How to Increase Sales in Retail Store – 15 Easy Ways

How to increase sales in retail stores successfully? This is a question that frequently arises in the minds of supermarket store owners or the ones who are planning to open a supermarket, especially in the current competitive global scenario. The success of a supermarket can be gauged by its sales.

The growth of retail store & supermarket sales is directly proportional to the customer experience as sales are linked to consumer satisfaction. The higher the consumer satisfaction, the better your sales performance will be.

Understanding the buyer’s journey will help you improve the end-user experience, which in turn increases your supermarket sales.

Buyer Journey in a Retail Store/Supermarket and its Importance

A buyer’s journey begins even before he/she lands at your retail store. It is essential for you, as a retail store owner, to place yourself in the shoes of a customer and optimize everything accordingly to make the buyer’s journey smooth.

We can divide the buyer’s journey into three broad categories

1. Pre-purchase Journey
2. In-store Journey
3. Post-purchase Journey

Modeling the buyer’s journey will help you create effective strategies that can significantly increase brand awareness and sales.

Pre-purchase Journey & Interventions to Increase Sales

The pre-purchase journey majorly refers to the part where your customers have yet to reach your retail store. However, you can start working on various aspects of your layout and strategies to ensure that the customer does not have trouble with his/her shopping experience.

1) Create a Digital Presence: The New Way to Increase Your Retail Sales

Register your supermarket/retail store on Google My Business to create a digital presence free of cost for your business. This will help you attract more customers to your store, which will increase your retail store sales.

For example, if a customer has to purchase a bottle of ketchup and he searches on Google for a supermarket or stores nearby, he/she will find your retail store listed on Google. This way, you can add on to your customers through a mere digital presence.

2) Track Your Inventory Efficiently:

What will be a customer’s opinion about your retail store if he/she finds that a product needed is out of stock? The answer is simple. It might drive your customer away.

In order to prevent such a situation, you need to keep track of your supermarket/retail store inventory. You must be aware of which products are going out of stock and which ones are in transit. Use Retail POS software for efficient inventory analytics without manual errors.

3) Accurate Data Management of Inventory: Increase your retail sales with ease

If the inventory data is not managed properly, there will be chaos in the supermarket, and your customers will be left high and dry. However, you can stay one step ahead with precise data and information about your retail store inventory. Maintaining records of the inventory present in the supermarket/retail store gives you the chance to keep your store ready for the customer’s demands at all times.

4) Introduce Doorstep Delivery in your Business Model:

Giving your customers ease of shopping while sitting at their houses will always be a welcome model. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, E-commerce has grabbed a fair share of sales.

Imbibing E-commerce options for your supermarket will invite more customers to your door. If you start taking orders from customers online and provide doorstep delivery for the same, it will provide consumers with an easy and comfortable shopping experience.

5) Automate your Retail Store Operations:

Incorporating digital methods to improve your operations, like billing, accounting, inventory tracking, etc., can improve your business prospects. Manual methods of operating your retail store are old-school and leave multiple loopholes behind.

Automating processes like tracking and managing inventory, making transactions, categorizing inventory, managing loyalty rewards, etc. through POS System can reduce hassles and errors.

In-store Journey & Interventions to Increase Retail Store Sales

The in-store buyer’s journey majorly refers to the part where your consumers have entered your store and begun their shopping. There are multiple things that can be done to ensure that the customers’ shopping experience remains the best.

1) Make Your High-selling Products Visible:

Making shopping an easy experience is another way to increase your retail store sales. Manage your product shelves in ways that make the products easily visible and available to the consumers.

For example, you should always place edible items like snacks, chocolates, etc., in the initial aisles and shelves because these items are more demanded ones. Therefore, they will attract higher sales.

2) Rotate Items on Your Shelves:

Let us consider a situation where you used to keep palm oil bottles on the third shelf of the first aisle of your store. Consumers now know where to look for palm oil. But now you replace that shelf with hair oil. So, when the customer reaches that particular shelf, he or she finds another product that might or might not match his/her requirement. In any case, the customer gets to look at more of your inventory. This will give him a sense of your inventory size, thus improving your supermarket/retail store sales.

