To sell more in retail you change what your team does in the first minute, not what is on the shelf. Train associates to be interruptible, train managers to coach the floor instead of reciting numbers, ask one open question instead of twenty closed ones, and use the customer's name. Those four do most of the work on this list.
The fifteen techniques below have proven invaluable to my clients, and they work hardest in the seasons when foot traffic drops and every person who walks in has to count.
Artificial intelligence is changing how retailers speak to their customers. Product recommendations based on browsing history tell a shopper, "this is for you," and that is worth having. What it cannot do is read the person standing in front of your associate. Use the software to get someone through the door with a reason to buy, then hand the sale to a trained human. A recommendation engine has never saved a sale that an untrained associate was losing.
Retail is becoming a job of tasks instead of interacting with shoppers. Sales associates are often so busy trying to complete a task that they ignore shoppers who are obviously looking for help.
If you want them to have strong sales skills, train your sales staff that no task is that important, that customer purchases pay their salary, and unless they're with a customer already, they should drop the task to help shoppers every time.
Virtual assistants can handle product questions, answer queries, and recover abandoned carts. The real gain is what they free up: a salesperson who is no longer answering the phone is a salesperson working with the person in front of them. And program your chatbot always to recommend visiting your physical store.
If managers themselves aren't trained to begin with, how will they be able to recognize, analyze, and give guidance when an associate loses a sale?
If managers understand how to make a sale, they can unpack a missed sale and say, "You got scared. Listen more and look for the windows of contact to customer engagement." Then, they will be able to help their team grow your sales.
Joy Lee, GM of USA Fishing Outfitters, went further than that. Her teams built interstore Zoom sessions of their own: "We created interstore Zoom mock training sessions so that everybody across stores could practice their skills." Nobody told her to. That is what a trained manager does with a method once they have one.
Providing a variety of payment methods, especially buy now, pay later (BNPL) options, helps cater to different customers, leading to increased average order value. According to Statista, 56% of millennials have used BNPL, compared to 36% of Gen X and 26% of baby boomers. This can be used on your online store as well as in-store. Many people just want to know what the payment is, not what it costs.
Employees are being elevated to managerial positions not based on merit but more likely on how long they've lasted at your store. Too often, it becomes the blind leading the blind.
Without proper retail sales training, they often think they can coach people with atta-boys and an occasional pizza. They also can't lead by repeatedly rolling their eyes and saying, "Don't."
Both approaches can create a lot of wreckage for your employees who are left adrift.
Your managers must be trained on how and when to tell employees to change their behavior. That's because employees, like most people, can't see when they make a mistake. Or if they do see it, they won't acknowledge it.
Make sure your website has been updated in the past year and that the design looks best on mobile devices. You only have about 2 seconds for a viewer to decide they will trust and buy from you so also make sure your site begins https://. Always look at the preview on your phone, without having to turn it sideways.
You have to bring employee skills up slowly. As you do that, you have to change the words you use in your retail space, how you look at your customers, and how you look at your employees.
When your managers can train and model listening over talking with shoppers, employees will see how that training leads to emotional connection, especially when selling high-priced products.
Until that happens, they'll think increasing sales in retail is all about the features when it is really about being more human and making connections. And that leads to...
Your staff is the critical link between your merchandise and your customers. Invest in comprehensive training like my SalesRX to focus on soft skills like active listening and emotional intelligence. Once certified, empower your front line to make decisions that enhance the customer experience and reward them for doing that.
What that looks like in numbers:
Same floor, same stock, same customers walking in. What changed was what the team said when they got there.
We used to say the most important customer service skill for sales associates was the ability to ask questions, but that has changed.
Nobody likes being blasted with 20 questions; shoppers know they are being set up and hunted for ways to get the sale.
You can get the same or better information from them without playing 20 yes/no questions. Don't ask multiple questions that begin with "Can I?" or "Are you?"
Instead, craft just one open-ended question like, "What's your project today?" you can ask everyone.
A lot of bad sales advice says, "Don't start selling until they say no." But that's thinking like a salesperson, not a potential customer.
Salespeople know how to sell in a general sense: unearth the problem, have a product as the solution to that problem, preempt objections, and understand the buying process.
What we don't get when we think like a salesperson is what shoppers are really scared about, what motivates them, and what will assure them that you're the right partner to get them what they want.
That takes thinking like a customer and asking yourself why this person left their life to come to our store today.
To read more on this topic, see The 5 Stupidest Questions To Ask Retail Shoppers
There are many products you may not care for. But you must devise ways to look at how other people, not you, might take those products and use them to improve their lives.
It is a much better use of your time to keep asking yourself: "How can I find other ways to sell these products" than to stare out the front doors looking bored?
There's a reason the Ritz Carlton requires employees to use a guest's name three times in a conversation, not two and not four. Why is it essential to use a customer's name when you meet? It's because it works.
Using their name more than once makes their guests feel important and forces the employees to commit their names to memory. Wherever you can get their name, use it.
Most people will appreciate the gesture, even if you get it wrong occasionally.
Facing a shopper by standing directly in front of them can feel intimidating to them. Sales psychology training shows the best way to sell to someone is to stand side by side like buddies. This says, "Let's figure this out together."
Improve your body language, and you will stop being a salesperson and become a trusted advisor.
Your cash wrap counters often allow employees to hide. That's bad. It gives employees a false sense of privacy to do whatever they want, check social media, eat a sandwich, you name it.
It also gives customers a visual barrier and creates a "them vs. me" feel.
That's why so many newer retailers are doing away with counters and going to self-checkout or arming their staff with tablets to conclude a sale quickly from anywhere.
To increase sales in retail, look to yourself and reduce your anxiety so you can be cheerful, hard-working, and able to find ways to stay motivated.
You have to be well-trained in how to build rapport and become a trusted advisor as well as a product knowledge specialist.
Only then can you take the easy road to grow sales based on what you want to do with the customer, not panicking about what will get them to buy. And then your customers will trust you even more.
How can I increase sales in my retail store? Change what happens in the first minute. Train associates to drop a task for a customer, train managers to coach a missed sale instead of reporting it, ask one open question instead of twenty closed ones, and use the customer's name. Merchandise and price changes come after that, not before.
What is the fastest way to raise retail conversion? Make your associates interruptible. Most lost sales are not lost on price, they are lost when someone finishing a task does not look up. That is a behavior you can change this week.
Does retail sales training actually increase sales? Yes, when managers go through it first. Barkers and Max, a 100-store apparel business, saw a conversion lift of 11.5% for the full year FY25, with up to 20% at some locations. MacSolutions Plus moved its close rate from 12% to 26%.
Should I train my managers or my associates first? Managers. An untrained manager cannot unpack a missed sale, so associate training decays within weeks. Managers take the course first, then coach from it.
What is the single worst question to ask a shopper? Anything answerable with yes or no, starting with "Can I help you?" It gives the shopper an exit and gives you nothing.
It's like telling someone how to hold a baseball bat for an extra 10 feet when they don't understand how to swing in the first place. To truly master the art of retail sales, you need comprehensive training.
That's why I created SalesRX, my online retail sales training program. It works for both major brands and small retailers, transforming stores from warehouses of merchandise to creators of amazing buying experiences. Check out how SalesRX can help you and your team become retail sales experts.
If your problem is bigger than the sales floor, or you want someone to walk your store and tell you where the sales are going, that is what my retail consulting work is for.