Before you begin reading this, please read the headline once again and understand that our intent here is not to provide tips on how to INCREASE your foot traffic, but to look at potential ways to make the most of the foot traffic you are already getting!
Now that we have that established (with apologies to anyone leaving now with disappointment), let’s look at what the best retailers are doing to manage their foot traffic to extend dwell times, increase average items purchased, retention and overall sales per visit.
While there is no universal set of “musts” that apply to ALL retailers, there are principals to follow that should be applied to the specific nature of your industry, regional practices, retention or Brand that maximize the benefits of the traffic you have.
Experiential Retail is Not Just a Gimmick
“Experiential” may sound to some like a carnival trick that provides little value in exchange for some cheap swag and flashy lit displays, but it’s far more pervasive and nuanced than that. Like any other effort to improve on your metrics, you need to start with two firm rules: Provide something of value AND maintain alignment with your Brand. Both of these “rules” will serve you well to make it something worthwhile for your customers that serves the ultimate goal of your efforts – to enhance the relationship between your store and your customers.
But what are some examples that we could relate to?
Example: In-Store Events – While it is easy to imagine this type of activity at a craft store or a DIY store (who hasn’t taken a kid to the Saturday “workshop” at a Home Depot or Lowe’s? But if your space is focused on furniture, sports gear, frames or office supplies – what does that look like? The key is to not get caught up in feeling that “event = hype”. What you are trying to do is give people a reason to linger, browse, and spend more time in your store perhaps seeing categories of items they may not be very familiar with.
Furniture? Set up a row of office chairs from all price ranges and offer a chance for a prize or gift for providing feedback on the chairs (i.e. ” Rank these chairs in order of your favorite” or “Vote for your three favorite chairs”). In general, think about it in ways that might lead to longer dwell times in your store…a coffee bar on specific days, loyalty program perks tied to store events and other ways that reward in-store engagement.
Retail Already is “Omnichannel”, Are You?
According to data from Square, 82% of customers surveyed (globally) report that getting communications from local retailers helps them feel more connected. This implies that you need to ensure your online and in-store experiences not only overlap but enhance each other’s results. QR codes and other signage in the store to register emails ensure you are not dependent on collecting it exclusively at the checkout line, where it would end up being your first and last opportunity to do and entirely dependent on the experience the customer receives at checkout. Note the picture in the previous section – it’s a great example of cross-channel use of your content. Why not use what is already online to be visible in the store? You might be out of 6-7 SKUs of a sweater for which you carry 32 SKUs, but in this case the in-store customer can try one on to confirm the sizing then order the color you no longer carry in her size to be delivered to her home – before leaving the store (and not needing to wait in line at the checkout?)
Providing coupons or discounts while IN-STORE like this is a great way to increase dwell time, expand the customer’s experience with different categories of products, and strengthen the relationship. And don’t forget to take it one step further by offering them an incentive to come back within 7-10 days or to add to their purchases online once they get home.
Solving the Good Problems – Peak Traffic Days
Turning our attention to a different part of “Managing” Retail Traffic – how do we innovate in regards to dealing with long check-out lines, which we know will in turn become “lost sales” from customers leaving their carts behind, putting away one or more items, or avoiding going in at all once they see the lines?
Better yet, how do we manage SPACE in a way that maximizes the productivity we get from that space?
The Fixed POS Station/Checkout Counter Problem – For most retailers, your store design will usually include a fixed checkout area, where the space allocated for POS stations will be a permanent installation, and the number of stations determined by what you expect to see for peak traffic, be it in the holiday season or other, depending on your category and audience.
In a recent survey of Retail Managers and Executives, respondents reported that during slow seasons less than 10% of their stores used more than 60% of their stations. A full 69% reported using no more than 40% of their POS stations during off-peak periods. That’s a LOT of wasted space.
Except…if you are normally using no more than 4-5 POS stations during most of the year and then for 2 months of a busy holiday season you actually need TEN, then you will ensure that you will have 10, or even 12 station built into your floor design (See our solution to the ups and downs of seasonal traffic is detailed in “Maximizing Retail Efficiency – Rethinking Mobile POS Systems”).
If we now focus on the PEAK traffic (our “good problem”), where you find you may be losing sales because all of your POS stations are staffed and the lines are too long for customers to wait, one national retailer has found that adding a temporary, or “mobile” POS station could generate up to $500k in additional sales per month. Or, in another light, reduced lost sales by $500k/month.
By providing one or more Mobile POS stations (pictured) to your existing fixed installations, check-out lines will immediately be shortened, wait times reduced, and lost sales would be reduced as well.
It’s Never Just ONE Thing
Maximizing the revenue generated from your existing foot traffic means understanding your customers, and the levers that work best for your industry or category. This means experimenting with and juggling a number of different initiatives that work together – some of them more promotional and marketing focused (experiential promotions) – and other more practical and operational (the Mobile POS).
And whatever combination of things that work best for your retail space, remember that retailing is a very fluid business – where what works this year may no longer work next year, or the year after. “Continuous improvement” is the goal of your efforts here – measure, adjust and keep looking for and testing new ideas over time.
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