Engaged Employees Keep Retailers In A Leadership Position

Many large and impersonal retailers believe that a paycheck is all employees expect from their jobs.
Studies demonstrate time and again that employees who feel a connection to the organization will
rise to the challenges we face in tougher times. Smaller retailers can create an engaged work environment where employees feel a greater sense of belonging and commitment to the company and their peers.

This sense of commitment motivates employees to go the extra mile to keep retailers prospering even
when their competitors lose market share. How can we earn top loyalty from our employees? It goes far beyond what we pay them. Consider these best practices to create an engaged environment for your team:

Make employees part of the decision process. Many decisions within the organization may be positively
influenced with meaningful feedback from your team on the sales floor. Their interaction on a day to day basis with customers offers the best source of information in regards to what customers want from your organization.

Solicit opinions and feedback on issues that directly affect employees and their job parameters. Let them feel ownership to decisions made about their schedules, benefits, work shifts etc.

Good work should be recognized and praised. All companies that have a culture of connected employees
formally reward those that excel at their jobs.

Encourage a culture of recognition amongst peers. Create a co-supportive environment where employees
can come forward to praise their own coworkers.

Make sure that decisions made within the organization are promptly shared with the employees. Engaged employees should always be the first to know what is evolving in the company. Often, employees hear from outside sources or read developments in the newspaper about their company and feel demoralized that they weren’t informed by their corporate leaders.

Develop well defined career paths for employees from entry level through to senior management. Offer
personal mentoring to all employees on training, personal growth and career timelines.

Offer frequent job rotation schedules whenever possible. This is one of the best strategies to build job enrichment and loyalty. Employees who are exposed to all duties within their level of the company see the big picture and feel a high degree of ownership and engagement.

Continually offer increased responsibility to employees who demonstrate initiative and wish to learn more
about the business.

Offer a feedback program where employees can voice their opinions and concerns and receive formal feedback of the outcomes.

Encourage employees to submit business improvement ideas and reward employees who have offered concepts that were successfully implemented.

Offer profit sharing to employees so that they see a personal link to their prosperity and the company’s
growth.

Take Action Today:

1) Review these strategies and implement as many of them that your company can support.

2) Inform employees through formal meetings of your programs and encourage their participation.

3) Make your engaged work environment and its features part of new employee orientation.

One retailer I recently spoke to lamented about how hard it was to find the right candidate to hire. Lots of applicants, nobody with that “spark” they were looking for. Smaller retailers want someone who is mature, intelligent, enthusiastic and with a spirit of service.

Take Action Today:

1) Before you put the Help Wanted sign in the window, make a written list of the qualities you seek in a potential candidate based on the above criteria. This is your basis for conducting one or more employment interviews and does not replace your formal job interview process. It will enhance your decision making methodology.

2) Keep an open mind to hiring an excellent applicant even if you do not have a position open. If your wage budget can accommodate them, consider bring them on part time and evaluating what productivity they can offer your store. A good candidate who produces extra sales will quickly pay for the added wage expense.

3) Build your sales team through evaluation, training and promotion of part time employees who started with you by demonstrating the special qualities in this article.

retail, retailer, leadership, operations, sales, merchandise, global trends, global issues, customers, consumers, merchandise, selection, location, traffic. employees, hiring

Retailers Looking For Potential Locations Face New Rules

Customer Travel Habits Have Changed and Affect Where You Should Locate

Today, consumer buying behavior has changed. It’s largely driven by the return of time-starved families and a more prudent approach to travel or commuting. High fuel costs have forced consumers to adopt new money saving strategies that strongly influence where they’ll shop:

1) Many consumers will now limit shopping between where they live and where they work. They’ll do the majority of their shopping on the way home to break up the commute, and thus will refrain from taking large detours. If your shop or considered location is situated on main commuter routes, you’ll capture solid traffic based on this new buying pattern.

2) The high cost of parking, particularly in larger municipalities has turned off many consumers. Often, shopping where free parking is offered becomes the sole factor in their buying behavior and the locations they select to shop in.

3) Elements as simple as barriers to access can become the deciding factor in selecting a shopping location. Difficult to navigate parking lots, left hand turns at busy intersections and even the typical distance a customer needs to walk to the doors will affect which locations they’ll shop at.

