Marketing at the point of sale (POS) is one of the most important levers you have for improving the success of your retail business. Continued digitalisation means that when planning concepts for your POS measures, you should not just have your physical store in mind, you should also be designing them for the rapidly growing online retail domain.
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The offer on the market is huge. Merely having good products at fair prices is often no longer enough to motivate customers to make a purchase. So how can retailers stand out of the crowd and increase revenues? This is where so-called point of sale marketing comes into play. POS marketing describes the planning and implementation of measures that promote sales, convince customers about products and should, in an ideal scenario, lead to sales (and impulse buying). A well-known example of it is how checkout areas are arranged. Standing in line at the checkout, customers will happily let their gaze wander. Chocolate bars, chewing gum, batteries and other impulse buys jump out at us from the shelf and end up on the conveyor belt without a second thought. Even if individual items do not account for much income, the concept works well on a large-scale level. The checkout area in a grocery store, while taking up only one percent of the sales floor, can generate up to 5% of takings.
Point of sale marketing isn’t just for brick-and-mortar stores, though – it can also be implemented online. At a time when e-commerce revenues are growing, it is even something that is now urgently required. Ideally, both sales environments would be connected and therefore each would serve as the perfect complement to the other.
Before consumers become customers, they first need to get to know your business and what you offer. Ensure that you implement marketing measures as regularly as possible outside of your shop to raise awareness of it and make sure to present your goods within your shop in a way that appeals to customers. Measures that can increase interest in your business include, for example:
Clear structures in the sales room will orient customers and help them to find their way around your product range. Measures you can use to guide your customers through the point of sale in an optimal way include:
A positive vibe in the shop or on your website will make the customer want to spend time there looking through your products. The more pleasant you make the shopping experience as a whole, the more likely they are to buy from you. Don't just see your shop from the point of view of the retailer, think through the sales process first and foremost from the point of view of a consumer. Some of the adjustments you can make to improve the shopping atmosphere include:
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Customers love to experience things and are prepared to spend more money in return. Make the most of this knowledge and use it to engage in some skilled upselling. After all, this is ultimately what you are trying to get out of point of sale marketing. In designing your sales activities around experiences, you can be as creative as you want to. A small financial and time investment is often enough to inspire ideas and inspiration and awaken new needs amongst customers. Some example ideas for sales promotions are:
Marketing measures like events are not suitable for every product. Take consumable items, for example, which are less of an emotion-driven purchase for customers. These sell well using price incentives like discount campaigns that either relate to a specific item or involve combining more than one item through up-selling or cross-selling.
These two measures are suitable for both POS and online shops. Examples include: discount campaigns and codes for certain product groups or that apply above a certain purchase value, end-of-line or end-of-season clearance sales, multipack offers and set-purchase offers, as well as add-on deals for spare parts and accessories.
With just a few changes, some creative ideas and a good feel for the right timing, point of sale marketing strategies can be put into action and contribute to the success of your business. What is important is to continue to look for potential on an ongoing basis and then take action to implement it – both online and offline.
