Christmas Tips For Retailers

Snooping on Santa

As retailers across the land gear up for the busiest time of the year, one UK company is also experiencing an unusual boom in business with a festive twist.

Mystery shopping and customer service experts Shopper Anonymous UK have seen a huge jump in demand from shops and tourist attractions to have their Father Christmas, grotto and festive offering mystery shopped. Whole families are going ‘under cover’ to report on their experience, with their feedback used by retailers to ensure their Father Christmas delivers good customer service as well as much-wanted presents.

Shopper Anonymous have been asked to mystery shop every aspect of visiting Father Christmas in his grotto, from price and queuing time to the friendliness of the elves, the ‘Ho Ho Ho’ of Father Christmas, the quality of the presents and the magical qualities of the whole experience.

Congratulations to Shopper Anonymous UK’s Jonathan Winchester for coming up with this great initiative.  Read all about it and listen to a couple of the great radio interviews at  http://www.shopperanonymous.co.uk/ 

 

Freezing weather a dream come true for high street retailers

RETAIL experts have urged shoppers to hit the high street to secure their Christmas presents, after a host of leading UK retailers suspended online orders as they struggle to cope with a delivery backlog from last week's weather chaos.  

Major shopping centres said the problems facing their online competitors was a "dream come true", and they expected "unprecedented" levels of trade this weekend. 

Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Marks & Spencer were the most high-profile chains to cancel new orders or halt deliveries of non-food items earlier this week in Scotland, as courier firms try to move tens of thousands of parcels that piled up due to the disruption caused to the transport network by heavy snow and icy roads.

Source: http://www.scotsman.com/ 

 

Big ticket items bolster UK Christmas retail sales

Consumers buying "big ticket" items like fridges and coffee machines to beat next month's VAT rise are bolstering store sales in the run-up to Christmas.

John Lewis, the department store chain, said it had enjoyed a record week because of large purchases of high quality recognised brands. The store took £121m in sales - the most ever for a seven day period. Beauty products, toys, coffee machines, iPads, sounddocks, jewellery, lingerie, handbags were the biggest sellers.

Sarah Cordey, an analyst at the British Retail Consortium, said: "People are treating themselves over Christmas and are determined to enjoy the festive season before what we expect to be a particularly difficult start to the new year.

As purchases are moved forward ahead of the Jan 4 increase of VAT to 20 per cent, stores are likely to enjoy their best Christmas since 2007, according to retail consultancy Verdict.

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk 

 

Early December retail trade is slow in Australia

The Australian Retailers Association’s week-by-week tracking of retail trade during the Christmas period has found that last week over 64 percent of retailers were trading on par or below the same time in 2009.

Retailers comparing trading from 5 to 11 December 2010 to the same time last year said:

• Over 35 percent were trading above;
• Over 43 percent were trading below;
• Over 21 percent were trading the same as last year.

ARA Executive Director Russell Zimmerman said most retailers were anticipating this soft trade and last week’s trading met the expectations of almost one third of retailers.

“Sales are expecting to ramp up this week with almost a quarter of shoppers only just starting their Christmas shopping on Thursday 16 December and half of them finalising their last purchases between now and Christmas Eve. Consumers are extremely price sensitive this year with retailers reporting that higher priced items are being overlooked in favour of less expensive presents.”

Source: http://www.retail.org.au 

 

Webinar: Retailer's Guide To A Successful Christmas

Canadian retail expert Kevin Graff is presenting a 60 minute, live webinar on Tuesday November 30th at 11:00 am EST (US and Canada).  It’s specifically focused on strategies to drive Christmas sales in retail stores. Here’s a few of the points he’ll cover:

Selling:

• Why moving fast on the sales floor pays off
• Add on strategies for Christmas
• Dealing with the last-minute male shopper 

Management :

• Why daily huddles will set you up for success
• How to track and manage your key stats
• How to successfully manage your cash desk during the busy season 

Go to www.graffretail.com for details.

 

Build trust to boost Christmas sales

How often do you hear retailers saying, ‘Christmas is starting later for us every year’?

“No wonder. It’s because there has been a breakdown in trust”, says retail observer Martin Butler author of the brand new book, ‘The Art of Being Chosen – Secrets of success from the Giants of retail’. He rightly points out that customers around the world are hesitant to buy in the run up to the festive season for fear that prices will be reduced before the big day.

Once upon a time they could be sure that the ‘Sale’ sign wouldn’t appear before the 26th of December but not anymore.  They can’t trust retailers to retain their price integrity.

Martin Butler suggests that retailers give a price guarantee in the lead up to Christmas along the lines of that provided by Carphone Warehouse in the UK all year round.  The company monitors the prices of their phones after a purchase is made, automatically refunding the difference to customers if there is a price cut in the following 30 days.

Now that’s a way to give customers the confidence to buy now!

