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Getting more customers through the doors
I recently opened a bookstore 7 months ago in a great location by using my personal savings. My greatest challenge is continously getting customers through the doors and getting customers to purchase books through my website. I would love to find out from other forum members in retail what they have done to get continuos business in-store and online.
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What can you do to attract people to your store? This is very difficult since I cannot see your location and I have no idea about the business environment. Are there complementary businesses? Could you arrange a promotion with a coffee shop nearby? You could print some coupons with a small discount and tell your customers to hand them out to their friends. When the friend shows up to shop, give them a coupon. In addition, what are you doing to differentiate your shop? It`s important. People shop at a small bookstore for different reasons than they shop at a large bookstore.
I confess a lack of experience with retail fundamentals, but I think you might examine how and why Target differentiates itself from Wal-Mart. What comes to mind when you think about Target? What comes to mind when you think about Wal-Mart? Both are extremely successful in a cutthroat business. How can Target successfully compete with Wal-Mart, when Wal-Mart has 10x the annual revenue and is an utter monster, competition-wise?
The answer? Target is very well differentiated. Its market position is very clear. If you want to buy nice things in clean, well-managed stores, you shop at Target. If you want to buy cheap things in dirty, poorly-managed stores, you shop at Wal-Mart. This isn`t a dig against Wal-Mart. To the contrary, their clientele identifies with their market position as blue collar, no frills, etc. At least, that`s what their numbers show. At any rate, the idea here is that you need to develop a unique market position.
Check out Michael Porter`s five forces model. It`s often extremely useful for positioning work. Also check out perceptual mapping.CookieMonster2006-10-26 19:58:51