45 search results for “Humayun Khan”

As a retail entrepreneur, it can be easy to hit a slump and feel frustrated when sales are down or if you're just not getting enough foot traffic. 

It's time like these when it'd be great to consult with a retail marketing expert and get help turning things around — even if it's just for a single piece of advice that you can put into action right away. Fortunately, we've done the legwork and collected 10 pieces of advice from retail experts for that exact purpose.

Below, you'll find 10 takeaways from some of the most renowned names in retail, marketing, and branding. These experts were kind enough to offer their answer to one big question: 

"What's the #1 thing that retailers can do to better market their brick-and-mortar store?" 

The tips and insights listed below pack a lot of punch, but will only work if you pick one and put it into action. 

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As a small business owner, you might have a mix of channels you sell through, some online and some offline. Your online presence might include having an ecommerce store with Shopify, or selling through marketplaces like eBay, Etsy or Amazon. In the physical world, you might own your own boutique retail store, or maybe you go to a few trade shows, sell through craft fairs and maybe sometimes you get a booth at a farmer's market.

However, one thing that's been missing for smaller retailers was the ability to bring everything together into a single omni-channel retail strategy. Rightfully so, given the technology up until now was privy only to household brands who could afford it. 

Despite that, things are beginning to change and the same integrated technology is now more accessible than ever to smaller merchants. For example, today a Shopify merchant can have a single dashboard for their inventory, sales, and customer information, while simultaneously being able to sell online, offline, and quite literally anywhere in between. 

It's also the reason why having merchants obtain a better understanding of omni-channel marketing is so important to us, which is why I've curated 10 presentations from Slideshare to deepen your understanding of how larger brands are leveraging their omnipresence to meet their customer's needs and how you can start thinking about doing the same. 

Let's get started.

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Let's face it: Retail has come a long way. We've gone from clunky cash registers and being buried under a never-ending pile of paperwork to using a single gadget that allows retailers to sell anywhere.

With today's evolving retail technology, retailers can run their entire store with nothing more than a tablet or smartphone with just a touch, swipe, and tap of a few buttons. Using a mobile device, a robust point-of-sale software like Shopify POS, and a few retailer apps, merchants can process transactions in their storefront or on-the-go at pop-ups or markets, fairs, and festivals.

Finding the right point-of-sale system is the first step in your quest to sell anywhere. And a few key retailer apps can help extend the functions of your point-of-sale to fill in gaps and make running your retail store as seamless as possible.

But which retailer apps will help merchants the most with day-to-day tasks? As a retail entrepreneur, you don't have much time for trial and error. Never fear — we've spent time researching, analyzing, and handpicking a curated list of retailer apps for you to explore.

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Small and boutique retailers have their work cut out for them when it comes to staying in business. There's a lot they need to know, and a lot that they need to take action on. Whether it's the latest trends in omni-channel retail, engaging their most loyal customers over social media, or understanding the way technology and mobile are revolutionizing how they accept payments. 

Which is why I've taken the liberty of assembling the top 24 blogs that every small retailer needs to read and subscribe to if they want to stay ahead of the curve and thrive when it comes to selling in person. Whether you prefer to add these to your feedly account or just do it the good old fashion way and bookmark them for future reading, I hope you find them to be an invaluable resource for helping you stay in touch with what's happening and what you need to know to successfully target, acquire, and convert customers for your store.

Here we go: 

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As a retailer, one of your perpetual concerns is driving more sales. If you're just getting started on your entrepreneurial journey, you likely have some big questions: How do you entice people to buy more from your store? What do you do when you want customers to make purchases more frequently, or in greater volume? And how can you boost business during slow hours?

Whatever your goal may be as a retailer, by creating time-sensitive in-store promotions and having a good grasp on your target customer demographic, you'll be able to incentivize the right actions, get customers to respond, and grow your business in the process. 

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Here's something you may be wondering about: If you've already optimized your website for search engines, why do you have to optimize it again for local SEO? According to Local SEO expert David Mihm's Local Search Ranking Factors, properly optimizing your website could account for as much as 18% of what Google weighs inits algorithm when determining which local results to serve up to users.

With as many as 7 billion monthly local searches in the US alone, consumers are searching for business addresses, products, hours of operations, driving directions, reviews, and coupons they can use at your establishment. 

With local search becoming more and more important for small businesses (and Google as rumored by its upcoming algorithm change), it's important for merchants to understand not only the basics of Local SEO, but what it consists of.

This includes building citations, leveraging online reviews, and what we'll cover in this post, on-site optimization for increasing chances of ranking higher in local search results. 

Let's get started.

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As a retailer, you likely use a wealth of resources getting people to walk through your doors. While foot traffic is crucial, what do you do once they cross your threshold? 

Sometimes products meet a need so well that they sell themselves — but that's rarely the case. 

Rather than leaving your retail sales to chance or talent, you can alternatively rely on a science that you can teach to your staff or apply directly yourself. 

Here, we'll look at four key areas of focus, including several retail sales tips and expert insights, to help you sell more and build greater customer loyalty. 

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Whether you're preparing for Black Friday, Small Business Saturday or Cyber Monday, the weekend after Thanksgiving is the biggest shopping weekend of the year.

The National Retail Federation predicts holiday sales to increase 4.1% (to $616.9 billion) this year, a full percentage higher from last year. With a huge opportunity for profit, large retailers are fighting tooth and nail for consumers to spend their holiday budgets on their businesses.

The Black Friday craze is so competitive that some of these retailers have started announcing their Black Friday deals the day after Halloween. That's not even enough time for consumers to digest their Halloween candy.

To take on larger retailers who are looking to win over shoppers with low prices and free shipping, as a small and medium-sized business, you can turn to more personalized and creative ways to promote your store on a budget.

Here are just a few ideas that have worked for retailers in the past, that you can apply to your own store this holiday season.

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As a retailer, it's not always easy to just throw money at problems like shoplifting or loss prevention. With a finite budget, many smaller retailers can't take advantage of all the technology that big-box stores may have at their fingertips. Whether it's high-tech security camera systems, door scanners, or facial-recognition software, sometimes their big-ticket costs just don't fit with your small business security budget.

But shoplifting can have a crippling effect on retailers — after all, inventory shrinkage costs the U.S. retail industry over $45 billion each year. So, while you may have a limited budget, it's important to identify shoplifting as a problem and have a loss prevention plan in place.

So, what's a retailer to do? Here, we'll take a look at cost-effective and low-tech tactics that you can start implementing right away.

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Customer service isn't just what your business does after the sale in the form of addressing a support call or doing an exchange or issuing a refund, it's the-end to-end experience a customer has with all the touch points of your business. 

Whether you sell online, in-store, or anywhere in-between, placing an emphasis on making exceptional customer service a core component or a foundational value for your business, will change your outlook on why it is you do what you do. 

It will remind you of your reasons for starting your business in the first place, how your business adds value to the lives of your target customers, and why when it comes to the overall customer experience, there's always room for improvement.

To help you gain further insight into the importance of customer service, I've assembled eight quotes from some of the most brilliant thinkers and doers so that you too can gauge the state of customers today and how it is you might be able to serve them better tomorrow. 

Enjoy! 

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