How a silent salesman cost me £60 – a great example of cross-selling – May 2017

Picture the scene – We’re in the computing section of the store and after some considerable time we’ve narrowed the choice of laptops to just two. Truth be told, we didn’t know the difference between a Rockchip Processor and Intel Celeron or what eMMC meant, but nevertheless we made our choice.

Decision made and with our eyes no longer focused on playing spot the difference between specification lists, we caught sight of the cleverly positioned leaflet just behind the row of laptops. Firstly, I noted that the leaflet was inside one of our C110’s (sad I know, but when you work with Taymar brochure holders day in day out, it happens). Next we took note of the leaflet itself which was advertising an impressive looking printer that was on special offer. We have a printer already and we certainly didn’t go in with any intention of buying a printer but there it was, a much newer, much posher printer and one worthy of being wirelessly linked to our fantastic new laptop. We took the leaflet, wandered over to the printer section and… bought the printer! Cross-sold hook line and sinker by a C110 and leaflet cleverly put there on the instruction of the company’s marketing department no doubt.

When you buy a product online you are often presented with a selection of other complimentary products or ‘customers who bought this also bought…’ products – Cross-selling. This principal is exactly what was used next to the laptops with the C110 and leaflet. Sales literature is worth its weight in gold but equally important is how and where it is displayed in-store. This experience proved it. POS literature is your silent sales person and when it is done right it will cross-sell other products in the store.

It turns out that the printer is great.

Brochure Holders International Ltd.

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

.

Paper power: In store magazines – April 2017

Retailers are looking to different kinds of print marketing to engage with customers and promote their brand and products. One of the methods growing in popularity is Store Magazines and an example of this would be the instore publication ‘Edition’ by John Lewis. The magazine, available free to customers, emphasizes the vast assortment of goods in store and tempts the reader to shop in departments they may not previously have shopped in, both in store and online. This cross-selling and branding exercise comes across as a far more appealing tactic than a more basic special offer leaflet or even an email. In fact, research suggests that a reader of a branded magazine will spend around 20 minutes with it while you’re lucky to get a couple of minutes with email or online content. Interesting.

No doubt the information found in the magazine is also available online and emailed to newsletter subscribers, but the very fact that retailers put time and resource into these print medias would suggest that tangible marketing material is still important and relevant to their target audience. This suggestion is backed up by the fact that ‘Edition’ held the number one spot in women’s’ lifestyle and fashion titles for quite some time.

It seems that the print bandwagon it the one that needs jumping on!

Brochure Holders International Ltd.

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

.

Retail and display – changes over recent years – March 2017

An early morning office chat turned to how things have changed for the retail and display industries over the years. We soon discovered it’s a topic that could easily turn into a very long chat indeed – too long to transfer to a blog post and expect anyone to read anyway – but here’s a summary of a few thoughts.

When you think of retail in general the biggest change during our time in business has to be e-commerce and online buying platforms. That was the game-changer back in the early 2000’s but now new technologies are being developed at an astonishing rate and consumers are at a stage that they adopt them wholeheartedly.

The ways in which retailers and shoppers interact is continually changing almost to the point where our computers and mobile phones seem to know what we want to buy before we do! Retail marketing is a whole different ball game now, but it is all very exciting.

We are often asked whether all this digital media is a concern for a company like us who rely on printed material and honestly the answer is no, not really. Quite simply, there will always be a place for printed literature. There are still times when people like something tangible. When the likes of Google and Facebook – two of the biggest online giants – use printed literature and retailers the likes of Next and Argos still print catalogues it says a lot for the power of paper. This is something we’ll pick up on in future posts.

In terms of our business things have changed in a number of ways over the years. We have obviously seen cheaper, low quality products from the Far East come and go and make varying impact in the market but the trade and consumers increasingly acknowledge that there is a balance to be found between quality and price. Cheaper is not always better, which is why many imported items don’t make any real headway in the market now.

We sell exclusively through distributors and so don’t have our own web-shop, but it has been really interesting to see how web-shops have played such a huge part in boosting sales in many different markets. During the early heyday of web-shop openings it was often possible to look at sales figures for various European markets and know instantly which distributors had launched a web-shop – it really had that much impact in many cases.

Right now it seems that print marketing is having somewhat of a comeback. Perhaps email marketing and alike are looing their imact?… perhaps customers want that tangible factor again?… we’ll no doubt look at this in future posts too.

Brochure Holders International Ltd.

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

.

Our renovations are complete: February 2017

We are delighted to say that our office renovations are now complete! Work began towards the end of 2016 and was complete this month. There is a whole new feel to the place and much more inviting for our visitors and of course the team here at BHI.

We bought this larger premises two years ago because the warehouse space is absolutely perfect for us, but it was always our intention to refresh and expand the office areas. So, we built lovely offices throughout, a new kitchen and a brand new reception lobby and meeting room, which we were lacking before. All this was done without any real impact on our core warehouse activities. In fact the whole build was carried out and completed without any disruption to order fulfilment at all.

We would love to welcome any of our distributors here at the new look BHI. Please get in touch if you would like to pay us a visit.

Brochure Holders International Ltd.

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

.