Tip of the Week and another Bonus!

Calculate your average dollars per transaction by dividing sales by the number of transactions.  This gives you an idea of how much each customer is buying and creates easy to understand goals.

For example: If your sales are $1000 (for simplicity's sake) and you had 20 customers that day, you would divide $1000 by 20. That means that the value of your average transaction was $50.00.

You can calculate your average transaction on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual basis! Its entirely up to you.

Want to know what to do with the information?

There are tons of things you can do! You can monitor your average transaction for things that seem to affect it or use it as a motivational selling tool! 

Having easily measurable targets to reach makes it easy to celebrate reaching your goals and breaking down those goals into small, manageable chunks makes for more celebration and more fun!

Happy selling!

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Bonus Tip:

Whether in a display or in a store, customers need a focal point to look at first.

Tip of the Week + Bonus!

Track your sales by category and use the information to help you when merchandising and buying.  It’s very valuable information.

© Anatoliy Babiychuk | Dreamstime Stock Photos | Image Link

When re-merchandising your store or purchasing new stock, it's so important to make educated decisions rather than taking shots in the dark, making guesses, or buying based simply on things you like.  Being informed will help you make better business decisions and help to prevent the need to clear out aged or stagnant inventory.

Track your sales by category, either using your POS system or keeping written records (contact your POS service provider or technical support to find out how).  You could do this weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually.  

When it comes to visual merchandising, you can use your category sales in interesting ways, too.  It can help you to allocate the proper space and placement to best sellers and help you to beef up displays and promote weak sellers.  Also, if you know there's an item or category that people are shopping for in particular or coming in for, you can place it in a key area towards the back of the store to get them walking through.  Hopefully they'll see a great item they wouldn't have otherwise thought of on their way there!

Bonus tip to make up for the technical problems we had last week...

Emergency preparedness is key.  It's important to have a plan for every type of emergency that could come your way.

Check out this Red Cross page for some great info.

Happy selling!

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Tip of the Week

When purchasing for your store, make sure you have a plan.  This could include a financial plan, merchandising plan, theme plan and so-on.

 

This week we have the Alberta Gift Show in Edmonton and if you don't go in with a thought out course of action, it can be overwhelming.  You could wind up blowing your budget, choosing the wrong product mix, or simply getting caught up in all of the excitement. 

Make a plan before you go to any buying show.  Give yourself a budget based on past sales and buying and consider giving yourself a budget by category as well. 

Another thing to think about before choosing your product is the physical space in your store.  What merchandising are you planning for the next few months?  Are there any specific stories or themes?  What holidays and events are coming up?  What exciting things are on your marketing calendar?

Good luck and happy selling... and buying!

Have you got questions for Melissa? Check us out on facebook, twitter, Pinterest, the flourish website, or send Melissa an email.

Tip of the Week

That's right,

Now those of you that follow Flourishing Retailers can see the Flourish Design & Merchandising Tip of the Week as well!

This week's tip:

Remember to breathe and just focus on customer service this week. You'll have plenty of time to regroup and re-merchandise in the new year.

...Or next week... or any other time.  This week (especially Saturday and Sunday) is likely to be the busiest your store will get, so enjoy the chaos, forget about the day to day, and focus on amazing customer service!

Happy Holidays!

Interested in hearing more from Flourish?  Follow us on facebook, twitter, and Pinterest too!

Designing the Customer Experience - Capital Ideas

A little while ago, I was flattered to be invited as a panelist to the Capital Ideas event (for the Edmonton Journal) called "How Do I Design a Great Customer Experience?" along with Kirsten Proulx and Jason Suriano!  It was an awesome experience and so much fun, so I wanted to share some of the key takeaways with you!

What's the most important thing you've learned about designing a customer experience?

• The customer experience begins before the customer even enters the store. -Kirsten
• Ensure you greet the customer -Kirsten
• Anything you can do to make shopping easy and exciting for the customer will really enhance their experience -Melissa
• If the product isn't acceptable to my team, then I won't bring it to the end user. -Jason
• I play the role of customer for my team. -Jason
• Tweet: @ABCraftAlert: Customer service starts before your customer even comes in the door - displays, signage, making experience easy to navigate #capitalideas
• Tweet: @Randwulven: #capitalideas If you don't enjoy the experience, why would your customer? @jasonsuriano
• Tweet: @_SoleRevival: Make it easy and enjoyable for people: Put natural "go with" items together on the floor - you said it, Melissa! Great tip. #capitalideas

Examples of a great customer experience

• Teamwork, consistency, branding, and environment help to create a great customer experience.
• Tweet: @ABCraftAlert: Inspire the customer and get them excited about the product. Then mix that with the store owners passion for the product #capitalideas

Dealing with "problematic customers"

• When a customer comes to you with a problem, be grateful that they've provided you with the opportunity to fix that issue. -Melissa
• "I'll often ask my team; so what did we do wrong?" -Jason
• A customer complaint can hurt because it's something you want to do well and take pride in, but I'm glad that the customer acknowledged the problem -Kirsten
• Tweet: @RyanGJMcGregor: Upset clients are not an imposition... They are an opportunity! #capitalideasYEG
• Tweet: @ABCraftAlert: There is no such thing as a bad customer. It's an opportunity to be a problem solver #capitalideas It's bad when you don't hear from them

Applying lessons from past to present

• There are two types of customers in the restaurant industy; the kind that wants you there all the time as a part of the experience and the kind that wants you to be invisible.  That directly applies to what I do now. -Jason

How do you motivate your sales staff?

