As a distributor of consumer electronics, personal care, toys and travel accessories, one of our customers supply both online retailers and physical stores and we have seen the shift towards online purchases.
It made him change the way he sold his products in-store by creating a richer and more rewarding experience for the customer. He has over 150 staff working in the retail environment selling and merchandising their brands. I thought I would share what I believe makes an in-store experience so much better.
Staff - Happy, motivated and well trained staff is key to guide the customer through their shopping experience. It gives the customer confidence in his/her purchase and they are normally happy to pay a little more for an exceptional experience. How do we achieve this level of staff commitment?
1. Continuous product training– This makes the staff more confident and creates a better interaction with the customer and also gives greater job satisfaction.
2. Achievable targets and rewards- This keeps staff motivated by goal setting and a feeling of achievement when they hit that target.
3. Praise– Everyone loves being praised, which gives a positive feeling among staff.
4. Making it fun– Creating competition between teams or individuals and let them monitor their own progress with online portals.
In-store experience – Having products out on display creates an attraction and a interest. Also applying interactive screens with videos allows the customer to be better engaged and understand a product. We have found this type of demonstration the most effective way to sell our genre of products. Under similar sales conditions turnover with demonstrations has proven to be over 4000% (40 times) higher than when just left on a shelf.
Visual merchandising- What draws customers in to the store? The use of strong visual displays highlighting products, brands or special offers, as you often have only a few seconds to attract that potential customer. Similar to a banner on a web page, what makes them want to click that banner? Product display and placement is also important, as customers do not want to bend and pick things from the bottom shelf or under a table. That’s why your key sellers need to be at the correct and comfortable height.
Technology – We have thousands of products in the store and many of them require demonstrating. One of the most effective ways of achieving this is through videos/pictures with key selling points. It’s impossible to have hundreds of videos dotted around the store, so we created an all-in-one solution. The system allows products to be scanned using it’s barcode and plays back an instant video/picture with relative information. This use of video has not only increased sales, but also increased the average basket value.
A web store will always be more cost-effective, but it will never have the rich, real-life experience of being in a physical store and the use of technology further enhances that experience.
For more information, please contact us by steve@ouyeedisplay.com, or call the 24-hour hotline: +86 13826419811