10 Best Ways to Increase Conversion Rates in Your Retail Store
Conversion is your ability to convince consumers to buy goods from your retail store. Attracting consumers is only half of the battle when it comes to your retail business. How to increase conversion rate in retail store? How do you convert their interest into a purchase once you’ve gotten their attention? Understanding why consumers don’t purchase is one of a store’s most essential things to increase conversion rates. Is it the long line wait times, the inadequate fixture displays, the unhelpful staff, or a mix of these things? Whatever the cause, these ten ways to increasing conversion rates will assist you in converting visitors into purchases.
1. Store Layout and Window Displays
Evaluating your window displays and shop layout is a common starting step when dealing with low conversion rates. The window dressing must be exciting and relevant to your target demographic to attract and entice consumers into your business.
When it comes to store layout, most customers naturally prefer shopping in a certain order. The decompression zone, which is the first five to fifteen feet of your business, is where a customer enters after they enter. Shoppers in this zone of your store are prone to distractions, so don’t put too many items or fixtures in this area; they’ll likely walk right by them. It’s also necessary to have clean, spacious, and easy-to-navigate aisles to allow your customers to move fast and freely.
2. Queue Management
Customers may be turned off your shop if they notice a long queue that isn’t moving quickly. And any shopper who has to wait in line for longer than expected will have a bad pre-purchase experience. However, there are few methods for getting your line moving and increasing conversions.
Recommend placing your registers toward the back of your store. If you place your registers near the entrance, the line will be the first thing consumers see rather than your items.
Consider having several lines that lead to multiple checkouts instead of one line that leads to many checkouts. This queueing method prevents consumers from forcing their way to the head of the line, giving the impression of shorter lines.
Invest in a high-quality mobile point-of-sale system. Allowing your workers to ring clients from anywhere on the floor eliminates the need for a line.
Adding reflecting mirrors to line areas might help alleviate consumers’ perceptions of being stuck in a long queue. In addition, to reduce line wait times, several shops are implementing innovative technologies such as video analytics and facial recognition technology.
3. Staff scheduling and deployment
Recognize that your staff plays a huge role in boosting conversions. You should schedule staff according to traffic, not just for sales. Many store managers schedule their staff based on the hours when most sales were made in the past, rather than when most shopper traffic passed through the door. However, this sort of staff scheduling tends to cause more harm than good, as high volumes of consumers are likely to be underserved by sales associates during peak traffic hours.
Aligning staff schedules to traffic will not enhance conversion rates if employees are still focused on tasking rather than servicing consumers.
4. Train and motivate sales staff
- Train staff to assist customers in exploring product options, asking about concerns, and making valuable suggestions.
- Make sure everyone in your store understands what retail traffic conversion is and how they may influence it. Organize staff meetings to set specific targets for your individual and store-wide conversion rates. Turn it into a team effort that will be rewarded, whether it’s a collaborative or competitive endeavor.
- Allow them to meet and interact with every client in the business.
- Train your employees on how to ask consumers what they’re looking for.
- Invest in a retail training program that teaches employees how to provide excellent customer service.
- To increase conversion of shoppers to buyers, your staff must be drilled to compare and contrast products so they can upsell and resell with ease
5. Utilize social proof
Show your consumers that other consumers have purchased and are interested in buying your items. For example, when an online retailer publishes product reviews on its website. You may do the same thing in your store.
Social proof from well-known or well-respected persons is the simplest method to appeal to this. For example, Images of social media influencers wearing your jewelry.
Retailers may also use scarcity to demonstrate that items are selling well. You can make scarcity by reducing the number of products on your store’s floor or using limited-time promotions to increase your conversion rate and create artificial scarcity
6. Use shopping technology
Most in-store shopping experiences aren’t as tech-free as we would think. According to research, more than 1/3 of the customers continue to connect with a brand via a mobile device after entering a store. Use retail technologies to assist such customers in making purchases faster.
Contactless checkout: Use contactless payments technology with a mobile POS system to swiftly collect payments anywhere in the business and eliminate the need for customers to queue to pay for their purchases.