4) Stores located near noisy freeways, railroad tracks or run down neighborhoods also become deterrents to shoppers. If you decide to locate a store around these elements, you may face traffic obstacles from the first day. Customers that need to cross railroad tracks to get to your store who get stuck waiting for a crossing train may abandon your store as a shopping option in the future.

5) Many corner locations offer access from multiple directions, great visibility and easy street parking. Consider a corner storefront if you are considering a street location.

6) Time starved customers today prefer to shop at multiple locations located in proximity to one another. This cuts down on travel time and fuel costs. In fact, today’s consumers expect your store to be located near your competition so they can comparison shop efficiently as well.

7) Stores situated on cottage bound routes are typically strong locations. Consumers will often buy on the way to the cottage or vacation destination but are not inclined to buy on the return trip. Being on the right side of the road is critical for capturing this valuable traffic.

Today’s price-driven consumer needs to accomplish their needs-based buying trips within a minimum amount of time and fuel costs. Your existing and future locations must support these new buying patterns. The notion of destination shopping for today’s consumer is becoming a dwindling concept.

Take Action Today:

1) Conduct an Audit of your existing or future locations and understand how they fit into these new elements of buying.

2) Consider solutions to overcome access obstacles in existing locations. Mall merchants can pool resources to hire a police officer to help direct customers into busy entrances for example.

3) Determine if you have captive commuter traffic and target your marketing to this group.

retail, retailer, leadership, operations, sales, merchandise, global trends, global issues
customers, consumers, merchandise, selection, location, traffic

Customers Offer Loyalty To Retailers They Are Connected To

Customer Loyalty continues to become more and more elusive to retailers. Large big box retailers cultivate loyalty through meeting the needs of budget minded consumers based on price points and selection. Service has taken a back seat to price in the big box model. Not surprisingly, customers never feel really connected to these faceless retailers and a cheaper price at a competitor around the corner instantly transfers these customers’ “loyalty” to another retailer. Their loyalty is superficial and really only loyal to the dollar and not the retailer over the long term.

Today, our easily distracted customers will be genuinely loyal to retailers they feel connected to. Make these new rules of engagement part of your customer service model and your team will build long term loyal relationships in a modern market that has largely become indifferent and impersonal to the customer:

1) Schedule staff to cover your sales floor and enable them to interact face to face with the customers on every visit. This is a dramatic contrast to many retailers who now have one employee for every 10,000 square feet for sale floor area. Most customers in those stores expect to fend for themselves and may never even see a store employee during their entire visit to the store, let alone receive some old fashioned customer service.

2) Use technology to make your organization available 24/7. Even the smallest retailer must have a website and simple email channels that enable customers to contact you with questions and concerns. Make sure someone gets back to customers within a day and avoid over-automated phone systems that make it difficult for customers to talk to a store employee, even during business hours.

3) Survey customers and offer the top three venues of communication they prefer. You may find that some customers still prefer to write a letter and drop it in the mail, or even fax requests to you. Whatever you discover, let your customer base tell you what methods they prefer and then offer it. Older customers or those that are less technically oriented may be unable to or dislike using email to communicate with your store, and expect a direct phone line to a real person on the other end.

4) Respond to customers in a personalized manner. Customers will not be loyal to customers who respond with cookie cutter and “canned” responses. Personal responses should always be handled by a store employee who offers their name in case the customer has further questions or concerns. A customer will always feel more connected when they receive a response from a person with a name as opposed to “The Sales Team” or the “Customer Service Response Unit”.

5) Study and listen to what customers ask for and see if patterns are emerging. If many customers contact you about your open store hours (i.e. only open 9 to 12 on Saturdays and closed Sundays), you may want to change them to meet the needs of the customers and let them know of the change. An email or letter to a customer advising them that based on their concerns as well as other customers, you’ve now extended Saturday hours to 5 PM for example will impress them and show them that you are listening to them. These customers will feel connected and their loyalty will be long term in contrast to the faceless competitors.

Follow the new rules of engagement with your customers and you’ll make them feel more like partners than customers. Their hard-earned loyalty will be yours as long as they feel connected.

Take Action Today:

1) Make the new rules of engagement part of your customer service model.

