Centerport, NY -- (SBWire) -- 01/08/2013 --You have heard this many times before…Location, Location, Location. For those who opening a store this means examining possible locations before signing a lease. You will discover that it is well worth the extra money to have a well traveled location on a busy road than a bargain deal on a unit down a side street. The activity on the well traveled road is going to pay for itself time and time again by increased exposure which will lessen your advertising costs and marketing expenses.
Once you have the location, it is important to lay out the store properly.
- It should be simple for shoppers to locate and merchandise you have on display. Never create dead end aisles, or direct shoppers into tight spaces as they walk around the store.
- Make it easy for the shopper by providing baskets and carts and make sure that you have plenty of them. The more a shopper can put into the carts, the more they will buy!
- Make sure you have enough inventory. You will see that many discount stores place inventory stacked high into the sky, and even utilize the area at the front windows to stock products as well.
- Design your aisles methodically. Typically, dollar store and variety stores group their item categories together to make it easy and enjoyable for shoppers to find products. If your shoppers feel they have to hunt around the store to find things they will bypass coming to you.
- Sloppy cluttered stores lose business! Make sure that your store upkeep is done regularly. Have staffers go around the store a few times a day and before closing to make sure that items that were “moved” to various wrong locations by shoppers are put back into the right areas. Re-merchandising is an important part of recovery of items from the store.
- A sloppy store means an unprofitable store. You need to maximize the amount of money that each shopper comes in spending. The easier they find things, the more organized your store is, the bigger your sales and customer satisfaction.
- Variety of merchandise. There is PLENTY of wholesale merchandise to stock your store with, Be on top of new trends through news, reviews and merchandise offerings from wholesalers. There are many great trade publications and websites to source products, including Retailers Forum Magazine (since 1981) that offers free online access at http://www.retailersforum.com
Here’s to the growth and success of your new business!
About Martin Stevens
Martin Stevens is the founder of Forum Publishing Company, who since 1981 has helped small businesses source for wholesale merchandise and information.
Free access to the monthly magazine, Retailers Forum is available to everyone at http://www.RetailersForum.com, as well as the company book and directory site: http://www.forum123.com
Contact:
Forum Publishing Co.
383 E Main St.
Centerport, NY 11721
631-754-5000
Martin Stevens
forumpublishing@aol.com
Forum Publishing Company Explains How to Open Your Own Retail Store