retail

Last weekend a customers spent up big, really big, and received a $30.51 discount voucher. Her response: I like this, I could be dead tomorrow. That’s what she said. She added: I could be, I’m ninety next year. She was a hoot!

We talked a bit more. She was serious about the value to her of the voucher versus points. She said that when you get to her age your horizon is closer and you think about the short term more. The points don’t work she said because of the long time often involved.

I’m confident this customer will be back in the next week to spend the voucher. If she is true to her word she will be bringing a friend.

The experience had me reflecting on shopper engagement with the vouchers. There is no doubt that older customers particular like them. Maybe my 89 year old customer is not alone in focussing on the closer horizon.

I loved that she explained her fatigue with the points based loyalty programs. She’s the type of shopper I’m targeting with these vouchers.

Every day we see examples of the vouchers driving loyalty and helping us to continue to achieve valuable year on year growth.

No matter whether you are selling products at full price or discounting them you need to sell them. This means you need to merchandise them so the offer is compelling, easy to shop and appealing enough to attract browsers. This is especially true for products of style – such as the Top Model range.

The photo is from a newsagency I visited a couple of weeks ago. I’ve faded the edges and made it black and white so the source is not obvious since I am using the image only to illustrate my point and not finger the business.

If I was discounting a premium line like Top Model, which I am not, I’d do a bundled deal like buy three for two or even two for one or something along those lines.  A % off discount and stock dumped in crappy old dump bins disrespects the Top Model range and the business its in front of.

If something is not selling in your store you have to first off look at your own contributions to causing this situation. Just as we create our own success, we often create our own failure.

The Queen’s Birthday weekend is one of the quietest weekends for retailers. Many retailers in a variety of retail channels tell me this is their experience.

This year, we are pursuing a change in the Queen’s Birthday experience in one of my newsagencies. We are running a campaign of 30% off all gifts and plush.

Our engagement in this campaign is putting into practice our belief that we make our own success.

While we could have been more selective and targeted only on the slower selling product, we decided to offer the discount on all gifts and plush so there is no doubt for shoppers. They can easily understand the pitch.  No fine print shows that we  reject the selective discounting game many retailers play.

The sale is for three days only, until the close of trade on Monday, so the risk is not great. Also, our buying on all gifts and plush is good, at better than average prices. Even at 30% off we’re in good shape.

Our artwork was created in house with a use of A3, A5 and A4 in-house printed posters and a couple of A1 posters printed offsite.  We deliberately chose yellow on black as it tested well at cutting through the sea of colour in the newsagency.

Care has been taken to dress the shop with collateral throughout – carefully placed to tell a story from entrance to exit, to drive shoppers visiting for one product category to consider other products on sale.