2) Examine how you communicate and respond to customers and ensure that your systems cater to the specific needs of your customer base.

3) Get back to personalized communication with customers and make them connect with real employees in your store.

4) Continually survey your customers and engage meaningful dialogue to understand what changes they expect if they are to stay connected and loyal to your organization.

retail, retailer, leadership, operations, sales, global trends, global issues
customers, consumers, merchandise, service. engagement, communication

Customers Look For Product Lines That Are 100% Current and Relevant

As 2010 marches on, customers will still focus on a needs-based buying pattern over previous wants-based mentalities. Above this current trend, customers are becoming obsessed with product lines that are a reflection of the latest global issues, technological improvements or design styles.

Gone are the days where consumers were dazzled by sheer selection and massive SKU lists. Smaller, more focused product lines that keep up with the times are what customers prefer. It’s now expected that progressive retailers will continually scrutinize products and clean out those that are at the end of their life cycle or are not reflective of current trends and priorities.

Not surprisingly, consumers still demonstrate a high interest in the latest technological gadgets like Cell Phones, Televisions, Ipods and other high-tech devices. However, current issues like our environment and energy are affecting the consumer’s attitude towards selection. A less energy efficient appliance designed even just a couple of years ago will take a back seat to leading edge models that cost less to operate.

As a matter of fact, consumers will frown upon retailers who offer older products that appear obsolete just to pad out their selection.

What types of product do consumers regard as current and relevant based on global trends?

-Products that offer the latest in energy efficiency

-Products that required less energy to produce

-Products that require less energy to distribute

-Products that will have minimal environmental impact upon disposal

-Products that have proven reliability and longevity as customers keep making quality a high priority over previous disposable product lines

-Products that are current in design but can be upgraded easily in the future. Consumers expect longer life cycles from their computers, for example and will expect to upgrade their platforms at least once before buying completely new systems

-Products that offer the latest designs in safety. Products from power tools, to tires to baby seats continually offer leading edge refinements in safety, that is especially relevant to the family oriented consumer.

Does your product line reflect the current trends and issues that are top of mind with your consumers? In their eyes, is your product line current, relevant and focused? Do consumers believe that you conduct ongoing research and continually refine your product line as discussed and weed out older and less relevant products?

The days are over where big-box broad SKU merchandising just for the sake of sheer selection will impress today’s consumer. Today, relevance to current global issues is the consumers acid test.

Take Action Today:

1) Scrutinize your product line and phase out products that are not current and may be perceived as tired and obsolete in the eyes of the consumer.

2) Refine your product line and be the authority in the eyes of your customers on what’s hot and relevant. Demonstrate that you are well informed in regards to current global issues that they see as critical.

3) Add new and leading edge products to your merchandise line and prove to the consumers that you’ve done your homework.

4) Schedule your team to review your product line monthly and make product focus and refinement and ongoing process.

retail, retailer, leadership, operations, sales, merchandise, global trends, global issues
customers, consumers, merchandise, selection

Many consumer surveys indicate that consumers are obsessed with personal debt these days. Rightly so, a shaky economy and unemployment woes motivate people to cleanse themselves of debt as much as possible. I’ve discussed a migration to needs-based spending by consumers and how spending habits have changed to reduce spending and focus on paying off existing debt.

Last year I discussed the power of the Layaway Program. Layaways bridge the gap between increasing formal debt and the need for goods that consumers may not have the cash to buy outright. A layaway purchase holds a desired item or items for the customer in the store and enables them to make incremental payments over a short term, usually six months or less.

Layaways help consumers get items they may not be able to afford as an outright purchase and helps retailers close sales. To a consumer, layaways offer them short term credit that is considered informal and does not appear on a credit report or affect a credit score. Customers do not perceive layaway credit as a financial encumbrance. The consequences of failing to pay a layaway is the loss of funds paid up and the item returns to the store’s inventory. In some cases, most stores that cancel a layaway for the customer will refund their money and take the financial losses, just to make the customer loyal and happy.

Under these circumstances, layaways are an attractive method of buying large ticket items within a consumer society that has revised its approach to debt. Retailers must offer this largely forgotten program that fell by the wayside when easy credit made the Layaway redundant. Today, tight credit and fear of debt makes the resurrection of the layaway a powerful sales tool for the smaller retailer.

