While big-ticket equipment sales are most often a product of one-on-one interaction between you and your customers, much of your bread-and-butter sales can result from good display and merchandising. Simply stated, well displayed products often sell themselves. One technique proven to increase this type of sale is what is known as facing.
What is facing? It’s pulling merchandise to the front of the shelf to create the impression these items were just freshly stocked — even when they weren’t. Research shows consumers are much more likely to buy from shelves that appear freshly stocked than from ones that looked picked over.
This may seem contrary to logic, as a depleted shelf suggests that an item is extremely popular — something you should buy before it is all gone. Yet, despite this, most people have an aversion to buying from displays that looked decimated.
Why is this? One explanation is that the human mind prefers order over chaos. Picked-over shelves convey a sense of “wrongness” most of us subconsciously avoid.
Look around your store. You’ll most likely notice several items on shelves and pegs that can benefit from regular facing. These will range from masks, to wetsuit cement and other accessories. If “facing” these items is not already part of your cleaning and maintenance routine, make it so.
Remember that, while big-ticket sales can result in a noticeable boost in sales volume, they often suffer from low margins. Small-ticket items, on the other hand, frequently enjoy better margins. It other words, $500 in small-ticket sales could add as much to your bottom line as a $1,500 sale with a third as much margin. Thus, it’s worth doing everything you can to help these items sell themselves.