Everyone loves to purchase and sell. Of course, selling is not for everybody! Even if someone is not in a traditional business setup, they have to be able to sell their dreams if the need arises. But everyone sells either her/his dreams or something else to survive. So, without sales and purchases, this world will no longer be what it is now!
Three sources of sales
- Traditional brick-and-mortar stores
- Online stores
- Hybrid (combination of 1+2)
But how does a customer make a purchase?
I mean, what exactly makes a customer buy something from someone, i.e., a shop or a person, or from anyone else? The clichéd saying goes, ‘Necessity is the mother of invention!’ and rightly so! A person buys something because s/he needs it. Now, from where s/he buys it is dependent on several factors like –
Diverse Needs
- Urgency – for example, medicines, daily household food items like milk, oils, etc., fuels like petrol and diesel. For such urgent items, the customer mostly does not care from which shop or from whom they are buying.
- Leisure – Items like clothes, footwear, food items, etc. In cases like these, customers think before making a purchase. S/he checks out all avenues and makes the final decision based on where s/he can buy the items at the lowest price/s. Thus, the age-old policy of ‘cheap and best’ comes to the fore. Customers always want quality, but they buy from the seller offering items at the lowest prices.
- Luxury/Branded items – These items, although priced at a premium, command the loyalty of the customer. So, s/he buys them no matter what. Think Gucci, Louis Vuitton, etc. Now, not all branded items are luxury items. The power of advertising and marketing is such that customers regularly buy branded items. Think Metro, Zudio, etc.
- Connection with the shopkeeper – If the shopkeeper forms the right connection with the customer, the customer will return another time. If the customer is unhappy with the shopkeeper, he will never return.
- In continuation with the fourth item in this series, it is the behaviour of the shopkeeper/business, in short, the customer service offered, the value being provided for the items, and the service in case of household items and any other things. Talking about value, every customer, no matter how rich or poor s/he is, one thing that matters is that the product should be ‘cheap and best’!
Do I get everything for cheap?
Now, by this, I don’t mean that one can get a jumbo jet cheaply. However, even here, the jumbo jet provider that offers the cheapest and best jumbo jets wins the market and the hearts of its customers. Pricing, location, and the customer service provided by a business play key roles in building a customer base and bringing repeat customers.
So, what are you waiting for?
Go out there and make the best products for your customers. Provide excellent service with a smile. And see the customers coming back to you. You earn money. Now, why won’t you get rich, tell me?