It's necessary to have lean-staffed stores these days. As customers, we have become somewhat accustomed to looking for a person to ring up our selections in department stores.

We walk aisle after aisle in food stores, selecting our choices without any help from store staff.

We roam warehouse stores, guided by good directional department signage - those exceptional silent salesmen!

But is it really OK to ignore us shoppers? We're important. Here are three of my current customer-relations pet peeves.

1) Employees talking on the phone while they wait on (or ignore) me. If I had my way in your stores, I would ban phone and cell phone use. Certainly not the necessary calls made by shoppers who may have to call home for specific information to select the correct product the first time.

I would forbid phone use by employees.

Just yesterday, I walked into a camera store seeking a specific item. The sole clerk on duty at that chain's outlet was having a personal phone conversation, ignoring me and two other customers in the store.

Only by staring him down was I able to have him excuse himself from his friend, and answer my question (the item was not stocked). As I left the store, he was acknowledging the other two customers who had piled their purchases on the counter and had been patiently waiting for him to finish his personal phone business.

I have had a purchase rung up in a fairly exclusive store without the clerk looking at me or acknowledging my business while she continued her personal conversation on the store's phone.

I refrained from saying, "Don't ignore me. I'm here, and my money pays your salary."

2) Lack of acknowledgement that I have come into your store. If I had my preference, someone would greet me when I walked into a store of any kind. The greeting would be more than "Welcome to x-store!" It would include the offer to direct me, or walk me, to the right location for my intended purchase.

3) Ignorance about inventory. If I had my druthers, every store associate would know the store's stock intimately.

Home Depot sets the standard here - not only do store employees know which aisle the items I'm seeking are located on, they also offer to walk me there and help me find the specific SKU.

Do you, like me, feel invisible in some retail store settings? We may not be able to do much about it in other people's stores, but we can certainly clean up our own-stores' act!

Don't ignore me, or your customers. We're here to spend money!

Although winter’s back is not yet broken (wish hard as you might if you live and market in certain areas of our country!), it IS time to think spring and spring products merchandising.

Spring. Traditional get-out-and-enjoy-the-weather-which-promises hotter, pleasure-filled weekends and days (if all the chores are done).

Traditional time to fix up, clean up, and get ready for the good times ahead.

Spring is when cars and trucks get their “shining.” Come spring, people clean garages and basements, and replace automotive service and car products which they judge are stale.

Depending upon your geography, you may have only a few days before people wander into your store seeking products (and advice) to get their cars and trucks ready for spring, and summer, fun.

Get ready to answer the 2001 Spring-version of “whassup?” for your car care and repair customers.

Inventory. Merchandise placement. In-store signing. Advertising. Promotion. Special events.

What is YOUR plan to capitalize on this annual opportunity for car care, chemical, and more sophisticated DIY-task product sales?

Think spring. Think about, and profit from, the annual shining.

Hello, Mr. or Ms. Store Manager,

Did you get an unexpected “bonus” in today’s delivery? Something that isn’t in your store’s merchandising plan, or something headquarters or your district manager mentioned a while ago that you filed in the “forget” drawer of your brain’s filing cabinet?

Don’t throw that point-of-purchase or point-of-sale goodie away! Use it. It might do your sales volume and profit some good.

If the POP or POS item IS a true surprise, consider how you can fit it into your store. You might need to change the header card graphic on a free-standing display to match your decor or modify it a bit. Try it.

Monitor closely (yes CLOSELY) the sales from the display or near the graphic and nearby section, and see if it makes a positive difference. If so, it’s a keeper, at least for a while.

Today’s tightly planned in-store environments have rigid (not firm!) rules, but it is OK to break them and test the waters for good results. Those rigid rules may prevent us from taking advantage of rewarding opportunities.

Chances are, however, that the merchandiser or graphic or poster is in the company’s plans, and you did forget it. Check out the packing, the packaging, and the enclosures for clues, news of rewards, or contest rules.

Many of these merchandising programs have built-in incentives for store managers and associates who set them up. Have a good time in Disney World if you win the grand prize!

