RANGE REVIEW: POS & MERCHANDISING


WHAT CAN DIY AND GARDEN RETAILERS LEARN FROM SUPERMARKETS?


From buy-one-get-one-free (BOGOF) deals, to premium products strategically placed at eye level, every aspect of retail space dedicated to fast-moving consumer goods is engineered to maximise spend on high margin products. The aroma of baking pumped to


S


the front of stores gets customers salivating, ramping-up impulse sales of snacks. Everyday essentials are stacked at the rear of stores, to drive footfall right through the sales area, while checkouts are with tempting


last-minute


laden treats.


Some retailers install smaller floor tiles in areas of higher value goods. It’s said that the sound of trolley wheels rapidly clicking over tiny tiles encourages consumers to slow down – resulting in longer browsing time – and higher spend. It doesn’t stop there, however. Playing calming or classical music is believed to encourage customers to make big-ticket purchases, while loud music (think ‘Merry Christmas


22 DIY WEEK 09 AUGUST 2019


upermarkets roll out a host of sophisticated techniques to encourage shoppers to part with their disposable income.


In a new report from Glee, garden centre retail consultant Neville Stein offers insight into how focusing on consumer retail psychology can unlock the secrets to higher sales


Everybody’ by Slade, blasting out on Christmas Eve) hurries people through a store. It’s well known that, once customers become familiar with a store’s layout, they fail to deviate from their regular path. That’s why retail managers order regular changes of supermarket layout, keeping consumers on-site for longer and picking-up new items as they hunt down regular goods. The proven strategy of rounding down prices – an essential element of retailing for decades, is as relevant today as it was in an analogue age prior to EPOS. Selling an item at £1.99, for example, still encourages consumers to regard the product as being priced at £1, increasing the odds of a sale being made. Of course, garden centres and


DIY stores are different beasts to supermarkets, but by taking a closer look at retail psychology, and embracing


similar merchandising


strategies, retailers can increase sales for relatively little investment.


1 Embrace cross-selling Garden centres have long cottoned on to the concept of linked sales – pots, containers and fertilisers next to a display of bedding plants, for example, or pot covers and houseplant food in the indoor plants section. But, when it comes to cross-selling, some retailers need to take a fresh approach to maximise sales potential.


Neville Stein explains: “An area that garden centres often get wrong is product


adjacency and cross-


selling. When a customer buys a piece of garden furniture, the linked sale


is the parasol and cushions.


The cross-sell is a barbecue. In other words, if the customer is interested in outdoor furniture, they are likely to be interested in outdoor living and might buy a barbecue as well.


The technique is to make sure that product adjacencies are correct. Display barbecues next to garden furniture, because both categories go together.”


2 Transform the tills


Supermarkets overload customers with temptation at the checkouts, encouraging last minute impulse purchases. It’s a strategy that’s come under fire from health chiefs for encouraging sales of unhealthy snacks, but garden centres could adapt the temptation principle to boost sales of seasonal items. Neville explains: “When selling bedding and compost, for example, retailers should put liquid feed on the till, then change displays seasonally, offering low-priced impulse items. Go to a garden centre on a busy bank holiday in May and look at the number of trollies that are full of bedding plants and compost but no fertiliser. Multi-purpose compost contains sufficient nutrients to last for just eight weeks, although many customers won’t know that. It would be great customer care for staff to have recommended plant food to those customers.” He believes that garden retailers


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