How Retailiers Can Use Multi Colored Shopping Baskets to Stimulate Impulse Sales
Ever heard the story about the college trying to decide where to build new sidewalks on campus? The construction foreman comes out and tells them to “plant some grass, and check back in 6 months”. So they go ahead and plant the grass, and six months later they show back up, take a look at where all the ruts in the grass are from people walking and the foreman tells his crew “that’s where you build the sidewalks”.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could do a similar experiment in our stores when trying to figure out where to place shopping baskets? It’s no secret that shoppers will spend more, usually on impulse, if they have a basket available when they need them. The problem is that most stores all the carts and baskets are upfront, near the doors. That doesn’t do any good when you have a shopper loaded down with stuff in their arms looking around for one in the back of the store. They simply just stop shopping and head for the checkouts – and you just lost sales because they would have spent even more if they just had a basket handy when they needed it!
Of course you can’t just place baskets every five feet – it wouldn’t make sense. Yet you want to make sure that you put them where they are needed. You want to know what areas of the store are generating impulse sales and what displays are catching the eyes of shoppers. You could spend thousands of dollars hiring a marketing firm to study shopper habits, tabulate data and generate reports that are already out of date by the time you read them. Or you could try a simple little trick that will generate some of the best insight into what your customers are really thinking and doing at a fraction of the cost.
The trick? Multi colored shopping baskets!
As crazy as it might sound, this method really works. You simple take different colored shopping baskets and put them in different zones in the store. Maybe you place some red baskets near cosmetics, blue ones near stationery and green ones by the frozen food section. Then you simply count – it’s as easy as that.
At the end of the day you take a tally of how many baskets of each color are making their way to the registers. You may find out some information about your customers that you would have never discovered any other way. For example, you might discover that the green baskets by the frozen food section are always gone by the end of the day, but the yellow ones by the pet products rarely get used.
Bingo! You just discovered a hot zone – the frozen food aisle. Impulse shopping is taking place here – and you want to make sure you have plenty of baskets on hand to help your customers and your profits!
The beauty of this method is that you can use the colors for various zones and promotions at different times. If you discover that a particular color basket just isn’t moving you can easily move them to another location in the store and see if their use increases. You can even use them to sit one color by a point-of-presence display to help gauge whether it is helping increase sales, or merely just collecting dust on the retail floor.
It’s one of the cheapest methods of understanding what is really happening on the sales floor, and one that give you tons of marketing and retail insight into what your customers are really thinking while in the store. Best of all, it provides a convenience to the customer while at the same time helping you continue to ring up sales and learn more about what’s hot and what’s not!
About the Author
Randy Pickard is the General Manager of Shopping Baskets Plus, a supplier of plastic shopping baskets to retail stores and the editor of the Internet Marketing Remarks blog.
Crochet Geek – Multi Color Crochet Pansy
|
|
Silicone Wine Stoppers in Multi-Color $2.73 These re-usable wine stoppers slow down the oxidation process that occurs after opening a bottle of wine, and allow you to extend the life and enjoyment of your wine. And their happy colors and shiny stainless tops make them downright irresistible.Each package includes a set of 2 wine stoppers. Colors are chosen at random..If you’d like to add gift wrapping and a personalized gift message on a han… |
|
|
Verbatim 94178 Slim CD and DVD Storage Cases, 5 Assorted Colors, 50-Pack $9.88 Verbatim Slim Cases CD Case 94178 Storage Media Cases… |
|
|
Rubbermaid 50-Piece Easy Find Lids Food Storage Set $22.40 Easy Find Lids 50 Piece Set Includes Lids and Containers Lids Snap to Base and Other Lid Lids Nest Inside Each Other Extra Clear Base to Easily See Contents One Lid Fits Multiple Containers… |
|
|
Musicals Classics 50 Movie Pack Collection $12.98 Musical Classics 50 Movie MegaPack – Fabulous Dorseys Calendar Girl Sunny Swing Hostess Dixiana Palooka Glorifying the American Girl Check & Double Check Paradise in Harlem Duke is Tops Reet Petite & Gone Killer Diller Delightfully Dangerous Private Buckaroo Stage Door Canteen Career Girl Second Chorus Trocadero People Are Funny Doll Face Great Baggo Dancing Pirate Road Show Hi Diddle Diddle Rock… |
|
|
Antennas Direct DB8 Multidirectional HDTV Antenna $64.59 Antennas Direct DB8 Multidirectional HD Antenna DB8 Television Accessories… |
|
|
Baby Einstein – Baby MacDonald – A Day on the Farm $19.99 The beauty of this entry in the Baby Einstein catalog is its integration of puppets, toys, and live farm footage to help babies and toddlers make the connection between their plastic play sets and stuffed animals with images of a real farm. As always, the spoken language is minimal, omitting the pesky verbs and adjectives that would confuse the very young. The 30-minute main program is divided int… |
|
|
ESPN Films 30 for 30 Gift Set Collection, Volume 1 $28.92 In celebration of the ESPN® 30th anniversary, ESPN® Films presents 30 for 30, a critically acclaimed series of films from some of today’s finest directors. From Barry Levinson and Peter Berg to Steve James and Ice Cube, each filmmaker brings their perspective to an extraordinary sports story from the last 30 years. This 6-disc DVD gift set includes the first 15 films from the series as well as o… |
|
|
ESPN Films 30 for 30 Gift Set Collection, Volume 2 $28.97 ESPN Films 30 for 30, Volume 2, includes the final 15 films in ESPN Films’ award-winning series which The Los Angeles Times calls âsome of the best films of 2010.â Featuring Academy Award nominated directors John Singleton, Ron Shelton and Academy Award winner Barbara Kopple, among others, these critically-acclaimed films continue to provide a fresh take at some of the most extraordinary… |
|
|
NCIS – The Complete Eighth Season $30.00 It’s no wonder that NCIS is such a wildly popular series. The show takes an irresistible and mysterious setting–the behind-the-scenes world of military criminal investigation–and sets engaging crime procedurals within it, with a dream cast. Mark Harmon, never better, is Special Agent Gibbs, a flinty ex-marine who brooks no nonsense but who also inspires deep devotion from his team. Assisting him… |
|
|
Touched By An Angel: Holiday Edition [VHS] $2.78 … |