Compound those annual doldrums with this year’s high home-energy bills, high vehicle fuel prices, and your associates’ awareness of an aftermarket which everybody is saying is “flat at its best,” and you have valid business and personal reasons for bigtime letdown and low in-store energy.

You can fix this with one old-fashioned remedy — activity. Remember when your mother used to tell you to “go outside and do something” when you were moping?

Clean your store! That’s right. Clean! Not paint, fix up, or refurbish — clean. Get your store associates busy. Have them go through the store with an eagle eye, picking up, straightening up, making tidy — as the Pennsylvanians say, “retting up.” Get them started with a positive, upbeat set of marching, oops! cleaning orders.

When they are done, they’ll feel better.

The store will look better. And you’ll have invested no major money.

You might spice up the project with a small investment like a bring-in order of pizza or other take-out food. They’ll appreciate the gesture. You’ll appreciate their renewed energy as well as the benefits of a spanking clean store.

Do you have a store routine and official program for daily and weekly maintenance? Is execution of that maintenance part of your performance review criteria for staff?

If you don’t have a clean-store program in place, send me an e-mail, and I’ll send you some ideas about making a clean-up cheer-up program part of your day-in day-out store ops.

It pays off. People who work in an environment that places positive-energy importance on appearance have positive energy!

In automotive aftermarket retailing, it often seems that the Holiday shopping season passes without our enthusiastic marketing or promotional participation.

Overall... aftermarket retailers, (mass merchandisers excepted), spend little effort or money on decorating stores and reaching the broadest possible audience.

That’s strange because almost everyone over 16 years of age in the USA drives a vehicle.

The usual approach is to use flyers or newsprint ads to promote certain items as worthy of being given as gifts. By and large, the positioning is oriented toward the male customer.

What about the rest of the population? Women? Young people below driving age?

Why not directly target these two large spending groups? They spend billions each year on Holiday gifts.

And, aftermarket retailers sell lots of products that make ideal gifts.

With so many women owning vehicles and being responsible for their care and maintenance; they are an ideal cohort to market your accessories! In-store presentation is king for this group.

As for the kids, they buy Holiday gifts for parents, grandparents, siblings and friends; so why not the accessories you sell, too? To reach the young folks, try direct mail or TV spots on your local cable channel such as MTV or Video-1. Here too, your store has to look sharp and present the merchandise in an entertaining manner. Remember…this not-yet-driving group will soon enough be able to drive back to your stores and they are thus your customers-to-be.

Have a great holiday season. May the jingle be the your cash registers!

Directing in-store traffic, once a customer is in your store, is crucial to customer satisfaction with his or her shopping experience, and vital to your selling success.

A most powerful way to increase sales, once customers are in your store, is Magnet Merchandising™ -- using your merchandise as magnets for your customers and their cash.

Other techniques for in-store traffic control work with varying degrees of effectiveness.

The racetrack traffic pattern, which takes customers around the edge of the store, lets them veer off the racetrack to choose their intended purchases, but they see other departments along the track!

There is the multiple power aisle tactic when more than one aisle is very important to traffic: these come in “X,” “T”, and “+” shapes.

Magnet Merchandising™ creates magnet destinations in your store to help customers find their way. Customers don’t have to follow your suggested route, so are not inconvenienced by them. While the number of high-power magnets may vary from store to store,

1. magnets must be visible to customers from every place in the store, like good traffic markers for travelers.
2. magnets must be instantly noticeable to help customers cut through the clutter and focus on special items.
3. magnets should be dramatic, striking displays which educate, inform, and entertain.
4. magnets can be enhanced by dramatic lighting.
5. magnets don’t necessarily have to have actual product(s) in them. Magnets can be part of the paradigm which adds “experiences” to shopping.

For example, a magnet which educates about truck interior decor accessories may cause, “Gee, I didn’t know they made that .... for trucks!” statements. Surprise merchandising delights shoppers.

The purpose of Magnet Merchandising™ is to reinforce, reintroduce, and freshen the customers’ memory about all the products available in automotive parts stores.

