Do you want to increase the sales of your shop? Here's how.

Managing the sales of your shop or business and earning money is not always easy. If you have recently opened your business and need some ideas to attract the attention of customers, in this article we will see some very effective marketing techniques that will surely allow you to increase your sales!

Running a shop can be no easy feat. In fact, not being able to know how to use and fully exploit the various marketing strategies can be lethal for a store . The competition with some online giants such as Amazon.it is now ruthless. Repubblica.it writes about Amazon :

“Italy was one of the countries where the Jeff Bezos marketplace grew the most. There has been an exceptional increase in sales data since the quarantine began: in addition to "Fitness and Gym" - the category that recorded the largest increase in sales (347%) - in the first weeks of the lockdown, the Food & Beverage sector (Source: CBRE Global Investors, July 2020). Compared to the previous year, grocery-related searches on Amazon increased by 207%: since the peak in March, the sector has recorded strong overall growth that extends for all year round with a triple-digit variation (source: Xingu)”.

Despite these data, you don't have to despair: in this post we will see some interesting marketing strategies that will be of great help to your shop !

First you need to understand which target you want to address and make yourself known. Let's see exactly how this happens.

Reaching customers: how to do it and why do it

The first step to take if you have just started a business is to reach as many customers as possible. There are several marketing techniques to achieve this goal: the first is certainly to organize a leafleting operation. Distributing flyers near the place where your shop is located or in areas where there is a great coming and going of people such as at the exit of a subway is certainly an excellent idea.

This is a very important step in getting your shop out there!

However, the flyer must be able to convince people to frequent your shop . In addition to making it aesthetically and graphically beautiful, it is useful to apply a discount coupon perhaps on the first purchase.

In fact, discounts attract customers, whose goal is often to buy new items or clothes at the lowest price.

If the idea of leafleting doesn't satisfy you, you can easily opt for online ads . It is also very important to open a social page in order to keep your customers updated on all the news regarding timetable changes, new goods arriving, etc.

Now let's see another marketing technique linked to discounts.

Cross-selling and up-selling: how to convince customers to buy

Cross-selling is a marketing technique that aims to make the customer buy one or more products at an advantageous price that have characteristics in common with the product that the customer already intends to buy. A trivial example is the following: if a potential buyer intends to buy a mobile phone, why not offer him the possible purchase of a perhaps discounted protective film?

The cross-selling business is based on this. In this way the store clearly increases its earnings by offering an extra service to the customer at an advantageous price, encouraging people to buy.

The cross-selling activity must be well organized and not improvised. If a customer buys a mobile phone, it makes little sense to offer them a cheaper pair of headphones as cross-selling would prove ineffective.

Applying the cross-selling strategy isn't always easy: in fact, you need to seize the right moment so as not to bother the customer and even lose the sale of the first product. However, if the cross-selling is successful it is possible that the customer will return to your store for the next purchase.

Up-selling, on the other hand, is very different from cross-selling . If cross-selling aims to get the customer to buy items that cost less, up-selling is quite the opposite. In fact, up-selling is a marketing strategy that pushes customers to buy more expensive items than what they had previously chosen. This technique is essentially based on offering a variant of the product of a higher quality.

An excellent marketing strategy to be able to increase the sales of your store is certainly to mix cross-selling and up-selling.

Now let's look at another fundamental technique for attracting customers' attention.

Visual merchandising: how to best set up a shop window

The showcase is to be considered a bit like the presentation card of your shop . It must be well lit so as to allow customers to see the items on display and their characteristics without problems.

It is also very important to insert the price tags written clearly and clearly visible to people.

It is also a good habit to change the items in the showcase often according to the season. If we are talking about a clothing store, it is certainly useful to make changes to the window during the Christmas period, for example, or to display the items from the new collection.

The setting up of a shop window falls within the sphere of visual merchandising, i.e. a marketing technique that plays on the layout and lighting in order to make the products on sale in a shop more interesting.

Not only are prices and lighting very important, but also the arrangement of the goods themselves must be clear to the eyes of passers-by: if we take the clothing store as an example again, it is good to create a clear division between garments for women, men and children so as not to create confusion in the eyes of possible and future customers.

Now let's see another marketing strategy that can be very useful if you want to increase the sales of your shop !

Create a loyalty card

A fidelity card can often prove to be very useful for people who often want to shop in your store.

It can certainly be useful to offer the card at no cost and making the procedure for creating the card as streamlined and simple as possible. To motivate the customer to carry out the compilation procedure, you could decide to reserve a series of discounts only for card holders. This way you can definitely get more income from your in- store sales.

For registration it is important to ask for the email : in this way your customers will always be informed about discounts and the arrival of new items. In fact, email will allow you to be in continuous contact with your customers, even those who do not have a social account and cannot see updates on your online pages.

The card is still used in many shops , especially in supermarkets, but it must be admitted that online sales have definitely increased lately. So let's see how important it is to create an Internet site to increase the sales of the items in your shop !

Create an Internet site

Online shopping has increased especially during the pandemic. By force of circumstances, many people have had to use e-commerce sites even just to go shopping. A good Internet site has inevitably allowed many points of sale to be able to survive.

Having an online site that sells items from your store is always useful, not just during pandemic times. In fact, many people cannot physically go to the shops for various reasons such as working hours and the excessive distance that separates the customer from the physical shop for example.

This tool therefore allows you to certainly reach a greater number of people and increase turnover. Furthermore, online shopping has not decreased at all since the pandemic. writes focuscommerce.it:

“The increase in data relating to online purchases continues also in the first quarter of 2021. Italy rides the wave registering + 78%. This is what emerges from the Salesforce Shopping Index. More specifically, the product categories that recorded the highest revenue growth in the first quarter on an annual basis are, in order, sporting goods (101%), household appliances (96%) and luxury handbags (95%)” .

Despite these data, however, it is true that many shops are struggling to sell their products also due to the enormous continuous expansion of e-commerce giants such as Amazon.

If you are among those who manage a small shop , however, you must not be discouraged.

Now let's see a very useful and simple marketing strategy to be able to continue selling and increase your income!

A small shop? No fear

Don't be afraid to admit that you run a small business. Indeed, in some cases it is a real advantage.

While large online sales sites such as Amazon sell mass-produced products that are all the same and often arrive from the other side of the world, small shops can count on the uniqueness of their items.

The so-called "unique pieces", whether they are clothing, accessories or various objects, can hardly be found online. This is because very often they are also trades handed down from father to son with great commitment and dedication that have been lost over time due to greater development of industry and technology.

Before getting discouraged, it is also important to remember that there are different customers with different needs: although many people buy from well-known online sites to save money, there are many others who prefer instead to buy a handmade product of a certain workmanship or material.

Therefore, when managing a small shop, you absolutely must not feel ashamed or fearful of failure, but value your uniqueness compared to other types of markets and activities, thus creating a network of loyal customers.