8 Easy Tips to Boost Your In-Store Sales this Christmas!

In order to get the best out of your brand visibility this Christmas, you need to ensure you have good Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and a smart strategy for all of your channels. Not only do you need to be thinking about the Christmas holidays, you also need to be thinking now about your plans for the New Year and beyond.

A great way to be seen is to increase engagement with your brand by attracting customers with high quality images and social media posts. If you have a bricks-and-mortar store, it’s vital to engage in the essential customer rituals of Christmas shopping. Going to the shops is for most, all part of the seasonal cheer!

Christmas can bring with it an array of additional challenges for retailers and an increase in footfall in the holiday season can reduce any chance of relaxation and enjoyment for customers. In addition to this, overcrowded shops, financial worry, seasonal stock and temporary staff can all potentially rock the boat for retailers and disgruntled customers may be difficult to win back in future!

With an estimated 4-10 times the cost to gain new customers compared to retaining old ones, we can all agree that keeping your customers is a far better strategy as they enter your business this year.

In this article, we share 8 easy tips to boost your in-store sales this Christmas.

1. Pay Attention to your Customers

What would make a customer choose to venture out in the winter weather to trawl the shops for seasonal goods and gifts rather than shopping online? It must be the service and the experience of being in a physical store. For this reason, take the time to boost your employees’ skills in their customer service and prioritise spending time with customers in need, despite the seasonal rush. This is an opportunity to put your ePOS to good use. By investing in an ePOS that can not only handle transactions but offer a unique experience for every customer, you can ensure that employees have access to real-time stock information, customer order history and preferences. You can empower your employees to give consistent, personalised customer service every time.

2. Keep on Top of the Mess

Retailers shouldn’t be adding to the stresses of Christmas shopping. Entering a physical store, customers should see stock in the correct places, tidy displays and good organisation for them to browse at ease. Messy shops are an all-too-common feature of Christmas shopping so this is an easy way to set yourself apart. Many customers, when faced with a chaotic and messy store, are likely to turn around and leave. Evaluate the need to hire additional staff to ensure that aisles, shelves and displays are kept looking their best to retain customers and secure sales.

3. Give Customers Space

One of the least attractive aspects of Christmas shopping is the overcrowded shop floors. Make the best use of your floor space to ensure customers can move freely to explore everything you have to offer. Are you optimising the space you have? Remember that not all customers are able to shop unencumbered, many will have shopping bags, pushchairs and other factors which add to a stressful shopping experience. Retailers can also make use of their floor space by encouraging impulse buying. Have you studied the patterns of your customers? Take notice of the high traffic areas and where the products sell best.

4. Communicate Well

Is your employee’s time being taken up with questions that take them away from providing profitable customer service? Consider your physical store as a customer might. Have your employees noticed any repeat questions such as: ‘Where is the changing room?’ ‘Where can I find the toy section?’ A very simple way to gain valuable time with your customers is to provide clear signage. This will also reduce customer frustration and any hostility towards staff. Employees will gain valuable time to serve customers profitably during the holiday rush.

5. Always be In The Know

When customers have questions about products, empower your staff to have all the answers at their fingertips. With high volumes of stock potentially coming in and out of your inventory, it’s easy to lose track. Many businesses still rely on systems which have a hard time syncing data. Stock levels that aren’t up-to-date in real-time are no use to anyone. Upgrade your ePOS to a unified system that ensures every aspect of your business is running up to the second. Gain valuable insights from data to manage your seasonal stock effectively.

6. Wrap Up your Systems

One of the most frustrating aspects of Christmas shopping are the inevitable queues at peak times.

Here are some simple ideas to speed up queues:

• Keep your customers entertained with unique and novelty items near the tills
• Ensure your ePOS can handle the pressure - if not, upgrade to one which copes with stress (even if the internet cuts out!)
• Eliminate the queue entirely with mobile ePOS devices - employees can serve customers, check stock, order and take payments from anywhere in or outside the store.
• Offer click and collect or curbside pickup - encourage your online shoppers to set foot in your bricks-and-mortar store.

7. Optimise your Returns

Every retailer will need to manage returns efficiently - especially over the Christmas period. A smart move is to extend your return policy into January to ease customer traffic and stress at this time. For omni-channel businesses, offering the option to return items in-store for items bought online will be an essential move. Research from Investp shows that 62% of shoppers prefer to return items bought online to a physical store. In addition to this, customers bringing items to a physical store are also more likely to spend more while they are there.

8. Stay Calm

Working in retail during the holiday season can be a very stressful time for employees. From dealing with impatient customers to working under pressure, staff can be understandably overwhelmed. As a retail manager or business owner, your role is to ensure that the pressure doesn’t mount too high in these situations and help reduce it. By investing in the right technology, you can help your employees to remain happy, friendly and calm throughout. With powerful software behind you, retailers can maximise employee productivity and keep them at the optimal workload.

Key Takeaways:

Christmas doesn’t need to be a stressful time for you, your customers or your employees. Choosing the right ePOS is the first step to managing your retail business efficiently this Christmas.

When you choose Saledock, you benefit from a unified system for all your retail management needs. Sign up for our 14-day FREE trial or why not book a demo? You’ll get unlimited access to all Pro Plan features for a full two weeks with no credit card required. See for yourself why Saledock has been named Point of Sale Technology of the year at the 2022 Retail Systems Awards! With nothing to lose and everything to gain, sign up for your free trial here.