10 Strategies
To Pack Your Store
With Paying Customers
This Summer!
By Gary A. Wright
In the following pages I’m going to provide you with some ideas and strategies that you can use to
attract crowds and generate big increases in sales during the summer months ahead. You’ll have to use
your imagination a bit and build on these ideas to adapt them to your store and make them work. But
with some effort and good execution you can begin using these ideas and sales promotion strategies to
build your customer traffic and sales right away.
You should begin to think of your store not as part of the distribution chain moving products from
manufacturer to consumer, but as a service and entertainment business that must entice a customer by
making the environment of the store irresistible.
“This is typically a slow time. The question for us was; can this program work and
be successful during a ‘slow time’? The answer is ‘Yes’ it can and ‘Yes’ it did! …We
increased our sales 1.7 times over the previous year, increased customer traffic
and got an increased sense of merchandise trends…” G.A. Wright Client — Paul and Victor Fernandez
There are too many alternative ways for your customer to find most of the same products you sell
somewhere else for less money than you can afford to charge. So, your customer must have another,
more compelling reason to shop in your store than buying your products at a competitive price. You
need to make the shopping experience fun, exciting, curiosity provoking, pleasant, hassle free, social,
and memorable. Here are some ways to accomplish this.
1. Use the Five Sense Approach
I’ve always thought that Disney was one of this country’s most interesting companies. Every few
years I’ve taken my kids to Walt Disney World or Disneyland and I think I’ve had as much fun as they
have, but for different reasons.
I’ve marveled at the way they move traffic, at the cleanliness of everything, how they maintain
the buildings and grounds, and most of all how busy all of the retail establishments are. Most retailers
would die for the traffic they have every hour of the day — every day of the year.
“The promotional tools used created a ‘fun’ atmosphere my customers really
enjoyed — and they spent much more than they ever would have…”
G.A. Wright Client — Shirley Galley
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One of the things I find most interesting is the way they engineer the exhibits to appeal to every
sense. For example, the early American train station. As you approach from a distance you see a beautiful
building in the early American style. It is immaculately painted and surrounded by beautiful gardens.
Not a petal seems to be missing on the flowers. The vision is captivating.
Then as you reach the platform you can hear the chug of the locomotive, the blast of the horn, and
if you listen closely there’s the sound of Morse code tapping in the background.
On the platform you’ll notice a popcorn popper with fresh popcorn and if you look closely you’ll
see a fan built into the top of the popper that sends the fresh popped aroma out into the crowd. Of
course, everywhere you turn is the opportunity to purchase candy, drinks, and food of all sorts.
Then as the train stops you can get on, relax on one of the benches and feel the sensation of
movement as the train departs for other exciting destinations.
Every one of your senses has been bombarded to create a five-sense experience that you won’t
forget. Here lies a key to attracting customers and getting them to come back. I encourage you to look at
your store from the perspective of all 5 senses and be sure it is as appealing as it can be to each sense.
2. Conduct a Summer Sidewalk Sale
One way that always works to get an increase in sales is to have a sidewalk sale. Just by putting
merchandise on the sidewalk outside of the store, you will attract attention from passing traffic and
motivate some potential customers to stop and shop. However, the real key to making a sidewalk sale
work is producing an event that is as extravagant as possible. This doesn’t mean you have to spend a lot
of money. But, you do want to create a carnival atmosphere.
The best days to run a sidewalk sale are Thursday through Saturday. Use Thursday and Friday to
get the employees to practice setting up and securing the merchandise. Then plan for the major traffic
and sales volume on a Saturday.
Merchandise to put on the sidewalk is anything that takes up space and is colorful. The objective is
not to sell the merchandise on the sidewalk but to attract attention. It should be merchandise that you
can place sale tags and a sign on.
Get some music outside. You can do this with a boom box or put some big speakers on the roof
and wire them into the store sound system.
Find someone who will perform. This might be the high school cheerleaders or the local women’s
aerobic club. There are any number of performing groups that you can get for a small donation or even
for free. A high school band is another option. They’re always looking for a donation for their upcoming
trip to a bowl game.
Serve food and beverages. Invite a Coca-Cola or Seven Up bottling company to put up a stand. Invite
the local pep club to sell hamburgers and hot dogs. Let them keep the revenue. Find street vendors who are
willing to be there at no cost to you. Their incentive is the revenue from sales to the crowd you attract.
