What’s your best shopping experience? Like anyone who frequents the malls whether to window shop or to actually buy something, a good shopping experience is a combination of any of these things: a good price, helpful and accommodating store staff, an enticing store ambiance, and even friendly customers who act like they’re not out to compete with each other for the items on display. Of these, the last one is an important albeit often forgotten element.
If you’ve gone shopping, nothing beats a good and friendly smile from a fellow customer, or one who’s in a good mood and lets you go ahead of him in the line to the counter, or simply even a fellow shopper who shops leisurely and avoids bumping her store cart with yours. No matter your brand or your product, it’s important to keep your customers connected in your store and give them a good shopping experience.
Here are three ways you can create a friendly vibe and get your customers to enjoy each other and their shopping experience in your store:
1. Give them enough shopping space. One of the pet peeves of most people are narrow aisles and cramped spaces that limit them from moving around properly. Most stores, in an attempt to maximize space and lay-out, cram their aisles with products displays and racks of items on sale especially during mad seasons like the holidays. Your customers then end up bumping or squeezing into each other, and making them stressed out and more likely in a bad disposition. Put them in a good mood by having a store lay-out that allows them enough space to move around. It can contribute to a more enjoyable shopping time where they don’t have to move around and avoid bumping into racks, shopping carts, or even into each other.
2. Rest their tired feet with waiting chairs or sofas. Some people take shopping seriously and they can spend an hour in just one store. If your store space and concept allows it, try setting up comfortable chairs or sofas they can sit on while they wait for their companies to finish shopping. These resting chairs can prove to be a good place for your customers to strike up conversations with each other, connect and be friendly even for just a couple of minutes.
3. Turn up the volume and play some good music. Nothing is as boring as a store that’s deathly calm and silent. For large stores especially where people go to more than just window-shop, in store music can set a good mood among your customers. A popular tune, something upbeat and not overly loud or ear-splitting can calm them while they go around your store for a look. Calm, relaxed customers tend to be friendlier, more approachable and accommodating to other people, including their fellow shoppers.
It’s the right blend of shopping convenience and store ambiance that gives a friendly vibe and that, by extension, can make your customers more relaxed and connected in your store.
