Encourage Longer Stays
We instituted a 2-night minimum stay for Saturday nights to cater to travelers wanting to spend time in Newport Beach, moving away from the “I need a bed tonight” crowd. We raised all the room rates but charged more for premium and view rooms. Continue reading How To Get Business – 11 Lessons From A Business Makeover Case Study »
Ever wander into a store, spot something you really like, start imaging how it would look in your home and just as you’re about to turn over the price tag, a clerk comes up and tells you how expensive it is? At that moment, your dreams and excitement were probably squashed and the practical side, “you don’t really need this” took over. How did that feel? 
Think it was harder or easier to make a buying decision after that?
For example, when people walk into your lighting showroom, they will naturally want to start imaging how their home would look with new lighting options. Continue reading Listening With Your Eyes And Your Ears »
I was on the sales floor, conducting a Retail Selling Boot Camp for a client in Minneapolis recently when I came to a roadblock. I was coaching a young woman on the new greeting we were going to use. She half-heartedly tried again and again and kept saying after each, “I can’t do this.” Continue reading Retail Sales Training: The Difference Between I can and I won’t »
I was in the Big Apple last week for the National Retail Federation’s Big Show at the Javits center. Nearly 20,000 people with something to do with retail from the C level (CEO, CIO, CMO) executives, to service providers, to the media – everyone was focused on retail and grateful the holidays weren’t worse than the previous year. I’ve done my predictions previously so here are some of the current trends in retail I picked up on.
Intel & Windows New Digital Signage
Big Box Retailers Have Given Up On The Browsers; Consumers Are Now Seen As Mission Shoppers. They have to be able to “get in quick and get out.” It’s like the Internet has been overlaid on the sales floor. Nowhere could this be more evident than the new touch screen interface from Intel.
Their Intelligent Digital Signage Concept Proof of Concept, presents HD video streams on two separate displays. This signage recognizes a customers’ gender and height using video analytics and then immerses customers into a rich multi-touch environment. They claim this gives retailers “attractive tools that can help create targeted, personal and effective customer connections.” Makes me wonder if they came up with the idea from the Tom Cruise movie, Minority Report.
What I got from it was a giant store directory that, seeing you were a man let’s say, would automatically pop up with the men’s sections of a store and show off sale items. What they’ll do with transgendered folks or men with long hair or a women with a Rachel Maddow haircut is besides the point. Information is a good thing – right?
Rachel Maddow
The trouble with mission shoppers is there is no magic to the experience – you’re just filling a pre-existing need. Great merchandising is getting people to stop and discover your merch, not see your store as Tron or look at the palm of their hand. Great retail is about looking around your store, finding your way, being interrupted by a great display that shows how several products can mix together.
Best Buy ads
Big Brother Is Indeed Watching You. Best Buy touted how they use cookies on people’s computers to monitor where a customer goes after they land on their site. For example, if you were looking at plasma TVs, clicked off to ESPN or YES network then came back to the Best Buy site, you would be shown a banner ad tailored to sports. If it were HGTV it might show you an ad for a vacuum. When one woman asked the marketing representative of Best Buy if there were privacy issues they faced she said, “No.” When the questioner followed up with, “How could that be if you are tracking sites visited?” She said they used service providers who kept everything legal. Hmmm.
Blog Readers Rock! At the opening reception, longtime blog-reader Mike Murray, Director from Caliber Interactions found me and thanked me for my blog,” You stated the value proposition of mystery shopping better than I’ve seen anyone do.” I also had owners, Directors and managers waiting for me after sessions to chat about their business who recognized me from this blog. If you have something to say – blogs are a great vehicle to connect with people in your industry!
Online Learning is Only Good For Product Knowledge. In various button-hole meetings it seemed many had tried online learning but found that experiential training, the kind I present to retailers, is the only way to move sales. Otherwise, the learning just doesn’t seem to “stick.” They can read the text but that is hard to pickup, monitor or duplicate so retailers need to create safe educational learning where they can role-play and get immediate feedback.
Merchandising and Sales Skills Have Deteriorated. On Tuesday, I was having lunch with Gordon Segal, Founder of Crate & Barrel and his team. I thought the only way retailers will succeed with so many identical competitors in an overcrowded marketplace was to invest in sales training of the crew. ”You’re right,” he said. ”We had to sell back in the 60′s and 70′s, that has been lost.” Winston Weber had said earlier that day that, “Merchandising skills have dropped over the past 25 years. We need to reteach the basics.” Amen to that!
Original Jake Drawing
Accidental Businesses Can Prosper. Life is Good started as an antidote to negativity. The Jacobs brothers sold t-shirts for five years with no success. When they came up with the design of Jake and the words, “Life is good,” they sold 48 of the new designs in 45 minutes back in 1994. That may not seem like much but it was enough validation to them to go with it. Thereafter, anything that celebrated life Jake could do. They expanded their company by celebrating the simple things in life – hiking, fishing, ice cream. They found a niche by accident and grew sales from $87,000 to over a billion dollars in sales. John Jacobs is an Amiable personality that built on his natural inclination to be with people and created a company focused on people and helping people. His story was worth the cost of the convention registration alone.
Online Retailers Are Looking To Get Into the Bricks and Mortar. With so many stores looking to bring their business online (which I’ll tell you about next time,) I was fascinated by the online retail CEOs sharing their plans to expand out from virtual reality to storefronts. One told me, “We can give a better experience for our brand through people.” No names given but this could be interesting to watch.
