Getting it Right: How to Handle Haggling Customers

Holiday shoppers always want to find a good deal. With the economic issues in the country today, shoppers are giving more and more value to their money and are finding ways to save as much as possible. Some money savvy customers even come up with different creative ways to save like shopping at online stores or haggling for a lower price.

Coming face to face with a haggling customer requires good negotiating skills. If you are into wholesale shoes store business or retail store industry, haggling the right way is necessary to protect your sales and engage customers at the same time. While this can be a little daunting for business owners and startup entrepreneurs, it can also be used to turn one time customers to loyal patrons. 

Here are some tricks to help you get the best out of haggling customers.

1. Negotiate your way

If you are setting up a booth at a trade fair or charity events, be prepared to face haggling customers. Find a way to put yourself on equal footing with your customers by resisting low-ball offer but by coming up with favorable price, instead. Don’t just turn away from customers who offer low price but courteously decline by highlighting the value of your products. 

2. Know when to give in

When you’re faced with hagglers, it’s best to know when to negotiate and when to just simply give in. If you see an opportunity to gain loyal customer, then you can freely cut off small amount off your price or offer better deals instead. Work hard to negotiate a better price but learn when to just let your customer walk away happily with their savings.

3. Think quality

One of haggler’s favorite strategies is finding flaws in the product they want to buy. Don’t instantly give customers the chance to offer low price by highlighting the value of your items. Mention the quality of the materials used in the shoes you are selling and the competitiveness of your pricing compared to other retail store.

4. It’s not about the money

Most of the time, they are not really after the small amount that they are going to save. Sometimes they haggle to enjoy the feeling of having something to say about the price of the products they want to buy. Instead of just negotiating with your customers over a small price off, you can also throw in extras that will cost you less than dropping your price. When they finally realize that they are getting the best deals from your store, they can happily walk outside your door and come back for more.

How about you? How do you handle hagglers in your wholesale shoes store or retail store? 

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3 Habits That Are Hurting Your Shoe Business

It’s always there but sometimes it’s hard to notice the small things that are negatively affecting your business. These small bad habits can hinder productivity in your business and can even turn off your potential customers. If you've noticed something off about your wholesale shoes business or retail shoe store, it’s time to reconsider your everyday habit that might affect your business.

When you’re finally able to pinpoint the cause of problem, you can easily take the necessary steps to minimize its effect in your business.

Take a look below and see if you've been doing these little things that affect the quality of your business.

1. Not Communicating With Your Staffs

No matter what kind of business you have, it’s important that you maintain an open communication line with your store staffs. This will make planning and execution of different marketing programs easier and can help avoid loss of sales for your shoe store. Good communication can also help your staffs perform better especially when you are not around to supervise them.

2. Being disorganized and untidy

Customers will come over and try different pairs of shoes before they finally make a purchase. They often won’t consider putting everything back to where they get it that your store will eventually become a mishmash of pumps, sandals and boots. Train your staffs on how to keep your store organized as much as possible and install shoe shelves that can make organizing shoe display a lot easier.

3. Overpricing

Do you sell your shoes at competitive price? Are other shoe stores in your area put it on the same price? If you've been over pricing your products just to get more sales, you will eventually lose a large number of your costumer. Make sure that all your product and services are rightly priced to fit the purchasing ability of your customers. Go for small and fast revenue than big yet slow sales.

There are other things that might be hindering the success of your shoe business. Take note of your small everyday practices that needs improvement and decide on different ways to address it.

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Business Tip: Take Advantage of Fall Season to Prepare for the Holidays!

The last few months of the year are usually the busiest for everyone in our country. After wearing costumes for different Halloween parties and preparing Turkeys on Thanksgiving, we also celebrate Christmas and welcome the New Year. For shoestore owners, this season can mean a great increase in sales. However, it can also be a bit overwhelming without careful planning and strategy.

Anticipating an increase in the volume of foot traffic during the holiday season, it’s best to make your business ready to serve the needs of your costumers the best way possible. With careful planning and right preparation, you deliver quality products and services while enjoying the holiday cheers. Here are some tips to help you get by the fall season while preparing for the most wonderful time of the year.

1. Train Your Staffs

The volume of customers during holidays can be overwhelming especially for stores that are selling wholesale women shoes and evening sandals. To make sure that your staffs are competitive enough to handle complaints, inquiries and sales, it’s best to train them and hone them to be an asset in your company. Make sure that they understand the company policies and how you would like them to treat your costumers.

2. Be Sociable

If you think it’s enough to just hide behind the counter, now is the best time to start building relationships with your clients. Make sure to personally greet shoppers and help them in their search for great shoes. This is essential in building brand loyalty and can make you more confident that she will come back to your store for the holiday shopping with her friends and family.

