Retail Selling: The Dynamic Manager’s Handbook On How To Increase Retail Sales

By Dave Donelson

The retail salesperson can sell more by using creative selling methods to present product benefits, overcome objections, and close the sale, but they also face other challenges and opportunities. Determining customer needs is difficult when the customer can just walk away. Building a base of repeat business is tough when the customer initiates most transactions. The store surroundings can help—or hinder—the salesperson’s efforts.

All of these challenges can be overcome, however, and the salesperson can increase sales by applying some common sense, no-pressure selling tactics.

“Retail Up-Selling” explains how to increase the size of each customer’s order without using hard-sell methods.

“Creating An Effective Retail Sales Environment” helps the store owner or manager see what the customer experiences when they come through the door.

“Should Retail Art Gallery Prices Be Negotiable?” is a case study that applies to retail sellers in all markets.

“Selling Intangibles In The Automotive Aftermarket” is a case study about linking profitable items like service to retail purchases.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dave Donelson
• Release date: May 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458185648

Dave Donelson

Dave Donelson’s world-roving career as a management consultant and journalist has led to writing and photography assignments for dozens of national publications. The Dynamic Manager's Guide series is based on his work with hundreds of business owners and managers as well as his own experiences as a successful entrepreneur. He is also the author of Creative Selling: Boost Your B2B Sales and two novels, Heart Of Diamonds and Hunting Elf.

Book preview

Retail Selling

The Dynamic Manager’s Handbook On

How To Increase Retail Sales

by Dave Donelson

Donelson SDA, Inc.

Copyright 2011 Dave Donelson

ISBN: 978-1458185648

Smashwords Edition

A note from the author

The Dynamic Manager Handbooks are for entrepreneurs, managers, and others who want to succeed in small business by learning more about management techniques, operations, and best practices. Each volume in the collection is devoted to a single topic. The material was extracted from the Dynamic Manager Guides, my series of books based on my experiences as a business journalist, consultant, and entrepreneur.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 – Retail Up-Selling

Chapter 2 – Creating An Effective Retail Sales Environment

Chapter 3 – Case Study: Should Retail Art Gallery Prices Be Negotiable?

Chapter 4 – Case Study: Selling Intangibles In The Automotive Aftermarket

About Dave Donelson

Chapter 1

Retail Up-Selling

When you take the sales initiative, opportunity knocks a lot louder.

Back in the good old days, when retail stores had living, breathing employees who helped customers choose their merchandise, it was standard procedure for the salesperson to try to increase the size of each individual sale. They did this very effectively in several ways that can be adopted by today’s retail shop owners who are interested in increasing the top line on their income statements.

One of the first is simple up-selling, where you guide the customer to a selection with a higher price point than the one they came in to buy. In an extreme example, let’s say that the customer came to your hardware store to buy a wrench. An up-seller would make at least an attempt to sell him or her a complete set of wrenches instead. Outlandish? Maybe, but you never