5 Tips to Help Your Retail Business be Profitable in 2021

We’re going to go over five really great tips for retailers, for this month, for the rest of the holiday season, and going right into 2021. This has been a tough time for retailers, and that’s an understatement. But having been out there shopping over the last couple of weeks I can plainly see that there is no shortage of people, but there IS a shortage of parking spots. So people are out there shopping.

This is about how to really maximize all of that holiday shopping energy and get your 2021 started on the right foot.

1: Leverage Social Media

We definitely see some people do it way better than others. And the key to that is consistency. Do not be afraid to post multiple times a day. We want to see your stock – most retailers are not sharing what they actually have, interestingly. We want to see what you’re selling.

I have one retailer, a clothing boutique, that does such a great job of just putting different things together – simply taking a picture and posting that on Instagram. A piece of jewelry in the window, jeans or cute jumpsuits on a rack – it can be anything nicely styled. A hat on somebody, even behind them or at a different angle, whatever you want – you can’t possibly show people enough of what you have in store.

I would say as a retailer, you should be posting three to five times a day. You should be engaging with your followers and follow your fellow retailers (that’s a mouthful) – the other stores in your community – even if you see them as competitors. You still want to know what they’re up to right? I’m sure they’re following you. So follow them. And this is a really great opportunity to possibly share their audience, engage them, maybe even develop a co-branding opportunity there. Definitely follow and be aware of what’s going on in your local and maybe not-so-local community, and just really make a presence online. So, put it all out there. Also, if you can do stories and reels consistently, go for it!

2: Be SUPER Organized with Your Inventory

This is a battle that we definitely have had with a lot of our clients. Maybe not so much anymore (I think we’ve worked them into shape), but inventory is like piles of CASH on your shelves. It’s important to be Type-A SUPER-HYPER organized about your inventory, because that’s money. I mean think about it – if you did literally have piles and piles of cash on a desk in your store – wouldn’t you want to be a little bit more organized about how much you have and where you’re keeping it? It’s the same exact theory with inventory as that is money to you. You bought that stuff. Hopefully you’re going to sell it.

NOW, let’s organize that stuff in terms of being Type-A super-hyper organized. If somebody’s shopping in your store, and they want something in a certain size and it’s not out on the floor, you want to immediately be able to say, “I have that in the back!” and know where it is. I’ve witnessed a common scenario recently – you find something you like on the floor, you ask the sales person if they have a different size, and they say, “Hmm. I don’t know,” and maybe they’ll check their point of sale, which is great. Or maybe they’ll say, “Hmm let me check. I’ll be right back.” You want that person to be back within 2 or 3 minutes. Anything longer than that and you’re likely going to Amazon it or be over it. Be organized.

Here are a couple of great articles on organizing your inventory:

3: Know your Numbers

We say this all the time.
Know your numbers.
Know your business.
Know what your sales are.
Know what your target sales are.
Know your pricing.

We have this AWESOME retail calculator that we built that we get out to our clients so they know when something new comes in, they can plug in the cost and the margin they need to hit, USUALLY at least 60%, and it spits out the price to sell it for. You’re not going to make any money if you sell something for one time the purchase price (double), it needs to be a higher margin than that, so again, know your numbers.

Know your numbers. Know your margin. Know your sales targets. You should be looking at this daily, weekly and monthly during this busy time. When it’s not busy, you should be looking at least weekly. Right now, I would be looking at it daily, because what gets measured gets managed.

4: Set goals.

Super fun and where you can get your team involved, you will definitely see a difference. I know when I was in the restaurant industry and we had, let’s say, three cases of wine that we bought because we got a deal on it, and we just wanted to sell out of it, we would create a contest for our employees. The winner (who sold the most wine) would get dinner on the house, 20 bucks, a gift card or something else. Set goals! Get your team involved, create a little kindness out of it and have some fun!

Retail examples might be whoever can sell the most plants, scarves, hats, cards, shoes etc. Announce your contest and then maybe have a goal for a week or the month. It should be a fun, spirited competition, but really it’s just keeping that particular item at the front of the minds of your team. They will start to look for the right opportunities to sell. I definitely recommend setting your sales goals by hour, by day, by week and by month, and your team needs to be involved.

5. The Client Journey

This is my biggest one that I want to say that I believe offers a better customer experience. I don’t know why so many places do not put time and energy (and it’s not even that much time and energy) into their client journey. Every customer that comes into your ecosphere, whether it’s by email, your website, social platforms, phone, or walking in your door should have a customer journey that is documented in a way that you want your customer to feel.

It is so extraordinarily important. And I don’t think enough retailers put enough weight into that. So what I’m saying is if, for example, you have curbside pickup (you should!) make sure that system is easy and fun and just simple to use. Right now, this holiday season, there are a lot of shoppers out there that don’t actually like to shop. They’re going to be loving this curbside thing. So make it a process that’s super easy for them.

If you have people come into the store, genuinely look to help them – even if they’re looking for something you don’t have. Maybe you know a competitor who does. Send them that way. That will come back to you in spades. There is major significance in being genuinely helpful to that person. Contact your vendors asking about what they’re looking for after a quick “I’ll research that and get back to you”. Even if you aren’t able to procure what they wanted, you get back to the customer and say “you know what, it’s not available” or “I can’t get it in time.” Anything genuinely helpful just to show somebody that you put that time and effort into trying to help them will go miles. I can’t stress this enough… Really think about your customer experiences. How you want customers to talk about you is extraordinarily important. I don’t think enough people do this, so if you do put some time and energy into this you’re going to really beat out your competition.

Those are my five top tips for retailers. Thank you so much for being a part of the Sparkle family. For the rest of this wonderful holiday season and into 2021, please feel free to contact us if you have any questions (well, any questions about business or finance. Probably don’t call us when you have questions during Family Trivia Night.)

We LOVE Sixth Division. We’ve worked closely with Brad Martineau to develop our own client journey. They have tones of information available for free as well at their website.