Australian Photographic Engineering

  MERCHANDISING 

What can your customers see from the door?

What is the first thing your customers see when they look into your shop? Does it make them curious about the rest of your shop? What message does it give?

Often owners, managers and staff fail to see what their customers are seeing.

So what is in the customer’s line of sight? Is it the plumbing on the back wall, dirty machines, an untidy store room or is there something welcoming and inviting with a strong sales message?

Is there a “guard” at the door? In other words is the counter positioned in such a way that the first thing a customer sees is someone standing, or worse still, leaning on a counter waiting to watch every move.

There are some simple steps to fix the general look and feel of your store.

1…Look around  Go to a shopping mall, check out all the shops (not just the minilabs), especially the franchised outlets, what do you notice about a well presented shop, remember, you are a browser like most of the people who will walk past this shop (***you will make the most profit from the browsers, these guys don’t haggle or consider, they make impulsive decisions based purely on emotional and sensory cues, there is no need to “sell” to these customers, you design your store sell for you***). What makes you want to go inside, what makes you want to stick around, what attracts you to certain parts of the shop, what makes you pick up a product, what makes you buy it.  

2…Getting the customer into your shop You need to have your shop looking modern and contemporary (most centres will insist, as part of the lease agreement, that there be a new shopfit every few years).This need not cost a fortune, a bit of imagination (and a lick of paint) goes a long way. Colour and colour combinations are important, you need to create an environment that is exciting but not aggressive, classy but not pretentious, inviting not intimidating, relaxed but not boring. Sounds like an effort but its actually easy, go into a store you like the look of (not necessarily a minilab) and adapt their ideas to suit your situation, most franchises have already spent tens of thousands of dollars designing their retail presence, don’t waste an opportunity to learn from this fact!  Soft colours with vibrant highlights usually does the trick. Lighting is essential, your store MUST be well lit, dark and dingy store are not inviting. DO NOT block your entrances with dump bins or mobile displays; make sure the customer has a clear path into your store. A cluttered entrance is like a person standing with their arms crossed, it means, “keep your distance”. DO NOT clutter your shop front with excess signage (looks messy and confusing), only have large, simple, professionally made signage visible along with a couple of company logos (Sony, Nikon, etc) to enhance your professional image.

3…The customer is in the shop…What now? The way you display your stock will influence customers greatly. The range of stock is NOT important, you are not a big box, every line of product you stock costs you money, ordering, stock control, damages, theft and maintenance all deplete you’re bottom line. You must never order stock willy nilly, you must have a plan and a place for each and every one of the lines you carry. HOT SPOTS – these are the areas of your shop that automatically draw the attention of your customers, depending on the size and layout of your shop, they could be at your front counter, next to the main entrance, next to the photo kiosk or where ever, these areas are where you put your specials or stock you are trying to move. Now you have a hot spot and a product you want to sell, display the product like you mean it by putting a BULK display together, stack the product all facing the same way and the right way up, open the wrapping on ONE of the products for customers to handle, if you don’t do this you will find that customers will unwrap several of the products making them unsaleable. If there is a range of colours, colour block them with the different colours in lines, the final touch is to add a professionally written and simple “special” sign. Once you begin to run out of stock or a couple of weeks pass, REPLACE THE DISPLAY with something new, don’t let your store look stagnant, in fact change the entire store around once a month, constant change will make your store look exciting and vibrant.    

Do you know who your customers are?  Identifying your target market can be a time consuming and tricky process.  While organisations like PMA give us great figures on the state of our industry, we can learn more by looking at our surrounding area and determining our target market.

 Have a chat to your shopping centre manager. They should be able to give you figures on the demographics of your centre.

Ask the following questions:

What are the centre’s demographics? What suburbs do shoppers come from? How old are they?  What is their income?

What are the centre’s door counts? What is the busiest time of day? Which is the busiest day of the week?

THEN be ruthless and ask similar questions about YOUR store:

Who shops in your store? Mainly young teenagers, Mum with kids or older retirees?

What do people buy? What is your number one selling product (eg 10 x 8 frames) and  service(eg 6x 4 prints)?

What are some services that customers ask for that you currently DON’T sell?

All this information can be distilled to get an accurate picture of YOUR customer. You can then begin to target advertising, displays and special offers based on what your particular customers NEED, rather on just what you need to sell.