The landscape on the retail market today is more competitive than ever before. Shop owners compete not only with other retailers from the same city, but also with online sellers from around the world. Despite the development of e-commerce, many customers still prefer shopping in stationary stores. To grow a retail store and manage it properly, it is worth to take care of four areas that are crucial for the final success of the store management business.

Customer experience

Building positive customer experience is the most important element and reference point for all other areas mentioned in the text. In the past, store owners were focused on customer service. Today, it is about something more – the customer experience, which includes the impact on the senses and emotions of customers. These are shaped by various elements – from salespeople to policies to cleanliness to merchandising. The target of the store owner should be to call the customer’s experience strong enough to let the customer remember it. In this case we can talk about the so-called “wow” effect.

Assortment and inventory management

According to the Pareto principle, 80 percent of profit is generated by 20 percent of goods. Hence, one of the challenges for retailers is to try to classify goods into the 20% group and to others that are of lesser importance. Insufficient or incorrectly planned assortment and stocks, resulting in the unavailability of some popular products can upset the customer enough that his first visit in the store will be the latter at the same time.

Visual Merchandising

Visual merchandising plays the role of a silent seller in the store. An engaging, well-done display can sell as many products as a live salesperson in your store. If you are the owner of the store, try to look at it through the eyes of the customer and answer the question if you would like to shop in it.

People

People are the most important, it is obvious. You can have the best strategy in the world, the most compelling vision, but it matters not if you do not have the right people to put them into practice.

Retail store management is a complicated process that consists of many elements. However, the customer’s experience is crucial – it should be the engine of all decisions of the shop owner. The first step in designing such an experience successfully should be redesigning your thinking – it’s worth to start thinking not like a store owner, but as a customer. This simple yet complicated procedure can definitely help you manage other areas, such as visual merchandising and inventory management. It will also be useful in the employees evaluation.