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Will You Add? - The Small Retailer's Survival Guide - Part 6 - Home Delivery Benefits and Pitfalls
I was at a training event recently and during the opening 'set the scene' intro the senior director in the company asked the group to list all the things that were stopping them providing a good service to their customers.The team took great pleasure in listing all the concerns: Morale, time, work pressures, customer issues, the products etc etc.The director gleefully added each and every comment to the flip chart and when no more issues were given he looked up and said.."I have only one problem with this list......." He let the question hang in the air for a few seconds and when the team's started to look around non-plussed, he said, "You're not on it!"It may not have been what they wanted to hear, but Wow, did it have an effect.Identifying a team members complacency is often the key to re-generating a workforce, it's a common problem and one that can have disastrous effects. In my experience, there tends to be two main reasons behind it.1. The team member has been doing extremely well and has taken their eye off the ball.2. The team member is not doing as well as his counterparts and so feel de-motivated and unable to achieve.In both situations the key is to
Before we go further, do not interpret this as losing sight of the big picture.1. You Eat An Elephant One Bite At a Time.If you have 50 things to do you cannot do them all at once. Your salespeople are the same. If they have 25 previous customers to contact it is more effective to contact 5 per day rather than 25 in a week. Why? Simple; human nature. If you assign them the task of 25 contacts in a week they will wait and try to contact them all the last day or two. In an effort to rush, the quality of the contact will be poor at best. Follow-up will be improved if you do it in small increments. And they will not become frustrated by thinking they have to make “all those contacts.” 2. If you want to implement a new procedure.Lay out a plan of action and put it in writing. Perhaps your goal is to conduct a series of training sessions. Know what you will teach on what day and stick to your time schedule. Keep in mind that sales training is not the exercise of a dormant ability. Learn to train. Find articles about teaching and how to present information. If you are installing a new follow up system, implementing a change in company proce
Charges
You may not get this right first time and may need to adjust the charging in the early days until you have got it right. Do not be shy about charging for deliveries but always remember that your core business is selling goods and not making a profit from the delivery service. In fact, you may need to accept that the costs of delivery may not be covered by charging and you may decide not to charge at all and take a quantified loss. Each business is different in this regard. I would recommend that most small stores do charge for deliveries, but only with the aim of just covering, or perhaps more realistically, subsidising costs. You need to look at what your competitors are doing but do not be forced into a decision based on this one criteria. If they are providing free delivery there is no rule that you should do also. Customers will compare like for like factors such as delivery charges but remember that it is just another item on their bill, albeit an important one. If your competitor is paying for the delivery costs through higher product prices you may well find that you are competitive over many products, although you are more expensive on the delivery charge.
There are many ways to charge for delivery. Many will have set fees, regardless of quantity and distance (within a set perimeter). Others will have an inner region set at a low cost (or even free) and have one or more outer regions with progressively higher charges. It is very common to offer free delivery where the shopping bill is above a certain amount of money. This makes a lot of sense but you need to ensure that the minimum qualifying spend is set at the right amount in order to prevent unacceptable losses. Once the delivery service is bedded in you could consider offering it free for a limited period, say the first couple of months. This will get customers into a delivery routine. Many will have intended to pull out once the charges kicked in, but will have come to rely on the service. This plays on our tendency to "fill time". Many customers that have saved one hour of shopping time by taking in a delivery will soon fill the hour with another regular activity and will want to carry on with the deliveries even if they are being charged for them.
Extra Sales
If you decide to try home delivery, don't forget that this is an opportunity to add new sales to the order. If possible, have the delivery vehicle loaded with some extra products that might be required, even though they were not ordered. Even if you are using a third party, such as the local video store, to deliver to your customers, there may be a way of giving them the incentive to sell your goods at the doorstep. The obvious things to go for are staple, everyday items that people often want. Another idea is to include topical products, perhaps, depending on what kind of store you have, candy apples if it is Halloween or even sunglasses if it is a sunny day.
Database
One big difference between having customers come to your store as opposed to taking deliveries to them is that you will need to keep a track of their names, address and their shopping orders not to mention other information such as personal preferences. In order to do this you will need to keep a database. How you do this depends on your inclination and your circumstances. In some cases a listing on paper will be fine. In most cases, though, you are likely to keep the information on a computer. Many stores that don't delivery already keep a database of customers, but many others do not. You may find there are laws in your jurisdiction that govern how databases containing individual's data can be used, especially when the information is kept electronically.