3) Make Product Bundles in Related Categories: Another way to Increase your Supermarket Sales

There are times when customers miss certain products from their list while shopping. You can, however, use this to our benefit by creating product bundles.

For example, you can make a product bundle for detergent, bathing soap, shampoo, face wash, and hair conditioner. If a customer misses either of these, he/she will remember it when he/she comes across it. Even if that is not the case, customers will find it easier to just pick up a single bundle rather than look for these products on multiple shelves.

4) Reduce the Waiting Time for Customers:

Every customer dreads standing in long queues waiting for his/her turn at the billing counters. Waiting for salespersons all the time to guide them can also turn into quite a hassle for customers.

Reducing the waiting time and making shopping a hassle-free experience for consumers will attract better sales. Providing self-check-out options to consumers through Retail Software can make shopping easier for your customers.

5) Make Billing Easy for your Customers:

Billing is an integral part of the entire shopping experience, both for the retail store owner and the customers. Include multiple payment options, like debit cards, credit cards, UPI, etc., to make billing easier. You can also add options of payment options in self-check-out using digital solutions like POS.

Post-purchase Journey & Interventions to Increase Sales

Even after leaving the supermarket/retail store, the customer remains connected to you. The post-purchase buyer’s journey majorly refers to the part where you entice your consumers to visit your supermarket again. There are multiple things that can be done to ensure that your customers keep coming to your store and bring more customers with them.

1) Creating Offers and Promotional Deals:

It is common knowledge that sales of products can be increased by providing offers or discounts on the same. You can entice your customers by providing discounts and rolling out promotional offers on products with Promotions Management.

For example, supermarkets in the USA roll out offers on occasions like Black Friday to attract customers and improve their supermarket sales.

2) Customer Referral Programs:

You can create referral programs for your existing customers to add new customers to your customer base. This works as a mouth-to-mouth promotion method by incentivizing the existing customers with help of a customer reward program.

For example, you can provide your customer with a 5% discount on certain products or certain cashback for every new customer that comes to your supermarket on his referral.

3) Loyalty Rewards Management: Increase your Retail Sales with Customer Loyalty

Create a loyalty rewards program for your supermarket to provide exclusive offers and deals to customers for their extended relationship with your store. You can consolidate their loyalty towards you by doing so and increasing your supermarket sales. Using a POS solution is one such way to manage your loyalty rewards programs.

Add loyalty points to the customer’s account after he/she makes a purchase at your supermarket, which can further be redeemed on their next purchases.

4) Digital Promotion Strategies: The Way to Increase your Supermarket Sales

A happy customer is the key to running a successful retail store/supermarket. Rolling out SMSs, emails, WhatsApp messages, and social media posts regarding the ongoing sale offers or promotional deals will help the consumer to make the most out of his/her shopping experience. Moreover, this also creates an image of a consumer-centric business approach in the mind of the customer, thus making him a loyal customer.

5) Take Feedback from your Customers:

Who else is more qualified to talk about the end-user experience than your customers themselves? Collect feedback and reviews from your customers and incorporate them into your retail store operations. This will help you improve the end-user experience, thus increasing your supermarket/retail sales.

For example, if a customer gives you feedback regarding the troubles in making transactions, you can easily review and resolve those issues. This way, you keep your customer satisfied with your services.

The Road Ahead

Once you have a complete understanding of the buyer’s journey and have worked on improving the same, you are ready to boost your supermarket sales. Get 1 Month’s Free Trial of Ari POS. Considering the above-mentioned methods, the road ahead is clear for you.

• Implement the methods and monitor the changes you observe.
• Take feedback from your customers on the changes you implemented.
• Incorporate feedback to improve the customer experience further.

This will work to improve the end-user experience and will, in turn, boost your supermarket sales. Growth is inevitable if you work on improving supermarket sales through optimized buyer’s journey and customer experience.

Summing it up:

We understand that supermarkets face multiple challenges in running their business. The current manual business model falls short of inefficiency and leaves space for human errors. How to increase sales in retail stores, So you can be improved by understanding the buyer’s journey and improving the end-user experience. POS systems are one way for supermarkets to overcome the hurdles that exist in the business.

To know more about ARI POS solutions and how they can help you increase your supermarket sales.