Читать книгу Selling Home Furnishings: A Training Program - Walter F. Shaw - Страница 51

These figures indicate that women have some part in considerably more than 50 percent of all sales in our business. There is reason to believe that they initiate fully 85 percent of all sales. This means, among other things—

1. That we must expect and be set for competition and delayed sales in the majority of cases, because three women out of every four shop in more than one store before buying furniture.

2. That we must conduct every interview with a woman shopper in a way calculated to influence her to return in case an immediate sale cannot be made. This will demand—

a. Prompt and skillful service, with every effort to save her time; because women of the intelligent classes in recent years have come to attach great value to their shopping time and to resent any waste of it as a result of inefficient salesmanship or store service.

b. Careful attention to those elements of salesmanship discussed under "The daily check-up," unit I, p. 10, because women are strongly influenced by first impressions, and in a competitive market rarely return to the salesperson who made an unpleasant first impression.

c. Belief that "high-pressure" selling is a mark of inadequacy both in the salesman and the firm he represents. The customer of today is rightfully resentful of it, although it is true that some seem to react positively to it. Intelligent selling is marked by efficiency in fitting merchandise to a customer's desire and need, coupled with an understanding of her capacity to purchase without financial strain, and readiness to offer the best value commensurate with these limitations.

d. Convincing demonstration of the value of merchandise under consideration, even in cases where we are morally certain that there will be no immediate sale; because in the absence of such demonstration there will assuredly be no later sale. This is a point at which many consistently fail, with an enormous total loss in sales as an inevitable result.

3. That salesmen and merchants alike discard any smug conviction that "our old customers will always come back to us when new purchases are under consideration," and must turn to the development of an efficient follow-up system. The repeat purchases of old customers are not as a rule sufficient to assure the continued success of any retail business. Surveys in 1940 show that 60 percent of the home furnishings customers of the country shift to another store for their "next" purchase. This does not mean that they never return to the original establishment. It does show the need for salesmen and merchants to keep in touch with those whose confidence they have once developed. Properly handled, the customer likes the friendly follow-up and unquestionably it affects her shopping habits.