3. Think Ahead

Anticipate possible problems that you can encounter in your business like late shipment, damaged products among many others and think of a way to solve it. Thinking ahead allows you to have plan B, and will ensure the continuity of your operation despite any untoward incident.

4. Celebrate!

While thinking of your business, you should never forget the reason for all these business. Holiday season is the best time to celebrate your business, appreciate your staffs and thank wholesale shoes suppliers. Go ahead and enjoy yourself to keep you away from stress and holiday blues.

Learn more about how you can survive this holiday season in our next blogs!

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The Dos and Don’ts of Handling Customer Complaints in Your Shoe Store

Every once in a while, any kind of business will encounter a customer who aren’t pleased with a product or services she get. That’s completely inevitable. Like we always say when we’re faced with difficult situations, we can’t really please everybody. But in wholesale women’s shoe business, handling a complaining shopper is crucial to the image of the company and the overall shopping experience of your customers.

The way your company responds to complaints can have a great impact in your business. Train your shoe store staffs about the proper way of dealing with your costumers and make them aware of the proper procedure of handling complaints so you can properly address it before it escalates.

Here are some Dos and Don’ts of handling dissatisfied customers.

Do: Listen and Listen well

Most of the time, when people voice out their complaints, some store owners tend to be defensive about their business that they fail to sincerely listen to their customers. Sometimes, just staying calm and hearing out your customers can make a lot of difference. Understand their valid points and acknowledge that they have the right to complain if they find anything unsatisfying about the shoes she purchased. 

Don’t: Get into an Argument

Arguing will get you nowhere and may even damage your relationship with customers permanently. Most of the time, a customer will only complain because something made her rightfully upset and dealing with an upset person can be a little tricky. Always try to keep your cool and try not to get into an argument you cannot resolve.

Do: Go the extra mile to resolve complaints

Addressing complaints can go for hours and can even jeopardize your whole business transactions. However, this is not enough reason to just shove off the complainants and play deaf about their concerns. Instead, if they complain about a wrong shoe size or damaged product, make them feel better by giving the extra attention and going extra mile about their requests. This way you can make a great opportunity to build customer relationship out of her complaints.

Don’t: Think it’s no big deal

We all try to provide quality customer service, we get our supplies from a reputable wholesale shoes store and we’re pretty confident about the quality of our products. But the thing is, there are some people that will complain one way or another. And even if that complain only comes from one person, it doesn’t mean that you can’t just shrug it off and ignore it. You don’t want to have your name in review sites and see how bad you handle a customer complain all over the internet.

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End Summer Season with a Bang: Tips on Having a Successful Clearance Sale

They say time flies when you’re having fun and when it comes to shoes, I’m sure our lady customers had a great time while traveling with their colorful sandals and comfy sneakers. But now that we only have few weeks left before summer is officially over, this is the best time to stir up your shoe business and prepare for another exciting season.

Before we officially bring in boots and sweaters, why not use the remaining sun shiny days to clear your shelves off the seasonal items. Prepare your store for an end of season sale or clearance sale as a way to move summer footwear but also as a way to treat your loyal customers.

To help you run a successful clearance sale, here are some quick tips that you can use.

1. Plan ahead

Consider the items that you want to put on sale and the best way to mark down its price. Create an inventory of all your seasonal wholesale shoes and think of a way to make it more appealing to customers. Also consider the terms of your discount sale, if it is open to every one or to just some of your customers who has a loyalty card. Consider the date of your clearance sale and make sure that it falls on a weekend closest to the payday to make sure that most of your customer can enjoy the discounted shoes.

2. Promote it through ads and social media

Let your customers know in advance about your upcoming clearance sale. This will create an anticipation among your customer and will give them enough time to save up money for brand new pair of shoes, make sure that your customers are well informed about it and encourage them to help spread out the word if ever possible.

3. Bundle dead inventory with good products

One key in making your clearance sale is having a bundle deal. Pair a slow moving item with your best sellers or bundle up two products and sell it at great discount. This will not only speed up sales but will also allow your customers to buy two shoes at the price of one.

End this season with a fun and exciting clearance sale!

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4 Marketing Tips for Your Shoe Store This Summer

After looking at blogs, fashion websites and celebrity updates to look for what’s hot in the shoe industry we’re pretty sure that your store is all ready to take in new and old customers for their summer shoe shopping. But before anything else, you have to make sure that you are equipped with the right marketing strategies that can give your customers a summer worth remembering.

While summer brings about good mood and high spirits, this is the perfect time to create lasting customer relationships with your customers. With the right products and unbeatable customer service made more prominent with right marketing strategies, your women's shoe store will be one of the go to place for shoe lovers even after the summer is over.

Have a Breath of Fresh Air

Do you aim to get your brand to be more popular to shopaholics and shoe lovers? Don’t wait for them to get to know you or visit your store. Go where they spend their vacation and offer them exactly what they need. 

