Got loads of customers in your store but sales are down? It’s time to amp up your POS merchandising.
There’s some big sales numbers associated with merchandising. Consumers enter the store with some ideas of what they want to buy, and the packaging and presentation of the product influence the outcome hugely—up to 95% of the time, Harvard professor Gerald Zaltman found. It’s not about price, or individually comparing brands—it’s in-store marketing.
If you can learn and implement some basic strategies, you can maximise these techniques in your POS merchandising, you can turn slow moving stock into swift sales.
The average monthly impulse purchase spend is the USA was $182.98 in 2020; are you taking advantage of fickle consumers and providing display solutions that give them opportunities to shop?
1. Get Into the Customer’s Mindset
If you’ve ever booked a tropical holiday in the midst of winter, you’ve needed to pack summer clothes, and even buy a new swimsuit. But it’s hard to think about being so hot outside when it’s frosty outside and you’re wearing three layers (plus a blanket).
What does this mean for your POS merchandising? Generally, you’ve got a captive market while they wait in queue or while their transaction is processed, and you need to think about what they want in this moment. In a supermarket, they’re likely hungry or thirsty, so you can leverage off that, providing sweets and snacks (especially healthy ones if there are kids around). If they are looking forward to seeing their pet at home, then maybe a new pet toy or treat.
You want to sell physically small items that don’t have a big dollar value; you want them to just add it to their cart, no thought involved.
2. Use Their Idle Time
Use of interactive technology is becoming more commonplace, especially as everyone seems to have a smartphone 24/7. Using QR codes can lead the potential customer to a website that provides information, allows entry into a competition, or gives them access to a game.
If they’re sitting in a queue while waiting, give them something to do that leads to more sales. Or, give them your socials and a prompt; get some free social media updates while they’re there. Use ticket frames or other display solutions to provide information, QR codes, and socials, and keep people busy while they wait.
3. Touching the Product Increases Sales
Touching something gives the consumer a feeling that they own the item, and that it has value. It’s harder to put down, and therefore it makes the person more likely to buy whatever it is. Especially if an item is in enclosed packaging, it could be useful to open one and have it on the retail display. This encourages people to touch—and buy. Things like a koosh ball or slap band are highly touchable, cheap, small, and great to have at the POS.
4. Keep It Seasonal
Refresh and rotate the products placed at the POS. Halloween, Christmas, and seasons will all dictate what’s displayed, but also new product launches, or unusual purchases. Love heart chocolates and roses for Valentines, pine tree scent diffusers for Christmas.
5. Cross-Sell
The onion soup packet is sold next to the reduced cream. Marshmallows next to the hot chocolate. Purchase of one item increases the purchase of others—even tangentially related items. Buying a shirt? Maybe a necklace or sunglasses in a dump bin next to the customer while they queue.
In fact, use a checkout line as a shopping alley, keeping wandering shoppers in line while tempting them with lines of dump bins. At the POS, things like corkscrews at a booze shop, suede shoe cleaner at a shoe shop, things that they might not have remembered to buy earlier.
6. Make the Retail Display Look Great
Because the POS area is usually small, you have to be creative and efficient with space. Hangsells allow you to display lots of small items in a confined area, which is easily accessible to all customers.
It’s important to remember that shopper confusion is real phenomenon; information overload can negatively influence shopper intentions. Cluttered, messy, and confused stores result in irritation and inefficiency of shoppers.
It’s striking that balance of attractiveness and helpfulness, and overload and chaos.
At Mills Display, we have all the retail display solutions you could imagine (and more). We also have plenty of experience helping stores fit out their interiors, and we can help you choose what’s going to work for you. Contact us at +64 9 634 5962 or sales@millsdisplay.co.nz to find out how we can amp up your POS retail display.