If you haven’t noticed, retailers in Australia are still struggling to recover following the global financial crisis.
But it’s not the direct impact of the GFC, but what has happened during this time including the strong performance of the Aussie Dollar and the emergence of new online retailers.
At first we saw the big retailers including Myer and David Jones discounting to generate sales, and before too long stock was discounted as soon as it hit the shelves.
The discounts have not been small and are definitely not seasonal, we see all year round discounts now between 20% - 50%. Smaller retailers have followed suit and unfortunately without the buying power, it is a real danger game. Great news for the consumer? Maybe in the short-term.
Then we saw the emergence of Scoopon and other group deal websites hit mainstream Australia to really encourage online purchases.
So what do our smaller, local retailers do to combat recent trends to fight through the current slump? I’m certainly not going to say I have all the answers but doing exactly the same thing as you’ve done for years now is NOT the answer. Get thinking, Get active and Create a buzz around your business.
Stop the widespread discounting of your products/services
Whilst wanting to turn your stock over, discounting every day of the week can and will likely affect the customer’s value of your products/services. If you reduce prices for an extended period of time, will they come back to pay full retail price again?
Why not identify which day of the week is slow for business and promote heavily discounted prices on that day. Make it a Buy One Get One Free to ensure greater spend or provide a FREE gift with purchases that will ultimately cost you less than discounting. If customers spend $100 or more, then give them a $20 voucher to spend on their return visit just to get them in again.
Explore the opportunities with Scoopon and other group deal websites
On average group deal websites such as Scoopon require you to discount your product/service by 50% and then take a 25% cut off sales. So roughly you can expect to take home only 25% of the full retail price. So it’s not going to be about making a huge profit, it is however about pre-selling hundreds of items, driving people into your store and backing yourself that they’ll come back. If you’re going to follow the big retailers and offer massive discounts, then do it with this platform and attract NEW customers.
Start a Facebook and/or Twitter Account
If Facebook was a country, it would have the third largest population in the world. This is a stat that surely has you opening up a new tab to Facebook, yes? Apparently not, small business is yet to capitalise on the opportunity. There are certainly misconceptions about Facebook and one of the opinions I regularly hear is that my customers are too old for Facebook. Rubbish. The baby boomer segment was recently identified as Facebook’s fastest growing. You have to fish where the fishes are.
You will find that one of the two tools will be better suited to your business. Facebook is about creating a 24-hour, 7 day a week online community to create and engage in a conversation about your business. Twitter is a micro-blog restricting you to 140 characters which can be used to establish knowledge in the marketplace, promote sales, and announcing new stock.
Whichever you choose to get involved with, listen to what your customers are saying, respond to queries immediately, be honest and the rest will evolve.
Location-based offers are coming, get in first
Smartphones are coming and they are coming in a big way. If you’re unsure of what a smartphone is, they are the wave of Iphones, Android-based phones and Blackberry’s.
Each are GPS-enabled and with the technology comes many opportunities. Networking tools such as Foursquare ask consumers to ‘Check-In’ to businesses within a small radius based of course on their GPS location.
So go to Foursquare and register your business immediately. You will find even with no promotion, people will start to check-in and leave tips for other users regarding your business. Do the same for Facebook Places which is the main competitor to Foursquare.
Following this, the opportunity for retailers is to present specials to active users within the area. Retailers can offer 2 for 1 coupons sent to mobile handsets if they check in. Perhaps even offer a $20 voucher to every tenth person to check-in.
This space is still very much in its infancy stage and with time more opportunities will become available, but for now why not establish your position before your competitors, because it will not be going away.
Utilise QR Code Technology
Again with the smartphones. These terrific new handsets can scan barcodes, the same sought of codes as those used in-store for years. They also scan QR Codes, which is where I’m taking this argument. QR Codes are simple little 2D images that when scanned with a smartphone can direct the user directly to a retailers website, Facebook Page or even a YouTube Video.
When you’re distributing promotional flyers include a QR Code, you can have it directing people to your website or even to a simple Youtube video. Or produce your own branded stickers with a QR code and stick them on product tags, when customers take their purchase home they can scan the code and be ‘liking’ your Facebook page within seconds.
UPDATE: Depending on your brand positioning, I would also be looking at investigating your opportunities with Augmented Reality applications.
Is your website responsive?
You’ve seen your customers on their mobile phones come into your store right? If your site isn’t responsive, I doubt they came in looking at yours.
If you want your customers to find your business or product online via a mobile then you want to serve a responsive website. The numbers say it all.
Google has published statistics referring to the impact of a mobile-friendly site on consumer behaviour:
- 67% of mobile users say that when they visit a mobile-friendly site, they’re more likely to buy a site’s product or service
- 48% said that if a site didn’t work well on their smartphones, it made them feel like the company didn’t care about their business
Keep in contact with your customers
How much better would business be if every customer came back again and again.
Collect your customers mobile numbers or collect their email addresses. From here SMS offers can be distributed, or if you’re collecting emails, then distribute an email newsletter once a month.
Leverage your suppliers
Talk to your suppliers, ask them if there is anything they can help you out with. Retail liquor outlets have been hosting wine and beer representatives for years, holding tastings to help generate interest in products. Customers love seeing this activity in the outlets. Ask yourself how you can leverage your supplier to do something similar.
Are you looking at some advertising or doing a letterbox drop in the local neighbourhood, then ask your suppliers for a financial contribution in-turn for specifically advertising their product which you are selling.
At the end of the day, it’s all about thinking, acting and creating buzz around your business.