{"id":564,"date":"2010-07-28T11:10:00","date_gmt":"2010-07-28T11:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/?p=564"},"modified":"2014-08-27T07:46:29","modified_gmt":"2014-08-27T12:46:29","slug":"retail-doctor-makes-small-town-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2010\/07\/retail-doctor-makes-small-town-house.html","title":{"rendered":"The Retail Doctor makes a small town house call"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bob Phibbs is The Retail Doctor. (No, really, that’s his registered trademark.) And he has the credentials and experience to have a valid claim to the title. He’s helped many ailing retail businesses get healthy. He is the author of The Retail Doctor’s Guide to Growing Your Business<\/a>, a practical and tough guide for retail business owners. (Highly recommended.) I sent some small town specific questions, and Phibbs was kind enough to pay us a house call.
\"The<\/a>
1. In a small town, retailers have a limited supply of potential customers. How can rural retailers survive?\u00a0<\/b>
There are three things to consider. First, people probably drive from farther away to go to your store, so as a business owner, you have to give them a good reason to keep coming back. Don\u2019t assume that you are a customer\u2019s only option.<\/p>\n

Second, stores need to evaluate if they are really holding on to all of their existing customers \u2013 or if they have bought into the lie that everyone already knows about them.<\/p>\n

A few years ago when I was hired to help a coffee chain improve their business, I walked 1000 homes in \u00bd mile radius of their store. The results were surprising- less than 25% of the people knew the store existed. While this may seem like bad news and sure, in some ways it was, it helped us focus the store\u2019s marketing efforts to know what they could do better. One year later, we assessed the same people and 90% of them knew the store\u2019s tagline and knew the location. Don\u2019t assume that everyone knows you because you\u2019re in a rural area and the options are limited. The chances are good that they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Finally, is your store viewed positively in the community? God forbid you\u2019ve burned through the neighborhood and are known to be a bad business for whatever reason. Does Bitter Betty work for you? Do customers loathe their experience with your employees? You need to know if people have a negative taste in their mouth about your store, and if they do, you\u2019ll need to do some reparations to your brand before you do any further marketing. Marketing to people to get them in the door, but putting them in touch with an unpleasant staff that prevents them from coming back, is wasted effort.<\/p>\n

2. Small town retailers often have to adopt a higher markup than the big city stores. This can be because of limited volume, higher wholesale prices or transportation costs. What can they do to not lose sales?\u00a0<\/b>
Learn how to make sales and don\u2019t assume the merchandise is going to sell itself. The reality is that people always complain about prices in rural areas \u2013 but at the end of the day, they\u2019ll pay for convenience if you make the store a place that makes them feel better. That\u2019s what\u2019s missing in most retail. You can\u2019t be like a Wal-Mart and just stack it and hope someone will buy it. The reality is you\u2019re going to have to do a better job of displaying and selling it to justify selling it at that higher price. If you do these things, you\u2019ll gain loyal customers who are willing to pay a little more for your product because they appreciate the extra effort you\u2019ve put forth to get it into their hands.<\/p>\n

3. Since small town retailers face the same online competition as big city stores, how can they make up for sales lost to online sources?\u00a0<\/b>
I don\u2019t think small town retailers should even worry about competing in the online space. Control what you can control. Look at your <\/i>four walls. Unless you\u2019re going to be like Amazon, stay in your own ballpark. Do what you do best and focus on your business. Don\u2019t focus on online competitors.<\/p>\n

4. Limited workforce is another big issue in small towns. Are there special techniques retailers can use to manage their smaller workforce?\u00a0<\/b>
Rural or smaller town retailers typically set their hours for what\u2019s comfortable for them to begin with not what\u2019s comfortable for their customers (i.e. closed on Sundays, limited hours on Saturdays, close earlier during the week). More than likely the hours they\u2019ve chosen aren\u2019t the best times to make money.<\/p>\n

Studies have shown that, in order, these are the best money making times for retail:<\/b><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Saturday 11 am \u2013 1 pm<\/li>\n
  2. Saturday 3 pm \u2013 5 pm<\/li>\n
  3. Sunday 3 pm \u2013 5 pm<\/li>\n
  4. Sunday 11 am \u2013 1 pm<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    If your store is closed on Sundays, you may be missing out on two of the top four money-making times! You have to test these against your store to see if it proves true. Most retailers have computer programs that can track transactions for every \u00bd hour block of time. Compile these reports on a monthly basis and look at times when the most sales are happening. Build a schedule for your employees around those higher sales times. Put the customer first when you schedule, not the employee.<\/p>\n

    I offer many more tips and solutions for retail business owners in my book \u201cThe Retail Doctor\u2019s Guide to Growing Your Business\u201d. Learn more at www.retaildoc.com\/guide<\/a><\/p>\n

    New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the Guided Tour<\/a>. Like what you see? Get our updates<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Bob Phibbs is The Retail Doctor. (No, really, that’s his registered trademark.) And he has the credentials and experience to have a valid claim to the title. He’s helped many ailing retail businesses get healthy. He is the author of The Retail Doctor’s Guide to Growing Your Business, a practical and tough guide for retail […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3,8,20],"tags":[49],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5161,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564\/revisions\/5161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}