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The advent of online shopping has slowly yet steadily led to the closure of many retail stores. A report by Retail Drive predicts the closure of 50,000 stores globally by 2027 due to retail. This is because it provides a broader choice of products and services to be bought with a single click. However, it can never replace the tangible shopping experience at retail stores. The immediate availability of the product and the tremendous in-person customer experience at the retail store are irreplaceable.
The retail store business will never be dead if the owners understand how to attract customers. So, let us know the tricks and bits of attracting new customers to run a retail store successfully.
Ways to Attract Customers to Your Retail Store
1. Enhance Storefront Appearance
A good-looking storefront creates a significant first impression that intrigues any new customer to visit it. So, store owners are to be mindful of innovative displays. It should communicate their brand identity and meet the expectations of new customers. For this, retail shop owners can create attractive signage using sober colors and simple, bold font styles. As the owner, you must ensure the signage is visible for the vehicle or foot traffic day and night from a distance. It lowers the chance of missing out or the hassle of finding a store for new customers.
Your retail store can beautify its surroundings by installing fresh flowers and plants. This will present natural warmth and cozy surroundings that attract people to visit. Additionally, comfortable seating while maintaining cleanliness creates a welcoming environment for new customers.
Your store can design a selfie zone at the storefront. This zone will let customers take photos, creating your free promotion. As they post the pictures on social media, people show interest in knowing about your retail store. This will drive new customers to visit your brick-and-mortar store while experiencing less difficulty locating your business.
2. Improve In-Store Design and Environment
A good-looking storefront must be backed by a visually enhanced in-store design. This is because it completes the look that attracts new customers. You must hire an interior designer to develop a plan for creative displays and quality lighting.
Remember, store lighting influences the customers’ ambiance and product visibility. It promotes highlighting essential and seasonal products that influence impulse purchases. Quality lighting also influences new customers to find crucial products, easing their shopping experience effortlessly. Additionally, the creative display tells customers about your business and its offerings.
Comforting music could resonate with the ambiance in your retail store. This is because music creates a pleasurable shopping experience. It also makes the customers feel less bored and puts the shop in a good mood.
Also, the in-store smell can be emphasized as the technique helps create an inviting and pleasant environment for the customers. No person would like a smelly store as it represents a lack of hygiene and a poor in-store environment. Thus, as your store’s owners, you must take an extra step to create a welcoming store environment that could drive new customers.
3. Innovative Store Layout
An innovative store layout attracts new and old customers to your store. This is because it helps in easier product finding and reaching in the store. It improves the buying experience, which makes customers enjoy exploring products within your retail store.
A well-developed floor plan is necessary for brick-and-mortar businesses to create a compelling store layout. It indicates how displays, shelves, sales, and POS systems are installed. It also informs how products are sorted and placed around for customers’ reach.
Five essential types of store floor plans are grid, diagonal, loop, mixed and forced path. Big retailers use the grid floor plan as they require more extended shelves with more comprehensive items to be presented. However, loop planning is used by small businesses that have curbing space to use most of the area.
An innovative store layout allows customers to shop for products easily. Therefore, the focus should be on creating spaces between shelves that enable wheelchair and trolley access for a better shopping experience. Moreover, rotating shelves should be made to reach products quickly. It would attract customers to your retail store from the improved facility to shop without hindrance.
4. Develop a Community Hub for Your Retail Store
An in-store community hub creates a space for the socialization of its customers. A good interaction never dulls away a place. Your retail store may become the new hangout place, increasing foot traffic and growing your business.
An initial step for creating a community hub in your retail store is providing free internet access. This allows people to connect within the store without hassle. It also creates an opportunity to interact with like-minded customers and discuss shasharer product choices while brewing friendships.
In your store, create comfortable seating and offer refreshing drinks like tea and coffee to support community building. This way, people can converse while having a cozy place to sit. It also enables merchants to interact with target customers to gather feedback and understand how to improve their business further.
