5 proven Sales Tips for POS

The point of sale (POS) is the place where customers are already fundamentally purchase inclined, which is the best possible starting position for the generation of revenue. But what’s true elsewhere is also a fact here: nothing just works on its own. How can POS sales be optimized? How can you motivate customers to spontaneous purchases? And how do you make regulars out of occasional customers? You pull some retail concepts out of mothballs and let yourself be inspired by established methods.

Five Traditional Methods to Increase Revenue

With five relatively simple strategies, the POS can be exploited for new revenue generation:

1. Offer incentives for spontaneous purchases
2. Loyalty programs for long-term customer relationships
3. Special offers
4. Gift cards
5. Advice for other marketing campaigns

The variety of suitable strategies always depends on the particular business goal being pursued. Individual campaigns can also realize several goals simultaneously. Special offers can entice new customers and draw attention to a specific product at the same time.

1. Motivation for Spontaneous Purchases

An old trick that still works today: smaller, inexpensive articles are placed at locations where experience has shown that customers remain longer. A good example is at checkout. Parents can tell you a thing or two about this: the line at the register is a little longer than usual. The candy in the checkout area is intelligently placed at children’s eye level. And after a couple seconds of their offspring’s whining that chocolate bar lands in the shopping cart. Maybe not the most refined marketing technique, but completely legal. This trick doesn’t only work with snacks either.
Other examples:

• Reasonably priced accessories at the shop counter of a fashion boutique
• A bin with 1 Euro items
• Newspapers and magazines in the checkout area
• Mini items with a specific theme (seasonal, current trends etc.)

The rule for all eye-catchers at the counter: less is more. And the lower the price, the higher the motivation for an impulse buy.

Are your special offers placed correctly or are they just hard to find? The crowd delivers reliable data. Clickworkers visit your points of sale, they check and document the placement of your products on site.

2. Keep Customers Onboard – Loyalty Programs

The customer is king. And a loyalty program lets the customer know that a business is serious about that. Customers who keep returning are the backbone of any store. A loyalty program kills two birds with one stone:

1. Keep existing customers
2. Acquire new customers

Returning customers tend to spend more money than new customers. A loyalty program is therefore always worth it, even with higher discounts. The most important thing is that the content, concept and form (for example punch cards) of the loyalty program fit the respective business. A message on the receipt is a proven strategy too, such as “With our loyalty program you would have saved 10% on this purchase.”

3. Special Offers

Special promotional offers also always awaken consumer curiosity. Sometimes a low price is enough to get the customer to consider a purchase, even if he/she is not at all familiar with the advertised product. Not only slow-moving items are well-suited for special offers. Besides an enticing price, sales success naturally also depends on the presentation. Testing is worthwhile here. Often the placement of a special offer in a spot that at first glance seems unfitting, achieves surprisingly good results.

• Another opportunity is price coupling: for one popular article you get a slow seller too for a small additional cost
• Price thresholds are also suitable for use with otherwise difficult to sell products. If they hit a certain purchase price, the customer receives an additional article for free. This way an incentive to purchase more is created.

Important for the success of special promotions is the presentation. A special offer must stand out and draw customer attention.

4. Gift Cards

Gift cards are a favorite, especially beloved by those looking for a present at the last minute. The advantage is obvious: issuers of gift cards increase their customer base and receive cash while doing so. This also means the issuing company increases its solvency: money comes in, but inventory levels are not initially affected.

Incidentally: many gift cards are never redeemed. A forgotten gift card doesn’t increase the size of the customer base, but the gift effect occurs anyway, namely for the business.

5. Tips for Other Marketing Campaigns

The point of sale is not just the sales location, but also the place for communication with the customer. The POS is practically made for showcasing your own shop or brand in its best light. Advertising campaigns in the store attract attention. Examples:

• Promote signing-up for your newsletter (potentially with the promise of a discount)
• Notices about events being organized by the vendor
• Contest and giveaways

The POS is also especially suited to customer surveys. In addition, surveys can be used to advertise new products.

Summary

These five tips are nothing new? True, but they have proven themselves time and again. And in particular it depends on how you execute them. The most important thing is the optimal use of the point of sale as such. There are always new strategies to promote sales. But sometimes you don’t come up with a fresh idea until you’ve tried out the old strategies.

Jan Knupper