When it comes to turning your stores into selling machines, one solution rarely fits all.
Even outlets within the same chain will have different drivers to deliver that all important best practice that will unlock your sales performance. Some outlets may rely more on customer service, whilst others depend on visual merchandising and ease of shop.
So, it’s an important part of the strategic process to assess which selling tools will actually deliver higher sales, profit, efficiency and brand equity, whilst the assessment process in itself, whether that be by store or regional managers or supervisors, is often a tool that needs to be developed in its own right.
It’s important for your productivity that every store is assessed on a whole range of parameters including the following, to identify where the appropriate tools will deliver performance:
- service approach
- dynamic of product
- complexity of assortment
- difficulty of store control
- store manager influence
- sales personnel hierarchy
- staff experience & skills
- staff enthusiasm and “passion”
- store design evolution
- fixture efficiency & compliance
- delivery scheduling
- replenishment efficiency……
Only from proper assessment, can stores be clustered and supported to perform, and often the number and variety of propositions may be part of the retail proposition itself, and therefore part of the problem.
Different propositions require different solutions…
So “Roll-out your retail propositions” but “Roll-up your sleeves” and build your stores with all the VM-Selling Tools you need to succeed.
Be the architect of your proposition, and not your downfall!
How do you assess your stores? Who’s doing the assessment?
Do you now try to make every store work the same, when in fact intelligent flexibility might hold the key to success?