three tips to help you
succeed at retail
However, success stories can be found as
well, and with proper planning and vision a
pedorthist can have a profitable and strong
retail component.
the odds that they – and their friends - will seek
you out in the future.
Here are three tips that can help any retailer:
Successful businesses know where they are
and where they want to be. That information
isn’t intuitive but factual and comes from key
metrics that you are measuring on a consistent
basis. These are the statistics like your daily
revenue, profit per customer, cash on hand
and so on. However, each business is unique
and your key metrics could be quite different
than your neighbor’s store. A retail pedorthic
operation might track how many OTC insoles
are sold each day or the number of pedorthic
evaluations performed each week. The
importance is in identifying what data points
you should track and doing it on a routine basis.
Besides your general operating statistics, selling
statistics can be really important to give you and
your sales staff daily goals. A very important
metric is sales-per-hour.
Tracking
that number
"when to
call?"
helps you coach weak sales associates (which
could be you) and helps you plan store coverage
better. Also, calculate your average transaction
amount. If your average transaction was $150
but recently went down to $110, you now know
you need to work on building that statistic
back up. The other selling metric to consider
is UPTs, or units-per-transaction. Take the
number of items sold and divide it by the
number of slips. Having a low UPT means
that your customers aren’t being shown addons or other revenue generating accessories.
Once you do identify the metrics that you feel
1. Be relevant to your customers
The retail landscape is changing. It can be said
that the days are gone when a business reached
out to customers. Instead, customers are in
the driver’s seat and they are the ones doing
the reaching. While media fragmentation and
societal changes make it increasingly difficult to
reach potential shoppers, the age of the internet
has made it very easy for customers to find you
– and hundreds of other businesses just like
yours. Most shops will fail if their goal is to just
sell lots of products because commodities can
be purchased more cheaply, more conveniently
and even more quickly online. The key is to
be relevant to your customers – both current
and future. Focus on the solutions you provide
rather than just the products you sell. Mass
market advertising is becoming less effective
than targeted advertising and multiple, segmentspecific social media outreaches can help tell
the public what you are, why you are important
and how they can reach you. Engage with your
current customers after the sale – reach out to
them through social media or even through
thank-you cards. Try to get an understanding of
what they want and bring it in for them. Being
caring and responsive will make your store
relevant to your customers, which will increase
2. Make measurement a routine
"The key is to be relevant to your cust