While there is plenty of media coverage about online retailers taking sales from high street retailers and how tough retail is, there are retailers, including local small business bike retailers, who are growing stronger, more valuable businesses.
How are these retailers growing?
It’s simple:
- Be accessible.
- Be noticeable.
- Be valuable.
Be accessible.
This is about being in a good location, in a shop that is easy to access, opening the right hours and offering a shopping experience that is easy – accessible.
Be noticeable.
This is about a shop window and online presence that people notice for its uniqueness. Average will deliver average. You need to deliver unexpected to be notice.
Be valuable.
This comes down to what you sell, how you sell and how people feel about that as they experience what you have sold to them.
So, let’s dig deeper in our advice for local bike shops and other local small business retailers. This advice is based on decades of service in this space.
Growth in retail requires planning and commitment throughout the business. It is vital that attention is paid to consumer touch points, placing the unique points of difference of the business in the spotlight.
Good businesses grow faster when growth strategies are encoded in business processes from the sales counter to the back room and are at the heart of supplier and employee relationships.
By leveraging in-store knowledge, experience and personal service, a high street bike shop can convert a browser into a shopper. The keys are attention to detail, memorable personal service and a value proposition.
This is where good POS software, implemented professionally, can help. It can also help drive operational efficiency and performance consistency and thereby give the business the financial means to be competitive.
There are bike shops doing this today, large and small, city and country.
But how can bike shop software do this?
- Sales processes can be structured to drive consistency.
- A loyalty program encourages your shopper to shop more frequently.
- A contact follow up program can bring a customer back more often.
- Marketing can be driven by email, mail and fax.
- Mistakes at the sales counter, in ordering and in management can be reduced, freeing cash.
- Selling can be made easier, thereby improving the shopper experience.
- New marketing platforms are created: on receipts, at the counter and elsewhere.
- Employees can be rewarded for above average sales – aligning their rewards with those of the business.
- A common inventory file for an online store and a high street store.
Good bike shop software can help a bike retailer compete with online businesses and prosper in any economy.
Growth begins with deciding that this is what you want for your business. The next step is pursuing it relentlessly.
People looking for their first bike are encouraged by bike shops to talk to an expert. Bike shop owners wanting greater success should, likewise, talk to an expert.
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The right POS system for any retail business depends on the specific needs of the retail business. Tower offers specialty retail business software made for local small business retailers. To see if we might help you…, request a free, no-obligation demo today.
Call 1300 662 957 in Australia or 0800 444 367 in New Zealand. Or, email sales@towersystems.com.au.
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