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If you need more room in the parking lot, get permission from the fire department and put up
construction barricades to cordon off a space for your sale. Sometimes renting a tent makes sense. You
might also look into kids’ amusement rides. These are available in many areas, can be towed in, and are
rented with an operator.
Create visibility by renting a tank of helium and filling some colorful balloons. Run them up on
strings over the merchandise.
Have local artists display their work. Get the National Guard to bring in an armored vehicle for the
kids to climb on. Anything you can do to attract attention and generate curiosity. Most of these things
can be done for little or no money from you.
Next, you need to have an incentive to get people out of the parking lot and into your store. So, you
have a drawing for a FREE television set. Display the TV outside but require people to go into the store
to register. Give away free helium balloons but only provide them in the back of the store. Make sure
that customers must come into the store to make a purchase.
“We sold merchandise at good prices that we thought could not even be sold.
Price did not seem to be a consideration for the customer.”
G.A. Wright Client — David Pronko
The key to a successful sidewalk sale is creating as much visibility as possible, attracting customers to
the parking lot and sidewalk, then getting them into the store. It can be great fun and not very expensive.
3. Offer an Unbeatable Deal
An easy way to get people into your store is offering them a great price on something they want.
When you’re buying you should always be looking for those items that have universal appeal that you
can get easily. If you can find those items you don’t have to buy with long lead times, and can replenish
quickly, then you can afford to sacrifice the items to draw traffic.
If you offer a great deal on something your customers want, they will be well motivated to come to
your store. They will have a good buying experience and the chances are they will purchase something
else while they’re there. They are also more likely to return and shop again.
Don’t underestimate the power of what has traditionally been called the “loss leader.” It’s still one
of the most successful ways to get paying customers into a store.
“I am now much more aware of the relationship of buying, gross markups, sales
and inventory levels and how to make my investment work for me. Above all,
it taught me not to be afraid of markdowns. My POS system proved to me that
markdowns don’t hurt — they only help.”
G.A. Wright Client — Gayla Wells
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4. Have an Evening Event
Traditionally the best day for an evening event is Thursday. It is a great night for an evening drive
and people everywhere are out on Thursday nights in the summer looking for an ice cream cone or
doing some window shopping.
A powerful technique for getting customers to a store has been used for years but is often
overlooked. Put a searchlight outside of the store and scan the skies as it gets dark. It will draw people
from miles around if the conditions are right. You need a basically clear night, but some high clouds or
humidity in the air help a lot.
The light will attract people to the parking lot but you need to be sure they don’t get out of their cars and
go into the local fast food place for a hamburger and a milkshake. The best way to do that is to have something
going on outside the store. An evening sidewalk sale works well. Get it illuminated with some bright lights.
Pipe some music outside. Create some activity on the sidewalk to attract attention and then have a way to get
the customer off of the sidewalk into the store. A drawing, balloons for the kids, sale items inside, etc.
I’ve seen a searchlight pack a store with customers from the time the sun goes down until the
searchlight is turned out at 11pm or so.
“It was your consultant’s ‘special events’ that put sizzle into the sale. One event
put more than one hundred customers into our store in less than eight hours, with
record-breaking sales. We literally could not write sales tickets fast enough!”
G.A. Wright Client — Elliot Aspinwall
5. Do Something Out of the Ordinary
The sky’s the limit here. Anything you can do that is different than the norm will attract attention.
You want do something that will make people turn their heads and take notice. Creativity and good
taste are your only guidelines.
“One part of our promotion was that customers could bring in food items which
would be given to needy families in the area. I was astounded at the large volume
of food that was brought in. Our consultant had arranged with one of the local
churches to distribute the food items. It became necessary, because of the large
quantities, to involve a second church group.”
G.A. Wright Client — David Radmall
The whole objective of advertising is to attract customers to your store. It is the traffic and having
the right product at the right price that will precipitate the sale. So anything you do that attracts attention
to the store and results in customer traffic is very likely to produce sales.
Some examples of things you can do include:
1. Sponsor a showing — art, antiques, cars, collectibles, etc.
2. Conduct a pajama party in the store.
3. Give prizes for the best hat or the ugliest tie.
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4. Have a pretty baby contest.
