Converting traffic to sales | IR News

Converting traffic to sales

Posted Date: 27/02/2013

By Brian Walker

Do you know:

What peel off rate you are getting from passerby traffic?
What your conversion rate of shoppers to buyers is?
Your customers’ needs and motivations?
The buying behavior of your top 20 per cent of customers?
What your customers think and say about you?
Why customers keep coming back to you?

If you can honestly answer yes to all of the above, then congratulations, you will have no need to read on and keep up the great work!

If not, this week, I would like to get down to some basic tips to convert your passers-by to loyal advocates of your brand.

Calculating your peel off rate is a simple matter of counting how many walk past your store in a period of time compared with how many actually walk in.

The result will vary significantly between locations, however, should this be too low, it may indicate a few things - either an ineffective location compared to target market or window and external displays that don’t draw the right attention of the right people.

Grab attention
Shoppers only have three seconds ‘get’ what it is your do as they walk past your store. In this short time they must notice you, understand what it is you do, form an impression and make a decision to enter (peel off) or not to enter. For this reason, simplicity and a strong coherent message are the most powerful ingredients to motivate the retail customer.A busy complex window or display can be perceived as distracting and somewhat confusing which invariably leads to a loss of customer motivation to enter your store, let alone buy. Capturing the central message of the retailer’s offer with effective visual merchandising is the critical ‘attraction’ lever.

Attract the right customers

While increasing peel off rates and attracting more customers into your store is of course valuable, it is also important to place a value on these customers. In other words, attract the right people into your store, the people who are more likely to connect with your offer and buy what you sell. These shoppers are more likely to be converted to buyers. Some customers are less profitable than others so understanding and building a profile of your customers is important. Fit retailers define who they want to shop with them, understand their motivations, needs, wants and behaviors. They know what these shoppers want to see and what will attract them to the store.

Understand your customers and tailor your communications to them

Once your shoppers become buyers, the information available about them becomes more and more powerful. Segment your customers not only on demographic characteristics but also by psychographic and behavioural characteristics. Retailers can begin to understand what they have purchased in the past, how frequently they visit, how much they spend etc. Merchandising and marketing plans can then be developed that are tailored directly to your most profitable shoppers and customers.

Give them reason to return

It’s essential that your store retains a ‘fresh’ feel, with subtle, yet constant change. Specialty fashion retailers should change their windows an average of 36 to 50 times per year. Customers will return if they are given a good reason to. The retail environment needs to be interesting, exciting, relevant, aspirational, curious, slightly fascinating, reassuring and above all connect the customer with the emotions that unzip the money bag. Creating a calendar of retail events gives your salespeople a reason to invite them back, your social media people something to talk about and your customers something to come back for.

Creating loyal customers is all about knowing your customers needs and wants and tailoring your offer to match. The best way to find this information is simply to ask.

Our research shows that it costs 5 times as much to gain a new customer than to keep a current one so look after the customers you have and they will look after you in return.

Delivering these things can help you turn passers-by into shoppers, shoppers into customers, customers into repeat customers and repeat customers into loyal advocates of your brand.

Happy ‘fit’ retailing

Retail Doctor Group

* Brian and Retail Doctor Group can be contacted on 02 9460 2882 or by email on businessfitness@retaildoctor.com.au.

For more information visit www.retaildoctor.com.au

Keywords: Brian Walker

Comments:

Join the discussion online: Be the first to leave a comment.

Leave your comment

CAPTCHA Validation

Code:

Name:
* Email:

Please note: all comments are subject to moderation for legal reasons and to prevent spam. We'll approve your comment as quickly as we can. If you don't see it appear you do not need to repost it.