Price Drops and Tags

I went shopping the other week and noticed an interesting trend at grocery stores over the last few months. They are making use of price drop tags more than before to entice consumers to buy multiple units of an item or just to spur interest. Specials like 10 for $10 or just simple price drops. As a wine section, you don't always want to have red or yellow price drop tags all over the store that make the wine section feel like a discount center. But it might not be a bad idea to have price drops on more popular items, overstocked items, or just items you want more people to get their taste buds on. Wine accessory product like ours provide high margins so they are the perfect type of product to do price drops on or multiple quantity sales. Try it out with a selection of bottles and some corkscrews to see if it spurs sales. The way in which you mark them to catch the consumer's eyes will be the most impotant so use colorful signage to catch the eye but not distract from the overall feel of the store. There is nothing better than testing out small pricing strategies to optimize the sale of any given inventory item.

Technology - Simple Ways to Help Your Business

Technology is really driving so much of what consumer's do. We spoke a few weeks ago about social media and how doing a little can really generate some exceptional feedback from your best customers. Yes, I-Phone Apps aren't as easy to make but thinking about technology and how it can help your stores is critical these days. But there are a lot of simple things you can do. For instance, Yelp is a popular online store/retail guide and their I-Phone App is extremely helpful. Are you listed on Yelp? And if you are, are you following the ratings and the reviews people provide to learn more about what your customers value and don't?

That is just one of so many technologies that are taking place these days and while you don't want to build a software application for your store (other than a website of course), you'll want to consider the simple ways you can use it. For example, let your customers provide feedback on specific wines on a central computer in your store so other customers can click and read what others had to say while shopping. They don't need to be at home to use a computer and the data for you will be invaluable.

Join the traditional power sites like Facebook and Twitter if anything just to have a profile and easily send out simple promotions or event invites once or twice a month. Become an active community member on Wine 2.0 and other wine social networking sites. Yes, we know, it's quite exhausting keeping up but it's exciting too. Don't try to do too much, but pick and choose some of the ones you know your customers use. And to find the ones they use, the only thing to do is ask them. They'll lead you in the right direction.