With Summer just around the corner, it’s time to get your business ship-shape for the busy season. Grab some tips for making the most of the sales peak this summer.
The ultimate pre-summer checklist for retailers
1. Plan for more foot traffic
The golden quarter, when Kiwis spend the most money compared to any other time of year, is here. If you haven't already, make sure your team is at full capacity to handle the influx of customers you can expect as Christmas shopping ramps up and longer hotter days mean more people out and about shopping, eating, drinking and enjoying the summer break. Retail NZ have some great tips on how to find and recruit top talent to see you through the silly season. Did you know you can also hire EFTPOS terminals on a casual basis to help you get through the busy pre-christmas period and beyond? Additional terminals, just like your casual team members, can help cut down wait times for customers, sell more product and deliver a better customer experience. Organising short-term EFTPOS terminal hire with us is easy! We recently provided radio host Jay-Jay Feeney with a terminal for a Sunday flea market, and the process couldn’t be more simple. If you’d like to set up a short-term solution for your next gig, all you have to do is:
1. Get in touch with the team at least 10 days before your event and choose whether you’d like a countertop or mobile EFTPOS terminal - then leave the rest with us. Your terminal will arrive by courier, ready to use right out of the box.
2. Let us know if you’re running an event for a school or local charity – we offer discounted hire rates for both short and long term hire.
Learn more about short term hire and sort out your short-term terminals here.
2. Sharpen up your bottom line
After a challening year for retailers, you might be looking at ways you can improve your profit margin to make the most of the sales peak this summer. Tip 4 in this excellent list of tips for improving profit margins from LightspeedHQ is 'Find ways to reduce operating expenses'. When it comes to your payment solution there are a few things you can do to save a few dollars on operating expenses:
Apply a credit card surcharge - Accepting credit cards and contactless cards in your store does make payment more convenient and can encourage your customers to spend a little bit more – and by adding a surcharge, you can offset the cost of this service for your business, so that you’re not paying the price for providing more options to your customers. Our Android EFTPOS surcharging solution automatically calculates the value of the surcharge for you and adds it to the transaction when your customer uses their credit card or contactless card. Set a maximum or minimum surcharge amount, and even surcharge different cards at different rates depending on the cost of acceptance. Check out this article for more information around your obligations as a merchant when applying a surcharge and see below for a special surcharging offer.
Get a virtual terminal - Do you regularly take payment over the phone? Virtual Terminal is a cost effective
and easy-to-deploy alternative to physical terminals, especially for call centres and back offices. Give your sales and support reps an easier and more secure way to take card transactions or perform refunds over the phone in real-time from any device - a phone, laptop, tablet etc. Customer card details are entered into an online payment form on Verifone Central to process payments. Learn more about Virtual Terminal here.
Sign up for Verifone online payments - If you're looking for ways to boost profits from your online store, one way is to reduce your payment processing costs. The cost of accepting payment online can really chip away at your profits. Make sure you're getting a fair deal from your online payment processor. We offer Verifone Online Payments, an affordable, local online payment gateway with competitive monthly pricing, your first 100 transactions free and no long waits for your funds thanks to next business day settlement.
3. Spruce up your store
Getting your location looking spick and span will go a long way when it comes to preparing for summer. Now is the perfect time to really get your business looking its best by reinvigorating the interior and exterior of your store. This includes giving the windows a good scrub, deep cleaning the carpets and rugs, and removing built-up dust from every nook and cranny. This will leave your customers with the best impression when they visit and get them coming back for more. Grab some great advice from our friends at Retail NZ on visual merchandising for both your store and website.
4. Update your online presence
Make sure to update your hours on Google and Facebook if they change over the summer so customers know when they can visit you instore and if you haven't already, set up a Google merchant centre to help you manage how your in-store and online product inventory appears on Google. If you don't have a website you can make online sales on, but you still see a lot of engagement online on your social channels we recommend Pay-by-Link. This affordable online payment solution gives you the ability to process payments online without a website with a tool that generates unqiue payment links that you can share with customers via email, SMS, live chat, social media - making any channel a sales channel.
5. Launch seasonal deals
Shoppers tend to keep an eye out for special offers and promotions over the summer period. This is the perfect time to reduce prices on any winter stock, launch a new special summer product, or run a competition. Grab some ideas for your next summer promotion from Vend here.
6. Schedule marketing content over the summer
Even if you shut down over the Christmas and New Years' period, it’s vital that your content remains consistent. Setting up automated emails and social media posts will keep things running in the background while you enjoy a well-deserved break. To make sure you’re only sending marketing emails to contacts that you know will find value in them, this is also a great time to clean up your email database.
7. Get out in the community
With more people outdoors enjoying the sunshine, summer is a great time to get involved with your local community. Setting up stalls at markets will help you reach customers that may not already be aware of your business, as well as reconnect with loyal customers in a fun and exciting way. You could also try sponsoring local events to reach even more potential shoppers, and get your brand exposed to a bigger audience. Don't forget to organise short-term EFTPOS for your market days, pop-up stores, festival stalls, and more.
Want more advice on preparing for the silly season? Check out Retail NZ's Christmas Hub packed with advice including navigating pay roll around public holidays and dealing with the rise in retail crime.
Special surcharging offer
And when it comes to surcharging, we’re currently offering 3 months of FREE surcharging to cover the silly season – all you need to do is fill out the form below!
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