5. Make Your Retail Store Pet-Friendly
A pet-friendly store improves retail businesses by attracting new and old customers. Such stores indicate they care about their human customers and their pets, who provide social and mental support.
You can provide offerings such as a bowl of water with free dog and cat food at the entrance of your retail store. It appreciates your effort to care for the hunger and thirst of the innocent animals. The cashiers at the checkout point could offer a treat for the pet while their owners are buying and sorting things to be billed. The payment process is to be hands-free for the pet owner so that they do not need to leave the leash.
If retail marketers allow pets inside the store, they should know how to keep the environment safe and healthy for the pets. No decor or products are to be present near the floor of your retail store that may harm pets, and the staff in your store is to be trained in managing pets with elevated temperaments.
6. Support Omnichannel Sales
Omnichannel sales provide a seamless shopping experience across online and offline channels. It drives more foot traffic for your retail store by attracting online customers to visit the store. Businesses like you can use location targeting in online campaigns where store owners set the radius of their business. It helps new customers to locate the company and visit them easily.
An example of omnichannel sales is Starbucks. Reward points are accumulated each time an individual pays through a Starbucks card. The card linked with the app shows nearby stores where people can gather in-person gifts and order drinks to redeem the discounts.
7. Create In-Store Pick-Ups
Retail stores can also support in-store picks to drive new customers. This allows consumers to order online while they visit the physical store to pick up the product, reducing the waiting time.
However, when customers visit the store, most explore the products on the aisle while waiting for their pick up. Thus, adopting this idea for your retail store would improve sales and promote customer interaction to make them revisit the place.
8. Improve Customer Services
In brick-and-mortar stores, exceptional customer service is vital in attracting new customers. This is because it influences customers’ loyalty and trust in the store services, improving their brand reputation and attracting new customers.
Retail stores need to train their employees to provide excellent customer service. This helps them gather skills and knowledge to tackle any complex situation. It would be best if you focused on educating employees on communicating calmly with all customers. This would help them learn the importance of empathy and compassion, which would assist employees at your retail store in responding politely, even during heated conversations.
Train your in-store employees to help people with varied issues. People with disabilities struggle with shopping alone, and the employees must know how to help them create a smooth shopping experience. This shows humanity and excellent customer service, which drives customer loyalty and new customers to visit your store.
Additionally, train your employees to remember all product details at your retail store. It would help them resolve any customer queries and provide personalized recommendations. This later creates a positive shopping experience and word-of-mouth to attract new customers.
9. Provide Discounts and Referrals
You will hardly find customers who are unwilling to make a bargain to get their favorite product. Thus, providing varied in-store discounts satisfies existing customers and drives new people. A few discount ideas to attract new customers to your retail store are as follows:
- Allow “buy one, get one” free offers to provide a product at a discounted price. This helps clear the inventory of old products and encourages customers, old and new, to visit your store. It also promotes increased product sales by attracting new customers.
- Provide free samples of products to customers to let them experience them. This helps introduce new customers to new products in your retail store and helps them make informed decisions about buying the product.
- Arrange coupons for in-store shopping that can be later redeemed. As a retail store, you can provide discount coupons for first-time shopping to attract new customers.
- Present flash sales to prompt new and old customers to purchase from your store.
- Create luck draw events for holiday discounts and other things in your retail store. It would attract new customers to buy from you with the hope of getting discounts.
- Offer referral discounts to existing customers so that they can attract new customers for your store.
10. Make Promotions
In driving new customers to your store, create promotions for your retail store. Invite influencers to retail stores to promote your store and its products. Let them take as many pictures as required and spend time within the store. This will help the influencers create crucial content to promote the uniqueness of your store. It would drive their fanbase to know about the retail store and encourage them to purchase while your business flourishes.
