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Picture the scene: You’ve launched your brick and mortar shop. It’s been a long process to find the right spot for your store and secure all the products. You’ve obtained a small commercial loan to get yourself started. You’ve even contracted a freelance logo designer to establish your brand. You feel like you’ve done everything possible. But people still don’t buy from your shop. What are you missing? 

#1. They don’t know about it

While you’ve been planning your business for several months — sometimes even years — your customers are still new to the idea of your shop. Most may not even be aware that a new shop opened in their local community. The truth is that you can’t wait until people find out about you. It could take ages, by which point, your finances will be in the red. Instead, make sure you’re launching a promotional campaign to inform everyone about your store. Something as simple as placing leaflets in local shops (with the authorisation of the owner) can help spread the word. You can also arrange for door-to-door leaflets in your neighbourhood. 

#2. They can’t find you

Your customers could struggle to find your store. Ultimately, a lot of road work projects have transformed city centres and local neighbourhoods during the pandemic. You need to put your business on the map to help people find you. The good news: Google My Business is a free service that ensures you can make your business visible on Google Maps. You can also use the many available functions to display relevant information about your store, including opening hours, contact details, and photos. 

#3. They can’t find what they need

Design the perfect layout for your store requires psychological know-how, experimentations, and creative thinking. If you are keen to maintain some form of social distance via your layout, you need to pay close attention to your floor plan creation. A unidirectional shop floor plan can reduce infection risks. Unfortunately, it can make it difficult for customers to find what they need. So, it can be helpful to make best selling products visible at your points of sale. You can find smart POS display accessories such as signage, visible sign holders, and telescopic banners to maximise visibility in a limiting floor plan. 

#4. Your store assistants are a turn-off

Shop assistants can help customers and encourage purchases. However, more and more shoppers prefer to browse alone without additional assistance. They find assistants intrusive. It’s not uncommon for shoppers to walk out of a shop because they find the presence of an assistant too stressful. A US- and European-based beauty store, Sephora, has introduced a colour-coding strategy to help customers. Shoppers can find baskets of different colours at the entrance. One colour means they are happy to be helped by an assistant, the other means they prefer to be left alone. 

#5. It’s not as good as you thought

For some reason, people don’t like your products. Perhaps, they don’t fit within the local community. More often than not, market research can pinpoint the needs and wants of your local audience. If you are not sure about your products, go back to market research to identify potential issues. 

It’s not easy to be the new shop on the block. New retailers often need to go through a learning curve to build their presence within the community. From visibility to lack of behavioural insights, you need to put yourself into your customers’ shoes to leverage your presence. 

Attaining more business customers is ideal for your finances. More customers mean more sales, which means you will be able to make more profit. Although gaining more customers is more challenging than it sounds. You have to be on top of your game when it comes to customer service and branding. On that note, use this guide for the best ways to gain more customers. 

Promote your business everywhere possible 

Promoting your business in every place possible will ensure that you can reach the most customers. Don’t be afraid to ask if you can promote your business by placing leaflets in local shops. The more people that can discover your brand, the more customers you can gain. 

Using StressFreePrint will help you create your business flyers in no time. You can design your leaflet online and get them delivered to your door so that you can start promoting your business in as many places as possible. 

Improve your content

Improving your content is an effective way to attract and gain more customers. Dull and boring content won’t gain much traction. You need to make it engaging and exciting to make customers want to engage. 

Some ideas for improving your content include:

• Use multimedia: using different types of media for your content will engage audiences. Visual content, such as those that include videos and images, will be more attractive and appealing to customers. It will likely draw them in and make them interested in your business. 
• Regular posts: there is no use in posting every now and again. You will get lost in the sea of other businesses. Therefore, improving your content by sharing information regularly will engage customers and make them remember you. The more content you share, the more customers you can again. If you post once a day, then you might miss out on global customers as they might be asleep at the time that you post. Thus, spread your content out and post regularly as a business so that it can reach more customers. 
• Use a call-to-action: using a call-to-action will instantly engage a customer. For instance, if you have a sale and want customers to shop it, use a ‘shop’ link or button that can take the customer straight to the page. You will be able to make their shopping experience as easy as possible and satisfy them. 

Offer rewards and discounts

Every customer loves a good deal. Thus, offering rewards and discounts will satisfy your customers and keep them happy. 

You could offer new customer discounts to entice people in. They can try your product for less and if they like it, be encouraged to keep shopping with you. Or, you could offer the regular customers a reward scheme. This could involve them receiving a discount or free product for every ten purchases they make. It will encourage them to keep shopping with you so that they can attain the reward and good deal. You will gain loyal customers and maintain them for regular sales. 

Money

After months of preparation and planning, you’ve started your business. It’s an exciting adventure and steep learning curve that has the potential to be incredibly rewarding – when done right. 

In Australia, a staggering 60% of small businesses fail within the first three years.

With a balance of good marketing research, a high-quality product on offer, and an innovative business idea in hand, you may think that you are within the 40%. However, without strategic money management and planning, you could still fall short.

Starting a business from scratch is an investment that you have to know you can afford. The key to success is knowing exactly how much risk you are taking by doing so. Let’s look into some of the basics to get you started. 

Budget Smart

Before you even think of kickstarting your business, you need a budget. 

A smart budget will look at the costs of having a business for 1 month, 1 year, and 5 years. You can start by estimating the costs of material things, then look into employees and growth. Your business plan and your budget plan should work in unison. 

Once you have established this clearly, look into ways that you may be able to cut costs without reducing the quality of your product. 

You can add in any predicted changes that you might encounter, such as inflation, or even a global pandemic to prepare for any losses or hurdles that you may need to overcome. This can be as simple and effective as knowing what your cash reserve will be if it happens. 

Book-Keeping

This is an old-fashioned phrase, but take it as a sign that it’s something you must do! 

Book-keeping does not necessarily have to be in a book. When you first start your business, you have to get into the practice of keeping a log of all your incomings and out-goings of your daily business. In the future, when you are successful, you’ll need it for your BAS (business activity statement) to demonstrate how you are making money. 

Keep all of your invoices and receipts in a safe place and document any business-related purchases. Your personal purchases should be kept separate. This way, you can monitor the ongoings of your business clearly, when it comes to it, you’ll be able to see exactly where you are going wrong if you need to. 

Time is Everything

From choosing when to start your business to upgrading your old laptop – timing is everything. Create a calendar of significant dates such as bill payments, taxes, and predicted slow income periods will help you to prepare for any shortcomings. 

Seeing the ups and downs of your business will help you to map out your year and predict the best times to make investments. Then, you can use your time wisely and make alternations to your business plan without affecting your product. 

Planning and managing how you handle your business’s money well can be the difference between being in the 60% of failed businesses or not. By establishing ground rules and reviewing your account regularly, you’ll clearly see how to make wise and financially informed decisions.