Variable Products - Getting Intimate
Certain products travel better than others. I am not talking here about your ability to protect products in transit - although this is of great importance - I am referring to products that can have different affects on different people. These are products that can vary, such as fruit and vegetables . Taking bananas as an example of a variable product, some people like them yellow/brown and ripe and others prefer them green and under-ripe. Some prefer a cabbage or lettuce with more heart and others prefer them leafy. This can be a great challenge and the larger store chains always struggle with this problem. Their answer is typically to segregate products into their potential variations, so there may be a choice between ripe bananas and under-ripe bananas. Hearty cabbage may be given a particular name (French names are popular with the marketers), while leafy cabbage may be labelled as something completely different. Although this is workable, if you happen to have a grocery store that sells fruit and vegetables, you will be at an advantage if you get to know your customers' intimate preferences and have a good f
Learning a foreign language has become more relevant than ever in the corporate world in the 21st century. In particular, knowing the Spanish language has become almost a necessity for many business professionals. With the rapid increase of Spanish speaking individuals in the U.S., there has been a high demand for bilingual business professionals in the last 5 to 7 years. And, if you haven't learned the language as of yet, you many want to soon due to forecast for the future showing the Spanish language becoming the predominant language in the Americas. However, for your career, you may want to learn Spanish for these three reasons: higher pay, more marketablity and opportunities.Bilingual professionals are able to earn a higher pay in the U.S. market. Due to the large population of Spanish speaking individuals, there is a huge demand for more bilingual individuals in the corporate world. Ads for wanted bilingual individuals are becoming more seen than ever. There is a huge demand for bilingual professionals in multiple career fields, like education, customer service, sales and marketing, retail, financial services, law, medical and so on. So, if you would like to increase your pay currently
There are many ways to charge for delivery. Many will have set fees, regardless of quantity and distance (within a set perimeter). Others will have an inner region set at a low cost (or even free) and have one or more outer regions with progressively higher charges. It is very common to offer free delivery where the shopping bill is above a certain amount of money. This makes a lot of sense but you need to ensure that the minimum qualifying spend is set at the right amount in order to prevent unacceptable losses. Once the delivery service is bedded in you could consider offering it free for a limited period, say the first couple of months. This will get customers into a delivery routine. Many will have intended to pull out once the charges kicked in, but will have come to rely on the service. This plays on our tendency to "fill time". Many customers that have saved one hour of shopping time by taking in a delivery will soon fill the hour with another regular activity and will want to carry on with the deliveries even if they are being charged for them.
Extra Sales
If you decide to try home delivery, don't forget that this is an opportunity to add new sales to the order. If possible, have the delivery vehicle loaded with some extra products that might be required, even though they were not ordered. Even if you are using a third party, such as the local video store, to deliver to your customers, there may be a way of giving them the incentive to sell your goods at the doorstep. The obvious things to go for are staple, everyday items that people often want. Another idea is to include topical products, perhaps, depending on what kind of store you have, candy apples if it is Halloween or even sunglasses if it is a sunny day.
Database
One big difference between having customers come to your store as opposed to taking deliveries to them is that you will need to keep a track of their names, address and their shopping orders not to mention other information such as personal preferences. In order to do this you will need to keep a database. How you do this depends on your inclination and your circumstances. In some cases a listing on paper will be fine. In most cases, though, you are likely to keep the information on a computer. Many stores that don't delivery already keep a database of customers, but many others do not. You may find there are laws in your jurisdiction that govern how databases containing individual's data can be used, especially when the information is kept electronically.
