|
Stop by the store for a gallon of milk and you’ll likely find yourself walking out with a sack full of groceries you forgot you needed. Or did the grocer remind you? There’s a reason why milk, bread and produce—staple items—are located at extreme corners of the store. It’s so you’ll be tempted by the thousands of products you have to walk by just to get what you came for.
Grocers have merchandising—the presentation and placement of products and services—down pat. And range owners can learn from these and other pros, including convenience stores and restaurants, how it’s done best. Start by strategically locating your products.
Cash register. Display smaller, less expensive items such as candy, snacks, golf gloves and golf balls close to the cash register or on the wall behind the sales counter to encourage impulse buys. Grouping complementary products, such as drinks and chips, can also help increase the chances for multiple purchases.
High-traffic areas. Promote high-profit-margin items along heavily traveled routes, such as from the entrance to the cash register and from the sales counter to the tee line, where people can’t miss seeing them.
Strong merchandising is especially important at the front of the shop. A 2002 Sorenson Associates study of 60,000 shoppers found that consumers take just over 28 seconds to make purchasing decisions about products at the start of their trip and just 9 seconds at the end. You may not own a grocery store, but this finding can help you with product placement, for example, positioning displays near the front door, where customers are apt to spend more time looking at the merchandise.
Back corner. Put sale items at the back of the clubhouse so that people have to walk past everything else to get to them (the milk principle). Let customers know there’s 10 percent off ball caps with signs that direct them to the sales rack. There’s nothing wrong with handwritten signs as long as they’re readable (watch for spelling and grammatical errors) and easy to understand and don’t distract from the overall look of the range. In fact, handwritten signs done tastefully can add an element of quaintness.
If you sell brand-name equipment or soft goods, such as Nike or Ping, you may be able to get signs and displays from your sales reps. All you have to do is ask. A Cutter & Buck sign in your front window may pique customers’ interest enough that they flip through your shirt rack before heading home. Associating yourself with well-known brands also upgrades customers’ perceptions of the quality of your facility.
Food counter. Signage is especially important for promoting food. Think of restaurant menus with their luscious photos of decadent chocolate cakes and ice cream drizzled with caramel. It’s hard to resist those tempting treats. Use this same technique in your snack bar or grill by hanging oversized pictures of the refreshments you sell. You don’t have to invest a whole lot to get great signs. With today’s digital cameras and ink-jet printers, you can create your own photo posters in-house, or take the electronic images to a local copy shop to create larger-than-life displays.
Shop your retail space periodically to gauge the effectiveness of your signs and the location of your product displays. When new merchandise arrives, give it top billing, and occasionally move things around to create the perception that you have new inventory in stock.
Always be sure your displays match the image you want customers to have of your range. It may be necessary to write down a list of adjectives that describe how you want your pro shop or retail space to look and feel. Then, just as in grocery shopping, check your list periodically so you don’t get sidetracked. |
