SHOPFLOOR: TRAINING APPROACH TO SELLING A PERSONALISED
Businesses that have a passion for training and staff development will excel during challenging times – how can independent retailers make the most of the opportunities available? By Rupert Cook, Business Development Director at Gekko Field Marketing.
M
uch can be written in favour of independent retailers – where consumers benefit from expert advice
and a personalised approach to selling. The fact remains though that trading can be tough when faced with the challenge of online, discounter and multiple retailer competition. Independent retailers realise that they need
to play to their strengths with a strong product offering, sound pricing strategy and an engaging customer experience. Key to this – and one of the fundamental differentiators over other sales channels – is people… and businesses need to invest in their most valuable asset: their staff. Effective training empowers your team with
the knowledge, skills, and confidence to: Understand customer needs: Go beyond surface-level requests and truly grasp what the customer is looking for; Boost sales: Confidently guide customers towards the right products and close sales effectively; Compete with online giants: Offer a personalised service and expert advice that online retailers simply can’t match.
Investing in training transforms your staff
into your greatest competitive advantage. It’s important to leverage support from brands as they will often offer training to your staff for free, but also external companies; why not take advantage of this it helps out both parties at the same time as more well-equipped sales staff will be able to sell more and in-turn positively affect both the retailer and brands’ bottom line. With every brand, they will have created heaps
of collection and product information that will be specifically designed to engage your staff and help them understand the differences in the latest design trends. This information will also help them with how to sell these features, the brand and the concept to different demographics. Whilst staff training is great for your bottom
line, that’s not the only benefit it has for your business. With proper staff training, you can expect your staff to have a morale boost and an increased motivation which, in turn, enables them to want to do better and learn more in their roles. Statistics have shown that proper training is proven to improve productivity, efficiency and accountability. The importance of training can never be
overstated, with such fierce competition from all angles whether that’s another competing local store or an online-only store where they’ve already got a price advantage. If all the products are the same with every other retailer, what makes your store different?
Training can be the one differentiator that can
draw in customers. Your staff can create theatre and take the consumer through the sales journey, from finding the right shoe style or fashion accessory, getting the right fit, allowing the customer to try something on and finally closing the sale itself. Our ‘Mind the Knowledge Gap’ research demonstrates the importance of training staff and the impact it has on your potential customers. Key takeaways include:
One in 10 shoppers have cancelled a planned,
considered purchase due to poor in-store advice. This equates to some £15 billion in revenue overall over the course of a year;
to seek out in-store experts;
Gen Z [those now in their 20s] are most likely 37 per cent of shoppers revealed they would
be prepared to spend more if they received excellent and knowledgeable in-store advice. Furthermore, in a
separate survey last year we established that 42 per cent of those questioned wanted to be able to engage with knowledgeable shop staff. This further emphasises
the importance of training if speaking to a clued-up salesperson is a make- or-break point for customers. Fully trained
store staff will always be one of the greatest assets a bricks-and- mortar store can have over online retailers, and it is imperative that
every retailer utilises it. As much as these stores may not always be able to beat the online sellers on price, they can certainly beat them on customer experience!
42 • FOOTWEAR TODAY • JANUARY 2025 DOWNLOAD THE FOOTWEAR TODAY APP NOW SPONSORED BY
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
