The holidays can be a magical, yet hectic, time for boutique owners. This is the time of year when you hope to make your profits and try to push to grow your customer base. The busy season can mean extra work, using creative ideas to nurture sales, and using the increased traffic to brand your image. Sometimes, it can get too busy and hectic to concentrate on your image, impressions that you make on customers, and creating interesting displays, but really, this is the time of year when you are going to have the most exposure. This is also when customers have a heightened sense of curiosity, which you can use to your advantage if you try. Doing so could earn you long-term benefits, profits, and a steadily increasing group of customers year after year.
- Focus on making a good first impression. The holidays are a time when customers will seem to come out of the woodwork. A lot of people avoid shopping most of the year. However, they often times will have multiple people to shop for around the holidays. They will be out scrutinizing and judging every store that they see, trying to determine which ones are worthy of their time, energy and business. Your staff, their attitudes, and how helpful they are can have a big and lasting impression on these customers.
- Make it easy for shoppers to see what you have to offer. Use signs, easy-to-read advertisements, social networks, and mailings to communicate with the public early in the season. People do not want to waste their time and often have a lot of shopping to do. They’re interested in going places that will inspire them or offer them unique merchandise at a price that they can afford during the holidays. Letting them know ahead of time what you have to offer can get them to your boutique before they go anywhere else.
- When the customers do arrive, make sure that the store is easy to navigate. Create multiple displays that promote your most interesting items. Keep them neat, organized, and fully stocked so that customers can quickly get what they need. Post prices so that people in a hurry can scan your displays and go to the ones that carry items in the price range that they’re looking for. Using slatwall displays to keep everything up and in sight is a great idea. Don’t place your garment racks too closely together or people will avoid squeezing past other shoppers to look around. Another good idea is to not over-pack any onegarment rack. People do not want to spend all day digging through clothes to maybe find what they want.
About the Author: John Garvey is on the staff of Only Garment Racks, a leading online source of garment racks including clothing racks. Find a high quality garment rack or clothing rack at http://www.onlygarmentracks.com.