Inventrak Blog

In Tips for Retaining Customers, we discussed this fundamental challenge for retail business and several ways to solve this problem.  However, getting customers in your store is just the first step. Now you must sell to them. The effort includes both boosting your store's selling potential and reducing missed sales opportunities from such mistakes as forgetting to reorder a popular item. Below are some tips for increasing customer spending:

Expand the Variety of Top-Selling Items

Good business people know their businesses. For retailing, that means you must know what product lines sell and what lines don't. Focus your efforts on expanding top-selling product lines while shrinking or even dropping poor sellers. That way you boost shelf space for hot sellers and increase the products customers will buy.

The point is, with good product data, you can maximize your business's profits.

Experiment with New Product Lines

The retail business, like fashion, evolves over time. The products you sell successfully today may not match customer wants or desires tomorrow. Considering that fact, smart retailers constantly experiment with new product lines to see what sticks. Most times a new product won't affect revenue much- it's best to drop those lines. Once in a while, however, experimentation pays off with a new product that customers love. Such hit products practically sell themselves- a big sales boost from both impulse and destination buyers.

The best advice for any experimentation in business: start small. Avoid big bets until your business data proves success, then keep moving up until you reach the optimal price/product mix. Regardless of whether a particular new product succeeds, you'll learn more about your customers by experimenting.

Drive Extra Purchases with Promotions

Why not reward customers with an in-store promotion?

For example, a store that lets customers purchase two cups of ice cream for $5 total instead of the normal $6? By doing so, you prompt customers to spend more money during each visit than typical and boost customer satisfaction, not to mention spread word-of-mouth to potential customers.

By keeping good customer records, such promotion methods become a snap.

Build Customer Lists

By checking each customer's previous transactions, a retail store owner is able to inform customers about sale items they might find interesting.

In the old days before computers entered the retail business, to personalize retailing for specific customers meant keep track in your head what they last purchased, how much they spent and what they like.

Thanks to POS systems, today retailers of all sizes quickly access customer information - information used for personalized offers or services.

Always be Sure that Your Store is Stocked with Hot Items

Customers do not like to be told that your store do not have his size of a shirt or shoes. Be sure that you do not lose any sales or customers because of this kind of mistakes.

You can boost sales at your store with the right IT tools which help you know your customers' needs and wants. Choose the right IT tool, make your customers happy and they will spend more in your store.