Up selling is a well known
sales technique in the retail trade but it’s also a dirty word to many shop
keepers. They feel somehow it's dishonest to the customer. Like many people I’m
not a lover of the hard sell, I don’t want the special offer on chocolate when
I’m buying fuel or extra pastries with my coffee, no thank you!
We’ve all experienced the
scripted sales patter, no thanks! This selling technique is well past its
best, most customers hate the hard sell; we don’t want to be bullied into
buying. I think some retailers forget customers need to feel in control. They
need to be left to make up their own mind about what they buy. But, this doesn't mean
retailers can’t tempt customer in more subtle ways.
One of the golden rules of
retail is that it’s easier to sell more to existing customers than it is to
find new ones, so on this basis ‘up selling’ is an important part of any
retailer’s business model. Employing a few visual tricks can do much to
tempt customers to spend more, without the hard sell.
Remember good old Woolworths
and their ‘pick & mix’ sweet offer - shop display units full of containers
of individual sweets with scoops, empty sweet bags and scales allowing
customers serve themselves. How clever, create a tempting selection of
merchandise within a ‘shoppable’ display unit that adds fun to the shopping
experience and puts the customers in control, letting them decide what they
want to buy. Of course, ‘pick & mix’ was hugely successful because
customers always put more sweets in the bag than they needed. For
Woolworths it was a win win situation, happy customer, huge profit margin and
higher spend per head, up selling at its finest!
So you can not only improve the
customer shopping experience but discreetly up sell at the same time. It all
comes down to the product edit, the merchandising and making sure the finished
display or shop unit is as ‘shoppable’ as the ‘pick & mix’ example above.
The merchandise from Dille & Kamille on the table in the photograph is
another example of how up selling can be achieved through what we see not
what we’re told. Let me explain further
1. Themed product selection with tight product edit
2. Lots
of levels making the display unit ‘shoppable’
3. ‘High
Tea’ - the title for the piece is on the book cover (subtle point
of sale)
4. Good
selection of products across many price points
5. All
the products relate to each other making it more tempting for the
customer to buy more than one product
6. Restricted
colour palette creating a strong visual impact
And of course, when you’ve done
all this, if you provide the customer with a basket they will buy more, that’s
a given…
All the best
Peter
#retail -consultant -designer -visualcommunicator -educator
tel 07907 691711
email info@artysmith2.com
*photograph Dille & Kamille
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