CEO Diaries : Increasing Retail Conversions.

While many retailers ask how to attract more customers, the better question is how to increase my retail conversion rate.

Why? Because you can do promotions and advertisements to drive lots off shoppers to your store ,but if you haven't done all you can to convert those customers w - the only place you can truly affect your sales - from lookers to buyers, then you  like a poor marksman , would continuously  fall short of the the target.

Big ticket Hypermarket retailers know that  conversions in the early 70%'s are their  salvation and anything below 65%conversion rates are the death knell of their operation. That's why so many obsess on things like big data and traffic counts because only what you measure can you change.

• Understand why people don't buy. – One of the most important things a retailer can do to improve conversion rates is to understand why people don’t buy. Long lines, can’t find sales help, items out of stock, poor merchandising — the list goes on. Every store manager should spend some time observing visitors in his or her store. Resist the temptation to help — just observe the behaviors. Watch customers as they move through your store and it won’t take long for you to identify some actions you can take to turn more visitors into buyers. 

• Align your staff to traffic note transactions. – Sounds simple enough, but one many retailers overlook. Staff scheduling is tricky at the best of times, but aligning your staff resources to when prospects are in your store will help you maximize your chances of converting more of them into buyers. Pay particular attention to lunchtime, when store traffic can be way up; staff lunch breaks can seriously drag down conversion rates. Associates need to eat, but customers need to be served. Matching staff schedules to traffic volume and timing in your store will help improve your chances of converting more. 

• Look for conversion leaks and plug the holes. – Traffic volume and conversion rates tend to be inversely related. That is, when traffic is high, conversion tends to go down or sag. When traffic levels are low, conversion rates tend to go up. It’s not hard to understand why this happens. When the store is busy, lines are longer and it’s harder to get help from an associate. The opposite is true when the store isn’t as busy. So, if you want to improve conversion rates, look at the traffic and conversion patterns in your store by day of week and by hour to look for when conversion rates are sagging — these sags represent the times when sales are being lost. 

• Set conversion targets by store. – Having goals and targets are important if you want to improve results. If you don’t have a conversion target for your store, you need to set one. It’s important to remember that every store is unique and conversion targets should be set uniquely by store. One store might be doing well with a 15 percent conversion rate while another may be underperforming even though it has a 30 percent conversion rate. The trick is to move your own conversion rate up relative to your store’s performance. 

• Make conversion a team sport. – It takes the collective effort of all staff to help turn prospects into buyers. From the cashiers and sales associates to the merchandisers – everyone in the store plays a role. So don’t think of conversion as merely some business metric, but rather a simple measure of how well the whole store is doing at helping people buy. A good way to help improve conversion is to ensure all your staff understands what conversion is and that each of them helps influence it. Ask your staff about why they think people don’t buy and what the store can do to improve its conversion rate. Discuss targets, get them to buy-in and share results. Get them excited about moving the conversion needle and you will significantly improve your chances of actually doing it.
  

If you are in Fashion Retailing, there are 3 basic Commandments to maximise Conversions

• Make them Try.... They will buy...for apparel the ability to “try before you buy” is unique to the in-store shopping experience, and necessary for the final buying decision.’Its much better for all involved if shoppers try garments on while they’re still in the store. So why, then, do we force customers to try-on clothing in spaces that are, at best, an afterthought in many retail floor plans? Trial Rooms , their locations, their size and their management is a KEY.... Accessible , spacious and well equipped ( Clothes Hook & a mirror).
• Display Display Display  Ur shopper doesn't look for only color or for size, he looks for both!! Size 42, blue shirt ... and hence a complex mix of color and size blocking , in a segregated zone , with appropriate adjacency is a must...
• Merchandise it full!! If it is Summer, i would prefer the entire store to scream summer , and not a small section squealing greens & yellows... First Decision about "Whether I want to buy or not" is made as soon as i enter the store and see the density.. Scantily packed stores are the biggest victims of "poor conversions".

Here are some tricks to evaluate and understand how to maximise operational conversions in ur stores!!

• Record the length of time people pause at displays and kiosks. If the display doesn't catch their interest amend it .
• Track the path consumers take through the store: if someone cannot find something they cannot buy it. Seeing where people go shows whether a store needs reorganizing in order to increase conversion rate.
• Automatically monitor queues: long waiting times discourage people from buying. Recent research showed people are likely to give up queuing and leave empty handed after 9 minutes, and that shoppers won't join a queue if it already contains seven people.
• Use footfall patterns to accurately schedule more staff at busy periods to generate more sales