15 June 2015 488 words, 2 min. read Latest update : 8 November 2023

Retail: 4 mistakes that will make your customers leave your store

By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab PhD in marketing, director of IntoTheMinds
In those days of showrooming (browsing shoppers) it has never been so important to ensure your customer is satisfied and stays in the stores. Those 4 mistakes will certainly make your customers leave your store right away. Make sure you […]

In those days of showrooming (browsing shoppers) it has never been so important to ensure your customer is satisfied and stays in the stores. Those 4 mistakes will certainly make your customers leave your store right away. Make sure you avoid them !

1. Waiting time too long

People hate queues; be it for check out of to try clothes, you should avoid at all means that your customers must wait. Did you know that in France and Belgium shoppers start leaving the queue when … there are just 2 people before them. This gives you an idea of how impatient modern consumers have become.

In a recent assignment we used in-store cameras to observe shoppers’ behaviors and determine whether additional cash registers were needed and where the best place was. If you face the same type of issues, don’t hesitate to contact us. We will answer within 60 minutes (because you are too important for us to wait).

2. Bad in-store circulation

Have you noticed how certain stores seem to be designed to annoy you? No space to move without touching either another customer or products on the shelves. This kind of issue is hardly acceptable nowadays. If the in-store experience is not at its best, be sure your customers will go elsewhere, either in another point of sales or online. We recently reported on a store owner who has perfectly understood how to satisfy shoppers: large alleys and easy circulation. The store is called Hngry and we wrote a post about it.

A customer asked us what we could do to improve it sales and we were able to find a correlation between its store design and sales figures. We used observations to model in-store flows and find out what was impeding the customer’s experience. We suggested a re-design of certain areas that led to a 2-digit increase in sales. Want to know more? Drop us a line.

3. Customers’ senses badly stimulated

Do you like your senses to be over-stimulated? Most people won’t. How often however have you been faced with strong smells or in-store music ? Certain store owners seem not to have understood that over-stimulation is just as bad as no stimulation at all (remember Abercrombie & Fitch ?). Believe it or not, in-store senses stimulation has become a discipline in itself. Scientific papers have been dedicated to the correlations between sales figures. If you’d like to know what to do in your own store, feel free to send us a message.

4. Products badly arranged on shelves

Who loves to see a chaotic store? Certainly not you. Yet, it is surprisingly rare to see a neatly arranged store with a touch of aesthetics. Yet, it is possible. Look for instance at this Heidi Slimane store in Paris. It’s just amazingly well designed. No need though to be in fashion to have a great store. Even a grocery can be shockingly beautiful. Do you remember the example of Whole Foods we reported upon in 2010 ?



Posted in Marketing.

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