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Customers And Loyalty Come With Devoted and Enthusiastic Retailing--Part I

Guest post by: Richard Gordon

Article Overview: Traditionally as specialty retailers, we have gone out and bought the merchandise we liked and felt was appropriate for our business. Those of us who had a good eye or had some ability at marketing were able to move our store’s product assortments reasonably well. But things are changing. Increased competition and technology are forcing change. Retailing from here on out is going to require turning a good part of this strategy upside down. Again, in the past we all started with products and categories we wanted to carry, and then worked to build a customer base for that merchandise. But today those retailers who are doing the best jobs of sales and profit margins are learning to adjust to the rapidly changing retail world by taking advantage of more technology and information.

Customers And Loyalty Come With Devoted and Enthusiastic Retailing--Part I

Traditionally as specialty retailers, we have gone out and bought the merchandise we liked and felt was appropriate for our business. Those of us who had a good eye or had some ability at marketing were able to move our store’s product assortments reasonably well. But things are changing. Increased competition and technology are forcing change. Retailing from here on out is going to require turning a good part of this strategy upside down. Again, in the past we all started with products and categories we wanted to carry, and then worked to build a customer base for that merchandise. But today those retailers who are doing the best jobs of sales and profit margins are learning to adjust to the rapidly changing retail world by taking advantage of more technology and information. Customers are more demanding and shorter on time than ever before. In order to capture our share of the market, we’ve got to spend more time and attention on identifying who are customers are going to be and exactly what they’re going to want first. By turning things upside down, I mean that we will need to use information and worry about the customer and what they want first, as opposed to deciding what we want to sell them before they arrive within the doors of our store. Devoting your business to customer “wants” with a focus on good solid information and knowledge from customers first, and then working to build compelling and uniquely tailored merchandise assortments that react to those customer tastes, wants, demographics and buying habits. Retailing is becoming more about your customers and less about your own personal preferences than ever before. The approach here is still working from the one or two words so important in retailing and yet so ignored. “Emotion” is the word and one other word would be “connection”. You must learn customer wants primarily, and develop your offerings as a retailer around both wants and needs. When you can do this effectively with the right merchandise and the right customer service experience, you are making a connection with your customer that is hard to for anyone else to duplicate.

To Put It More Bluntly

In the past, stores basically approached things by buying and selling “stuff” they wanted to sell “consumers”, while working real hard to sell it as best they could. Today, a retailer must focus on the “stuff” his “customers” want and need by paying attention to them in many ways and then purchasing and stocking the stuff that says, “See, I love you guys and I know what you want!” Remember,“Customers are people you serve. Consumers are statistics!” (Stanley Marcus)

Obviously this new strategy will need to be built on information, but that information will need to come as a result of better customer relationships. Better customer relationships mean listening to customers, asking your customers through surveys what they want and why. These relationships will also come from tailoring customer loyalty programs that take advantage of what you are learning about your customers through information captured at your POS. It all also comes down to creating and building an emotional connection with your customers through your employees, by focusing on your customer’s wants, desires and a more interesting, comfortable and uniquely tailored retail store.

Any sales training class has always taught salespeople to sell customer “wants”. Selling “wants” is great and is still important. But unfortunately good salespeople are in short supply and an increasingly competitive environment means that just selling based on customer wants is not enough! Retailers will also need to make better use of all of this information to help form warm and fuzzy connections with customers. It will be done not only by tailoring the right merchandise assortments for your customer, it will also be done by creating an atmosphere, image and feeling within your store all as a result of what you are learning on an ongoing basis from YOUR uniquely targeted customers. I call it “Devoted & Enthusiastic Retailing.”

(continued, see part 2)

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Article Tags: employee sales, increasing sales, retail management, retail sales



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