The other way to promote your retail business is by leveraging user-generated content. Share buyers’ photos with their reviews on your store window or share them online on your business page. It rates the business from the consumer’s viewpoint. This creates credibility and increases trust, driving new customers to buy from the store.
11. Maintain Improved Retail Inventory System
Inventory management is vital for retail shops like your store to ensure enough products are present to meet customer demands. It helps retailers like you avoid unnecessary increases in the cost of products. This is because products are in the required quantity according to customers’ needs.
Using online inventory management software in your store to manage product inventory would be best. This is because it helps the customers clarify the inventory activity and accessibility of their desired products, which may not be found online. It leads them to visit the store to buy the products while allowing your business to get new customers. Retail stores use the best inventory management software: SOS Inventory, NetSuite, Oracle, etc.
12. Create an Online Presence in Your Retail Store
Nowadays, every business has an online presence irrespective of their size and nature of operation. This is because online presence helps the company reach a wider audience and increase growth. Initially, use the Google My Business platform to create your online presence. Share store details such as address, business hours, phone number, email, and location. It helps new customers to locate and connect with your retail store easily. The optimization will be done for online presence to make the business visible to the local audience.
For greater exposure, your retail store will be listed on various business sites. Also, maintain an active official website and social media page for your business. Here, encourage customers to share reviews of products and services from your store. This will promote active customer engagement and make new customers easily trust you to visit and buy.
Further, create live events from the store to let customers attend virtual meets. It would make them better understand your business and get attracted to visit you. Also, share details of any promotions, events, and discounts in stores on these sites. This will keep the consumers updated regarding your retail store’s offerings and attract them to visit you.
13. Host Events in Your Retail Store
Your store can attract new customers by hosting various in-store events. These events allow new consumers to have a purpose in visiting the store and attending the event. During the event, they may actively communicate with others in the store while exploring it, creating gradual engagement with the store.
Here are a few examples of events:
Your retail store can arrange product launch events, where you invite new brands to present their innovative products for trial. This helps the customer analyze the quality and usefulness of the product before buying it, creating hype around it and influencing later sales in your retail store.
Host a book launch and signing event where the author will be present. Your business can attract bookworms in the area who will explore your store while meeting their favorite author.
You can host a charity event to raise funds for a social cause in your area. This would attract new customers who would participate in the excellent cause highlighted by your store and visit it.
14. Partnership with other Retailers for Your Retail Store
Neighboring businesses are not always the villains in your growth if you can leverage their positive side. It is best to work in partnership with other local retailers, where a friendly bond is created. This helps one another grow in their respective fields with healthy competition.
Thus, collaborate with local businesses and other retailers to hand out leaflets and flyers about one another’s businesses in each other’s stores. It helps expand each other’s visibility and attracts a broader audience.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. How do we attract new customers to retail stores?
Retail stores can attract customers by hosting events, offering omnichannel sales services, creating attractive window displays, promotional offers and many more.
2. How can customer service at the retail store be improved?
Customer service can be improved at your retail store by training your staff to deliver quality support to consumers. Be proactive in understanding customers’ needs and demands. Modifying product presentation and delivery to support increased conversion would also help.
3. Why should retail stores partner with neighboring businesses?
The partnership promotes business jointly in the local community, which benefits everyone’s growth.
4. Is effective inventory management fruitful in attracting new customers to retail stores?
Yes. It helps customers know if their choice of products is present in the store. It also allows businesses to ensure that product supply remains sufficient to avoid raising costs in the event of increased supply and demand conditions.
Conclusion
The ability to keep new customers flowing to your store is essential for the growth of your business. However, selecting ideas that resonate with expanding retail store business depends on your analytical choice.
Access feedback from your customers through surveys and interviews. This helps to determine the exact changes needed to promote your retail store and target consumers’ needs. Remember, retail stores are never dying because of online business. Using the right strategy to attract customers is why some are lagging in the market. So, get going with the new ideas!!
Last Updated on by Anoushka