Take Action Today:

1) Review the concepts of Layaways with your team and devise a program for each store.

2) Develop your Layaway program’s key points such as minimum price point, payment cycles and your cancellation policy.

3) Introduce layaways with media advertising and signs in your store for consumers to be aware of. train employees to discuss layaway options with customers on the floor as part of the presentation.

retail, retailer, leadership, operations, sales, merchandise, competition,
clientele, customers, relationships, layaways, credit

Small Retailers Can Level The Playing Field With Better Websites

The majority of smaller retailers got on the internet bandwagon some years ago because it was trendy and the right thing to do at the time. Most put together minimal websites on small budgets that basically served to inform customers where the store was, who owned it and what it was all about.

Without question, the internet’s value as a direct sales tool will continue to grow as more and more consumers, even the older ones learn to trust the security and convenience of on line shopping. Just about everyone under 40 will shop on line without hesitation.

Is it time to give your website a facelift? A number of off the shelf e-commerce solutions and shopping baskets now open the possibilities of selling directly on line at low cost for the smaller retailer. In fact Paypal offers a free shopping basket service that is easy to install and use by even the smaller retailer with little on-line expertise.

What else can your website offer today at low cost to the customer? Through Google Maps, you can offer custom directions to any of your stores from just about any location in North America. Customers who visit your site and plan on passing through your town in the future will find this feature handy.

Above and beyond cataloguing all of your products on line for direct sale, you can also offer email services for warranty questions or concerns with products. You can also ask customers who email you, if they would like a return phone call from one of your employees and select a convenient time to call.

Recently, there have been developments in affordable and even free packages that add on to your website and offer live help to customers logged onto your site. A computer terminal by the cash that employees can monitor can be used to offer answers to questions in real time to customers on line. Customers who can get instant answers from a real person on line will typically make positive buying decisions on line. This is a relatively new innovation that goes far to enhance the on-line customer experience. You may also want to offer free delivery on orders over a minimum amount to make on line orders as attractive as possible.

Lastly, you can use your website to post all of your sales and special events that are coming up. Drive quality traffic to your store by broadcasting events that will entertain, impress and dazzle your customers!

In my next article, I’ll show you how to drive more customers to your new and improved site at low cost!

Take Action Today:

1) Examine your current website and consider some of the recent innovations that can be added to your site to increase on-line as well as in-store sales.

2) Installation of these new add-ons is not difficult and no longer requires complex coding. See if any of your employees are computer literate and could manage your website at minimal cost.

3) Install a terminal at the cash desk and offer live help through many of the packages available at minimal cost.

retail, retailer, leadership, operations, sales, merchandise, competition,
clientele, customers, relationships, technology. environment, internet, websites

In earlier articles I have elaborated on the need to re-invent and tweak your brand in the new economy. Consumers with less cash at hand are more frugal and calculating with their purchases. With a more conservative outlook, families also focus on the environment and favor more environmentally friendly products. Consumers will certainly buy products made in America or Canada or whatever their home country is as a matter of sovereignty.

Purchasing products including food from your own country has now evolved to a new level: Buying Local. Consumers feel a connection with foods or other products that have been produced in proximity of their community. There’s also the added benefit that the cost of transporting the goods to market is minimal. Think of the energy consumed to bring some food from South America to your supermarket compared to a 35 mile trip from a local farm outside of town.

Does your store feature goods from foreign countries?  Cheap labor countries like China, India and The Philippines have flooded our stores with cheap mass produced products. It’s agreed that in this price driven economy that consumers will buy these items to fit their budgets, however most are prepared to spend a little more for locally produced goods. It makes them feel good too!

Even a small percentage of your product offering that features local goods reinvents your brand in the eyes of the consumer. Local goods can be featured near the front of the store and on sale with prominent signs. You may also have an opportunity to have a local supplier do some in store promotions and demonstrations for your customers. Solid long term loyalty can be created when customers not only like your local products but have also met the creators of the goods personally in your store.

Your whole store doesn’t need to be overhauled to enhance your brand. Start with a handful of selected local products and promote them for their quality, price and “made at home” features. Your customers will appreciate how your store now caters to this hot new trend.