Variable Products - Getting Intimate
Certain products travel better than others. I am not talking here about your ability to protect products in transit - although this is of great importance - I am referring to products that can have different affects on different people. These are products that can vary, such as fruit and vegetables . Taking bananas as an example of a variable product, some people like them yellow/brown and ripe and others prefer them green and under-ripe. Some prefer a cabbage or lettuce with more heart and others prefer them leafy. This can be a great challenge and the larger store chains always struggle with this problem. Their answer is typically to segregate products into their potential variations, so there may be a choice between ripe bananas and under-ripe bananas. Hearty cabbage may be given a particular name (French names are popular with the marketers), while leafy cabbage may be labelled as something completely different. Although this is workable, if you happen to have a grocery store that sells fruit and vegetables, you will be at an advantage if you get to know your customers' intimate preferences and have a good
Ever since its introduction in the mid 1900's the laser has come a long way. From light shows to scientific experiments, this optical phenomenon has been used in a variety of avenues. Today, lasers are being used in the manufacture process as cutting equipment.Laser cutting devices direct a high-powered laser beam at the required surface. This makes the surface burn, melt or vaporize, giving the end product a high quality finish. Laser cutting is used on a variety of surfaces such as plastic, glass, metal and so on. Wood is another popular surface for laser cutting.Most laser cutters are powered by CO2. Wood has a high absorption of the 10.6-micron wavelength of CO2. The cutting takes place as a result of a chemical degradation process, where wood fiber is burned away and removed under the pressure of an assist gas. Due to this, the edges of wood articles cut by the laser process appear charred, but there is negligible surface discoloration.There are several factors that influence the ability of a laser to cut wood. Firstly, the characteristic of the laser beam should be taken into consideration. These include power, mode, polarization and stability. Usually, lasers used for cutting wood
Extra Sales
If you decide to try home delivery, don't forget that this is an opportunity to add new sales to the order. If possible, have the delivery vehicle loaded with some extra products that might be required, even though they were not ordered. Even if you are using a third party, such as the local video store, to deliver to your customers, there may be a way of giving them the incentive to sell your goods at the doorstep. The obvious things to go for are staple, everyday items that people often want. Another idea is to include topical products, perhaps, depending on what kind of store you have, candy apples if it is Halloween or even sunglasses if it is a sunny day.
Database
One big difference between having customers come to your store as opposed to taking deliveries to them is that you will need to keep a track of their names, address and their shopping orders not to mention other information such as personal preferences. In order to do this you will need to keep a database. How you do this depends on your inclination and your circumstances. In some cases a listing on paper will be fine. In most cases, though, you are likely to keep the information on a computer. Many stores that don't delivery already keep a database of customers, but many others do not. You may find there are laws in your jurisdiction that govern how databases containing individual's data can be used, especially when the information is kept electronically.
Variable Products - Getting Intimate
Certain products travel better than others. I am not talking here about your ability to protect products in transit - although this is of great importance - I am referring to products that can have different affects on different people. These are products that can vary, such as fruit and vegetables . Taking bananas as an example of a variable product, some people like them yellow/brown and ripe and others prefer them green and under-ripe. Some prefer a cabbage or lettuce with more heart and others prefer them leafy. This can be a great challenge and the larger store chains always struggle with this problem. Their answer is typically to segregate products into their potential variations, so there may be a choice between ripe bananas and under-ripe bananas. Hearty cabbage may be given a particular name (French names are popular with the marketers), while leafy cabbage may be labelled as something completely different. Although this is workable, if you happen to have a grocery store that sells fruit and vegetables, you will be at an advantage if you get to know your customers' intimate preferences and have a good
Every Realtor I have ever met and/or worked with wants to get more real estate leads. Better leads... More responsive real estate leads.What is the best way to make that happen?It isn't more networking...It isn't traversing the neighborhood knocking on doors...It isn't SEO (search engine optimization)...It isn't chaining yourself to the phone and making cold calls from morning until night...It isn't more signs, postcards or flyers...It isn't even the internet or any other technology...The answer to getting more real estate leads is this:"Find a starving crowd and give them food."That will get you real estate leads by the hundreds.Once you get the "food" that your prospects are dying to eat, that is when the search engine optimization, Google Adwords, email campaigns, direct mail and other marketing devices come into play. Those are the tools you use to deliver the "food."So what is this magic "food?"It's your U.S.P. - your Unique Selling Proposition or Unique Sales Position.Basically, it is what makes you different from every other
Database
One big difference between having customers come to your store as opposed to taking deliveries to them is that you will need to keep a track of their names, address and their shopping orders not to mention other information such as personal preferences. In order to do this you will need to keep a database. How you do this depends on your inclination and your circumstances. In some cases a listing on paper will be fine. In most cases, though, you are likely to keep the information on a computer. Many stores that don't delivery already keep a database of customers, but many others do not. You may find there are laws in your jurisdiction that govern how databases containing individual's data can be used, especially when the information is kept electronically.