QR codes for product descriptions – Retailers use QR codes to direct consumers to product pages or landing pages for items they’re interested in viewing on their mobile.
AR/VR technology – To eliminate friction, employ virtual fitting rooms if consumers want to see what an item looks like. Queuing for changing clothes and caring about sanitized clothing are all concerns you will eliminate.
7. Checkout and Delivery options
Customers may purchase and reserve items online. They go to the location to pick up and pay for the product. This sort of buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS), or curbside pickup service is currently appealing to two-third of consumers.
Have an alternate option for products you don’t have in store – Have a strategy “buy in-store, ship to home” in place for consumers seeking an item that your physical shop is currently out of stock. Some retailers guarantee that clients buy from them by giving free delivery on things out of stock at their shop.
Use Clear & Compelling CTAs: When consumers click a button or link, they should have no question about what will happen. Make sure your CTAs are visible and that you have at least one call to action on each page.
Leverage email cart functionality – Email cart capability is available in point-of-sale (POS) systems, allowing customers to purchase online while in-store. Retailers can create customized shopping carts based on the products a visitor has expressed interest in. All they require from the consumer is an email address to which they may deliver it. This is a win-win situation since clients may purchase goods they are interested in when they are ready to do so. Retailers for future email marketing campaigns also collect their contact information.
8. Multiple Payment Options
Create a good shopping experience that caters to the demands of many types of customers. Customers demand their goods straight away, while others will not buy anything until they have free delivery with various shipping choices. People are increasingly requesting free refunds.
If you want to get paid upfront (and who doesn’t?), provide a “buy now, pay later” option via a service like Afterpay. Customers may pay for their goods in installments via Afterpay.
Customers may pay with a debit or credit card, PayPal, PayPal Credit, Apple Pay, Bitcoin, or whatever comes next when utilizing an all-in-one payment system to power your shopping cart
9. Fast & Mobile friendly site
Make Your Site Fast: Never underestimate the significance of a fast-loading website. Slow-loading websites may and will drive online customers to leave their purchasing experience.
A rising percentage of your prospective consumers will access your store using their mobile phones or tablet PCs. Consumers spend 66 percent of their retail time on cell phones, according to studies. They also use smartphones to compare prices and look for coupons when shopping.
Make sure that clients are not waiting for image-heavy sites to load or having difficulty viewing pages designed for desktop or laptop devices. Your website should be simple to use on any smartphone, with slight pinching and scrolling, and images should be optimized.
Mobile app: A fully optimized mobile app will accelerate page loads, assist users in finding goods more quickly, and expedite payment and checkout. If you decide to create a mobile app for your shop, consider providing customers an incentive (such as a discount with purchase) to download and install the app.
10. Use Price Promotions Wisely
Coupons are one of the most successful strategies for improving conversion, mainly targeting specific consumer segments. Eighty-five percent of shoppers check for coupons before going to a store. Coupon codes are not only popular with customers; they also provide businesses with a simple way to assess the efficacy of certain marketing efforts.
Product bundling and customer rewards points programs can be equally successful in improving conversion rates and customer satisfaction.
Give free samples or drinks – Because it appeals to reciprocity, giving away free product samples can boost your conversion rate. Costco is the most well-known example of free sampling. Customers may sample items for sale at popup stations located throughout each warehouse. If you’re selling something that can’t be given out as samples, find another product to sell. Several shops are already providing beverages to entice customers to stay and shop.
Boost your retail store conversion rate
When analyzing the performance of your retail shop, the conversion rate should be towards the top of your priority list. It will show you how many customers leave your business with a product in their hands.
If you’re dissatisfied with your conversion rate, experiment with several strategies to increase it. In-store pickup, social proof, and sales staff training will have a more significant influence than you may think.
ChainDrive RMS can help you increase conversion rate in retail
Remove the friction from in-store sales by using a POS system that assists shop workers in providing a better customer experience. Serve customers, collect payments from anywhere in your store, and say goodbye to long lines at the cash register.
Increasing your store’s conversion rate is not easy, but you will achieve your objectives by following the above steps and request a free demo with one of our software experts.