Take Action Today:

1) Consider local goods for your store. Common categories for local goods include foods, kitchen items, wood products, hard goods and specialty clothing.

2) Review possibilities with all your employees. They may know of specific suppliers in town or near your community that can offer competitively priced home spun merchandise.

3) Aggressively promote your hand picked local goods in your store and in local advertising. Enhance your brand and meet the new needs of environmentally concerned familes.

retail, retailer, leadership, operations, sales, merchandise, competition,
clientele, customers, relationships, technology. environment, made at home, local

In our new era of retail, consumers are not only constrained by limited disposable cash, but also from an overwhelming choice in our hyper-competitive market.

Customers often defer making buying decisions when they feel that they have so many things they need to buy and a massive array of retailers all competing for their hard earned dollars.

Progressive retailers need to rise above the crowded market place and engage customers on a new level. Indeed traditional marketing has its place however the new breed of retail sales associate must work towards building their own clientele network.

Every retailer should implement a clientele building program where all employees who interact with customers on the floor offer them the opportunity to join their own personal clientele list. A stronger bond is established and the customer now associates the store and the employee with future business. Personal clientele building creates stronger and more intimate relationships with customers that positively differentiates your organization from the traditional competition.

If you do not have a clientele program, you can start out with a simple form or card system that employees can use to obtain information about customers, their email address, interests etc. You can use this information to periodically contact the client with events, sales, new products lines etc. that they may find of interest. Hearing from a store employee whom they have met either by email, letter or phone adds a personal touch and makes your store top of mind over the rank and file competition.

Clientele programs with technology can become very sophisticated systems, with email broadcasts, newsletters, electronic coupons and a lot more. The main issue is to start with a simple system and get the process implemented with full employee participation. A customer is someone who comes and goes from your store. A client is someone you know well and have a relationship with. Clients think of your store when they consider a purchase over your competition.

Take Action Today:

1) Create a basic clientele program using file cards or simple forms. You can later automate this into a computerized database management system

2) Introduce your clientele system to your employees and explain the critical need for clientele relationships in today’s competitive market. Train them on how to establish clients and garner their information for your database.

3) Monitor clientele building progress by employee on a weekly basis.

4) Add technology in a progressive manner and automate your system.

retail, retailer, leadership, operations, sales, merchandise, competition,
clientele, customers, relationships, technology

Position Your Brand With New Items Offering Added Value

In an earlier article, I elaborated on the changing buying mentality of the consumer in these challenging times. Customers have migrated towards more of a needs-based buying mentality from a mixed wants and needs based buying pattern that we have witnessed in more buoyant markets.

Spring is a mere two months away and retailers should be scrutinizing their product mix to ensure that they offer new products with added value for the new buying mentality. Customers are becoming more discriminating with their purchases and will buy new and innovative items that offer a higher level of durability, quality or that simply do more for them for less money.

What attributes will customers look for this year? It’s obvious that price will be the top criteria in the buying decision process. However other product attributes will induce customers to buy of they’re impressed with new an innovative items:

Merchandise that last longer - a car battery that can last 60 months, likely that last car battery you’ll ever need to buy

Items that can do more than one task - a cell phone with a built-in camera is a popular example

Products that are “green”, waste less and are good for the environment - concentrated cleaning supplies with all natural ingredients appeal to many families

Products that now offer more for the same price - food products with 20% more such as cereals, or other consumables appeal to value conscious consumers

Other strategies to add value to products, if you do not plan on adding new and innovative new merchandise lines can include:

Enhanced or extended warranties that are included at no extra charge and offer longer protection for the consumer

Added bonus items added to products will also improved the perceived value of the purchase.

This year, consumers will look for durability, versatility and price as top purchasing criteria in order to maximize the return on investment of their hard earned dollars. This approach to purchasing will be universal within the consumable, clothing and hard goods categories.

Take Action Today:

1) Review your current inventory mix and plan to introduce new product lines that do more for the customer for a great price.

2) Examine the other outlined strategies to enhance your value statement to the consumer.

3) Aggressively promote your enhanced value statement through media advertising and in store signs. Make sure the customers know what’s new and improved in your store!

retail, retailer, leadership, operations, sales, merchandise, finances, recession
economy, boomers, fair trade, green, youth, diversification, warranty, bonus