• Treat your employees the way you want them to treat your customers. -Melissa
• Personally tell your employees that they're doing a great job. -Melissa
• I wouldn't inflict straight commission on my employees. -Kirsten
• The customers generally always come back if you provide them with a great experience. -Kirsten

The "treasure hunt" method of shopping

• The "treasure hunt" method of shopping does not work for everyone. -Melissa
• We have a baby boom in Alberta right now, so be sure to accomodate strollers and busy moms! -Melissa

Measuring the effectiveness of your customer experience tactics

• We watch to see if product sales change when displays change. -Kirsten
• The more sales you can track, the better. What can your POS system do? -Melissa
• Measuring customer responses has gone even more high tech than A-B testing.  We're using the gaming piece as an analytics tool. -Jason

The takeaway - What others had to say

• A "bad" customer is your best customer -Terry
• Responding to complaints online shows that you care -Terry
• Accept who your customer is and go with it -Tema
• Don't make assumptions about your customer, find out what's important to them -Tema
• From a retail standpoint, subtle changes in how you merchandise your products made huge differences at the till -Kyle
• If you have go-with items with a product it makes the shopping experience easier and quick for people -Kyle

Want to see more?  Have a look at some event photos on the Capital Ideas flickr page!  You can also read all of the tweets associated with #CapitalIdeas on the Storify page!  Would you like to hear more from Capital ideas and the panelists on Twitter?  Follow @CapitalIdeasYEG @FlourishDesignM @Henrys_PFT and @jasonsuriano by clicking on their links!

6 steps to Employee Engagement

II was fortunate enough to attend the WiRN (Women in Retailing Network) breakfast lecture yesterday morning with speaker Gemma Giovanazzo.  The topic was the customer experience and how do we inspire our staff to deliver the best in customer service every time?

Gemma is the customer experience manager for Ford of Canada and spoke with lots of experience on how big business develops and ensures the customer experience.

After the lecture was over, I and the two lovely women at my table discussed how employee engagement can translate to small business.  In my experience as a store manager, here is what I can share on employee engagement.

1. Treat your employees as equals.  Ask their opinions, get their feedback, and take what they have to say seriously.
2. Praise for good work.  Lots of employers offer incentives or prizes which is great when you can do it, but what many employees really want is just a simple “great job” or “thanks for your hard work today.”  Try it; it feels great!
3. Take an interest.  Try to remember fun personal details about your employees.  When I was a store manager for a big box retailer, I made a point of remembering everyone’s favourite colour, kids names, and any other personal details that I could.  We also had crayons and stickers as well as little treats stashed in my office for when they brought their kids or grandchildren by.  It was so much fun!
4. Communication.  Gemma said it right; it’s so important!  Keep your employees informed of what’s going on with your store.  Tell them what you’ve purchased, what’s coming in, new sales techniques, what’s happening in the store and in the neighbourhood, etc.  Structured meetings aren’t always necessary, but try to make sure everyone gets necessary messages.  Even consider a communication book in a place where everyone can find it!
5. Feedback.  Whether it’s simply telling them what they’re doing well or asking for improvement in certain areas, feedback is so necessary for an employee to feel engaged in their job.  Set regular intervals for feedback and make sure that if someone’s performance needs improvement in any area, you’re dealing with it right away.  Nobody likes to be doing something wrong and not be told about it for days, weeks, or months.  A simple, gentle conversation is all that’s necessary.  Tell them what they’re doing well and then what you would like them to improve and why.  Finish the conversation by reinforcing that they’re good at their job, but you would just like them to improve in this one area.
6. Education.  Get them out of the store and get them educated.  If you can, send them out to information sessions on customer service, sales, merchandising or anything specific to the products you carry.  Make it an event for them!  Ensure you’re also providing as much product knowledge as possible and passing on and sharing your passion for the product you sell.

There are lots of big expensive steps to employee engagement and lots of large companies invest millions of dollars into ensuring it happens.  That’s not always necessary.  As a store owner and manager, follow these six steps and the result will likely be happy employees who treat the customers as beautifully as you treat them.  

Big thanks for Kendall and Kristi for their great company and conversation yesterday!