5. Conduct a goldfish-eating contest.
6. Do a charity bake sale.
7. Conduct a moonlight madness sale.
8. Do trunk showings.
9. Have demonstrations in the store.
10. Do an upside-down sale starting with an upside-down ad in the paper.
Imagination is the key to success and the more out of the ordinary you can get the better it usually works.
6. Change the Way You Look
Your store probably looks pretty much the same all the time unless you’re decorating for some
special event or season like Christmas. Change that. Make it look different now.
You can start with merchandising. Find a fresh look for the store. Change everything about the
merchandising that you can change and still keep the store an attractive place to shop. Paint the walls
and change the colors. Redo the windows.
Change the merchandise arrangement. Just by moving merchandise to a new location in the store
will often precipitate sales.
Find a way to change the look of the store from the outside. You can use colored flags, streamers, displays,
balloons, lighting, banners, or anything else you can find to change the way it looks. A change will attract
attention and motivate curiosity. It will create an increase in traffic that will produce an increase in sales.
“When the bright sale signs went up and each item of merchandise individually
priced, I could see that this was a very professional marketing concept. As we worked
through the sale, we saw an increase in traffic flow and increase in repeat traffic.”
G.A. Wright Client — Pat Coughlin
Think about constantly changing the look of the store. It can be done around the theme of special or
seasonal events such as Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, holidays, the Super Bowl, Spring, Fall, back-to-school, etc.
These allow a tie in with something the customer relates to and provide a guide to decorating and colors. This
will keep you from getting boring to the customer. They will be coming in to see what you’re up to next.
7. Install a Frequent Shopper Program
Getting a customer into the store the first time is generally very expensive. Once that customer
has been into your store and had a positive buying experience it is much easier to obtain a return visit
and the relationship with that customer becomes more profitable. So, a central objective for any store
should be to build customer relationships and obtain multiple return visits.
Building relationships with customers is a lot like building relationships with friends. You first
have to meet someone. You then have multiple contacts before you get to know that person and a
genuine friendship evolves.
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In the retail business it works the same way. We need to meet new customers and that requires
considerable effort and expense to get them into the store. We then need a strategy to keep them coming
back so the relationship can develop. Once they become comfortable with the store, have made friends
with employees, and have had a series of positive buying experiences you are able to build a relationship
that will transcend a better price offered by your competitor.
Frequent shopper programs have been very successful in facilitating the relationship building
process in many types of businesses to include retail.
“The contest and weekly direct mailings are key factors in drawing in old and
new customers on a daily basis. The customers enjoy playing the contest games
and being entertained, both of which contribute to their spending more time and
money in our store. This gives us an edge on our competitors.”
G.A. Wright Client — Fay Newman and Shelly Springs
The programs involve frequent communication with the customer to provide updates on their
standing in the program. Advantages are provided that come with membership. These might include
free gift wrap or home delivery. And, an award is made upon reaching certain goals such as a specific
level of sales.
An awards program can be structured very simply to provide a certificate worth a specified dollar
amount for a purchase made in the store. The certificate is awarded for total purchases reaching the
prescribed level. For example when purchases reach $500 an award certificate of $25 is sent to the
customer along with a letter thanking that customer for the business and encouraging a return visit to
redeem the certificate.
Once the basic program is created, then it can be enhanced with added value programs. If you visit the
store and make a purchase, then you receive a coupon for a free soft drink at a local fast food restaurant.
8. Make Your Store a Social Gathering Place
One big motivation for shopping in traditional retail stores is social interaction. Most people like
to be with other people. This is especially true for people that share their interest and values.
A retail store is a great place to meet people who are interested in the same things you are interested
in. The retailer can make a store much more appealing by enhancing the social value to the customer. A
classic example is the old general store where customers congregate to drink a cup of coffee and talk.
The social value of a retail business can be enhanced by making it a comfortable place for social
interaction. Is there a place to sit and talk? Do you offer food or beverages? Can you find ways to put
people together that might have similar interests.
There are any number of events you can run that will provide this social interaction. These include:
1. Wine and cheese party
2. Trunk showings
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3. Fashion shows
4. Educational classes
5. Product demonstrations
Concentrate on finding ways to make your store a place people want to come and meet other people.
