In today's market economy, things change every day! As everyone knows, distributors have transitioned from the previous 'sitting merchants' to the current 'itinerant merchants.' During this period, many sitting merchants who failed to make the transition and continued to wait for customers to come to them have declined. In the current era, especially in the last two years, China's economy has shifted from rapid growth to slow growth. Various industries have experienced varying degrees of oversupply, making business harder. Brands have started fierce market battles. For a long time to come, market performance (i.e., the shelf space battle becoming particularly fierce) will determine the livelihood of a large number of salespeople. Whoever fails to adapt in this battle will inevitably be eliminated by the market and eventually have to switch to other jobs, because the market's requirements for salespeople have further increased! As a salesperson, are you ready?
Walking into different supermarkets and shopping malls, consumers will notice that some shelves display products with vibrant colors, giving a warm and comfortable feeling that easily stimulates purchase desire. These are actually the results of deep research and validation by merchants, known as product display science. Never underestimate product display; scientific display can significantly increase sales and speed up product turnover, while the opposite can lead to low average transaction value, low inventory turnover, and even product stagnation.
Purchase Hints in Display
The most basic principle of all product displays is abundance, or a sense of overflow. For example, some stack displays must present goods fully so that customers can see at a glance that the store has a wide variety of products, large quantities, and fresh goods. Besides abundance, customers are most sensitive to price. Price tags should ideally be directly displayed on the product display.
In discount stores, prices are directly reflected in box-style displays, especially for beer, beverages, etc. They are not unpacked; instead, a small opening is cut in the sample box to show the actual product, while the rest are displayed in full boxes. This simple and labor-saving box-style display implies that these products are low-priced.
There is also a Japanese-style display method called 'Sho-Chiku-Bai' (pine, bamboo, plum), which represents three price tiers. Most people choose the mid-range 'bamboo' items. Many retailers display three price tiers of similar products side by side, with the mid-range items having the most stock. This capitalizes on customers' mid-range consumption mentality to sell more mid-range products.
How to combine high, medium, and low gross margin products to achieve the store's optimal profit point? Therefore, prominently displaying the most critical gross margin products not only gives consumers a purchase hint but also is a targeted way for merchants to increase gross margin.
Another unexpected display hint is the time-period display method. In clothing stores, the clothes on mannequins are changed 3-4 times a day. The clothes on mannequins sell the fastest. In the morning, students pass by the most; in the afternoon, housewives; and in the evening, many elderly people go for walks. These three groups have different clothing needs. So, during the day, more youthful and fashionable women's clothing is displayed, while in the evening, inexpensive and good-quality casual wear for middle-aged and elderly people is put on. Many consumers buy based on the clothing display hints on mannequins, thus increasing sales.
Auxiliary Display Methods
Besides purchase hint displays, there are many auxiliary methods for product display that can also boost sales.
Color is a very important auxiliary display method. Most supermarket shoppers are female customers, who are highly sensitive to color. Sometimes female consumers will buy a product purely because they like a color. A supermarket once did a pink-themed display, placing food, daily necessities, and other items that were pink or related brands on one shelf, making female consumers take a second look when passing by, increasing the possibility of purchase.
Corresponding to color is the lighting auxiliary display method. Watsons uses different lighting for different product areas. Some products that need brightness are spotlighted to make them look very attractive. Although the effect may not be the same when customers take them home, in the store, the lighting display effect has been achieved. In some high-end supermarkets, the lighting in the wine area is deliberately dimmed to show the nobility of the wine, and wine itself is not suitable for strong light exposure.
Some products need 'naked' displays, such as fruits and vegetables. In the past, they were packaged, but now customers want freshness more. More and more merchants adopt 'open' 'naked' displays, where fruits and vegetables are placed directly in baskets or sacks without packaging, making customers feel like they are in a farmhouse setting, indicating that these products are very fresh and worth buying.
In addition, professional display is also very important. On the 8th floor of Shanghai Super Brand Mall, there is a small candy shop. In terms of candy alone, its sales volume would not be large, so how can it afford the expensive rent of this 'golden mall'? The trick is that they have a glass kitchen for live candy making in the display area, which attracts many onlookers. The reporter saw on site that many people, after watching the interesting process of making flower-shaped candies and rainbow candies, were eager to buy.
Another auxiliary display method highly praised by the industry is thematic display. For example, during various festivals or major promotional events, many merchants paste promotional posters, but the effect of these posters may not be as effective as thematic displays.
Display is very important, and salespeople know it. Many companies, based on their financial resources, have conducted internal and external training, and some even spend heavily on training salespeople. However, most salespeople are willing to learn sales skills, conversation skills, and visit skills, but they are unwilling to do hands-on skills! This is the nature of salespeople! Especially veteran salespeople, they are like old hands! They work easily for a morning, just chatting with the boss, placing orders, and saying, 'No expired goods, right?' or just glancing at a few items, and then the visit is over. As for later expired products, that's the boss's problem!