Social Media Continues To Get Rave Reviews For the Isolated Stories. There are a certain segment of Feeler personalities that are happy to volunteer their time as “brand ambassadors.” They are the golden ring for many retail marketers who have scads of fans on Facebook and followers on Twitter. Are these consumers who get off bragging about connecting to large brands (did you know Tide laundry detergent has 300,000 Facebook fans) really driving sales or just an experiment? Everyone is looking for their ROI (return on investment) when it comes to social media. James Bickers, Sr. Editor of Retail Customer Experience highlighted a woman upset her wedding dress hadn’t arrived, Tweeting about it, Bloomingdale’s hyper-responsive responses, day saved and customer happy. But is that really great customer service? Which leads me to my final point.
Great Customer Service These Days Is About Fixing Things Gone Wrong Or Getting Your Way. It’s like a spoiled child being listened to. Is that great customer service? I don’t think so but from the NRF awards, that’s what was rewarded. Great customer service is an experience so tangible, so connected to another human being from the start that the shopping experience with another human being stands head and shoulders above any experience the customer had that day at work, at home or in the mall. So exceptional that the shopper felt compelled to tell others how remarkable it was to friends, family and co-workers and then yes, posted it on Facebook or Twitter. That’s the mark of customer service from a customer standpoint.
From a merchant stand point it is to sell the merch so convincingly that the customer doesn’t even know the interaction follows a process (like my Sales RX: Five Parts to a Successful Sale) that builds the transaction, basket or average check while building a dynamic relationship with the salesperson and then the brand or store. That’s the trend we need to see more of or we’ll see more people grasping at the straws of technology because its easy; not the foundations of great retail which is to sell the merch which takes training.
Learn more about how to build your business by pre-ordering my new book, The Retail Doctor’s Guide to Growing Your Sales
I have a confession to make – I don’t like to wear black shoes. I’ve tried and tried but never found a pair that felt good enough to travel with. When they dye leather, the pigment usually makes the leather harder and stiffer.
Even so, every now and then I decide to try one of the pairs I have purchased waiting in the closet. This week I took a pair with me to Baltimore then onto Charlotte. After two days of discomfort, I decided to ditch the ones I was wearing when I arrived Tuesday at the Charlotte airport and checked out the Johnson & Murphy store. I had just finished an event with a bunch of retailers where the refrain from a few was, “Where are all the customers?’ I had said, “They are right there if you look and work to sell the merch.”
Anyways, I went into the shoe shop, looked around and observed the two women behind the counter talking, oblivious to me. I kept looking around and found a pair that seemed good, the leather was as soft as the brown pair. And they were $225. I would be willing to pay anything at this point if they fit well. I turned back to see if they noticed me but no, they were still talking. l left figuring I’d stop at the mall.
Went to the the Lake Norman mall – great design, found the J & M shop. One guy behind the counter, “Hi finding everything ok?” I answered, “Actually no, I was at the airport and saw the Wilmore, do you have it?” He answered, “No, never heard of it and its not in the catalogue- we don’t get everything the airport stores do – they do twice our volume.” As I walked out, I checked my iPhone app to see if it were online but that model was not available.
I got to the airport early the next day to return to the first store and try a pair on. The two women were still talking behind the counter but one broke away enough to tell a guy, “All our shirts and sweaters are $20 off.” I found the pair, turned and looked over to her. She looked right at me without saying a word. It was obvious she expected me to come to her.
“Do you need some help?” she finally asked. “Yes, I’d like to try this in an 8.” She took a look at it, took out the shoe tree and said, “This is an 8, see how you like it and if so, I’ll go get the mate.” 
She loosened the laces of the shoe a bit as I sat down, put it on the floor with a shoe horn and left to tell someone else the $20 promo. I looked at the shoe and tried to undo the laces but one had become a knot. I fumbled a bit getting perturbed that this as a customer was my “job.”
She came back, “How’s it goin’?” I said, “You know, I used to sell shoes a long time ago. I can’t imagine not opening the laces – especially for a $225 pair of shoes.”
[Back story, display men's shoes are laced horizontally which looks better on the display but impossible to get your foot in. You basically need to re-lace the shoe or it can't be put on. See example below.]
Horizontal laces on the Wilmore
She replied,”Well, most men are in a hurry and don’t have time for that I’ve learned over the years. You want me to go back and get the mate?” “Sure.” I tried the right one on and it was OK, not great but I couldn’t get past the attitude for an expensive shoe. After a few minutes she came back after I had my other shoe on and headed out. As I left I heard her tell another customer about the $20 promo- the same one that several signs already said.
How should it have gone? “You know one of the things that makes that shoe so special it is hand-lasted so the upper won’t crack like other shoes.” Or something like, “This is an 8, let me re-lace it so you can try on the right while I go get a new pair.”
Do you see the difference? Either you are trying to sell the merch or not.
What killed the American shoe manufacturers? Was it all NAFTA and Mexico, China and the rest or did this kind of slovenly sales approach reduce demand ?
I was able to use my iPhone when I landed and found from one website that the Wilmore was, “Expertly crafted of Italian calfskin for a rich, elegant look, premium fit and feel. Full leather lining and removable insole enhances the comfort and fit.” Which leads me to my next point about shopping and the Internet which I’ll cover tomorrow: Don’t fear the iPhone apps.
In the meantime, the sale is yours to lose, treat the merch with respect and get your focus off stocking, talking and discounts and sell the merchandise you have.
Stop asking, “Where are the customers?” and realize we’re right in front of you. Sometimes even giving you a second shot. The sale is yours to lose.
Guess I’ll be dressing in brown for all the speeches next week…