“Our consultant told us to expect a measured constant pace, and to be ready at
times to be swarmed. The pace was like December (our best month) and most lookers
were buyers, responding well to the significant markdowns and party atmosphere…
making us the ‘talk of the town’ and something of an entertainment destination.”
G.A. Wright Client — J. Daniel Leap
9. Call Your Best Customers
There is no form of communication that is as powerful as personal communication. A one-on-one
telephone call to your best customers will always result in more sales.
I do business with a florist I’ve used for years. When we’re coming up on an important event like
Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day, I get a call to make sure that I have remembered and then get some
suggestions about an arrangement that would be appropriate. I like getting these calls. It keeps me from
forgetting. I would make the purchase anyway but this makes it easy. And, I remember this florist when other
events come up that warrant flowers. It also keeps me from remembering as I walk by some other florist.
If you keep track of your customers, know about their families and their interests, you can find many
excuses to call and make suggestions that will result in more business. The more you know about your customers,
the easier this will be. It’s also very powerful for building those long-term customer relationships.
“All of the goals that had been set for our store were accomplished. We now
have increased our cash flow, balanced our stocks and inventory, created a new
customer database, and brought back old customers.”
G.A. Wright Client — Michele, Antoine, and Catherine Falise
You may also consider an incentive, during the phone call, to get customers back into the store.
Present the gift as a token of your appreciation for their business and an incentive to bring them back
into the store to look at a recently received line of merchandise. A gift can be very effective since people
will sincerely appreciate receiving the gift, even an inexpensive gift, and will feel an obligation to look
and possibly buy something.
You can always produce sales with a well thought-out phone campaign to past customers.
10. Conduct a High Impact G.A. Wright Sales Event
You can double or triple your sales volume for an extended period of time, attract a great number of
new customers, and unlock the potential in your business with the sales promotion services provided by
my company. This is the best way I know to solve a sales slump during slower summer months and I’ve
spent years studying the techniques used to attract customers and increase sales.
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We incorporate everything I’ve learned about retail advertising and sales promotion in our High
Impact Sales Promotion Events.
It’s not our objective to be original or produce creative advertising that wins awards at the art
director’s show. We use tested techniques that produce results. That’s traffic through the door and sales
through the register.
All of the strategies I’ve talked about above can be used to increase your sales right now. But,
there’s a great deal you can learn from one of our professional consultants about how to put powerful
advertising and sales promotion techniques together into a coordinated campaign that will produce
more together than if tried separately.
A good deal of what we do is educational in nature. We’re glad to show you the best ways to do
everything from advertising and merchandising to special events and point-of-purchase promotion for
a high impact event. And, everything is much different during a promotion than it is during every day
business. Our consultants will answer any questions you have and will spend time training you and your
staff in the best approaches to building traffic and sales.
Another suggestion I will make about promoting during your slower summer months is that this
represents one of your best opportunities to boost sales during your high season. When you promote
before customers are normally shopping you get the jump on the competition. You get customers in
early, before they would normally begin shopping. This gives you a chance to test your Fall and Winter
merchandise. See what’s selling and what’s not, so you can reorder the hot items and closeout the losers.
Your customers will have a good buying experience, become familiar with your store and merchandise,
and they will experience a memorable event. So, when they get into the shopping mood in the Fall and
before the holidays they will remember your store.
We expect that new customer traffic we attract will build your customer base and result in as much
as a 15% increase in regular price sales during the period after the promotion.
You can turn your slow summer months into a high traffic, high cash flow period that builds your
business now and enhances your business during your most profitable time of the year.
“G.A. Wright, along with the retail consultant accomplished all of my goals: 1) to
increase over all sales; 2) to expand the overall customer base and to especially
reach new customers in the market area; 3) to generate increased cash flow; 4) the
learning experience as it relates to new and better techniques relating to advertising,
sales promotion, and marketing, and 5) to ‘make the customers happy.’”
G.A. Wright Client — Walter R. Ottey
Give us a call toll FREE at 1-800-824-5886 to talk about your store and how your customer traffic
and sales volume can be increased. There is no cost or obligation for talking to us over the phone. One
of my senior consultants with extensive experience in your part of the retail business will be glad to talk
to you and explore ways we can help.
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08-DMS-0234