A Guide To Creating A Retail Store That Your Audience Can't Resist

Photo: DFS Group

If you have plans to build a retail store, whether you’re selling a bunch of original products or products you have outsourced elsewhere, you’re going to need to make sure that your retail store is something your audience can’t resist visiting.

It’s so much easier to entice return customers back to your store than it is to attract new customers every single time - so putting a focus on your loyal customers is key if you want people to come back time and time again.

However, below you will find numerous tips and tricks that can help you with just about any retail store you decide to open. Take a look

1. Build A Strong Brand 

Start by making sure your brand is as strong as possible. A strong brand that people can resonate with and recognize is going to encourage your audience to come back time and time again.

It takes time to build a strong brand, but just some of the things you should focus on to begin with include:

• Using color palettes that have been carefully chosen 

• Using the right fonts

• Using words and slang that resonates with your audience 

• Making sure your branding is consistent everywhere 

• Creating a brand voice 

• Thinking of who your brand would be if it were a person

Look at some of the brands you most admire and would like to be like and figure out what they do well. You can even look at branding faux pas and learn from them. Your brand is all about how you treat people who interact with you too. It isn't just about having a great logo! 

2. Tell Your Brand Story 

Telling your brand story is a great way to get your audience on side and make them want to come to you. However, to do this, you really need to know your audience and how you’d like to position your brand. Being authentic when you do this is absolutely crucial, but you can be smart about the way you put your brand story together. 

3. Know Everything About Your Customers

Knowing as much as possible about your customers will help you to further position your brand as somewhere they want to shop. For example, you should know.

• The age of your audience

• Their family and relationship status

• Where they live

• Their income 

• Their jobs 

This doesn't mean you need to survey every single customer, but it may help you to come up with some consumer profiles so you can better target your audience.

4. Understand Your Customer’s Pain Points

Understanding what your customer’s pain points are will allow you to solve them, or make buying from you easier for them. For this, you can do surveys to get a feel of what your customers see as pain points in their everyday lives. You could stand in the street and take surveys, or create a survey online, it really doesn’t matter. What matters is that you work hard to understand your customers and help to solve any problems they may have. 

5. Listen To Feedback 

Make sure you’re open minded and prepared to listen to feedback from your audience. Feedback may not always be something you asked for, but that doesn't mean it isn't extremely valuable for you. Both positive and negative feedback can be used to improve your retail store and create an experience like nothing else your audience have had. 

You can learn something from each piece of feedback you receive, and it’ll benefit you to ask your audience for it, too. Encourage customers to leave feedback on sites like Trustpilot and even your facebook page. 

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6. Strategically Plan Your LayOut And Pathways 

When looking at how to put your retail store together, you need to make sure you strategically lay it all out and plan your path ways. Everything should have a reason behind it, and nothing should be random. 

By measuring your foot traffic, for example, you can get lots of insights about your store, including how well your marketing efforts are working. You can start by using advanced tools such as mobile tracking technology, heat sensors, or video surveillance. These tools not only count the number of people in your store, they can also track shopper behavior, dwell time, and other helpful metrics. Doing this will help you to see what is working and what may need to be changed to get the best results. 

7. Work With Experienced Professionals To Plan Your Store 

If you really want to nail your retail store, working with experienced professionals who have put together many retail stores could help you to get the best results right from the get-go. You could have a team create an animated version of your store to make sure everything will work before you put it together, for instance. This Animation Pricing Guide can give you a better idea of what to expect and what you would pay for if you used the service. You may be able to take lots of the guesswork out of it by using a similar service. 

8. Keep Your Store Well Maintained 

Keeping your store well maintained is one of the most important things you can do once it’s up and running. Look at it from the outside and try to get an idea of what people walking past are thinking. You could even survey people. Even simply keeping your windows clean and making sure there aren't any leaves outside of your front doors can make a big difference. 

9. Use Curbside Extras

Focusing on window displays is great, but focus on other elements too. Using sandwich boards and showing off your personality with a witty message could be a wonderful idea. This makes for great social media content, too.

10. Make Sure Employees Stay Mindful

Even if there is nobody in the store, your employees should stay mindful of how they appear from the outside. They should remain professional and busy, and always welcoming so that passers by are more likely to come in. 

11. Invest in Employee Training 

You can have the prettiest shop, implement the hottest gimmicks, and run the most enticing offers, however, if your customer service is off, you’re not going to get very far. Training your employees on all kinds of things, not just how to treat customers but how to prepare for mean customers is important. 

Make sure your team know that not everybody is nice, and they may need to prepare for times when a customer is unhappy and takes it out on them. 

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12. Build An Online Presence 

More and more people spend time online these days, so having an online presence is going to help you spread awareness and build your brand. You don’t even need to sell online providing you have a presence. You can build connections and encourage people to stop by this way - it’s also a great way to share news of your store. 

13. Make Customer Loyalty A Big Focus 

Customer loyalty should be a huge focus of yours. Alongside making sure everything looks tempted and that your employees are well trained, offering incentives to your customers will help. Could you incorporate loyalty cards, for instance? Loyalty cards are proven to encourage customers to return again and again. Going above and beyond can also be a great way to get them to come back - could you offer them great, detailed advice on a product they need and how to use it? Perhaps you could throw in a freebie? Make every experience with your brand a positive one! 

14. Offer Extra Services 

Are there other services you can offer that may encourage people to come back time and time again? For instance, if you sell jewellery, you could offer a free resizing service for people. Not only will this bring people into your store, it’ll encourage them to browse while you take a few links out of their watch or something similar. You could even offer free jewellery cleaning, which will be a sure way to make sure they think of your store whenever they need to buy a gift. Free battery changes on watches are also a great idea. 

15. Consider Working With Influencers And Brand Ambassadors

Have you found people you think would be a great personification of your brand? They may be able to help you increase your store traffic. If they have great social profiles and are local to your business, they could be hugely beneficial contacts to have. You will need to discuss your deal with them - will you give them free products and payment, or just one or the other? Remember, they are providing value to your business, and creating content takes time. Just because they enjoy it and it seems ‘easy’ doesn't mean they will agree to do it for free stuff alone. 

Creating a retail store that your audience can’t resist can seem like a huge, impossible task at first, but by using the advice here and remaining consistent with your maintenance and training, you can ensure your store stands the test of time.