It is not about second-guessing your customer, but continuously building your store’s narrative by communicating and displaying what is interesting about your products and services. When store owners communicate what is is interesting about their stores, customers walk in to check it out. It could be a new product, design, a product with an interesting name or an offer.

What’s New Vs What’s Good Vs What people love.

The observation by successful store owners on what has worked for them could be summarized to a formula of promoting:

🌟 Shine a Spotlight: Dedicate 20% of your efforts to flaunting the freshest arrivals. Showcase them in captivating window displays and in-store presentations.

🚀 Elevate Excellence: Allocate 30% to championing what's extraordinary in your inventory. Highlight trending items and premium products to let customers know what's in vogue.

❤️ Cherish Customer Favorites: The remaining 50% revolves around what people adore. Shape your store's identity around these beloved gems, ensuring top-notch quality, unbeatable value, and an enticing variety.

To illustrate:

• 20% of your marketing expense in showcasing the new products in the form of window merchandise, in-store product display and messaging around the product to make a consumer connect.

• 30% of your budget and efforts needs to be spent in promoting what is trending and what are the top-quality products in your store. You can have dedicated space to display the popular products, you can display or mention “What’s Hot” on your shop window, educate your staff on that products that are absolutely amazing. Promoting “What’s Good” on your shop window, in-store communication (on a black board or a digital display or a simple pin-up notice bord) and in your social media builds thought leadership and attracts customers seeking a store that consistently delivers quality.

• 50% of your efforts would be dedicated in promoting value. The products your store is known for. Reassuring that the quality, value and variety are maintained. This also includes any bundle offers or deals that increases value of purchase by your regulars, helps you clear stock and most importantly protects your store from competition.

While the above mentioned strategy is a fundamental formula for success, we have also compiled a brief list of popular promotions tactics store owners use to improve the walk-ins:

1. Market to existing customers:

• Tell them how much you miss them through an SMS, Email or in store
• The key to making this work is to figure out how often your products are re-purchased. If you’re selling cosmetics, for example, you need to know how long a bottle of foundation typically lasts. From there, you can set up an outreach schedule where you contact customers to remind them to come back and repurchase.

2. Go beyond selling products:

• Sell how you can help find the right product
• Sell how are you open to hear out your customers and willing to spend time with them and be patient in knowing what they are looking for
• For example: “We will help you find the most interesting cheese in the market.” or “Got a question about ramen, we could answer with examples.” or “Let find your next amazing specs”. You get the idea.

3. Make it a social experience:

Shopping, in many ways, is a social activity. People head down to retail stores with friends and family because it’s fun to shop with their loved ones. In some cases, shoppers choose to visit physical stores because they want to interact with real people and have back and forth conversations about products. It is a good idea to make socialization a bigger part of your store experience.

You could

• Host sampling events.

• Group activity such as exercise sessions, planting hacks, cooking tips, interior decoration tricks, etc., small activities that has a wow factor that suits your store theme.

• Encourage social sharing. Create social sharing opportunities within your store to get people to talk you up on social media. An easy way to do this is to display a branded hashtag and your store’s social handles like Instagram, X, Tik Tok in certain parts of your shop.

The other common trends in trying to increase the store walk-ins are to be contextual to the season or local events or consumer trends.

Elevating foot traffic and revenue is within reach—just create irresistible reasons for people to visit your store. Embrace these tactics, rally your entire team, and get ready for a thriving store. This practice needs to be top-down and is better if it involves everyone working in the store. With ShelfPerks OS, customer interaction is a breeze, giving you quick access to all your products through a smartphone app. Get set to welcome a bustling crowd!