Are you struggling to attract more customers to your shop?

If you want more customers through the door, you need to change people’s buying habits. This is probably the most difficult task in marketing but it happens every day. A new shop might get an influx of customers when they open and it could be the curiosity factor or it could be that they made a lot of noise about the opening. But a large number of those people will go back to their old habit of buying what the new business sells, where they have always gone. Breaking habits is hard work. On the other hand you could be a well established business with a good customer base but with sales falling off a cliff because a new business which sell what you sell has just opened around the corner.

The truth is that both businesses should prosper because now customers have more choice. The more choice on offer, the higher the number of people who will visit the location. So instead of looking at the situation as a problem, look for opportunities to capture more of the available customers. This is why you will find the fast food outlets often grouped together and why shopping malls are so popular and why most towns and cities will have car dealerships grouped in an area where people can walk between dealers. More choice means more customers.

So how would you get more people through the door? Let’s suppose you have a furniture shop and your local opposition store seems to be busier than you. The decision people make about where to shop can start long before they arrive at the location. Some will buy their furniture from the shop they know and trust. Some will be willing to look at both shops and compare prices and range. And some will go to the closest shop first. As a shop owner you need to get people’s attention well before they leave home on a buying trip. This means advertising (free, paid or a mixture of both). You can utilise all of the advertising channels available to you. This could be through print media like flyers or magazine advertising. It could be through social media or TV advertising, if you have the budget. If you have a delivery vehicle, have it wrapped with your recognisable branding. When people are in buying mode, often they will start their search online, particularly for more expensive items. This is why your local web presence can be so important.