7 Ways to Magnify Your Retail Profits

– Debbie Allen, All Rights Reserved

1. Segment Customer Lists
   Carefully analyze past buying behavior of your customers and categorize by their buying habits. Basically you will be slicing and dicing your database list. Discounts may motivate your customers better than premiums, vice versa for others. Study your list and break it down to create special offers for different customer groups.
2. Isolate Your Biggest Spenders & Build BIG-ticket Offers for Them
   These are the customers that do not want to shop the sales and always purchase your most expensive items. Make it easy for them by packaging products together.
3. Identify Your Top 20% & Invest More on These VIP Customers
   Make more contacts with them and spend more marketing dollars on them. Consider gifts delivered during the holidays, costlier direct mail, etc. Go where the money is! Your best buyer is your BEST buyer.
4. Create UP Sells
   Whether selling in the store, on the phone, on the web, by mail or at the cash register, you should engineer upsells. Suggest companion items or deluxe options for just about everything.
5. Develop Special Events
   Offer many special events throughout the year such as garden classes, children’s classes, flower arranging, special VIP night, closed-door sale for preferred customers, etc.
6. Offer Premiums and Gifts
   Premiums give you better leverage than discounts. Premiums that can be used as gifts give your customers more leverage for their dollar. For example, a $75 gift certificate with every $775 in purchases is better than a $75 discount. It costs you less, there will be a percentage never redeemed, and some will bring in new customers who will spend more than the certificate amount. And, best of all, you get more repeat business.
7. Do not buy into Recession Thinking
   Do not let whatever the media, your peers, your competitors and even your customers have to say about Things Being Tough. People find money for what they really want, period.

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