Retail consultant Bob Phibbs recommends three ideas to help retailers recover from COVID-19 shutdowns or severely lost business from quarantines.
In his blog Retail Doctor, Phibbs, suggests:
- The return of the “merchant mentality.” A merchant is always looking at how to improve the turn of their merchandise, how to raise margins, and how to improve conversion rates, he writes. Creating strong customer relationships, he writes, is what’s important and that comes from a merchant mentality.
- Instead of waiting for customers to walk in, up your online game from where introductions can begin and invitations to visit can be extended.
- Staff sales training is important. A passive “can I help you?” approach might not work. The connected consumer knows what they want and while they know what they want, he writes, they still are open to being persuaded to better options. Phibbs says retailers “are going to have sell their way” out of the pandemic.
