Local shops are dying. Here's what they need to be doing to stay in business.
Many of us would like to see local shops stick around for at least the next 10 years, unfortunately, we all know that more and more local shops are getting forced out by large online stores.
So, why is everyone choosing to buy online and what can small local stores do about it? Here are my thoughts.
Compete on service, not price
Let’s be realistic… local shops will never be able to compete on price. Online stores don’t have to worry about keeping a physical shop open. There’s less rent to pay and they buy in bulk, which means they can afford to sell items for less.
So, what can you compete in? Service.
These days, I can go online, go to any online shop such as dogfunk.com and buy a full snowboard setup with delivery straight to my doorstep. This means that small local stores have to give me a reason to pick them over online stores.
Give your customer a reason to visit you. As soon as they walk into the store, personalize the experience. Give them amazing, kickass service that they wouldn’t be able to get online.
You can start by hiring staff that know their stuff and train your staff to recognise and recommend the correct gear. Don’t just hire local shredders, make sure they know their gear and if they don’t have the knowledge, train them.
Too many stores just hire random locals to tend to the store customers. That’s great if you want to just get by, but slowly and surely, your customers will move online. People are lazy that way.
Okay vs. Amazing
‘Okay’ isn’t good enough to stay in business for the longterm. ‘Okay’ service is how you become one of the thousands of stores that go out of business in the next 10 years. ‘Okay’ doesn’t built long term loyalty to you.
You want to be amazing. You want to be great. You want your customers to say, ‘Wow, those guys were awesome. I’m definitely telling all my friends and recommending them to everyone.’
Think long term, not just short term. Short term thinking ends up with shops trying to compete on price. You’ll lose that war. Long term thinking means competing by providing a more complete, amazing customer experience.
It’s been proven time and time again that customers are loyal, but only if you ‘wow’ them. You can’t beat online shops by competing at their strengths, instead, compete on their weaknesses, such as their lack of one-on-one customer service.
I recently read a quote that sums this up quite well:
People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
– Jed