The absolutely cleanest place in your store should be your checkout counter area.

They came, they saw, they bought!

What’s next from you for your customers?

Wouldn’t it be good for your business to gain -- and retain -- some of your customers’ top-of-mind awareness?

Today, there are so many ways to stay in touch with people. All you need, Mr. and Mrs. Auto Parts Retailer, is a program to collect and use information about your customers so that you can reach out to them between their visits to your store.

Collect information from your customers before they leave the store. Ask them for their addresses…street and/or e-mail. Or do it with a promotional drawing for which they must register, giving their vitals --addresses, that is, both street and e mail.

Then be in touch with them about specials, promotions, new products -- or to say a simple “thank you for your business.”

Besides the traditional snail mail for hard copy postcards, letters, or flyers, e mail is another media through which to send postcards, letters, flyers, or greeting cards! You can send any and all of these messages via broadcast e-mail. With greeting cards, there’s no cost to your business other than the time needed to select a free on-Web-greeting card and hit the “send” button.

Goodbye, postage expense!

Be careful, however, not to become a too-often pest. Other than the thank you after a visit to your store and a purchase, use your outreach only for significant news which will be helpful to your customers. Otherwise, your efforts may become top-of-mind perceived junk to be sent to the nearest trash bin!

The absolutely cleanest place in your store should be your checkout counter area.

This point of sale location should be:

• spanking clean,
• uncluttered so that your customer can put his or her buys down easily, and
• seductive.

Seductive? you say? How?

Use this area to provide one or two more ideas of things to buy while your customer is in the paying mode ... first, an impulse item or two (only a few! Remember "uncluttered"!) and second, a scripted and rehearsed store-associate offer to purchase one more thing.

Try this:

"Before you leave, sir (or ma'am), we have a special today which can save you money! Today we have ......... on sale for $ ...... I have one right here for you. Would you like it?"

To retailers:
Retailers, share your store data with your suppliers. Don’t be like the medical patient who goes to the doctor because he’s sick, won’t talk about symptoms, and expects the doctor to diagnose and cure the illness without clues. Put all your symptoms on your vendors examining table. You’ll feel better as you count your mounting profits. You’ll enjoy maximum results — greater store brand strength, and best sales. You’ll be a healthy automotive parts retailer.

Every so often, it's good to look down .... at your floor and bottom shelves, that is!

Clasp your hands behind your back like a pacing high-school teacher or test monitor, and walk each and every store aisle looking at the floor and its surroundings.

Dirt? Clutter? Customer-discarded merchandise? Trash? Received shipments not yet stocked on the shelf?

Yuk!

Don't mutter at the clutter! Clean it up.

Change your floor atmosphere.

After you've walked the store looking down, and fixed those irritants, look UP!

Dirt? Cobwebs? Signage for expired programs? Space which you could use for better purposes? Use for better sales?

Your customers are happier when they shop in a easy-to-navigate, easy-to-find-merchandise store.

Your associates will be happier, too: they'll take pride in the store, knowing that you care about the smallest detail which makes your store the best place in town for automotive parts and tools and chemical customers.

So, look down to see sales look up!

Sometimes shopping stores in other industry segments pays off with good ideas for our own stores.

Let's take a look at our friends who sell the two-wheel motorized transportation.

One well-merchandised motorcycle dealership and service facility uses its low (9 feet) ceiling space extraordinarily well.

Smaller seasonal promotional signs are hung attractively near some featured vehicles, but the killer ceiling-use application is a trio of large posters hung with the most-featured motorcycle slightly in front of the other two.

The motorcycle on the front poster is facing toward the street, and the second- and third-place motorcycles appear to be chasing the leader.

The three are hung exactly so that a customer coming into the shop and turning to the proverbial right (as most shoppers do) will see these three posters framed by the neon lights on the far wall.

The posters, combined with the attractive setting of on-floor bikes, draw customers toward the most profitable items in this store.

It's great in-store theater! It's entertaining! It's eye-catching!

Are you using your ceiling well, to draw customers where you want them to o?