Your Upcoming Successful Weekend - or Not

Here are five actions you can take to increase the likelihood of having a successful weekend.

1. Offer the customer a free service. Retailers who sell jewelry or handbags can offer to clean the customer's jewelry or handbag while they shop.  Shoe stores can offer to change out the shoelaces in their customer's shoes. Cellphone retailers could offer a mini tune-up on the phone by polishing the display, cleaning the camera lens, and checking for any software update.  And before you discount this idea you might want to talk to Susan who did this last Wednesday and made a $1,000+ sale to one customer!

2. Create impromptu events. Pick a product or product category and offer demonstrations throughout the weekend.  To thank your customer for taking time to participate in the demonstration, enter him/her into a drawing for a free product or gift card.  Not only will this engage customers and increase the possibility of making a sale, but you'll also get contact information to follow-up with them next week.

3. Offer some aggressive weekend-only specials. While I'm not a big fan of competing on price, some weekend specials are great for "priming the pump."  Be sure to highlight that the specials are only good through Sunday.

4. Offer food and drinks. I'm telling you, this works, and one of the reasons it works is because so few people do it.

5. Combine all four into a Customer Appreciation Weekend. Sometimes the best parties are the impromptu "just because" kind. People right now need to feel good and be appreciated, and if anything this will create good Karma!

Here are now five things that you can do to decrease the likelihood of having a successful weekend.

1. Stalk customers as they shop in the store. Remember, if you follow a customer around without adding value it's called stalking, not service.

2. Be too quick to ring a sale and don't offer the customer additional products.  You want to have a high Unit-Per-Transaction (UPT), not a high Undersized-Purchase-Total.

3. Plan on having a so-so weekend.  Plan to succeed.  Positive energy works wonders.

4. Don't work the customer, clerk the customer.  As someone said to me the other day, if you don't know the difference, you're clerking.

5. Do the same thing you've done every weekend this year. That is, of course, unless you've beat your sales target every weekend this year. If that's the case then hit "reply" to tell me what you're doing and I'll share it with your fellow readers.

Good luck, have fun, and make your successful weekend a reality!

Comments

[Melissa]

Or you could try auctioning off your gift cards! You get the money up front and increase in sales basket. The customer is getting a discount but without eroding your brand. At retailocity that is what we do. Contact me at Mabrams@retailocity.com for more information if you are interested.