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Here we are at the end of the summer and thoughts for many of us are on a beach somewhere or a cabin in the woods in Maine.
If you live in Texas as I do, you would just like to escape the triple digit temperatures!
But if you are still at the store, a better use of your time might be to take a hard look at your showcases and merchandise arrangement. Is your presentation working to grow your sales by 20% over 2024? Is it presenting your selection in a way to intentionally grow your business or just “getting it all in the case?”
Here are a few no-cost ideas that just might grow your sales this year to allow you to stay at the nicest hotel at Lake Como next June, in a suite, of course!
- Use your POS system (like EDGE) to guide your display decisions. Your POS will tell you a great deal about your business, if you look. It will tell you where your business is. Knowing where you ARE is critical before you can decide where you want it to GO. If you want to grow your business by 20% over last year, you might want to check and be sure you have merchandise (that is reasonably fresh!) that sells for 20% higher than your average sale of that category.
Example: If your average sale for diamond studs is $1500, do you have attractive options at $1800? It’s going to be tough to raise that average sale if you don’t have the goods in the range to which you want to grow. If your next price level above $1500 is $2700, most customers will buy the cheaper pair and keep the difference in their pocket.
I mentioned the word “Fresh” above. I was in a store in California a few weeks back (and we were reviewing all his merchandise categories) when my client thought he was covered in merchandise that was 20% higher because he had 3 pairs that been in the case for over 1000 days! Do you buy brown bananas when you are shopping for produce?
I have written several articles on the wonderful facts you can learn from the “Inventory Performance by Category” report, you can run on EDGE. If you want a free 30-minute confidential consult on your report, call me.
- Are you using human nature to guide your displays? The back center (salesperson side) of the showcase is where your customer looks first when they walk up to your case. Are you putting the pieces you want most to sell in that “sweet spot?”
I was at the local donut shop with one of my granddaughters recently and I noticed all the donuts with the funny shapes, the sprinkles and bright colors were on the lowest shelf. Obviously, they were put in the case at the height where a 3 year old can easily see them. Why don’t we display the pieces we want MOST to sell where our customers are looking as well? Take a day and fix every case in your store as soon as possible.
3) Have you ever seen a customer in your store bend over and look at your merchandise through the front glass of your showcase? Are you, (unwittingly of course), wanting to sell to only limber people with above average yoga abilities? Make sure your jewelry is visible from the top down into the showcase. Bring the customer closer to the jewelry. Show your items in a way that they see the piece from the front the way the designer intended. Use only FLAT displays in the front 6” of your showcase. Angled displays in back, flat displays in front. Leave the yoga positions to the studio down the street.
Next month, I’ll continue this train of thought on ways you can improve your visual presentation at little or no expense. I will ask you to share with me any steps you have taken to improve a specific showcase by sending me photos of “Before and After”. If you are a little short of ideas on just what to do, send me the pics and let’s talk. Again, I give free telephone/Zoom consults upon request. Send a pic to Larry@LarryJohnsonConsulting.com and let’s see if we can get that 20% sales increase.
Gotta go. I need to find a consulting client in Idaho or Montana and get out of this heat!
The post 3 easy ways to improve your visual presentation and increase sales appeared first on Southern Jewelry News.
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