How to improve your retail conversion ratio

All retailers have to look after the bottom line, but unfortunately increasing your conversion ratio in-store is easier said than done. Irisys’ years of experience of working with our end-users has given us some key insights to help you increase your conversion rates:

Get solid data on where you are right now, and look for common causes

There’s no point in devising a grand strategy to increase your conversion rate if you don’t know your starting point. It might sound obvious, but too many businesses are so eager to take action that they fail to plan adequately, which means starting with the basics.

Take an objective measure across your retail estate, compare and contrast the conversion ratios achieved by your different locations and try to identify the reasons behind them.

Use the data to improve staff scheduling

An accurate measure of footfall into your stores should be the starting point for planning your staff scheduling. Don’t simply rely on intuition or the best guess of your staff – the data doesn’t lie.

By aligning your staff to the times when the most numbers of customers are in the store, and not when the transactions are simply at their highest, you maximise the chances for your team to make those conversions, and let the transactions follow.

Work on your checkout service

When customers know they are going to get fast service at the checkout, they are more likely to buy and their average basket size is higher.

Giving great service at the checkout is partly achieved by getting labor scheduling right, but an integrated queue management system can give you a continuous measure of the service you are delivering and what you need to meet your service promise.

Treat each store individually

Although you should look at the estate as a whole, when you are analysing the evidence from each store, implementing a strategy and setting targets, don’t forget to treat each store according to its own unique circumstances. Use the data to empower your local managers and give them the training and authority to make their own judgements to achieve their objectives.