This advice could be useful to any type of retail business that wants to quit stock, especially if they ant to quit stock quickly. Too often in our work with retailers we see processes in place for quitting stock where speed is not the focus. We think that is unhelpful for once you decide to quit stock, it needs to go, quickly.
If you want to quit stock, quit it, quickly. Quickly means different things to different people. I think it means 7 days … gone and out of the shop in 7 days from when you decide to quit the products. Of course, this will vary based on your own local circumstances.
The easiest way to quit stock is for your shoppers to understand the deal. Understanding the deal starts with how you brand the sale.
A sign with SALE on it could mean anything. Do NOT use this. There are too many around, each meaning a different thing.
A sign with, say, 50% off could be confusing as they don’t know the starting price and some may not understand percentages.
Sign with HALF PRICE is more easily understood but they still do not know the starting price.
If you really want to quit stock, we suggest you have tables or dump bins at price points: $1, $2, $5 – or that ever is appropriate to you.
We, in one of our own shops, tried a $9.99 priced item at 50% off, half price and $5.00. The $5.00 pricing worked the best, by far.
This is my recommendation on quickly quitting stock: get the price messaging right.
If your price messaging is hard to understand or if there are too many different price messages you could be creating a barrier and this could stop you achieving the sales outcome you want.
