Each product category in your store has a best seller. This product will not necessarily be the cheapest or lowest gross profit item, but it will be the favourite product purchased by your customers in that category. You can use this to your advantage if you introduce some simple management strategies?

1. Identify the best sellers in each category

To take advantage of the best seller concept, you'll need to know the best seller in each category. For some categories, for example beer, the best-selling product will probably stay the same throughout the year. For other products, such as fruit in a greengrocers, the best-seller will change with the seasons and you will need to analyse your sales results on a monthly basis.

2. Position best sellers strategically in the category layout

Do not use the prime location in the category layout for best sellers because they will sell anyway. Put your best sellers in what would normally be a lower selling position in the layout. They will help you increase sales in the overall category.

Customers need to see your best sellers, and shelf talkers will help you achieve this. Use your prime selling positions for impulse sales.

3. Have the team promote the best sellers

Hilary Kahn, the Melbourne based retail consultant, suggests you can increase your bottom line by getting your team to recommend the best sellers.

Best seller checklists - If yours is a large store with many categories, prepare a list of best sellers each month and make it available to all team members. This gives them the extra confidence and the opportunity to sell in categories apart from their own.

Train the team to sell best sellers - When customers are unsure about what product to select within a category, get your team to promote best sellers as one of their selling options. A great selling opener is always ?Our best seller is ??. It will give the customer confidence in the salesperson as it shows they have knowledge of their products.

The result of this is they start to trust your team member and will then readily accept that person's advice.

Train your team to sell up - In many situations customers will purchase the best seller simply on a team member's advice - or allow your team member to sell up to a more profitable line.

4. Educate your customers

Consumers like buying best sellers. If they do not know the product category very well, they are happy to purchase best sellers since, when they are unsure, they seek comfort in conforming.

Use shelf talkers or general point of purchase signage to highlight best sellers.

This signage could say:-

?Our best selling ?x? this month is ??..?

?Our best seller?

?The top selling ?x? in our store?

?Our customers' favourite ?x??

The important thing is that you are honest with your customer.

5. Match promotions with fact

When introducing a best selling strategy, make sure your advertising, internal promotions and sales team are giving the same message to the customer.

Management Memo

Best selling strategies work brilliantly in some retail sectors and are under-used in others. The book and record industries have used this technique for many years with merchandising strategies that show the top 10. I recently worked with a retail client where we introduced the best selling strategy for the first time. Prior to my visit they were unaware of which products were their best sellers. Once we introduced the strategy and used shelf talkers, their sales of best sellers increased four fold.

What was even more interesting was that the overall sales within the category also increased. I believe this was due to the consumer gaining more confidence and trust in the retailer.