You sell expensive merchandise by fixing what your crew believes about it, not by waiting for a markdown. Here's a question I ask in trainings: what's easier to sell, the most expensive item or the cheapest? The answer is the most expensive, because it gives you more to offer the customer.
More features, more benefits, more reasons to own it. The cheap one gives you "it's good enough," and that's not selling, that's surrender.
So why does premium merchandise sit? Because associates feel like frauds selling it. They know the cost, they know the markup, and they privately think it isn't worth the money. When you feel something is too expensive, you hand that feeling to the shopper with the product. An associate who feels like a fraud can only sell what's on sale.
If that's your crew, the fix starts with you, because you're the sales guide. It's not about what the associate feels. It's about the shopper. The person considering your best item has their own reasons, their own budget, and their own definition of worth it, and none of those live in your associate's wallet.
Try this exercise this week. Find the most expensive item in your store. If you're the manager, put a spiff on it for whoever sells the first one. If you're an associate, and especially if you hate that item, find three honest reasons somebody could love it. The weight. The color. The job it does. As you show it to customers, something happens: you stop hating it. Usually you grow to like it, because it really does have more to offer than the cheaper version.
Watch your average ticket after two weeks of this. Feeling like a fraud is expensive. Getting over it is free.
Belief in the merchandise is a training job, not a pep talk. SalesRX online retail sales training trains associates to present features and benefits so the price makes sense, and then an unannounced mystery shop measures whether they actually do it on the floor. For the selling behaviors that lift an average ticket, see retail sales strategies.
You sell expensive merchandise by fixing what your crew believes about it, not by waiting for a markdown. The premium item is actually easier to sell because it gives associates more features and benefits to offer, so the fix is getting them to find three honest reasons a customer could love it and to show it instead of apologizing for the price.
Because they feel like frauds selling them. They know the cost and the markup and privately decide the item isn't worth it, then hand that feeling to the shopper with the product. An associate who feels an item is too expensive can only sell what's on sale.
Train the floor to present your best items with real features and benefits rather than steering shoppers to the cheapest option. When associates stop deciding the customer's budget for them and start showing why the premium choice is worth it, the average ticket moves.