transaction value will increase to offset the reduction in customer density.
And best of luck with the new normal!
