For 2011 retailers need new strategies to draw resistent shoppers into their stores and encourage them to spend more

Retailers may have seen a bounce in sales this Christmas.  But while that is good news for many, it is less indicative of a trend and more a sign that shoppers were releasing pent up demand after an extended period of doing without.  For those retailers who want to sustain and improve their recovering sales figures, they need strategies to encourage people to visit and to buy.

At the latest Women's Wear Daily CEO Summit, Howard Tubin, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets who specializes in specialty retail, put this challenge to retailers:

"Business spikes when there's a reason to shop. The most successful retailers are those that really give their shoppers a reason to go into their stores."

For the new year retailers need to make a resolution to give shoppers a reason to shop.  That means creating a new selling environment in the store by making their shop exciting to visit and an entertaining experience.  That means transforming your store to a 'shop that pops.'

A 'shop that pops' is one that tantilizes the shopper with more than just products to buy.  A shop that pops tempts the customer with new experiences, new ways to interact and new services to engage the shopper.  My book, Shopping: Why We Love It and How Retailers Can Create the Ultimate Customer Experience, is a guidebook for retailers that explains how to make their shop pop by using a formula called the 'Pop Equation."

A shop that pops shares these seven key characteristics.  Shopping shows you how to make each of these happen in your store:

• Foster customer involvement and interaction
• Evoke curiosity
• Exhibit a contagious, electric quality
• Create a convergence of atmosphere, design, and merchandise
• Center on a value-driven concept
• Offer a price/value model that favors the customer
• Present an accessible, inviting, non-pretentious atmosphere

Does Your Shop Pop?  Take the Pop Quiz

How well does your store do in creating an experience for your customers?  How can you enhance the experience of shopping in your store?  The answer begins by assessing how well your store fulfills the Pop Equation.

Download this quick self-test to measure how well your shop meets the key criteria of a „shop that pops, along with advice and recommendations about how to boost your performance in each of the seven key areas.

Learn more about Shopping: Why We Love It and How Retailers Can Create the Ultimate Customer Experience

• Shopping is written for retailers, both large national chains and small independent specialty retailers. It addresses retailers' most pressing  marketing challenges and concerns whether they target a national or a local selling environment.

• Shopping is packed with real world examples of 'shops that pop!' -- Stores that create a wonderful shopping experience for their customers like Godfrey's, a specialty pet boutique, that offers its customers extraordinary customer experiences.

• Shopping is backed up by the kind of powerful consumer research for which my work is known.

Here is what one grateful specialty retailer said about Shopping:

"Thank you, thank you. I am very impressed and can't thank you enough for your attention. As a co-owner of a retail boutique that has combined diverse divisions of an art gallery, floral design studio and upscale boutique, I have found your information to be pertinent, idea provoking and challenging as well ... There are not enough resources out there for the small business owner that truly provides a benefit as your work has."

Shopping is available at your local bookstore or at www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com

About  Pam Danziger and Unity Marketing