How is Your Store Different?

You want your store to be different. When you’re selling the same beverages by the same makers, more or less, setting yourself apart from the other package stores gives you the upper hand. Your website is an important marketing tool that can do the job of differentiating your store from your competitors.

Layout

Think about how you’ve laid out your store. You organized categories. Placed them in a logical proximity to one another. And, when you want to draw attention to something in another part of the store, say a mixer, you find ways to communicate this to your customer. Your website is very much the same.

Chances are you’ve been contacted by someone who can “do” your website for you. They promise you that they will create a great page for you that will bring in the customers. If that experience was a while ago for you and now you’ve got a great website that has not been touched since it was turned over, raise your hand. Okay. We’re in a virtual sharing space here so no one can see all the raised hands, but we know from experience that this is happening time and time again. If you don’t have a store website, take a look at your competitor’s page. Where are the specials? When was the last update?

We’ll let you in on a little secret. A website that is performing as a marketing tool is well thought out and relatively easy to keep updated. Sellr uses visually appealing layouts that draw customers in. We do the hard work of maintaining a large database of SKUs so that you can simply scan a bottle and manage it on your website (as well as in-store signage—but that’s another blog). We also make promoting your specials simple for you. More easily updated specials means your customers will come back to your site on a regular basis because your competition doesn’t update their specials. To learn more about Sellr websites, register now to join our Thursday website webinar.

Talk to the People

Do you think about the personality of your store? Our B2C blog series this month focuses on
customer engagement as a differentiating strategy. Engagement, however, can start the minute your customer lays eyes on your business—on your website. If you don’t want to be like the other beverage stores, don’t behave like them.

You might not think that the words you use are important, but they are. We could be very business-like on Sellr. We know that we are working with business owners who use professional voice most of the time. But, we’ve chosen a different tactic—conversational tone. While we’re a professional tool and see ourselves as partners in your marketing efforts, we want to be different and we use our tone to convey that. We are different and want you to see us differently so we speak to you differently. We hope it makes us more relatable. If nothing else, we want it to sound different than the 3 o’clock meeting you wish you could avoid. (Bor-ing!)

Listen to your customers. What words do they use when talking to you at checkout? How do they talk to one another when browsing your store? If those conversations don’t give you enough inspiration (or aren’t fast enough for you!), here’s the Sellr Use This, Not That list:

Conversational tone tends to get right to the point. When was the last time you told your friend you were considering buying a new car? Likely you told them something along the lines of “I am hitting 100,000 miles so I’m thinking about getting a new car”. This is buying beer, wine, or spirits, not writing an academic paper. Additionally, when you’re using conversational tone, you can use and and but at the start of sentences and contractions are great.

Pay Attention to the Little Things

The truth is your bigger things, what you sell and how you sell it, aren’t going to vary much from any other retailer. That’s not a bad thing. But, it is the little things that are going to set you apart from your competition. Using actual pictures from inside your store in your social media helps customers quickly connect what they see online to what is in front of them when they get to the store. The little joke you have on your website, perhaps a consistent misspelling, conveyed in your in-store signage draws a laugh and a reason to come back and see what other “mischief” your store can get into. People love to be in on a joke.

You didn’t go into business to be the same as everyone else so don’t be. Use your website as the front line for showing your differences. Who doesn’t want to be a part of something different?!

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