POINT OF SALE MERCHANDISING Washington DC

It's checkout time, or getting close to it. Customers have browsed the aisles, sought the advice of your sales staff, and made their choices. In most instances, they visited your store with specific products in mind, but if all went well they also discovered a few impulse items that they picked up and put in their shopping baskets.

As they reach the checkout counter, you still have one more opportunity to lengthen the list on that sales ticket. If the point of sale is merchandised properly, it can be one of your store's most profitable areas.

Point of sale merchandising" can be defined differently depending on whom you ask. One fairly narrow interpretation is that it refers to the countertop displays and other fixtures associated with the POS. Although that's an important component, even more important is selecting the merchandise itself.

There's no question that merchandising around and near the checkouts or cash wrap with the right items will increase sales. Most of the products located here are lower priced, rendering them quick impulse purchases. However, it often eludes retailers just how successful this area can be in providing consumers with impulsive, seasonal, or necessary items.

Here's one hypothetical scenario: A customer comes in to buy a camouflage hunting shirt to prepare for early-fall game seasons. That's about a $40 purchase. Along the way to the checkout counter, he sees a few more camo-clad items that he wasn't planning on buying—in fact, he may not have even known they existed—but can't resist.

These items might include a camo mouse pad for his computer, a camo leash for the pooch who accompanies him on each hunting trip, a coffee mug that changes from Woodland to camo when hot java is added, and a camo-patterned Velcro wallet. The $40 purchase has now grown to a final tally of about $70.

Granted, not every customer is going to come in with the idea of buying one item and leave with five items. But the potential is certainly there, and the profit margin on those four additional items may be higher because the markups are greater. In fact, research has shown that 50 percent or more of retail purchases are made on impulse, provided the retailer has allowed this to happen through effective merchandising.

There are other benefits of small-ticket products besides adding up. A customer who may be some days away from his next paycheck, and therefore isn't in the market to buy a larger-ticket item, may nonetheless feel comfortable about making a small purchase as a means of justifying his coming into the store. And if he's got the income available to make a bigger purchase but doesn't have anything in mind, an inventory of impulse items can give him an excuse for browsing—and remind him to come back to your store for a bigger purchase later.

The 75 percent increase in the sales ticket described earlier, by the way, was done without any obvious need for selling on your part or your sales associates. The customer didn't need to ask questions about features, benefits, sizes, compatibility, or any of the other areas of inquiry he might need to pursue on a bigger-ticket, more complicated purchase. Impulse items should not be confused with add-on items, although they may very well be both. Add-on items may need some explanation; impulse items should not.

Since these are items that don't require a great deal of deliberation, it makes sense to put them where you wouldn't put items that do require a great deal of deliberation. Moreover, you can encourage last-minute buying decisions with merchandise that will catch your customer's eye.

Easy access

Keep the merchandise pretty much at eye or hand level, and therefore within easy reach. Impulse items shouldn't be kept in a glass display case—you don't want the customer to have to go through the trouble of asking for help on an item he may then decide (or realize) he doesn't really need after all.

However, unless your checkout counter is about the size of the jewelry counter in a major department store—and for most independent merchants, that isn't too likely to be the case—it will only go so far in serving as a merchandise display for impulse items. There's a fine line between a look of abundance and a cluttered look.

Therefore, you should start fanning out from the checkout counter and looking for other places to fit in these impulse items. Here again, the idea is to display them for maximum visibility.

But another factor comes into play when you move away from the checkout area, and that's grouping the impulse items to complement the bigger-ticket items. For example, if your store sells military-themed T-shirts, military-themed decals would be a useful add-on. If you sell full-size flags—the kind a patriotic customer would hang on a pole outside his house—the smaller flags that routinely adorn cars in these post-9/11 times could be located nearby.

In keeping with the fundamental principle of impulse merchandise—i.e. to make it easy for the customer to spot it, pick it up, and make a snap buying decision—avoid putting these items on a wall or pegboard display that would be difficult to reach. A spinning floorstand is a better bet. Strike a balance, though—merchandising the impulse stuff shouldn't detract from effectively merchandising the bread-and-butter items.

Display vehicles such as countertop fold-out displays, wire racks, spinner displays and dump displays should look shiny and new, rather than detract from the presentation. Graphics should be enticing, vivid, and clear, and header cards should feature descriptive copy and selling features. In the POS area as in any other section of the store, if a product can't sell itself in a short period of time, it should be relegated to the clearance bin.

Just as you must plan the contents of other store areas, you will also need to map out which products to stock in the POS area. You must start the planning process months in advance in order to have enough products in stock to support sales when you begin generating them. Planning goes beyond merely placing a basic gondola unit next to the counter and hoping for the best.

What planning does mean is forecasting how much and what type of products you feel will move quickly as impulse items. It means that you have to spend time reviewing your promotional plans for the coming months and ascertain what products fit in with those plans. Certain items are perennials in the army/navy store, while others are stocked to cash in a trend. Obviously, trends cannot be predicted with unerring accuracy, but some things can be counted on.

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