For anyone who owns a retail business, increasing sales is the most important objective. Whether you run a physical storefront or an online store, it’s important to provide excellent customer service and consistently generate new leads.
Most modern retailers can use their online presence to attract more foot and online traffic. Only those who are able to adapt and improve will succeed in any competitive market. Let’s look at the most effective strategies that experts recommend to boost sales in your retail business.
- Research your customer base
- Find and amplify your unique selling proposition (USP)
- Improve the design of your website
- Perfect your product pages
- Create online content
- Work with influencer and affiliate marketing
- Improve the delivery of the product
- Offer perks to new and returning customers
- Consider subscription model
- Enable cryptocurrency payments
Top 10 tips to boost your retail business
Research your customer base
Targeting the right audience is important, whether you have a brick-and-mortar store or sell products online. For any kind of marketing campaign, the effectiveness and cost will depend on how well you know your customers and what appeals to them.
Use analytical tools for online purchases and point-of-sale (POS) systems to learn more about the customers who purchase your products. You can use this data to determine buying habits and preferences.
If you are already running online advertising campaigns, there are a lot of helpful tools that can also help you track the path clients take on your website. This can be useful in determining whether there are any steps between clicking on the advertisement and making a purchase that can be improved.
Find and amplify your unique selling proposition (USP)
For a business to be successful, it needs to have a lucrative proposition that can win customers over its competitors. Develop your company’s unique selling propositions, as well as its background and mission. These points should then be used to build your own brand identity. Put them on your social media, in the advertisements, create tags, and include them in the emails.
Improve the design of your website
While the design is important for a physical store, online customers are not able to touch and feel the products before buying. This makes the design of the website all the more important.
Make sure that your online store is optimized for use on different types of devices and browsers. If you don’t require a dedicated website yet, there are plenty of eCommerce platforms like Shopify that have simple processes and management features.
Give customers more options, like guest checkout, to complete their purchases more quickly. Keep the checkout process short and concise, only ask what’s necessary. Use familiar standard verbiage for buttons such as “Buy”, “Confirm”, and “Cancel”.
Perfect your product pages
Without physical interaction with the product, it’s your job as a seller to make sure customers can connect to it in other ways. It all starts with high-quality photos of the product that showcase all of its features. Add all factual information, including production parameters, materials, and location. Employ professional copywriters to develop product descriptions that are both informative and attractive to potential customers.
Create online content
In the age of social media, not using it to promote your product is a missed opportunity. Create unique content for your official accounts to increase brand awareness and generate leads. Going viral with your product will be the fastest way to boost sales. Use targeted advertising with catchy creatives to boost traffic to your website.
Work with influencer and affiliate marketing
Nothing encourages people to buy products better than word-of-mouth. This is why online businesses take advantage of influencer marketing. Many influencers have loyal audiences that trust their word and will try out a product they recommend. If you offer all of your customers an affiliate code with a discount or bonus, a lot of them might recommend you to a close friend.
A recommendation from someone they know will be more effective and trustworthy than an advertisement.
Improve the delivery of the product
If you have a physical product that needs to be shipped to the customer, make sure your shipping costs and processes are standard for the industry. If you are able to build shipping into the price, this will minimize customers abandoning their carts at the checkout. Make sure that the delivery time is also reasonable; not many buyers are willing to wait weeks to get their purchases.
If you have a digital product that gets delivered in the mail, this should be done minutes after payment is processed. Make sure you include descriptions and instructions so buyers can start using your product immediately.
Offer perks to new and returning customers
To attract new customers and convince them to try your product, it’s always a good idea to offer a discount or special promotion for first-time buyers. Offering cart add-ons or packages for a lower price will also help you sell more products.
However, don’t forget that it’s easier to reach an existing client. Send follow-up emails and seasonal promotions. See what other products past buyers might want and when. You can even start a bonus system where returning clients can “earn” special products or discounts.
Consider subscription model
If you have a product that customers would buy repeatedly, a subscription model can work well for current trends. Try offering good deals on monthly purchases that can be fulfilled automatically. This model works especially well for household items, cosmetics, and accessories.
Enable cryptocurrency payments
Make sure customers are able to use a payment method that is convenient for them. It goes without saying that methods such as bank cards, Apple Pay, PayPal, and other similar popular services should be included. Accepting cryptocurrency payments would also be beneficial for many retail businesses.
You can reach a completely new market by accepting cryptocurrency as a form of payment. Young, educated men, notoriously difficult to reach with conventional advertising and marketing, make up the majority of cryptocurrency users.
Retailers accepting crypto demonstrate that they value and support the decentralization, security, and flexibility of blockchain technology. They can also take advantage of faster transactions and lower fees.
Why you should accept crypto payments with NOWPayments
Retail business owners who want to accept cryptocurrency payments in their stores should consider NOWPayments. It is a non-custodial crypto payment gateway, which means that all payments are sent directly to your cryptocurrency wallet. The service supports automatic conversions and more than 50 different currencies. Integration of the NOWPayments crypto payment processing tools is absolutely free of charge, and transaction fees are as low as 0.5%.
How to accept crypto payments
To start accepting crypto payments, create an account with NOWPayments with your email address and a crypto wallet where your payments will be sent.
Open the NOWPayments dashboard, where you will be able to see all the payment tools as well as your transaction history.
Go to your account dashboard, click “Payment Tools,” and select the “Payment Link” tab to receive payment via a link. When a pop-up window appears, click the “Create payment” link and then select the currency and amount.
Additionally, you can set up billing tools, create your own POS terminal, and create donation widgets, buttons, and links.
Conclusion
Learning how to increase sales in retail takes a lot of research and action. As can be seen from the list above, there are many strategies that can be used to boost your store’s performance. It’s important to realize that it isn’t a matter of doing everything we’ve listed all at once, but rather taking it one step at a time until all of your processes are in place.
Consider adding cryptocurrency as a payment option if you want to jump-start your sales efforts. It won’t cost you much to add the option, and you will be able to target a new audience segment. The speed and cost of transactions are also better for most crypto coins than bank payments.