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Suggestions to improve sales 
in a clothing store

Eden Galgano is an Ottantaventi senior partner, instructor in Italy for National and International companies.

The next edition of the Ottantaventi open course dedicated to clothing retailers: "How to train to sell clothing" will be held in Milan (English edition).

A store is the place where the final card of a long marketing process is played. Therefore, it requires highly professional management, from the initial welcoming of the customer and throughout negotiation. Exactly the opposite of what happens in the following example.

It is Saturday afternoon and the store is crowded. A customer asks to try a jacket on and the retailer answers: 
"I need to go and check if we have your size in stock…"
"She has to go or is she going?"  –The customer says to herself, since the retailer doesn’t move; she asks: "Could you kindly go and see?" On receiving a positive answer, the customer starts looking at the clothes around her whilst she waits. After ten minutes she looks nervously for the sales assistant, he finds her busy with another customer showing him a sweater. "Excuse me…and my jacket?"- She asks The retailer looks at her and answers: "Oh right, the jacket..... I went and checked but we don't have it” She could have added: “… and since there is no chance of me selling anything to you and the store is so crowded of potential buyers, I am not going to waste my time informing you." The first customer was left no choice but leave the shop....

Which conclusions can we draw from this example? In this case the retailer probably sold a pullover but she lost the sale of the jacket and any future sales she could have made to the first customer. Who would want to go back to a shop where they had been treated in such a way? And who would ever suggest this shop to a friend who asks for advice?

What should the retailer have done in this case? She should have:

• checked the stock of the required size in another branch;
  
• checked if they had it on order 
  
• offered the customer a similar item.

In conclusion, by dedicating a few minutes more to the customer, the shop assistant could have increased the quality of her service, the customer’s satisfaction and her desire to come back to the store !

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