So you've followed part 1 and 2 of this series of blogs. You understand the 5% factor and have increased the number of customers coming to you store.  What's next you ask?

The answer: To increase the average sale dollar and the number of transactions per year that each customer makes.

Today we will look at increasing the average dollar and in the next blog we will look at increasing the number of transactions.

Do you want fries with that?... We've all heard it. We all know what it means. So why don't we use it.  In a jewelry store there are so many add on products you can sell to your customers. Examples are insurance, jewelry cleaners, extended or lifetime warranties, yearly repair and maintenance plans, jewelry boxes or cases, gifts for the bridal party (for wedding ring purchases)... the list goes on.  Here's a few things you can start doing today:
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Increase prices. Ensure you are getting the correct markup on all your products. View your stock aging report and check older items are marked up based on today's value.

Swim users, check your retail management by department and price point reports. Compare average sale in each department to average selling price of current stock. Ensure your current stock holding is similar in value to the average sale amount.

Employ smart discounting. Don't discount when a customer will buy anyway (eg Christmas eve). Know when to use discounting and when not to. Discounting can bring new customers and sales, though used incorrectly it can seriously affect your bottom line. (see Price and Volume chart below....discount with caution)

Sales people in all types of industries discount. So much so that some sales people see it as a crucial part of the selling process. But if you do discount, how does it affect your bottom line?

The following table indicates the increase in sales that is required in order to compensate for a price discounting policy. By way of example, if your margin is 40% and you reduce the price by 10%, you need sales volume to increase by 33% to maintain your current profit level.

On the other hand, if you adopt a premium price strategy, the following table shows the amount by which your sales would have to decline following a price increase before your gross profit is reduced below its present level. For example, at the same 40% margin, a 10% increase in the price could sustain a 20% reduction in sales volume.

- The Swim jewelry software team.
www.onswim.com
Innovating the retail experience
support@onswim.com

Increasing Average Sale Dollar - Part 3 Using the 5% factor to make this your most profitable Christmas ever!

Let's face it, Christmas is really, really close. In the next few weeks your store will go from busy, to crazy busy. So before the crazy begins, here's a few tips on how to make this your best Christmas ever.

If you missed part one of this blog series, you can view it here  Using the 5% Factor to make this your best Christmas ever! In that blog we discussed three ways to increase your sales: 
- Increasing the number of customers
- Increasing how frequently they purchase
- Increasing how much they spend

In this blog we will look at ways you can increase the number of customers buying from you, to generate more revenue. Part 3 and 4 of this series will then look at the remaining two.

Increase Number of Customers

Before we head of, aimlessly looking at ways to increase customers, the first step is knowing who your customers are, how those customers found you, and what keeps them coming back. If you are a Swim jewelry software user, you can analyse your customers by looking at the customer reports:

how found - CR017: How Customers Found the Store

location - CR020: Customer Marketing Report

why purchasing - CR016: Reasons for Purchasing

With this information you can build a profile of your customers. You can also use this to build an 'ideal customer' profile and segment what type of customers you would like to target. Use this customer profile when creating your campaigns and use wording, visuals, offers and mediums that would attract your ideal customer.

As this blog is focusing on Christmas sales, we look at quick ways to attract more customers. In saying that, the customer profile and ideal customer information is priceless. Use it before starting any marketing plan or campaign. Let it be the first thing you look at in 2017 when setting up your year's marketing campaign.

Now, back to getting more customers. The first place to look, is in your store. Every day you have shoppers. These are people inside your store who are not customers. They have not bought from you, yet they are right there, in your store.  Find out why they are not buying from you. How many dollars each day are walking out the door. If a customer asks for a product that you don't have write it down. Look for trends in requests and get that stock in to maximise your sales. Judy Cameron from Cameron's Fine Jewellers (a long term Swim user and marketing guru, wrote a wonderful article about this. You can read it here)

Another place to find new customers is by looking at your customer database and re-connecting with customers on your list that have not purchased within the last twelve or more months. Send them an incentive to come back to your store. For example, you could hold a special pre-Christmas event, sale or VIP night where they are exclusively invited. You could give them a gift voucher that is redeemable after spending a certain amount of money. You can give them a free gift upon purchasing. Other options are to look at what they did purchase from you before and recommend something to go with it.

