Of course sunshine is the obvious one but as we don’t have control over that then try something else.
One big thing for this season should be EVENTS, both within the store and outside of it. Most stores do the usual talks and demos, and with so many retailers competing with each other for customers you need to stand out from the crowd. What most businesses need is an event manager, either in-house or an external company. You need people who know how to draws potential customers into your store. In general the wackier, more fun and less like hard work the event is the better. So, for example, invite a visiting circus to visit you. Think jugglers juggling flower pots, clowns doing face painting, camel rides, elephant manure, stilt walkers watering your hanging baskets and so on!
Pop-up shops have become more popular too, both as a way of selling stock and also of building brand awareness. They require more than a little planning and an excellent – not just good – location but they can pay dividends for both the pop-up and the main store.
Brand awareness has also become a major issue with many retailers, especially the larger ones where the signs and adverts for franchisees and suppliers have become bigger than those of the store itself. An issue I have spotted with some of aforementioned pop-up shops is the almost total lack of branding to link the store to its parent store – a major mistake.
(Part of an article on Trends & Thoughts 2012, more to follow...)
