How many times have you thought about how to increase your sales? Well here’s how: suggestive selling, up-selling, link selling and promotional selling.

As retailers, you have so much power when it comes to the point of purchase with your customers. But you can increase your ’at counter sales’ by over 20%, using these very simple techniques. When a customer approaches your sales counter or even browses in your store, you should encourage your staff to ’suggestive sell’ products that customers might be interested in. Equally a big opportunity is up-selling; by getting your staff to increase the size of the coffee, pastry, sandwich or savoury snack, you can increase profitability by up to 30% - all this by getting your customers to buy more than they intended to. Our colleagues at him! show that 85% of customers do not have a specific budget in mind and are open to buying more.

Link-selling is also an excellent example of how to get more out of your customers by offering a thoughtful approach to increased sales. So, the next time a customer comes to the till with only a sandwich in their hand, make sure your staff are focused on linking the sandwich with a hot or cold drink, savoury snack or dessert item for example.

You all run promotions these days, yet how many of you actually drive customer take-up? The major chains have increased their profit margins by over 45% with the introduction of meal deals and increased volume sales. But you can achieve exactly the same results if you bundle together the items your customers want and, most importantly, discount them.

Be bold and speak to some of your suppliers, get them involved and produce professional-looking visuals, posters and promotions.

Most importantly, make sure your team understand the value and benefit of your selling activities to the business. You could set daily or weekly targets by person or shift, but sometimes a simple ’thank you’ for a job well done is all it takes.

As you can see, there are loads of opportunities to increase sales, so be flexible, get creative and, most importantly, sell, sell, sell!

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