Variable Products - Getting Intimate
Certain products travel better than others. I am not talking here about your ability to protect products in transit - although this is of great importance - I am referring to products that can have different affects on different people. These are products that can vary, such as fruit and vegetables . Taking bananas as an example of a variable product, some people like them yellow/brown and ripe and others prefer them green and under-ripe. Some prefer a cabbage or lettuce with more heart and others prefer them leafy. This can be a great challenge and the larger store chains always struggle with this problem. Their answer is typically to segregate products into their potential variations, so there may be a choice between ripe bananas and under-ripe bananas. Hearty cabbage may be given a particular name (French names are popular with the marketers), while leafy cabbage may be labelled as something completely different. Although this is workable, if you happen to have a grocery store that sells fruit and vegetables, you will be at an advantage if you get to know your customers' intimate preferences and have a good
The use of flyers for fund-raising events for nonprofit groups always works well in a small community and it makes sense to print flyers for each and every fund-raising event that you have. It is important to find creative ways to distribute these throughout the community. Any flyer that you print should have a large logo on the front as well as boldface fonts, which state the location, time and date of the fundraising event.Proper distribution of flyers in advance of a fundraising event could bring as many as 50 extra people to the event. If the fundraiser event is a silent auction, performance or pancake breakfast you will be surprised how well these flyers do. Flyers indeed work very good for carwash fundraisers as well. It has been our experience that flyers work nearly as well as radio advertising for local community fundraiser events.One thing you might try is to find a local printer who is willing to pay for the printing costs and the paper if you let them advertise on the back. This way they can support your group and also write off the costs of the paper in the printing. It is a win-win situation for them for participating in their local community as it helps the local small busin
Personal Products
Personal products such as clothing and cosmetics usually rely on complete pre-approval before being accepted by the customer. This may mean that many customers will wish to try on a garment, or smell a perfume before paying for it. The challenge of selling such personal products may be a challenge too far, especially for a small retailer. Unless you are willing to make a night of it and perhaps like the idea of party retailing then do not attempt to sell these products.
No-one At Home
You will need to establish a procedure to deal with situations where there is nobody to receive the goods you are attempting to deliver. The database of customers can be used to keep information that will help you deal with not-at-home situations. When taking on a home delivery customer, ask them what they would like you to do with goods if they are not at home. This is not always a question that customers will help you with. "Don't worry, somebody will be home" is a typical reply. You need to decide what to do when a customer gives you this answer. You can take them at their word or you could insist that they give you an alternative (nearby) address, such as next door or perhaps agree that the goods will be taken back to the store ready for collection by the customer. There will be other requests such as "leave in the shed round the back". Keep these arrangements in your database and have the list with you when you deliver as you can guarantee that someone will not be at home at some time. You also need to establish from the start who is responsible for the ownership of the goods in such situations. If you leave the goods with the neighbor, is the original customer responsible for the goods or is it the retailer. If you use a third party to deliver the goods, are they responsible? Or is it the neighbor who took the goods in? In most jurisdictions this is a legal minefield and an avoidable argument waiting to happen. It is important to get this right from the start. You can negotiate separate terms with each customer. This may sound crazy, but remember you have a database and separate terms can be entered for each customer. Remember also, that separate terms will not be available from large chain stores, so this is another area where you can offer an advantage. However, if separate terms are too onerous a task, you will need to have your customers agree to set terms and this usually means it is best to get their signature before home deliveries can begin. You will now have entered into a contract with customers covering the title to goods and responsibility for defects and damages. Remember though that a contract is not an operating procedure or a bible that you must stick to. Working to contract is a trap that too many businesses, large and small, fall into. The contract is like an insurance policy. You should only point to the detail of a contract in times of conflict or confusion. Yes, you need to work to the spirit of the contract, but no-one will mind if you work in a flexible way around it. For example, if Mrs Smith's neighbor has been looking after her shopping and Mrs Smith found a broken egg in a pack of 12 when she collected her groceries from her neighbor, you could point
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