Text messaging and emailing has made it easy to perform the above tasks quickly and cost effectively. Swim users you can use the 'customers who have not purchased since' option in the bulk SMS and email area to perform this task. We wrote a blog article last Christmas about a jeweller who sent out a text message campaign to customers who had not purchased for over two years and he received $7000 in sales in the first three hours of the text message being sent out.

Other places to find new customers quickly is through word of mouth from your existing customers. You could host a VIP night giving your customers two tickets, one for them and one for a friend who has never shopped at your store before. Both could receive a special gift. Another really quick way to ask for a referral where everyone benefits is to send out an SMS text message or email offering $50 off their purchase and their friends purchase, when they introduce a friend.

A few quick social media campaigns you can run to attract more customers are:
- For stores with an e-commerce site, on social media run a competition where people submit their best Christmas gift ideas from items within your store (i.e stock pictures from your website). Your fans can then vote on the one they like best and the person who submitted the one with the highest vote receives a voucher. (This campaign highlights your products, has potential customers looking for items they like on your website and engages your customers)
- For manufacturing jewellers you can do the same campaign as above with customer submitting their own designs for the perfect Christmas gift. During the campaign write articles about how to best design your own piece, why a special hand made piece is the perfect Christmas gift and ways to recycle existing jewellery into new custom made pieces. 
- Post your own ideas on perfect Christmas gifts.  Make it fun, different and suggest ways to package or present the item to make it more memorable. Have fun with this and your customers will to. The more your customers enjoy it, the more chance they will share it with their friends (your new potential customers).
- We all have Christmas stories in retail. Stories about last minute purchases, customers ordering the oddest gift, the sweetest present you've sold. Think about your Christmas's past and place a few of these stories up, for your fans to share.

If you implement just one of the above suggestions, you are sure to increase your customers and increase your sales this Christmas.
There are so many ways to attract new customers. Here we have just covered a few to get you started. If you have your own ideas, add them as comments below.  In the next blog we will look at increasing the frequency of your customers purchasing from you.

More Customers for Your Store (Part 2 of Using the 5% Factor to Make this Your Best Christmas Ever!)

Yes, it's that time of year. Retailers everywhere are getting ready for the onslaught. The late nights, the crazy time, the busy, busy busy. It goes by in a blink and then... it's all over and you wonder what just happened to Christmas.

This year, why not make Christmas the cash cow that it should be for retailers.  Why not make it your best year ever!!

The question often though is where to start. You're already time poor, resource poor and can't fit another thing in.

To help, I'll be writing a four part blog with simple, easy to follow ideas to make this your Best Christmas Ever, that take no time at all to implement.

Now before we go and get knee deep in ideas and suggestions on how to make more money, it's important to understand sales, and specifically the 5% factor. 

In this blog we look at the 5% factor. In the next three blogs we will then tackle each one of the areas on the Sales and Marketing side (not Expenses) that put profits in your hands, and give specific examples of how you can do this over Christmas and take that momentum into 2017.

When looking at net profit it is not how much you make, but how much you keep. The 5% factor shows that by making small changes, there is a big change to the bottom line.

Net Profit = $161,750 (61.75% increase in profit)

So lets look at how to make some small changes...

Decrease fixed costs
Fixed costs are items such as wages, lease and electricity. Look at the Sales & Expenses report to see your fixed costs. Review each type of expense and look for ways to reduce the cost. Examples include automating tasks and using your business management software to reduce employee wages, asking for prompt payment discounts from suppliers, reviewing pricing between suppliers, reviewing service provider companies.

Increase Sales
You can look at your annual turnover as: number of customers x average sale x transactions per annum.
Your total number of customers can be looked at as: (leads x conversion %) + retained customers

A store is open 6 days and retains 2/3 last years customers

15 walk-in customers per day (90/wk, 4500 /year)

(leads x conversion %) + retained customers = total customers

(4500 x 20%) = 900 + (900 x 66%) = 600 = 1500 customers

total customers x average sale x transactions per annum = turnover

one in 10 customers come back one more time

4950 x 25% = 1238 + 1238 x 70% = 867 = 2105 customers

Using the information below you can review your current state and then work towards increasing your turnover through customers, average sale and number of transactions.