One day a friend asked me: 'You have come into contact with many sales elites and successful people. What do you think is the most important factor in their success?' I said: Diligence. He continued: 'What else?' I said: Nothing else, only diligence. He smiled, seemingly thinking my answer was too simple.
All the sales elites I have ever met are diligent. I divide diligence into two types: one is physical diligence, which is obvious and can be seen from work hours and efficiency. (I don't elaborate not because it's unimportant, but because its importance is too obvious.) The other is mental diligence.
The sales path is arduous. Those who are lazy in body cannot become successful salespeople. Those who start with good sales performance but eventually fail are all due to mental laziness.
But many people often ignore mental diligence and try to compensate with physical diligence. For example, those who make the same mistake more than twice, and those with procrastination, are typical of mental laziness.
Mental laziness means being unwilling to think through every word the customer says.
When negotiating a deal, salespeople must repeatedly think about every word the customer says, carefully weigh body language and facial expressions. Only by mastering enough basic information, sorting out clear clues, grasping the core of the problem, and making sufficient quotation preparation can you close the deal in one go.
Mental laziness means being unwilling to think about problems even when you can't close a deal.
Obviously the customer likes the company's product, and the price is competitive, but they delay placing an order. Is the customer still comparing products from other manufacturers, or are there loopholes in the existing system, methods, or logic? What is the root cause? And set up corresponding prevention mechanisms to avoid the same problem from happening again.
Mental laziness is mental inertia.
When others raise objections or challenges, do you rebut without thinking? Or have you learned a humble posture and habitually accept/ignore them?
The analysis of objections or challenges should not only be applied within your own logical framework but also try to break your own logical framework, try to think from the other party's logical framework, and analyze the rationality and contradictions of their logic.
The process of reconstructing a logical framework (commonly known as 'destroying three views') is very complex. You have to try to understand some 'unreasonable' things. But it will make your logical framework clearer and stronger. Breaking inertial thinking is self-repair of thinking.
Mental laziness means giving up independent thinking.
Adopting 'authoritative information' without discrimination and letting your thinking be guided is the most dangerous situation. Originally, this article should not involve criticism of any party, but I have to point out that China's education method is completely destroying our independent thinking ability. While it teaches us skills, it also weakens our ability to learn other knowledge. Independent thinking can minimize confusion.
Mental laziness means lacking a big-picture perspective.
People often say to do the right thing, not just do good things, which emphasizes having a big-picture perspective. A big-picture perspective means jumping out of the immediate situation, extending the axes of time and space, analyzing problems from a historical perspective and overall situation, and considering what impact specific practices will have on the overall situation in the long run. People without a big-picture perspective usually use their pitiful morality (whether professional or social) as a disguise.
Mental laziness means sticking to old habits.
If you think you are not innovative enough, or others think you are not innovative enough, then you are sticking to old habits.
Mental laziness means tolerating knowledge gaps.
When encountering something you don't understand, you deceive yourself and muddle through. Another name for this state is losing curiosity, or not being eager to learn.
The solution to all the above problems involves the third level of diligence, whose boundaries are relatively vague. It belongs to both physical and mental, and is called focus. I believe that people who can focus do not have insufficient ability. It can even be said that a person's achievements depend on their degree of focus, because the energy generated by focus is extremely powerful. To give an extreme example, the cumulative effect of N one-minute periods may never reach the effect of a focused 10 minutes. Focus is a state of mental diligence, and it also consumes a lot of physical energy. Here I would like to remind everyone: those salespeople who spend all day on Weibo, WeChat, Momo, and have negative thoughts, leaders will not have high expectations for them, and naturally they will not have much development prospects.
Sales is a job that requires great initiative. You cannot be lazy. If you are lazy to do, customers will be lazy to buy. Of course, it's not that they won't buy, but they won't buy from you!
If salespeople are too lazy, communication becomes superficial.
If you are lazy to prepare, you will fall into a state of 'words without proof,' lacking persuasion, and lose customers at any time!
If salespeople are too lazy, the enthusiasm will decrease, customer satisfaction will drop, directly causing a decrease in customer loyalty.
Many salespeople become a different person after signing a contract and no longer proactively communicate with customers. I just wrote about this recently. If you are interested, you can browse: Maintain sales enthusiasm, especially after signing.
If salespeople are too lazy to even do displays, leading to reduced sales orders, poor customer relations, poor displays, and many near-expiry and expired products, it will directly cause a significant decline in salespeople's enthusiasm and eventually force them to leave the industry!
I want to say to those currently in sales: 'If you are too lazy to do displays, then don't do it anymore. Change careers quickly! Sales is no longer suitable for you!'
Quickly forward this to your colleagues! You know what I mean!
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