What makes customers want to buy and wanting to leave?
When asked about what factors impact sales, many retailers will allude to the economy, weak consumer spending, competition, and recent ‘shop from home’ innovations. While those factors certainly play a role, I often find, that the real reason is where employees unwittingly chase away new potential customers, and most employees have no idea that they are committing any wrongdoing. In retail right now, we have employees acting as if they are doing the customer a big favour by being present on the shop floor. This is all very wrong. How often have you observed salespeople huddled around a counter, or keeping out of sight behind a display or increasingly hovering at a corner texting on their mobiles or merely flopping around like dying fish? Notice how their demeanour changes between talking animatedly amongst themselves or when good humouredly teasing each other, and, when they interact with the customer. Shop owners must realise that regardless of whatever their staff are doing, if they’re not properly engaging with customers, they are only there for each other - not the buyer… and that’s never going to put money into the cash register. In most instances, shop floors become a nursery for untrained poker-faced sales staff, engaged in an idle game of hide-and-seek with potential customers. Past surveys reveal that the average customer, who visits a mall, enters only three stores (could be more in the local scenario), out of all the stores they walk past. That’s basically a one-in-three likelihood that they’ll buy something. There is also a long held-belief that 70% of the decision to purchase is made in the shop and effective shopper communications will in most cases close the deal and even stimulate Up-sell.
The Long and Winding Road.
If ever there was a song which summed up the fraught nature of the retail business – especially in Sri Lanka, it is ‘The Long and Winding Road’ by the Beatles. It’s a sad song because it's all about the unattainable; the door you never quite reach. This is the road that you never get to the end of and retailers really need to get smarter about shopper behaviour. There is no one sure road to purchase anymore: consumers have several choices and shop/store operators need to understand the complete customer journey. With the proliferation of retailers and malls, the ‘where’ I buy becomes just as important as the ‘what’. As a shopper, I had already made a decision to buy and headed out to a mall in Colombo 3’. In this instance, I was looking to purchase a white coloured, easy to iron, long- sleeved shirt.
My journey began at the newly opened shirt store, sporting the name of a prized green gemstone. Walking towards the glass-fronted store entrance, I observed a smartly attired member of staff striding purposefully from within, towards the doors. ‘That’s interesting’ I told myself, only to have my initial bubble of expectation burst abruptly. I reached and pushed the door open before he could, fleetingly assuming that the shop employee had mistimed the distance to the door. That’s forgivable. We then passed each other and the employee kept walking towards the doors, neither acknowledging nor greeting me. Intrigued by this behaviour, I looked back to see where the ‘fire’ was. What had caught this employee’s attention was the crooked ‘Open’ sign-board on the door handle and his immediate focus was to straighten it -never mind the potential customer about to enter the store. Now that’s unforgivable.
I was in the store looking at a wide range of shirts for about ten minutes and couldn’t get greeted - not a word out of anyone. On hindsight, this really was not upsetting – as on the upside, no one attached themselves to me right when I walked in, as happens in most shops, (like grabbing the mosquito swatter as the mosquito flies in via the window).This branch, did not have the particular shirt of my collar size (15”) - which I thought was ridiculous, considering that it was the flagship store of a local shirt manufacture who claims to be in the business since 1942.
Told that a fresh stock was expected from the factory within the week, I was asked to write down my name and contact details to enable shop staff inform me immediately the shirt arrived. Three weeks later, whilst passing by, I dropped in and enquired from the same salesperson as to why I had not heard anything regarding the shirt. His reply with no apology whatsoever, “As we still haven’t received new stocks we did not call you”. Sardonically, I posed the question “what is the store’s policy on how long a customer should wait for a shirt?” End of story.
Shafeek Wahab – Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex-Hotelier
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