You can raise sales without a single extra customer by closing more of the ones you already have. Same door count, higher close rate, no ad spend.
I have watched stores go from a 12% close rate to 26% by changing how associates open and work a sale. One New Zealand retail group running two chains across more than 60 stores lifted conversion 11.5% doing this, and as much as 20% at some locations. More traffic is the expensive answer. Converting the traffic you paid for is the one nobody uses.
Brick and mortar retail stores face the daunting challenge of getting their retail associates to convert customers who are lookers into ones who are buyers.
Fortunately, the brick and mortar retailer has one significant advantage, the customers are actually standing in front of her or his employees and not just remotely connected via the Internet.
To make the most of this advantage, a retailer must use a variety of techniques in retail sales training to raise the conversion rate of their retail associates. For the full picture, start with my guide on how to increase your retail conversion rate.
Saying, "Hi" is good, but being interested in a customer first before getting them to their desired destination in a minimum of time is excellent.
Most customers have a buying agenda and will move on to another retailer if they do not perceive that your establishment cares about them.
No amount of upselling can overcome a frustrated customer. So the soft skills of building rapport must be taught and role-played regularly.
This is the whole ballgame, and it is measurable. On the unannounced mystery shop we run for every client, the section asking whether anyone got to know the shopper as a person is worth 440 points of a shop that runs over 1,000. Most stores start at zero on it.
We're all familiar with the stores that mandate that their employees bring a customer to the exact product that the customer is looking for.
It's a nice idea but usually poorly implemented. Mostly, at the end of the short trip, the employee (a pointer) merely wags his finger and says, "It's right there. Have a nice day."
What a missed opportunity!
Instead, retail employees should remove the product from the shelf, demonstrate it to the customer using features and benefits, and, if appropriate, suggest more than one.
It is a simple add-on selling technique that works wonders on your bottom line. Robot vs Sloth raised its conversion rate from 35% to 52% teaching exactly this.
I'm told the experience at Victoria's Secret is awesome. That's because they put their focus on getting a customer to a fitting room, so they can show her everything that will fit perfectly.
Putting your least trained employee to clean up and watch for shoplifters ignores what the fitting room is worth. A peer-reviewed field experiment found that putting a dedicated associate on the fitting room raised sales 22.4%.
The best retailers station their best employees by the fitting rooms to build rapport and sell the merchandise at the fitting room.
If it's not apparent, the cashier is the final place where an employee touches the customer. As such, they can still influence the customer's actions. The customer is generally relaxed, and impulse items are easier to sell.
The idea that cashiers are only paid to take your customers' money and say"Thank you!" is a big gap in your training. As your brand's last touch-point, your cashiers must be personable, or they can actually take away value from your brand.
Cashiers can add items to an order in many stores just by pointing them out. Expect more, and you will get more.
By the same token, a manager is not just someone who can fill a void left by a no-show employee. A retail manager must understand the retail sales training concepts mentioned above and create an atmosphere where these concepts come to life.
Ensure you have chosen the right sales trainer for your retail location, not just an inventory manager. A trainer is always connecting performance to measurable results i.e., your key performance indicators.
Quality Sewing & Vacuum did this across 13 stores and raised sales per hour while complaints went down.
Yes. Most stores convert only a small share of the people who already walk in, so the fastest gain is closing more of them, not attracting new ones. Raising an associate's close rate from 12% to 20% on the same traffic can lift store revenue by half. It costs training, not ad budget.
Change what associates do between the door and the register. Train them to be facilitators rather than greeters, to demonstrate rather than point, to staff the fitting room with a salesperson, to sell at the register, and to have managers who coach against KPIs rather than fill shifts.
At least 30% is what to work toward. Once you track traffic against transactions, most specialty stores find they are closer to 10%. If you cannot state your number today, counting traffic is the first fix.
Expect movement over months, not weeks, and expect it to take more than one cycle through the training with a manager who holds the standard. Interior Spaces in Ridgeland, Mississippi went from 46% on its first mystery shop to 97% seven weeks later, and that came after the owner ran the training cycle after cycle and kept holding the standard.
The majority of a brick-and-mortar store's customers are looking to buy. Do not waste the opportunity to transform your lookers into buyers by utilizing the above concepts.
Increasing your conversion rate by selling at the dressing room, always suggesting additional items, and training your employees to deliver it all with a smile makes the difference between barely surviving and having a thriving business.
Training those behaviors and then measuring them is what our online retail sales training is built to do. Every client store gets an unannounced mystery shop before anyone trains and another at six months, so you find out whether the floor changed rather than whether the crew enjoyed the videos. Across retailers running it, 83% report double-digit growth within six months. You can read the full set of SalesRX case studies here.
For the wider picture, start with our guide to retail sales strategy.