Top

Real-World Reasons Why Your Team Isn’t Selling

As an independent retailer, you definitely understand that perfecting your company’s sales strategy involves constantly assessing mistakes and making necessary adjustments.

In addition to examining your own company’s performance, you may want to read up on other companies that may have made some gaffes along the way so you can learn from their mistakes. Or get inspiration from companies that nailed it when it came to making some positive changes.

With that in mind, check out the following examples of some major successes and one fail:

JC Penney Success: Using the Power of Video, Digital and Social Channels

One way that companies can experience a drop in sales is by failing to capitalize on marketing to customers via video, digital and social channels. JC Penney is a retailer that has done very well with this approach. The company used Facebook dynamic ads to increase sales, which resulted in a 12 percent increase in online purchases. In order to do this, JC Penney placed a Facebook pixel on its website, uploaded its current product catalogue and then set up a campaign with updated pricing and availability. Dynamic ads then took the data that was collected by the Facebook pixel to automatically send ads to people who had shown interest in the company online.

If you have not taken full advantage of the power of these sales methods to drive awareness to your company, you might want to follow JC Penney’s lead. To be sure your campaign is as successful as possible, consider leveraging CRM consulting.

Starbucks Success: Every Employee is Trained Exceptionally Well

Starbucks stores are so common and popular, it may be hard to believe that the coffee conglomerate was ever in trouble. But Starbucks had a rough time in 2008 when its stock price slid 42 percent. The company was impacted by competition from fast food companies, over expansion and rising prices in food.

To turn things around, Starbucks completely retrained its baristas in the art of proper espresso making and increased its focus on serving only high quality coffees. It closed 600 locations and launched a national ad campaign. Instead of ignoring serious issues, Starbucks did a great job of ensuring that if they were going to make coffee, they were going to do it better than anyone else.

McDonald’s Fail: Know What the Customer Actually Wants

For years, McDonald’s has been known as a place to go for a quick and inexpensive burger. Every Big Mac and batch of fries is made the exact same way, which keeps the food consistent and budget-friendly. But the company once goofed by straying from its classic business model and believing that customers wanted customized orders. They launched a ‘Made for You’ campaign, which required a lot of expensive equipment upgrades and the promise to make burgers to order. Unfortunately, this new approach also slowed wait times, and customers who were used to grabbing a burger and fries in a couple of minutes now had to wait a lot longer for their food.

Where McDonald’s seems to have gone wrong is by not testing their new concept before rolling it out and not collecting feedback from their customers—they assumed what consumers wanted and made unnecessary adjustments, which ultimately failed.

As these case studies show, change can be good for a company—at least most of the time. By following the lead of JC Penney and Starbucks and taking tangible steps to improve the way your business runs, your bottom line may improve. At the same time, it’s also important to keep McDonald’s in mind and make sure that your customers really want the changes you wish to implement. Either way, learning from the successes and failures of other companies can help yours to thrive.


Post a Comment

Disclaimer

This blog accepts forms of cash advertisements, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensations. While we may receive commissions when you click on some of our links and make purchases, this does not impact our reviews, comparisons, opinions or thought-leadership perspectives. Please note we also welcome contributed content and there may be links that are affiliate oriented within these contributions, as well. Retail Minded always aims to deliver trusted news, education and support for our readers.

Read More about our Privacy Policies

AS SEEN IN...

Retail Minded on Entrepreneur
Retail Minded on Fiverr
Retail Minded on Forbes
Retail Minded on Gift Shop
Retail Minded on LRG
Retail Minded on Museum and More
Retail Minded on NBC
Retail Minded on Party Paper
Retail Minded on today