How Can I Make My Retail Business More Successful?

Ready to take your independent store to the next level this year?

Here we share some easy ways to help bring those customers in!

1. Perfect your shop window

A passing shopper needs to have a powerful incentive to enter your store – so decorate your window to perfection. This doesn’t mean that you need to overdo things – this can be overwhelming. Instead, create a visual theme and tell a story through your dressing, solving the customer’s needs in an instant; whether that’s for Valentine’s Day, Christmas, a new spring collection or a glamorous new line.

2. Clarify your offer

As soon as you’ve lured your customer in, you need to be able to deliver the promise your window makes. Pare down your displays – unless you are a discounter – and select your merchandise carefully to show how your stock is different from the average high street retailer. This gives the customer a reason to return. Remember too to extend your window theme inside – seasonality, themes, colour-blocks; whatever your angle, make it beautiful.

3. Offer superb service

Independent stores can enjoy the competitive edge by delivering superb service. This is a balancing act – don’t risk being over-attentive to the point of hassling a customer, but be friendly and ready to help as soon as you spot that opening.

4. The pricing question

Many independent retailers forget to make a deep cut on a product which isn’t selling. If you make piecemeal reductions, you’ll find that you simply don’t achieve the sales. Make that first price cut, make it meaningful and shift the stock. Focus instead on identifying those profitable products and maximising their sales.

5. Marketing considerations

Remember that your brand needs to be very carefully and expertly developed as you grow your retail offer. Hire a professional graphic designer to help create your brand and visual assets in the first place and then use brand guidelines to deploy them consistently across all of your print and digital channels – from sales tags and gift wrapping through to social media channels.

Once you have your brand in place, grow it with an integrated multi-channel marketing strategy that captures social media, PR, print marketing, events, advertising and so forth, investing in the help of a specialist as necessary to ensure ROI.