When you have a location in mind, you should work through another aspect of marketing. How will you attract customers to your store? How will you pull business away from your competition? Many small retailers find competitive advantages within this aspect of marketing. The ideas they develop are as good as and often better than those the large companies develop. The following work blocks are designed to help you think about image, pricing, customer service policies and advertising.
Image Every store has an image. For example, throw some merchandise onto shelves and onto display tables in a dirty, dimly lit store and you've got an image. Shoppers think of it as a dirty, junky store and avoid coming into it. The same merchandise displayed on brightly lit, well-organized shelves could project a high-tech image.Your image should be focused enough to promote in your advertising and other promotional activities. For example, home cooked food might be the image of a small restaurant.What is the image you want shoppers and customers to have of your store?
Value received is the key to pricing. A store can have low prices by selling low-priced merchandise. Thus, what you do about the prices you charge depends on the lines of merchandise you buy and sell. Pricing also depends on what your competition charges for these lines of merchandise. Your answers to the following questions should help you to decide what to do about pricing.
In what price ranges are your lines of merchandise sold?What services will you offer to justify your prices if they are higher than your competitor's prices?Will you sell for cash only? If you use credit card systems, what will they cost you? Will you have to add a surcharge to the original price in order to absorb the cost?
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