Pet Retailing- It’s now more than dog food, it’s fashion retailing

Written by John Stanley


In previous articles I’ve often written aboutrepparttar trend towards lifestyle retailing. This is reflected in trends inrepparttar 150170 garden and home improvement industries. But, one ofrepparttar 150171 most dramatic shifts comes fromrepparttar 150172 pet industry, which is going through dramatic changes.

Why Pets? Pets aren’t pets anymore, for many people, they are “child” substitutes. In countries such as China and Japan pets are actually replacingrepparttar 150173 child due to government directives to encourage smaller families.

Inrepparttar 150174 west ‘Generation X’ are starting families later in life to enable them to develop their careers, whilst baby boomers are learning to cope with empty nests. The result is bothrepparttar 150175 west and east is seeingrepparttar 150176 same, a pet boom to replace children. This means thatrepparttar 150177 traditional pet store is finding it’s increasingly difficult to understandrepparttar 150178 desires ofrepparttar 150179 modern pet owner and, as in other retail sectors, traditional retailers are being squeezed out ofrepparttar 150180 market place by global pet supermarkets and niche lifestyle pet stores who are readingrepparttar 150181 market differently. I recently conducted a retail workshop in Dubai, for retailers from aroundrepparttar 150182 Middle East. The Dubai retail scheme is always interesting, throwing up leading edge ideas for those interested in retail trends.

Increase Your Pet Store Sales by 540%

Written by John Stanley


I hope I have grabbed your attention, but yes, this is achievable. I have clients who have turned a stock turn of 5 into a 34 stock turn a year who will vouch that 540% is easily achievable.

But how and where can you achieve this? Every pet store has a power position within its store.

Some retailers knowrepparttar power of this position and develop their own strategies to manage this location and do not needrepparttar 150169 help of suppliers or retail consultants.

The majority of retailers do not realiserepparttar 150170 potential and needrepparttar 150171 help of suppliers to make it happen.

They need a positive partnership rather than a supplier just delivering product.

So Where are These Magical Positions?

The power spot isrepparttar 150172 position in a pet store where you can guarantee 100% of consumers will see 100% of product.

Those suppliers and retailers who have stores in countries where they drive onrepparttar 150173 left hand side ofrepparttar 150174 road will have consumers who generally prefer to circulate stores in a clockwise direction. If your market is based on right hand sided driving, then customers generally prefer to circulaterepparttar 150175 store in a counter clockwise direction.

Prior to building a power spot, you need to knowrepparttar 150176 natural customer flow inrepparttar 150177 store you are working with ….. for Australians it’s clockwise.

Once that has been agreed on, you can then positionrepparttar 150178 power spot location. Generally consumers take 4 to 6 steps intorepparttar 150179 store,repparttar 150180 transition zone, before they will focus on a display. The position after those few steps isrepparttar 150181 power spot location.

Once you decide onrepparttar 150182 power spot, you have then got to make it work.

Ideally, keeprepparttar 150183 display circular to create a traffic island,repparttar 150184 radius being no more than an arm’s length to enable you to maximiserepparttar 150185 sales space.

Shoppers buy fromrepparttar 150186 belly button to chin height and this means you may need to dummy uprepparttar 150187 base ofrepparttar 150188 display to maximise sales.

Research tells us that conical power displays are by farrepparttar 150189 best shape to maximise sales and thereforerepparttar 150190 way you buildrepparttar 150191 display is critically important.

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