“Preparation is everything, Noah did not start building the ark when it was raining.” – Warren Buffet
In retail, the number and frequency of new sales events increases every year as retailers constantly compete for customers. Dealing with the complexity of offers can be overwhelming, we created a “Quick Guide” for them, something simple and easy to reference that helped keep them on-task with each individual event, we called it “Changing Gears.”
It is essentially a one-page summary for our associates that highlights the key points of the event. This particular store ran 38 flyers annually, but even for a small or medium size store, consider using it. When we changed events:
- The draft “Changing Gears” was sent to the buyers about 2 weeks prior to check for accuracy and omissions.
- The “Changing Gears” was emailed to all managers at least one week prior to the start date of the event so they could have all of the in-store preparations completed and that they would be ready to “hit the ground running” on the start date.
- The “Changing Gears” was emailed to all associates the afternoon prior to the start of the event.
PAUL’S NOTE: We waited that long to avoid confusion with tags and pricing for both our customers and our associates. If a customer was buying something that we knew was coming on sale, we would match the price, to save a PRICE GUARANTEE and avoid unnecessary “bad feelings” with the customer as long as the terms were the same, except for door crashers.
- The new price tags were prepared several days in advance and double checked for errors.
- Before close on the day before the new event started, we would pull all of the old “sale” tags with the sales team associate’ assistance. Prior to the store opening on the first day of the event, we would put out the new sale price tags.
- The morning of the event we would review the “changing gears” in the morning sales meeting and make sure that each associate had a copy of the flyer, if there was one.
- We would also review where all of the flyer items were on the floor and what each of the “step up” values were for as many of the items as possible.
Below is a sample:
CHANGING GEARS – Canada Day Supersale
WHEN: June 15 to July 2
THEME: Canada Day Super Sale
TERMS:
OUR “DON’T PAY UNTIL 2022”, 20 MONTH DEFERRAL. The taxes and $79.95 processing fee are due at the time of purchase with the purchase amount coming due in January 2022 OAC (Plan M20).
OUR “DON’T PAY UNTIL NEXT SUMMER”, 12 MONTH DEFERRAL. The customer’s purchase, the taxes, and the $59.95 processing fee are deferred until June of 2021 OAC (Plan M12)
6 MONTHS SAME AS CASH, 6 MONTH DEFERRAL. There is no processing, the taxes, and purchase amount come due 6 months from the date of the sale OAC (Plan M06)
PAUL’S NOTE: Terms are huge, 35% of our customers used financing and industry experts will tell you that customers who use financing will typically spend twice what credit card and cash/debit card customers will.
For people not familiar with TERMS, try to avoid GOTCHA interest, for example”
- If a customer makes a deferred purchase for $1000 and pays off $800 to your finance company by the due date, some finance plans will start charging interest ONLY ON THE UNPAID BALANCE after the due date. This is the best way.
Some companies use “GOTCHA” plans, where under the same scenario with a $200 balance owing, the interest reverts to the FULL $1000 back to the original purchase date. This way is really horrible for the customer.
PAY NO INTEREST FOR 12 MONTHS WITH 12 EQUAL MONTHLY PAYMENTS. We would waive the $59.95 processing fee, and the customer’s purchase and the taxes would be divided into 12 equal payments. (Plan U12) Note, the first payment comes due 1 month from the date of the sale whether you customer has received the merchandise or not.
PRIMARY OFFERS
The primary offer for this event is “SAVE THE TAX” on regular priced furniture and mattress sets (black tag) as well as feature special (yellow tag) flyer furniture and mattress sets. Remember to tell your customers we will be deducting the equivalent of the HST from the tag price by dividing the price by 1.13 and showing the tag price in the comments section.
PAUL’S NOTE: The number one complaint whenever we ran a SAVE THE TAX promotion was that customers did not understand that we deduct the equivalent of the tax, they still pay the tax.
SECONDARY OFFERS
APPLIANCE BUY MORE SAVE MORE FROM PARTICIPATING VENDORS –
SUBSTITUTIONS
The Dexter Brand PRINCESS collection is being REPLACED BY THE Johnson Brand ROYAL collection at the same price points. Note the construction story is not the same, but we believe that they represent better value for the same money. The coil counts are higher for the ROYAL collection and the vendor warranty is 15 years NON-PRORATED as opposed to the PRINCESS 10-year pro-rated warranty.
PAUL’S NOTE: Given the lead times and delays in shipping, sometimes it is necessary to substitute alternative value items for things that are not in stock, as a general rule, try to find similar valued items that are slightly better value as a bonus to customers for not having the original item.
FEATURED SPECIALS
All in-stock items have the yellow feature value tag posted. As normal, please take the flyer and ensure that you know where all items are in the showroom.
CLEARANCE/AS IS SPECIALS
All “blue tagged” clearance items will have our standard offer of “SAVE THE TAX” if the customer picks up their purchase within 48 hours of the date of the sale.
BACKPOCKET UNADVERTISED OFFERS
This month we are focusing on improving your average sale, you can offer our “COMPLETE YOUR LIVING ROOM OFFER”, when your customer purchases a sofa and at least one matching piece (Love-seat or chair) or a sectional, then they can save 20% off any regular priced coffee and end table set, plants, pictures, lamps, and rugs. If any of the items are sale or clearance items then they can save 10% of items to complement the upholstery purchases.
DRESS CODE
Normal dress code is in effect for this event.
GOOD SELLING, if you have any questions or problems, please see the duty manager.
Your sales associates have a lot to remember, this simple tool helps to keep everything straight and helps to avoid “overload” errors that are costly to the customer, the sales associate, and the store. Try it, it works.