View the Customer Marketing Overview report under the customer menu.

Fill in the following fields to determine where you want your business to be and the strategies you have in place to get there.

What you would like your turnover to be $..............................................

How many sales per week are needed $...................................................

At current conversion rate, how many leads are needed ......................

If you increase average sales by 10%, how many sales are needed per week ......................................................

How many lead generation strategies do you have .................................

Number of ways to retain customers ........................................................

Number of ways to increase average sales................................................

Number of ways to increase frequency of sales ......................................

Now that you have an understanding about the 5% factor, in the next blog we will look at ways to Increase Number of Customers, the follow blog will then look at, Increase average number of transactions per year and the final blog will look at Increasing the average sale dollar.

If you can't wait until the next blog, you can take a look at few suggestions here

Using the 5% factor to make this your most profitable Christmas ever!

Let's face it, we all want more customers, though finding the marketing dollars to drive traffic to the store can be costly.

At the JA New York show, marketing guru Jim Ackerman will step you through how you can get more new customers through the door with little or no up-front marketing costs.

Join Jim at the JA New York on Sunday March 13 from 2:35 to 3:35pm.
For a flyer on the event, click here JANY 316 Flyer

Not attending the JA New York? Jim will also be speaking at the Smart Jewelry Show in Chicago and can be contacted at  http://jewelersmarketinggems.com/

How to Get More New Customers Through the Door with Little or No Up-front Marketing Costs

Securing business and customer information is of utmost importance to all retailers. If addressed and implemented correctly keeping data secure can be simple and straightforward. If forgotten or overlooked, the unsecured data can be accessed by unwanted persons, leading to negative press, lawsuits for lack of compliance, and a very big headache.

While it's security best practice and general common sense to protect customer information, industry standards and government regulations require retailers to protect customer information. Retailers must ensure data integrity and auditability for their online transactions, payment settlements, transaction processing and any sensitive data. This protection is performed by adopting encryption of sensitive data, both in transport across the Internet, and in storage - whether that storage be in the cloud or on a server, desktop or device within the companies private network.

Melby's Jewelers in Santa Maria, California is a good example of a diamond jewelry store that protects their customer information. Melby's uses Swim jewelry software, which encrypts all data both in transport and in storage and allows customers to opt out of email and marketing. And with Swim, they use the integrated payment gateway Open Edge Pay that is fully PCI compliant, protecting customers’ electronic payments.

WHAT INFORMATION SHOULD I BE PROTECTING AND HOW?

Payment Processing: The priority when looking at security for most businesses is security of payment processing. Retailers need to be PCI compliant when processing payments. PCI DSS stands for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. This compliance code requires the protection of sensitive payment account data — such as primary account number (PAN), magnetic stripe data, CVV, and PIN — by any company that processes, stores, and transmits such data.

The easiest way for a retailer to be PCI compliant is to use a payment processor for both in-store and online transactions. Open Edge Pay, Global Payments and Tyro are a few examples of PCI compliant payment processors. If you are using a point of sale system that uses integrated credit card processing you will also need to ask the system provider to ensure that the program is PCI compliant. Swim POS software for the jewelry industry, for instance is already PCI compliant.

Storing of Credit Card Information and Other Sensitive Data: In addition to the processing of payments, if your business stores the customer credit card number, social security number, driver’s license number or any other sensitive information, you will need to ensure that this information is encrypted. If you are using a point of sale or software solution to store this data, you can ask your provider whether the stored information is encrypted. Most cloud software solutions will already be encrypted and some desktop based solutions now offer encryption, so if you haven’t chosen a software system yet, make sure to look for this feature.

Beware of storing this sensitive type of information in a spreadsheet, database or document as it will not encyrpt the data and can leave your store open to non-compliance and security risk. Even if this data is stored on a PC or server within your own network, the data is at complete risk.

IS MY DATA SECURE? CLOUD SYSTEMS AND IN-HOUSE SYSTEMS

Too often, one assumes that by having data stored on their own PC or server, it means the data is safe. This is simply not the case. Un-encrypted data on any PC, server, backup device (such as portable hard drive or USB hard drive) or mobile device can be easily accessed by hackers. Wireless networks and the Internet allow hackers to enter into the system and easily extract this information.

