5 Sales Promotion Strategies to Implement in Your Retail Store
As the retail business is slowly bouncing back from the pandemic, there is a growing need for promotional activities that can compete against the convenience of online shopping. Due to uncertain economic situations, consumers these days will mostly focus on discounted goods. Retailers must meet these expectations if they do not want to lose sales.
From a business perspective, this can turn out to be quite a challenge without a proper retail promotion strategy and technology in place. Because of this, most retailers consider executing a visual merchandising planogram as a crucial tool that aids in sales promotion by improving the visibility of items on store shelves. Planograms are visual merchandising tools, that help retailers organize the shelf space for the selected items for promotion and place discount labels on them to drive sales. This helps retailers reallocate shelf space for planning promotions and introducing products with discounts to re-engage shoppers. You can understand customer preferences in greater depth by analyzing the sales data to select the sales promotion strategies that will attract more customers to your store.
Types of Sales Promotion in Retail for Store Success
1. Pay A percentage less: The percentage off promotions are most effective for boosting sales, no matter what you sell. Depending on your shopper segmentation, this promotion will be more effective for the lowest priced products or the most expensive ones. Shoppers usually benefit from these promotions as a long-term investment. Pretend you are an apparel retailer who needs to make sales in winter. You might want to try 10% off promotions in December to January month. You can place jackets, woolen clothes, gloves or socks for promotions to drive sales. In this way, you will generate more sales, and your shoppers will be paying less for an item they consider buying.
Useful tip: Flash sales are a good example of percentage off sales promotion. You can place the discount labels on the right product shelves with the help of planograms to visually please customers.
2. Reward points & coupons: If you want to increase customer loyalty and repeat purchases, you can introduce reward points and coupons as sales promotions in your store. Rewards are a great example of a pull strategy to increase customer loyalty. Your shoppers know that if they become repeat buyers, they will be rewarded in return. You can offer coupons that are valid for a specific period or on their next purchase to encourage them to visit your store next time. This will help drive your sales and increase profit margins.
Useful tip: You can set a time limit to spend reward points and coupons and remind your customers about the time left. This ensures your customers return to your store.
3. Multi-buy ins: Multi-buy promotions such as ‘4 for the price of 3’, or ‘2 for the price of 1, is another marketing strategy to clear out your inventory. But the success of multi-buys largely depends on the types of items you sell. When thinking about multiple types of promotion, you need to first consider whether these items can be used as a set.
Useful tip: You can offer multiple-buy ins with the help of a planogram in retail as a set of items, like T-shirts or pants. For example, ‘buy 2 t-shirts, get 1 free pair of jeans’ is a winning strategy.
4. BOGO promotions: BOGO, which means ‘buy one, get one free’ is an example of a good marketing strategy that not only attracts customers, but also allows retailers to be creative in planning the shelf space for such items. This helps get rid of poor-performing items on the store shelves or to clear out the warehouses with unwanted items.
Useful tip: You can provide cross-selling offers as a BOGO strategy to move stagnant products because it effectively shows shoppers what to do with the product. For example, if a certain gardening shovel is barely selling, you can display it next to a popular plant. BOGO deals are considered a part of wider marketing strategy revolving around product bundling and mixing.
5. Try before you buy: If you want to introduce a new product of your brand before you go and fill the shelves completely with these products, you can place product samples for the customer to try on the product before purchasing it. This helps you understand customer attitudes towards your product and will help you stock it.
Useful tip: You can place labels such as ‘try me, before you buy’ to encourage shoppers to try your product.
Conclusion
Sales promotions can help you increase sales, customer traffic, or any other retail goals of yours. With planograms, you can place promotional products at eye level to entice shoppers to make purchases. This helps you encourage shoppers to visit your store and increase overall sales.
