Optimising Your High Street Presence In 2021: A Practical Guide

The retail market has evolved significantly over the past few years. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant effect on the market, and many consumers are now embracing online shopping. However, as restrictions lift and the world tries to get back to something that resembles normal, shoppers are flocking back to the high street. In fact, online shopping numbers dropped after the shops reopened following the last lockdown, and many shoppers are now combining their love of online shopping with the speed and unique experience that the high street has to offer.If you’re managing a retail business and want to optimise your high street presence, then keep reading. We’ve put together a practical guide to how you can improve your sales and make the most of your physical retail space. 

Consider finding a new base in a central location 

As the retail market changes, so too do your business needs. After a year of closure and the introduction of social distancing, your business might have outgrown your current retail space. Alternatively, you could find that your existing base is in the wrong location and that it doesn’t attract the passing trade that you require. 

If your current premises are in an area of low foot traffic or are now unsuitable for your business’s needs, you need to explore new commercial property options. Explore a range of options to find one that suits your company’s evolving needs. Stelmain has a selection of commercial properties, and its experts can help you to find the perfect retail space for your ever-evolving retail company. 

Make the most of physical advertising space

Enticing new customers to your store and encouraging existing ones to leave their screens alone and come back into your shop is crucial to your company’s ongoing success. As such, you need to make sure that you make the most out of all of your physical advertising space. This includes windows, doors and walls. While you don’t want your retail space to look too cluttered and crowded, you do want to ensure that you use it to its full advantage. 

Improve your signage to ensure that your customers can easily see what your business has to offer them. Consider using large lettering and bold colours to make a statement. You should also try to optimise physical packaging and ensure that your branding is clearly displayed across everything that you sell. Even small spaces, such as fridge handles and shelf ends, can be prime spots to push your brand’s name, logo and tagline. This approach could help you to improve sales and brand recognition in the long run. 

Combine your online presence with your physical store 

While the high street is slowly recovering from the pandemic, online shopping remains incredibly popular. Online shopping offers many advantages, and while it does have some disadvantages when compared to physical stores, it is a useful solution for making high-value purchases quickly. As such, every high street retailer also needs to create a robust online presence, in addition to having a physical location. 

To create cohesion between the two retail spaces, both online and offline, you should combine them. This means sharing your address and directions to your store clearly on your e-commerce site, and regularly mentioning the services that the team at your high street space could offer. In your store, you should try using QR codes to help your clients to easily access your website or follow your brand’s social media accounts. You could also try offering cross-platform deals, such as online vouchers only redeemable in-store to encourage customers to use both retail options.  

Reduce the amount of physical literturate that you give to your customers 

After the pandemic, it’s understandable that many consumers won’t want to touch physical literature, such as leaflets, coupons or even paper receipts. Therefore, you should take this opportunity to go paperless, and save your business money and reduce its impact on the environment. 

That doesn’t mean that you can’t offer your customers the information, deals and service that you used to before you stopped providing paper literature. Instead, you can move your coupons online, and offer them an app on which to store them. They can then use a QR code to present their coupon in-store or use a code to buy online. For receipts, you can offer to email the details to them, or put it on their account, which could be linked to your brand’s app. 

All of these ideas should help you to optimise your business’s high street presence and combine it with its online one. Remember that the retail market is fast-paced, and in these uncertain times you need to be prepared for whatever life throws at you and your company. Be flexible and proactive so that your retail business can survive and thrive for many years to come.