Retail Today with Bob Phibbs, The Retail Doctor

When you're trying to sell more in your brick-and-mortar store, a lot of times people think it's about discounting, but really what it is is you have to make a friend from somebody walking in your door. What I always say is, "Look for something they're holding or something that they're wearing. Notice it. Share something about yourself based on that, and then continue." That's because people respo...

When I do a business makeover, I always look at how clean the store is first. So today, I want you to go out, about halfway into your store, and I want you to look down at your shoes. Then from there, I want you to look and notice five things that need to be cleaned. That could be carpet, that could be display fixtures, that could be a million things, and then, set your task today to clean those f...

Well, it's the end of January and the doldrums are probably here for you, right? You've done the inventory, you've done all the returns. You might have finally gotten your schedule back to a little bit leaner. Your store looks a little bit better, and now you're wondering where is everybody. And you start madly searching for how to attract customers. Look, the one thing I want you to think about t...

Looking for a way to refresh your own enthusiasm about your store? Today, I want you to think about inviting a school class. You know, an elementary class, because when you invite a school class to your business, you have to come up with why does it exist, and who buys these, and what is it like to work at a retail store. And suddenly, you find hope in a fairly downtime of the year for us in retai...

Do you know why people quit? No, it's not always for more money. A lot of people think that, but actually, one of the reasons is too few staff, right? They're overwhelmed, they have too many tasks to do, they don't have time to think. Also, they're untrained. They don't really know what to do on the job. They pretty much just show up, they clock in and then they try to help shoppers and they may n...

Have you planned out your labor for 2020? Well, today I want you to think about that because you want to compare your best months with your actual labor and shifts that you had then and then compare those to how you've done historically. Right? So, if it's in January, obviously you're going to be using fewer hours than any other month. But when you compare like to like, and you look at, well how w...

Do you have a weekly sale? Well, you should. You know, a weekly sale can focus an awful lot of interest around a brand or a product group. And I'm not talking about a 20% off this weekend only, that kind of thing. That's not it. A weekly sale is going to promote one item or one brand so that you have something different to talk about in your store each week. That means that's something new to talk...

For most stores, next week is going to have an inventory day. That's right, when they're counting everything from top to bottom. And if you are fortunate to have an inventory service, well, that's great, and you probably are running around saying do not inventory some things. But for most of the rest of retailers, this is the time of year that you want to count your inventory, both in the back, un...

Are you delivering a better experience than your competitor? Oh, yeah? How do you know that? Oh, your loyal customers tell you that? Well, you know what, I don't care what your loyal customers tell you. What I care about is the new customer who experiences you without always having a backstory about knowing you or your family or an even number of things. The more you can go through and see how wel...

Did you know email is still the most efficient way you can address your former customers? It is. And yet, are your subject lines compelling? Maybe not. The easy way for you to do it is to add first names to the subject lines. Now, a lot of programs can do this automatically, you wouldn't do this on your own, but anything you can do to make that subject line stand out is going to help you. Another...

Have you been in that creepy back room of yours yet? Recently I talked about cleaning your store and a lot of people leave the back room on its own. They become this dumping ground for sloppiness and leftovers and broken fixtures that you don't even carry anymore. But God forbid, maybe I'll be able to use them someday. And so we just leave all that stuff up or we throw it up on top of each other,...

Soon, you're college students, if they haven't already, are going to be going back to school who have helped you during the holidays, and I don't want you to be left high and dry. So today, I want you to think about looking for new hires. January is a slow month, and those college students that were wonderful will leave pretty quickly to get back to school. So wherever you see somebody at a coffee...

When you were a kid, did you have somebody get upset at you for not cleaning your room? Today, I want you to think about, is your store really clean. And I mean the bathroom, I mean under the racks, I mean the windows of all the scotch tape there from the holidays, you name it because a clean store makes all the difference. One of the ways I always start new employees is to train them on how to cl...

January is the start of a lot of things and including convention season. So a lot of times people say, "well, what products should I carry?" And before you head off to any show, you want to go through and have an analysis of your 2019 sales. You want to look at your top 10 categories, your top 10 vendors within those categories, and then you're out of stocks, and the ones that you had to put on ma...

Well, if it's January, it must be a donation season. This is the time when all the nonprofits come to you to look to be that benevolent person who will give them something for their silent auction or their raffle or something else. And those can become quite a pain unless you're a big organization because, in big organizations, they just refer them to a central office. When you only have a few sto...

What do you do when someone stops and asks you how's business? I hear it from independent retailers that when they try to answer their customers or employees or somebody that they may not know as well, they'll say, "Oh, it's okay." Then they'll say, "Well, are you really struggling with Amazon? How do you keep going?" It's almost like they want you to say how it sucks to be you. Today, I just want...

Are you in the dark? Yeah, your business. You know, lighting is one of the most cost-effective things you can do. I find that lighting has come down so much with LEDs and so many new ways you can do it. To light under shelves and you can come up with all kinds of ways that don't cost an awful lot and far as power. And so today, I just want you to look around your store, look at the dark areas, and...

Are you or your employees selling from their own wallets? What do I mean by that? Well, you know, when I was in Denver not that long ago and I was walking down the street, and I saw this sign that said, "Men who use this, report thicker hair," and I said, "I want that." So I walked into the salon and there's a young woman right there. I go, "I want that." And she goes, "It's really expensive." And...

Are you not paying enough? That's right. Are you not paying enough as a retailer? What do I mean by that? Well, are you paying minimum wage and then expecting employees to just be grateful that they have a job with you? Or maybe you're nickel and diming your website. You know, there's your brother whose daughter's friend who went to college has a buddy who can create your website or your social me...

Today is all about culling the herd. That's right, C-U-L-L-I-N-G. The goal is to get rid of the merchandise that isn't selling. Get rid of the dogs, get rid of the one-offs. Go through and make sure that you use this time in the soft months of January and February, to really get rid of that lower 20% that you shouldn't be in. To get rid of those little bits and pieces of merchandise that you thoug...

Do you feel like a fraud when you're selling in your store? Well, today I want you to think about where does that come from because an awful lot of times people who have trouble selling really don't believe it's worth the money and so maybe you know how much you paid for something and then you see the markup and so you think, okay, well that's really bad. Except you haven't really thought about al...

Okay. Today is part two of tribal knowledge. Yesterday I talked about going and getting a friend and ascribing either your store or align you like, or even a product you like in really well, that you like really well and then having it transcribed. Well today I want you to transcribe, take that transcription and you can cut out all of the stuff that you don't like and then actually bring that down...

So today is a two-parter, so you'll have to come back tomorrow. I call this one "Tribal Knowledge Doesn't Help Anyone". Are you the best salesperson in the store? Are you the one that knows exactly how something fits together? Are you the one that knows how to be the best with this one product? How to use it? The secret features you've learned? It doesn't make additional sales if that's only in yo...

So many times we think about attracting customers, and one of the ways that I've seen develop over probably 30 years was framing the doorway. Yeah, that's right. If you go and look at a lot of Chevy or Toyota dealers, you'll now notice a rectangle or a square right where the doors are that's painted in a very bright color. And why do they do that? Well, they want to make sure they grab your attent...

For many retailers, the new year bought in higher minimum wage laws and a lot of other people are looking at surcharges to try to get their pricing back to where they can be profitable. And I don't want that to catch you off guard. You know, if inflation is rising, you have to think about, maybe I should be raising my prices. Now, it doesn't mean you raise all of your prices equally, but today, I...