Set goals for the only two ways to increase retail sales
By Deane Parkes
There are only two ways to increase sales:
Attract more customers.
Sell more to your current customer base.
Simple to say! Harder to remember.
I’ve got two questions for you:
Without looking or asking, do you know the number of customers you had yesterday, last week, last month; the average sale; and (for the large retail managers) the basket count?
Do you have goals to increase each of these?
If not, read on for a system to help you track, analyze, and implement (especially if you discover these vital numbers are not consistently going up).
Create a tracking system
Here is an outline to create your own tracking system:
Start a spreadsheet—paper or software
Along the top row, have your Monthly Sales Goal
Under that, input the following columns:
Date
Daily sales
Number of customers
Average sale
Average basket count (basket count is not necessary but helpful)
4. Every day, manually enter the numbers for each column.
If you are not already doing this, try it for 30 days!
I guarantee it will increase your connection to the pulse of your business and open new ideas to continually improve.
Set goals
Once you have an idea where the customer count and average sale numbers are, set goals, monitor the results, and find ways to reach your goals.
Here’s are some examples:
Goal #1: Increase daily customers
Example: If you typically see 100 customers a day, by adding 10 customers a day, you will add approximately 300 customer sales per month. If an average sale is $15 per customer, that’s an increase of $4,500 in monthly sales.
Goal #2: Increase average sales
Example: If you maintain 100 customers per day but bump the average sale from $15 to $18, the $3 increase in sales will equal $300 per day. Over one month, this can equal an increase of $9,000.
Goal #3: Increase basket size
Example: If you set a daily goal of adding one more product to 50 out of every 100 baskets at an average product sale of $3, it adds up to $150 per day or $4,500 each month in increased sales.
The focus of all sales and marketing efforts should be on three things:
attracting new customers
ensuring existing customers return
increasing sales through the till
As a community rooted in the well-being of the people, we are in the position to make a tremendous difference in their lives and, hence, we must not forget to provide a wide selection of specialty natural health products. With ever-rising costs, this requires consistent improvement and focus on sales through the till.
In the next issue of CNHR, I will share proven ways to attract new customers, keep the current ones coming back, and ways to increase average sale/basket counts.
Happy sales!