Know your consumer’s needs and make your shelves profitable

Knowing yourself is important, but if you have a hardware or DIY store to know your customers is priceless.

How to achieve this?

By listening to the voice of experience. We, from REI, bring more than thirty years of experience, add yours to ours and let’s go for it together.

First of all, give your shelves the attention they deserve.

It is essential, it is the first requirement to make your shelves a success and your business work and, if you know your customers well, your business will work very, very well.

Do you know your real and potential customers? Prove it

How? By doing things well, in an orderly and clear way, listing to begin with, the motivations they may have for coming to your establishment, whether there is a specific reason or not.

It is necessary to know what makes them come to your store and what you can offer them so that this visit makes them go back home happier and eager to repeat.

Your customers decide to enter the door of your store for various reasons, for example: because they need a specific product; because of curiosity, that far from killing the cat, has activated their radar in search of novelties; or simply to have a good time in an environment that is pleasant and comfortable for them.

Whatever the reason, the fact is that they are already inside.

There is a variety of impulses and variety of customers ranging from the easily stimulated, the impulsive, who receive the offers with real joy even if they do not need the products and end up buying some just because they could not pass up the opportunity; the brands fans are ready to be loyal at any price; those who do not allow themselves to slip up when faced with a new product and do not stop until they make it their own; those who only buy the best, regardless of the sale price; and the happy customers who are at their best in a DIY store and spend hours in it as if it were a theme park, dreaming of getting home and using their new tools like children on the morning of their birthday.

And you know that these are the different types of customers and your commercial instinct recognizes them and offers them, to each one of them, what they need to feel unique in your store. They are not equal but they all, equally, like to be the chosen one, the star customer, the only one, for whom it seems that your store has been designed exclusively.

¿How shall we organize them? No worries, they organise themselves, you only need to offer them a subtle guide through a space, your store, divided according to the commercial strategy of the three well known zones:

• Cold: where the impulsive customers will go and where you can find those high turnover products that you know you will sell without margin for error.
• Warm: where DIY enthusiasts feel at home, in fact, they tend to come as a family to make purchases that, yes or yes, end up multiplying. Here the high and deep ranges find their best location.
• Hot: as it could not be otherwise, it is the zone of those passionate about quality and brands, here they go to acquire what they were looking for, but also that irresistible product of their favourite brand that has looked at them just when they were looking at it and… the rest is history. This zone should occupy 20% of the store.

They’re already inside and they spread themselves around the store like a well-organized sports team. They’re heading for the shelves and your strategy is waiting for them to satisfy them to the fullest. You have implemented the golden rules of shelf layout and now you just have to contemplate their effect. Attention:

• Above the head are the most demanded products, those of greater consumption and accessible size, those that the customer can pick up by himself without risking or putting the DIY store at risk.
• At eye level, what do we all want to see at first sight? Indeed, something nice, attractive and, if possible, seductive. Don’t forget this when selecting the products on the shelves for each of the zones. 
• Within reach, real, at hand, distribute products that are accessible and effortless, and almost without realizing it, customers will buy those products that, in terms of sales volume and commercial margin, are most profitable for your company.
• At the lower level, the less accessible, there will be those bulky and/or heavy products we were talking about before, regardless of their demand, and also those “pearls”, those discoveries, those timeless “jewels” that customers who love DIY, those addicted to offers and those “I can’t miss this”, do not let go.

Did we leave anything out? Of course, apart from your personal touch, which is what gives that plus to your store, and which you have managed to pass on to your employees so that they can advise and, if necessary, walk with your customer in a way that makes them feel unique, there are other factors such as lighting, cross-selling or organization by product families that you can’t miss.

Making your resources profitable has two basic objectives: customer satisfaction and product sales, which conspire to achieve The Goal: increase your store’s profits and business growth.