The July e-ret@iler conference call is going to discuss how some businesses pay attention to details of their customers to get them to come back. While this falls in a slightly different category, notice how this manager of a beverage store in Minnesota has done some many small and easy-to-do things to impress his customers; to help his customers; and garner additional sales.
Summer Tips
The heat is here and that means people get thirsty.
Here some tips I have learned over the years.
* Keep the facility and comfortable. You want to keep them in the store shopping as long as you can. If it’s hot out and they walk into a place that’s an oven the customer may conceive the idea that the beer is also not that cold.
* Plan ahead with your beer cooler so you are not hauling warm beer into the cooler and sending it directly down the rail.
* Ask your vendors for the waterproof bins that go by the front counter to hold iced down single serve refreshing summer cocktails. Your ice vendor will usually cover the cost of the ice.
* Have signs offering ice with the purchase and have your cashiers get into the habit of offering the ice with every sale.
* Plan sampling around busy summer times. The heat make people thirsty and they will be more willing to try something. If they taste a sample the chances they will buy it go way up.
*Offer carry outs for people whenever you can. Customers will appreciate they extra effort when the weather is sultry.
* Offer a selection of wines already chilled that go well in summer, like sauvignon blancs and pinot grigios.
* Also consider premixed drinks in the cooler like mudslide, long island teas and strawberry margaritas.
* During humid times, cooler doors like to fog up and drip. Check with a cooler vendor they can offer solutions to avoid this issue.
* Try to arrange an area in your parking lot for campers and boats trailers to have easy entrance and exit.
* Offer items on your sale flyer that work well in the heat. You may not want to offer brandy, big cabernets and Russian imperial stouts this time of year.
I hope these ideas help with the busy selling season.
Stay cool and refreshed!!
Tom Agnes, MMBA President
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