How Retailers Use Suggestive Selling to Maximize their Sales

If you have ever wondered why you should hire a professional when designing the interior space for your business, the response is, among others, suggestive selling. Suggestive selling is a concept that all successful companies use, and that has to do with the image they try to project in order to maximize their sales. Employing the talent and knowledge of an interior designer means that you can create an effective selling environment and make the most of your products and services.

When displaying their products or coming up with the layout for their space, companies have in mind both the way that they want their products to be perceived and customer behavior patterns. By considering these two things, a company can influence the way their customers shop and subtly suggest that they buy their products. Even when the products are the same as the ones sold across the street, these simple techniques can make a dramatic difference in sales.

Here are three suggestive selling techniques that succesful companies use – and what you can learn from them.

Suggest freshness. In one of his articles, branding specialist Martin Lindstrom notices that, as he enters Whole Foods, the first thing he sees is a sea of fresh flowers. This is not accidental, but rather the well-studied advertising concept of symbolics in action. Since flowers are an extremely perishable product, their presence suggests freshness, which the customer instinctively associates with the rest of the food in the store. If, instead, patrons were greeted by canned food or plastic containers, the subliminal message would be a totally different one.

Another way produce sellers are trying to suggest that their products are fresh is the use of the water mist commonly sprayed over vegetables. Even though the water may have a negative effect on the quality of food (creating an environment that rather spoils it), the perception of freshness is worth the disadvantage.

Make use of traffic patterns. Here is an interesting piece of trivia. When entering a store, most people turn right, rather than left. This is because the majority of them are right-handed and right-oriented. Using this insight into human behavior, retail companies place their new or most expensive items on the right side. Another way to lure customers to these more valuable items is to use louder music, shinier displays and all the artifices of visual temptation that a retailer can afford.

Maximize layout efficiency. There is an entire science behind the way retailers plan their space. For instance, have you noticed that, in order to reach the clearance racks, you generally have to cross the entire store? Retailers place the clearance areas in the back on purpose, so that, on the way there, customers get tempted by other products and maybe give in to a little impulse buying. It is all about the bottom line: By making their customers follow a certain path, passing shelves with more expensive items, the retailers hope to improve their sales numbers.  

As a company owner, it is important that you understand and use these suggestive selling techniques in order to maximize your sales. Your best bet is to bring in an interior designer and branding expert that can help you use your space in the most effective way, by targeting the behavior you expect from your customers. It is not far-fetched to believe that a well-thought interior design, with a perfect layout where every detail is considered may be the difference between commercial success and commercial failure.

Please take a look at our Before and After images of selected projects from 2018 HERE.

If you are thinking to open up a new business or in a process of rebranding and remodeling your existing business, contact us to get a free consultation from Mindful Design Consulting. Click HERE to price your project design.

Also, take a look at “Branding By Interior” e-book, the only book written on this subject at this time. It brings insight on how you can turn your business into a market-dominating competitor by using human cognitive responses.