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A Successful Tale From A Local Retailer

By John King

Republish: EasyPublish™
Published: 26Aug2011
Word count: 1026
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As a keen guitarist I am a frequent visitor to a family run music shop nearby. I was interested to hear the owner chat about the challenges faced by local retailers and how he faced those challenges.

The owner has run the business for over 15 years and, like many other people in his position, he likes to think that there's not many (if any) new tricks that he could be taught which could drastically boost his business.

Until now he'd always relied on an excellent location and a loyal (and well-heeled) customer-base to provide a solid grounding for the business to prosper - the few advertising promotions that he had got involved with (eg leafleting & local press advertising) have proved extremely disappointing and costly. However, he mentioned how he was recently offered some temporary space in one of the main shopping malls in his area which adjoins his business, and decided to set up a 2 day display and promotional event manned by himself and one other staff member.

They constructed an eye-catching, attractive display (relatively straight-forward in their business!) and used a free prize-draw competition (acoustic guitar and accessories) to facilitate initial contact with passing customers. They also concentrated on advertising the various services which they offered (instrument rental, instrument repairs, recording studio, guitar tuition, website with local links etc.) by producing several A5 sized leaflets which passers-by could pick up.

The promotion took place on a Friday and Saturday and, as they were displaying plenty of guitars, keyboards etc at heavily reduced prices, he mentioned that he certainly expected better than average sales for the 2 days….

As expected, their turnover was excellent - 3 times the average for the2 days - which, although extremely welcome, would in itself have been no more than a useful way to clear some excess stock at very low profit margins. What he did not expect (and this is the real bonus ) was that they would gain so many new customers from this event - even though their promotional event took place no more 20 metres from their shop. He was amazed by how many people they talked to who had no idea that they existed and have since been in to see us and make purchases!

So, what did they learn from this?

What this happy experience has really driven home is that:

1) It doesn't matter how long your business has been established and how good your location might be, the percentage of long-term local residents who are completely unaware of your existence is certainly much higher than you think!

2) Traditional promotional methods such as paper advertising and leafleting are nowhere near as effective as 'coming out from behind the counter' and bringing your business to the customer. These days Town Centre Managers will bend over backwards to help single (or groups of) small businesses set up promotional days like the one they did, and very often it doesn't cost a penny!

The author works in the website design industry and is a keen guitar player. He lives in Surrey in the UK and is a regular visitor to the first class independent music store Ritz Music. Ritz Music have expanded and currently have a Putney music shop and a Richmond music shop

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