Okay, that’s not quite true, I am sure that you do sell some products at the counter. By sell, I mean have a customer choose, at that moment, to purchase the item. In most situations, however, in a newsagency the customer comes to the counter with the items already selected. If we are lucky they will ask us a question and we can leave our command post and venture onto the shop floor and help them and maybe sell them something.
As newsagents have taken on more counter based services over the decades, we have moved the selling, what little of it is done, in our businesses from the shop floor to the counter. I first worked in a newsagency when I was in High school too many years ago. My recollection is that we had people on the shop floor serving customers helping them. This was what the more experienced people did. The school kids were left to take payment once we were trained. Now, the counter is the area where the most senior skills appear to be in many newsagencies.
If you agree that selling is what we do when we help, guide and encourage a shopper to make a purchase from us then this is where you need to focus more attention in your business … on the shop floor. This is where your best people at dealing with customers should be.
This is the tip – to look at where you sell in your newsagency and to adjust resource allocation in pursuit of more sales.
- Track your employees and learn who delivers the best return by hour worked.
- Consider a financial reward for the employees you charge with selling, genuinely selling.
- Be careful in allocating your resources, focus on the busiest times of the day.
- Make sure that your people have excellent product knowledge with which to add value.
- Drive this personal shop floor experience as a point of difference for your business. Shoppers will pay more if the shopping experience is more satisfying.
It all begins with understanding where you sell … it’s not at the sales counter.
Many people are too lazy or are too afraid to approach customers. They work in retail but are afraid to ‘sell’ to their customers. They should sell online.
Ideal times to sell to customers include when tidying up cards and displays and restocking shelves. It’s not necessary to rush these tasks as they put you on the shop floor and interruptions by customers are the best thing that can happen while performing these tasks.
Or if a rep comes in with something interesting, ask a customer’s opinion. Great way to engage people.
Mark, thanks for these tips. I’ve started compiling them together with a view to using them for some form of staff training.