Few retail spaces are perfect. Regardless of whether your store is square, long and thin, tiny or huge, there will be parts of it that will be ‘cold’. A cold spot in retail-speak is an area where customers don’t go.
Perhaps they are away from the main thoroughfare of your shop, like in a back corner. Maybe it’s an area that isn’t visible to most shoppers, like the end of a long aisle. Customers can’t see anything to draw them on, so they ignore the area and the stock there languishes.
How to Find Cold Spots in Your Store
Is there stock that’s more slow-moving than the rest? It’s probably in a cold spot. Do you find that the clothes folded on the shelves in a back corner never seem to get messed up? That’s because customers don’t go there – it’s a cold spot.
Examples of possible cold spots in a convenience store are in blue.
How to overcome the problem of slow stock in cold spots.
Use obvious signage to draw shoppers down dead-end and long aisles. Place sort-after products in the cold spots, and, if there are signs, customers will change their route to go and get the products they want.
Ensure that cold spots are well lit. Often people won’t venture into an area that isn’t well lit. If you are in a mall this is a particular problem, because you probably don’t have natural lighting to brighten the whole area. Replace any dead bulbs as soon as you can, so customers don’t avoid that area of the shop.
If you have a sound system in your shop, put speakers in the cold area. People are drawn to the source of music, so the more curious customers will wander down the aisle to hear the music better.
Maintain visibility in your shop. Strategically place hanging systems and racks so that the customer has to travel around the store to get what they want. Make sure spots that customers tend to overlook are visible from as many angles as possible.
Learning your customers’ browsing behaviour in your shop is crucial to improving your sales. Spend time observing your customers. Tweak your floor layout to suit what they do in-store. Watch your sales skyrocket!
image sourced from ‘SmartDraw”