While everyone is enjoying the summer breeze, why not give your store a breath of fresh air by going out of your store and selling your shoes in kiosk in beach resorts, shopping malls, or different summer trade show. This way, you can get the attention of your target market and have a feel of what customers need and want around your area.

Summer Promotional Signage (photo from pointsmith.com)

Treat Your Customer to Some Summer Fun

This is especially applicable to large shoe outlets or wholesale women’s shoe store and other medium sized business that has the budget and the time for an enjoyable summer activity. Think of an event where you can gather your loyal customers for a night of just pure fun and celebration. Host a party with a local celebrity or a band and get everyone dancing with their favorite summer shoes on. With an unforgettable party, your brand will surely be unforgettable as well.

Experience summer in your business

Summer means fun so why not take that as an excuse to add some summer feel in your website, newsletters, packaging and posters. This way you can celebrate the season with your customers and invite them to make affordable and quality shoes a part of their summer getaway.

Summer Promos and Discounts

If you love shopping for shoes, it means you also love discounts and other exciting promos. Treat your shoe loving friends to some easy and awesome discount promos that will allow them to hoard up with different summer shoes that will last until next year. Let them enjoy your summer collection and reward them with giveaways until they fall in love with your shoe brands and other offerings.

In the end, it’s always about building customer ties and impressive brand image. If you are able to freshen up customer relationships through these marketing strategies you will be sure that your lady friends will love you beyond any season.

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Tips on Dominating the Online Wholesale Shoes Business

With a multitude of wholesale shoe distributors online, why should you jump in on the bandwagon as well? Here’s our two cents’ worth. Because the business opportunities are still bigger and better online. A shoe store only reaches the market within the area of your location. An online wholesale shoes store, however, can reach a global market. As compared to physically putting up a shoe store, an online shoe business is relatively cheaper and easier to put together.

Of course, we all know that the online wholesale shoes business is a crowded place and if you are planning to get in, you need a well thought out strategy to stand out. This may seem daunting and the truth of the matter is it can be, but dominating the business is not an impossible task. Here are some tips to give you a head start in the competitive online wholesale shoes business.

1. Make sure to give your business a “catchy” name. And when we say catchy, we mean SEO-friendly. It goes without saying that you need to include the word “shoes” in it. You may want to consult with an SEO expert to help you come up with a business name that will easily appear on search engine results for wholesale shoes.

2. Don’t scrimp on the descriptions. While it is true that a picture is worth a thousand words, your customers would still want to know more about your products especially since you are asking them to purchase them. So go all out on the descriptions and don’t just make it fancy, make it clear, concise and relevant.

3. Use a drop shipper. A drop shipper will help you in storing your inventory and shipping it to your customers. Just make sure to partner up with a reliable drop shipper so you can focus on other business matters such as marketing your wholesale shoes, taking care of customer service, and maintaining your website.

4. Try to have more than one supplier. You’d definitely want to be able to provide your customers with a wider and larger range of wholesale shoes items and one way to do this is by sourcing your products from multiple suppliers.

Keep reading this blog for more tips on dominating the competitive online wholesale shoes business.

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Calendar Marketing Tips for Wholesale Shoes Distributors

As a wholesale shoes distributor, there are many traditional ways to advertise your products. The goal, however, is to stand out in a sea of other wholesale shoe suppliers. One under utilized advertising tool you can do this with is the calendar. Initially, this will require some significant printing cost and thorough planning but it can be a long term and durable advertising tool. In addition, a calendar is also a functional household item so your customers will feel that you are adding value each time they purchase from you. The idea here is to give away a free calendar for every time they buy wholesale shoes from you. Here are some tips to maximize the use of a calendar for your advertising and marketing campaign.

1. Highlight “important” business dates. Keep your customers informed about your special business activities such as promo dates and launching of newly arrived wholesale shoes items. This will help them incorporate these events into their own schedule. In this way, you can also create a sense of anticipation for your events and your customers will feel more connected to your company.

2. Feature a wholesale shoe item for each month. Choose one item and make it the featured item for the month. Do this for all 12 months. To make it more interesting for your customers, you can offer these items at a discount. Just make sure that each footwear you feature is relevant to the most commonly celebrated event each month. For example, feature wholesale bridal shoes in June and maybe different kinds of red wholesale shoes during the love month.

3. Include coupons. This makes your calendar more valuable and more useful to your customers. Plus, it gives them a sense of exclusivity since only your customers can get calendars. This is a subtle way to boost sales because buyers are more inclined to buy a product with a discounted price tag.

4. Provide useful information. Include shoe care tips as well as fashion ideas. This will ensure that your customers will have more than one reason to look at your calendar. This also makes your calendar something that they will truly look forward to.

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