 

Sell What’s Available Today

Don’t accept any excuses or complaints. Whatever your store does not have available to sell on any given day…it simply cannot sell and it serves no purpose whatsoever to complain about this. This cannot be used as a reason or excuse for lack of productivity. Having said that, however, DMSRetail always advocates excellence in customer service which generally means that you must sell the right product to your customer based on their needs and wants. But, it is very often possible to find an alternative for your customer; one that will be of value to them and will suit their needs very well. And they will likely appreciate your efforts as it will save them time looking elsewhere. 

 

Your Sales Associates should be knowledgeable enough to interest customers in a solid alternative that you do have in stock. And, quite apart from the benefit to the customer, remember one important thing – you have inventory in your store that the company owns; probably many thousands of dollars worth of inventory, and it must be sold at some point. The fact that you may not have enough of the merchandise that is easy to sell is unfortunate but, again, you do have inventory to sell. And provided that you are giving your customer value with a good alternative, it’s your job to do just that – sell your inventory.

 

Source: www.dmsretail.com in Canada.

Christmas Retail Webinar from Canada

Kevin Graff recently conducted a one hour webinar on ‘The Retailer’s Guide to a Successful Christmas’.

It covers staff management, Christmas selling, store operations, inventory management and marketing.  Lots of great information, clearly explained in Kevin Graff’s easy to absorb style.  At $59 Canadian it’s well worth investing in.

Go to www.graffretail.com for details.

Christmas Is A 'Floor Show'!

This invaluable tip for store managers comes from Kevin Graff of the Graff Retail Group in Canada: 

During countless trips through numerous stores over the past few weeks we couldn’t help but notice a predominant and very disturbing trend … it’s next to impossible to find a manager on the sales floor!  Can you believe it?  The most important retail ‘show’ of the year and the cast and crew are running around without any direction or guidance from the most critical player of the performance … the director!

Where are they?  Somewhere in the back room … buried in a mound of ‘vital’ paperwork behind the till … permanently tied up on the phone resolving goodness-knows-what.  But certainly not in front of a customer or with another staff member where a shopper might be served or a sale made.  Why not?

Look, we know there’s a lot going on in your store (boy, do we know it!) and we empathize entirely with the strenuous and unending demands of the manager’s world, but let’s get something straight before another moment goes by.  To excel in this job you simply must get organized and focus on the right things at the right time.

Get your paperwork done during off hours or delegate it to someone who doesn’t have your experience and leadership ability.  This is the time to be out on the floor, directing traffic and maximizing sales opportunities.  When things get busy, if you’re not facing a customer or an employee who is trying to serve someone, you’re in the wrong place doing the wrong thing!

Remember, your job is all about driving sales and service through your staff.  If your customers are on the floor and your staff are out there with them, don’t you think that’s where you should be too??!!

Check out their web site at www.graffretail.com and subscribe to their excellent free e-newsletter, ‘The Graff Retail Report’.

Have you ever noticed what happens in some stores close to Christmas?

Vancouver based, Canadian retail consultant Melanie McIntosh certainly has and she’s turned her observations into some great advice for retailers.  Here is an edited version and you’ll find a link to Melanie’s retail blog at the end of this article.

Stores start to look tired. Shelves become empty. Merchandise gets messy. It's understandable - there are more customers through the store in December than the rest of the year. It is a challenge to maintain store standards. The busiest shopping days of the year are between December 18-23. The Saturday before Christmas has the highest sales volume of the year.

How much business are you going to lose if your front displays are half empty for just one day? Customers will walk by to the next store instead of stopping at your display. How many people will be disappointed when you tell them the merchandise in the window is out of stock? How much time will it take them to find something else they like? Will they take the time to look, or walk back out the door?
Tired stores send a negative message to shoppers. The stores that will excel in the holiday season, are the ones that can live up to customer expectations all year long. Keep your store looking fresh and inviting right through the holidays. That way you'll keep customers all year long.

1. Have fresh merchandise arrive on the shelves the week before Christmas. Make sure you always have something new and attractive to offer. If you don't have the chance to get new merchandise in this year, move displays and merchandise to make it look new. And plan ahead for next year to have new orders arrive mid-December.

2. Keep the front displays current and full. Make someone responsible to check your storefront every morning and periodically during the day. If you have a window display, make sure the items in the window are still in stock. If not, change it. Evaluate front merchandising fixtures. Make sure they are full and displayed attractively. Rotate merchandise by moving products from lower traffic areas to the front.

3. Make last minute gift shopping easy. Shoppers want to maximize time, and minimize decision making. Bundle coordinating products together and price them as a package. Wrap them up with clear wrap and a ribbon. A simpler method is to tie them together with raffia, ribbon, or even string. Then attach a tag.

4. Schedule extra time to clean up the store. At the end of each day, schedule an extra 1/2 hour to an hour to focus on store presentation. High traffic takes a toll on displays and organization. After the store is closed, straighten merchandise throughout the store. Fill shelves. Clean up muddy footprints. Wipe fingerprints off the glass. Make sure you are ready for the next day!

This is an edited version of a great article by Canadian retail consultant Melanie McIntosh of Inspire Retail Solutions titled, ‘Store Displays That Turn Off Holiday Shoppers’.

Check out her retail blog at http://www.inspire.bc.ca/merchandising_blog.html