Prior to much belief, cloud computing solutions are by and large more secure than in-house systems.

With cloud-based systems your data is automatically backed up, data transfer and storage is fully encrypted, and the firewall and security protection of the servers is actively maintained and monitored by high-level professionals. Many in-house systems and networks are set up by staff, owners or IT people who are not professionals in network security. What this means is there can be great vulnerability in the network setup, allowing for attacks and hackers.

Below are some important points highlighting the difference in security between desktop software and a cloud based solution*:

Employees can copy a software file from your computer without a trace.

If stolen, a computer, USB hard drive or portable hard drive with any business software data on it potentially creates a significant privacy, security, and recovery issue.

A computer is vulnerable to viruses, trojans and other malicious attacks that read, obtain, or corrupt data on your computer. Wireless networks and wireless devices are especially vulnerable, as are desktop computers where security patches are not maintained.

People often store credit card numbers in retail software files which is a major security issue if not encrypted and compliant.

Employee access is monitored and logged, helping you monitor employee movement. Employees are only permitted to perform tasks or see information and data that you allow.

Cloud solutions don't store your data on your local hard drive, so there is no risk if your computer is stolen. In addition, you are still able to continue functioning, with no data loss. All you need to do is sign in using another computer and you are up and running.

Cloud solutions are accessed via a web browser, which reads data from the cloud servers. The SSL security encryption ensures the data between the web browser and server is also secure. Cloud server operating systems are kept up-to-date with security patches.

Cloud systems can process card payments with a PCI compliant gateway. The entire transaction is encrypted, and no credit card information is stored on the local computer.

*For information on what a cloud-based point of sale is and how it differs from server or pc based point of sale systems, take a look at my first blog in this series.

As you can see, securing your data is not so much about where it is stored, but how it is stored. Whether you use a cloud based solution or PC based solution, you need to ensure the data is fully encrypted on servers which are kept up to date with security patches, maintains a strong firewall, uses SSL security for Internet and network data transfer and has user passwords, permissions and access logs. These are the basic steps for ensuring a secure system.

STEPS YOU CAN TAKE TO INCREASE YOUR SECURITY PROTECTION

Here are a few steps you can take today, to ensure your store's security:

Check how payments are processed and ask your provider whether the solution you are using is PCI compliant and all devices (e.g. magnetic swipe cards, e-commerce site entries) are PCI compliant.

Check what information you are storing about the customer. Do you store any credit card information, social security, drivers license information, birth dates. Next ask if you really need to store this information. If you don't, safely remove it from your system. If you do need the information, check with your software provider whether the database the information is stored in is encrypted and that all data is encrypted in data transit.

Set up staff permissions and passwords to all systems that store business data and ensure access is fully logged. If your system does not provide for individual user tracking, strongly look at upgrading to a system that does.

Create strong user passwords and don’t share your user password with anybody.

Don’t write your password on a sticky note and attach it to your computer.

When using cloud solutions, keep your browser software up to date.

If you use a desktop solution, keep your operating system, firewall and virus protection software up to date.

If you operate a wireless network, have a wireless network security professional check the firewall and ensure it has strong security and is kept up to date. Also ensure your wireless network is password protected with a very strong password.

When employee's leave, remove all computer access immediately.

If you backup data to a USB or portable hard drive, ensure the backup is encrypted and the device has password protection to access the contents of the drive. There are software programs that can encrypt data first, before backing up.

If you use a cloud based backup service, check with the provider that the backup data is encrypted.

If you upload reports or other business data to cloud based file storage such as Dropbox, only give access to the data to those that really need it and remove the data as soon as it is not needed to be shared.

Securing your data is of utmost importance, and while on the surface it seems complicated and difficult, by following a set of steps and working with solutions already available and compliant, your store can rest easy, knowing that your customers’ data is safe and protected.

Raeleen Kaesehagen is the founder and CEO of Swim jewelry software, the leading web based retail management point of sale system for retail and manufacturing diamond jewelry stores worldwide.

How Diamond Jewelry Stores Can Protect Customer Information and Meet Industry Standards Including PCI Compliance

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