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Originally Posted On: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/learn-from-the-best-4-things-all-successful-retail-brands-have-in-common/ar-AA1l4BU3

Did you know the retail industry is the largest private sector in the United States? It’s worth over $5 trillion and is home to over 4 million establishments and 50 million jobs.

As a small retailer, you’re like a small fish in a big pond. There are sharks (large national retail brands) with the biggest market share, and they won’t hesitate to swallow you in a second.

Building a successful retail business from scratch in today’s landscape isn’t easy. Your work is cut out for you, no doubt, but it doesn’t hurt to learn the secrets of successful retailers.

Here’s what these businesses have in common:

You’ve probably purchased a low-quality product from a retail store and swore never to go back there. Your reaction isn’t illogical. Many consumers would stay away from a business that sells inferior products.

The best retail brands strive to stock high-quality products. Whether they’re manufacturing the products or reselling them, you’d be hard-pressed to find bad products on their shelves. These brands have put in place quality control measures to ensure every product that’s sold under their roof meets quality standards and consumer expectations.

Whether you’re a specialty or a general retail store, there’s a big lesson to learn here. One of the keys to success is selling quality products. Sure, a few bad ones may slip through your quality control checks and end up in the customer’s hands.

However, as long as your brand has an established reputation for selling quality products and is always ready to replace bad products, a few instances aren’t going to cause any damage.

If you manufacture the products you sell, it’s easier to maintain product quality. If you’re reselling, ensure you’re working with suppliers who have a reputation for selling quality products. Working with suppliers who cut corners or don’t care about quality is a sure way to end with shelves full of inferior products.

Your retail store relies on foot traffic. The more people that come to your store, the more sales you’re likely to make.

However, it’s not uncommon for some small stores to get a good flow-in of customers, but when you look at the sales numbers, there’s a disconnect.

What could the problem be? If you guessed merchandising, you’re right!

The best retail brands have mastered the art of displaying products in their outlets. When you walk into a Walmart or Home Depot outlet, for example, it’s hard not to be blown away by how the products are displayed.

It’s not just because they want the stores to look neat and organized. The primary goal is to drive sales.

Visual merchandising can evoke impulse buying. A customer with no intention of buying a particular product can choose to buy it solely because of how it is visually displayed in the store.

As a small retail company, mastering merchandising will give you a competitive edge. When a customer walks into your premises, they shouldn’t walk out without making a purchase. Design and implement a merchandising strategy that suits the business.

It’s advisable to hire an in-house merchandising specialist to help with the layout and display of your items. Alternatively, you can outsource the job to third-party merchandising companies that offer solutions for retail businesses in your niche.

The quality of customer service can make or break any business. Retail businesses are not an exception.

One of the reasons the largest retailers have kept getting even bigger is that they put the customer first.

Of course, there are always going to be challenges when a company is serving millions of customers. You may know someone who has complained about the bad service they have received in one of the nation’s largest retailers. Perhaps you have been the victim.

Such cases rarely happen to the same customer more than once, though. That’s because big retail brands have invested heavily in customer service personnel, personnel training, and automation of customer service systems.

Small retailers have no excuse for not offering the best customer service. Since you’re serving a small customer base, it’s easier to give every customer personalized attention.

Ensure you have enough representatives on the shopping floor to help customers with their queries.

Your return policy should be clear. Ensure customers don’t meet bureaucracies when they need to return a product and get a refund or replacement.

As of January 2023, Walmart, the biggest retailer in the U.S., had 4,717 retail stores across the country.

You might be wondering why a retail brand that’s so huge keeps opening new stores. Well, that’s how to grow a retail business into a national brand!

Most retail businesses have a single store. This means that beyond your locality, no one is going to know about the existence of your business. Your customer base will stay small and may even shrink as new local competitors open up.

Successful retailers have an intricate expansion strategy. They don’t open new stores haphazardly. A lot of research goes into the choice of a new store location.

Opening a new store is the dream of every small retail business owner. You can do it, but not without a plan.

Don’t open a new outlet simply because your sales revenue has increased. Analyze the level of competition and the available market share when choosing a new store location.

As the business grows, build an in-house expansion team. Task these professionals with finding new expansion markets and overseeing new store openings.

On paper, opening a retail company in the U.S. looks like a sure way to become a successful entrepreneur. The consumer market is vast, and it’s not afraid of spending money on good products. Heck, even products that have no real value always have buyers!

But competition in the industry is tough. Beating the largest retail brands is impossible, but you can learn from how they do business. There are many things you can copy, but these are the most important.

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This article is published by NYTech in collaboration with Syndication Cloud.