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Anyone who's been in the retail game long enough knows that successful sales are all about timing. When considering the time to buy, it's important to factor in all the possible questions: What am I buying? Who am I buying for? How much will they need? Will demand be large or small? Does this product match the theme of the store? The amount of questions can be overwhelming, but once you understand the basic idea of the buying-selling cycle, you will be equipped with a toolkit that can grow your sales and bring in profit by maximizing all the factors in your favor. In this post, we'll teach you how to time the cycle right and grow your sales. To do this, let's imagine you own a small shop in Colorado where your target audience is tourists coming into town for the mountains. How can we maximize the probability of capturing the business of these tourists?
The buying-selling cycle is a term to describe the nonstop process of retail activities that are completed throughout the year. Your store may close at 6pm, but the buying-selling cycle never stops at close, and it never starts at open. It exists at all times, and as a retailer, you have to always be on top of it and anticipate where the cycle is headed next by multi-tasking and keeping day-to-day business needs in place.
As with any business endeavor, the first step of the cycle is planning and evaluating. If you own a Winter accessories retail business, you'd start this step of the cycle by analyzing your sales volume and profit from the previous year to better get an idea of how your stock moved through the season and what your customers seemed most interested in. After analyzing, you would take a look at the trends for the industry and compare them to your shop. Are your customers buying less of a certain color, or buying more of a certain fabrication?
A good example may be looking at something as simple as the sales numbers of Winter gloves and comparing to the sales numbers of Winter mittens. If you sold 315 pairs of gloves and 250 pairs of mittens, you can now go into the the cycle knowing to back off on the number of mittens and potentially up your wholesale Winter glove order.
After analyzing and evaluating your sales, you can start to look into different avenues of procuring your inventory. This is where you'll look at specific products and ask yourself if those products match the sales patterns and style of your store. Let's say our Colorado store caters more to middle class families out for a ski trip. To capture those sales, try to look at the products through the eyes of those visiting families. How much will they be willing to spend on a pair of Winter gloves? Will they need gloves for their children? You can use this information to search for the right place to buy your merchandise at a price that will reflect the sensibilities of your customers and still leave room for your profit.
Our Winter weather store buyer may not need to travel to Milan for the international fashion week to find affordable and stylish hats and gloves. We can start sourcing for our products by looking closer to home for businesses and wholesalers with bulk Winter hats and gloves at prices that won't bend our budget and still get great quality, lest we risk the dreaded returns. If you're unable to go to any sourcing shows in person, browsing virtual shows and virtual catalogs is an excellent and economical option. For instance, Grand Sierra has our full line catalog available online 24/7 so buyers can review our products at any time, and without having to invest any extra time or money in it.
Another benefit of sourcing online is the ability to shop and order directly from your wholesaler's website. When our Colorado store needs a few dozen ladies Winter hats for ski tourists who may need to pick something up quick while in town, the buyer can simply browse through the Grand Sierra website and place their order online. Be sure to buy from reputable sellers, and check that the customer service representatives are easy to get a hold of in case you have any questions. Read through all the shipping information and even consider calling the company to ensure you've got all the details in your order correct.
Getting the product to your store is one thing, but how will potential customers know about the new inventory without any sort of promotion? Promotion can come in thousands of forms ranging from social media ads to television commercials and even to word of mouth. As with most business decisions, the best practice is to utilize a little bit of everything, rather than putting all your eggs in one basket. Over time, you can evaluate how well your promotions work and see which avenues of promotion send the highest amount of foot traffic and purchases.
Visual merchandising is another component of promoting your products. After you buy your wholesale ladies hats, you need to find a way to present them to any incoming customers that will spark interest and eventually lead to a sale. Try curating outfits with Winter hats and gloves that match back to each other, and adding in props to make the outfit feel more realistic and relatable in context. Be sure that your collections feel accessible to the types of people visiting your shop.
Finally, the end of the buying-selling cycle comes with the supervision and management of the shop and its sales associates. It can be tempting to just teach the bare minimum and let your merchandise sell itself, but training your employees on the different features of your products can play a massive factor in converting browsers to customers.
As an example, you may have several different brands of men's Winter gloves available. While the visual look of the glove plays a large part in the customer appeal, a well trained employee would be able to explain the different features between the collection of glove styles and help point the customer towards an item more specifically catered to their needs. If a customer is looking for a simple pair of gloves to wear while doing chores, they won't need all the bells and whistles of a deluxe ski glove. Likewise, a customer looking for a premium snowboarding glove may want a multifunctional product with additions like zipper pockets or snow cuffs.
The buying-selling cycle isn't as difficult as it seems. Most business owners do it without even realizing it. But when you take the time to plan things out and broaden your perspective, you can cultivate a steady growth in your business. When you need help finding the correct merchandise for your store, Grand Sierra can help you navigate the industry and ensure that your inventory has the perfect mix of Winter hats and Winter gloves for men, women, kids, and even toddlers.
