The retail business is one of the most lucrative in present times, so it makes sense to want a full-fledged retail store expansion.
Once you have unprecedented success at one location, what’s stopping you from opening a branch in another lucrative area? Picture the skyrocketing customer demand your products would strive to fulfil after a thorough expansion of your brand’s retail footprint!
Smart Tips for Simplified Retail Store Expansion
If you are a retail owner, you will hope to make more profit from your new store than the old one because that spells flourishment. Nothing stops you except the daunting nature of doing it all over again- choosing a location, getting all the technicalities in order, and the whole ordeal.
Software retail management, customer satisfaction, marketing campaigns- these might seem a little too much. So, in this article, we have tried to narrow down the 7 super smart tips to simplify your retail store expansion.
1. Optimize Your Retail Marketing Campaign
What is the first and most integral step in retail store expansion? Letting people know about it. If you throw all your money to invest in a new store and no one ever hears of it, that is hardly what anyone wants.
In this age, the way to counter that and drive your retail store to success is inevitably through marketing campaigns.
We see it, and we hear of it everywhere- from billboards to pamphlets to Instagram reels to Facebook posts; it is not news that marketing is now the one-way road to success.
Announce the new store on your website (considering you have a functional, vibrant website ready to go), on social media, through email marketing, by putting up billboards at strategic locations, handing out pamphlets, and everything in between.
Be wary of search-engine optimization when dealing with online marketing. Leave no stone unturned to make your retail store expansion known.
Send your loyal customers specially curated emails about the new store and cordially invite them to the grand opening through marketing automation systems. Give out special price leaflets and vouchers to them, and all in all, localize the campaign.
2. Go For A Memorable Grand Opening
After marketing campaigns, there’s a second part to making your retail store expansion known- go for a grand store opening! No, we are not talking about burning a hole in your pocket by inviting influencers or celebrities to promote your store.
Nothing that calls for extensively expensive events! Make sure your store opening is as unique as possible and leaves an impression in the locality.
Often stores go for free products if passers-by download their store app and place an order on the spot. This ensures you retain many customers even after the offer period expires. Alternatively, you can offer discounts or gifts for first-time buyers at your new store.
Try to push your store’s grand opening to trend on social media by hyping it up through photo competitions with creative but catchy hashtags on Instagram.
3. Team Up With Different Businesses
Whether you plan a retail store expansion or a simple new product addition to your inventory, the most tried and tested way to execute it is by leveraging your business through existing ones.
Call it an acquisition or a partnership; a little nudge or help from a thriving company can prove highly lucrative for your business.
With the legitimate establishment of the other business and its list of loyal customers, promoting your new store becomes a little easier.
If you have a women’s clothing line and want to expand to men’s wear, you can either acquire a thriving men’s wear business or strike a partnership deal with a well-performing men’s wear company. This way, both of you will be reaping the benefits.
An acquisition can save both time and resources while setting up a business, and if you choose to keep the staff, it also saves recruitment hassles and provides you with already-trained professionals.
The takeaway is, if acquisition seems like a far-fetched idea, collaborate with a 3rd party.
4. Go For The Online to Offline Strategy
There’s no denying the rate at which technology has been revolutionizing the retail industry. With hordes of online stores and a burgeoning online shopping dynamic, it can be slightly less happening for physical stores.
The Online to Offline (O2O) strategy can turn into an opportunity to drive your retail store expansion. Among the many ways to go about it, opening social media pages like Twitter, Meta, LinkedIn, and Instagram is never a bad idea.
Market your retail products to your target demographic and use social media pages to interact with your customers and quench any queries they might have.
If you want to entice your customers to visit your offline store despite having a thriving online alternative, encourage them to pick up their products offline.
This way, you orient customers who feel dubious about navigating online stores. You also increase your sales, with customers naturally browsing through the aisles while waiting to pick up the order they placed online.
Make good use of Google My Business by filling in all the necessary details about your new store. Have your listing well-optimized with keywords related to your business to drive traffic.
5. Personalize According to Locations
Thinking of opening new branches is a common way of driving retail store expansion. Setting up your retail business in brand-new locations is an excellent way to invite new customers and enlarge your offline presence.
A little area and demographic-specific personalized goes even further. You can have consistency in your branding and other handling processes while also injecting some local flavour into each of your retail store expansion projects.
This small effort helps connect with local customers and win them over. For this, you need robust local research on the varied interests of a place and the commonly noted demands of the residents.
Keep your policies, technologies, and core procedures intact to ensure efficiency in the stores and smoothen the process of employee transfer across stores. But at the end of the day, expand on what your local customers want.
6. Focus On The Way You Sell Products
The past 25 years have transitioned from a scarce economy to a flooded one. Today, it is nearly impossible to come up with products that are exclusive to a store or a place. Globalization and the advancement of technology have made everything available for everyone.
So, now all that matters is to stand out. Make sure you have a unique way of selling products that urge customers to visit your store instead of the next one. Differentiate your product from your competitors and put effort into customer service.
Remember, new substitutes come up in the market daily, but excellent goods and services always get brownie points!
7. Use Cloud-Based Software For Your Retail
Visibility should be a primary concern when focusing on retail store expansion, and cloud-based software can help you get there. It makes it easier to manage your retail stores from anywhere.
Your retail business can do with cloud-based POS software to find items and speed up the checkout process for your customers.
It also lets you update your product and price lists across all stores, and it keeps transactions running and all data synchronized even when the system is offline.
Next in line is a robust Inventory Management Software (IMS) for managing inventory across various locations.
A cloud-based IMS system lets you gauge your store’s inventory levels in real time. You will be alerted every time your stock drops or reaches the stipulated levels. IMS also makes internal inventory transfers easy to monitor and manage.
Go for accounting software for automating bookkeeping, and ensure you can see your profits and losses in each location through the software. It will help simplify the accounting procedure and provide 100% visibility.
Lastly, opt for purchasing software to make merchandise acquisition from suppliers easy to handle. It will save your supplier data and create purchase orders automatically through a single system. You can even compare quotations from varied suppliers.
Conclusion: Simplify Retail Store Expansion
Here’s the takeaway- we all want our retail store expansion to flourish and yield hefty returns. But sometimes, we do not grasp the suitable measures to sustain customer needs.
Remember, the growth of any business begins from within the firm and gradually moves further to the external environment. Improve yourself and your employees, grow your product offerings, team up with partners, learn to sweat on the small details, and let research guide the way!
If you are a brand looking to expand past your online reach or if you want to strengthen your offline retail footprints, 91Squarefeet is your go-to turnkey retail expansion player!
Feel free to Contact Us or mail us at hello@91sqft.com. We will be more than happy to assist you. Alternatively, you can also schedule a call with our experts.
