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Companies must attract people to their store if they are to maximise their sales and profit. Retailers have to make customers aware of what they sell and where they can find their stores. Therefore marketing plays a big role in sales and profit and companies use many methods to help them increase sales.
Many large companies such as Sainsbury's, Debenhams and The Body Shop run national advertising campaigns on television, in the national press, posters and other media outlets to promote their stores and goods. For example, Sainsbury's have used Jamie Oliver over the past three years to promote the company and to encourage healthy eating.
Some stores, such as the Co-operative Society, advertise on a more regional basis and focus their television and other advertising in specific areas to maximise the impact.
Other organisations such as Debenhams and Harvey Nichols have their own company magazines. These are used to provide customers with product information, fashion ideas, to promote stores and the products they sell.
The product has to be aimed at the right audience. In an area where there s little disposable income, people will not be attracted to high price goods. Similarly in areas of high income there will be fewer low cost shops. The White Rose Shopping Centre has to target its market well and although it is not a store it has a responsibility to its customers, the stores who rent space in the Centre, to attract as many shoppers to the Centre as possible. The Centre has carried out a lot research to find out who its customers are and where they come from. Senior managers have discovered that the majority of shoppers come from within an eight-mile radius of the Centre and they are mainly from the lower B, C1 and C2 socio economic groups. Many people are dissuaded from shopping in a particular store or centre if they believe that it caters for people outside their own socio economic group. The White Rose Shopping Centre markets itself to all groupings and therefore its advertising is aimed at a broad clientele.
The Centre uses a variety of means to promote itself to potential shoppers. Local radio is a good medium for the Centre. It sponsors weather forecasts on two radio stations at different times of the year and has separate campaigns to focus on special events such as Christmas, Easter and Mother's Day. The Centre advertises itself on the back of local buses throughout the year and in the local press. It also holds events in the Centre to attract people, such as tea dances, line dancing, wedding fairs and various events for children. During the Christmas period a 'Grotto' is situated on the main concourse.
All stores have to attract customers to encourage them to purchase goods. The stores should be bright and welcoming. All Debenhams stores have a similar layout with Health and Beauty at the main entrance to the store. This is to give the stores a sense of theatre and give the impression of it being light and bright. Usually, women's clothes and accessories are positioned near health and beauty but this does depend on the store. If there is access to the store on two levels some managers put women's clothes on the upper floor by the door.
Definitions of Socio-Economic Groupings
A Professional people, senior managers in business or commerce, top civil servants, and retired people previously grade A and their widows
B Middle management executives in large organisations with appropriate qualifications, principal officers in local government, civil service top management or owners of small business concerns, educational and service establishments, and retired people previously grade B and their widows.
C1 Junior management, owners of small establishments and all others in non- manual positions, and retired people previously grade C1 and their widows. Jobs in this group have very varied responsibilities and educational requirements.
C2 All skilled manual workers and those manual workers with responsibility for other people, and retired people previously grade C2 with pensions from their job and their widows.
D All semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers, apprentices and trainees to skilled workers, retired people previously grade D with pensions from their job and their widows.
E All those entirely dependent on the state long-term through sickness, unemployment, old age or other reasons, those unemployed for a period exceeding six months (otherwise classified on previous occupation), casual workers without a regular income.
The Sherburn Village Co-op store has recently been refurbished to make the store more enticing to shoppers and to give it an advantage over rival stores in the village. As part of the refurbishment, products have been sited in places where the manager feels that sales will be maximised. For example, newspapers have been placed close to the front door and the manager has attempted to make the wines and spirits department feel like a store within a store and has placed it in the centre of the store with special lighting to enhance the products.
To maximise sales the store manager tries to ensure that the store supplies what the customer wants. For example, Sherburn Village Co-op would normally stock only short spaghetti but recently they have received a number of requests for long spaghetti. This has been passed to the regional manager for approval and the store now stocks the longer spaghetti. In the Sherburn area home baking is extremely popular so the store stocks more of these products than would normally be the case.
To maximise footfall (the number of customers entering the store) all Debenhams stores lease some in-store space to other companies, such as Benson's Beds. These are called concessions and Debenhams decided to introduce them into their stores to increase the variety of goods available in stores, to supply goods that they would not usually sell themselves and to attract more customers into the stores. Concessions pay a percentage of their turnover to the store. However the store earns more money from sales of its own products and therefore individual store managers have to decide how much space within the store should be given over to these concessions.
Some stores use customer loyalty cards to attract and retain customers. For example both Sainsbury's and Debenhams are involved in the Nectar card scheme. The Body Shop has a card called Love your Body and although this is not marketed as a loyalty card it is used to retain custom. The card costs £5 a year and rewards include a 10% saving on all Body Shop purchases, free gifts after a number of qualifying purchases, a birthday gift and other special offers. Debenhams also has its own store card, a credit card. Each Debenhams store is set a target of signing up 100 new account cardholders per week. Cardholders account for a large amount of the business and they are encouraged by special events such as sale preview evenings and late night shopping.
Stores have to focus on sales and profit continuously. They must think of new ways to attract customers to their store and to encourage them to spend money with them. There is a lot of competition on the high street so increasingly stores are looking for innovative ways to encourage customers to spend with them.
- What are the main costs associated with a business?
- What are fixed costs?
- What are variable costs?
- What information would you need to produce a breakeven chart?
- What does a breakeven chart show?
- What are the two main ways of achieving greater profits?
- Can you think of five ways to increase sales so profits?
- Can you think of four ways to cut the costs of a business?
- Create a marketing campaign to promote a store of your choice. Think about: your target audience, the message you want to get across and the medium you will use (radio, television, buses etc).
