What to do: Take requests seriously and tell the customer you will make sure you carry the item. Understand that stock outs mean lost customers. Make sure your computer triggers re-orders at the right stock level to avoid empty shelves. Prompt service. Save a customer time and you have a friend for life. Today’s shopper needs to get in and out fast.

What to do: Train sales staff to respond quickly and appropriately when a customer enters the your futon store.
Value. Low price does little good if the product or service doesn’t do everything the customer needs. Customers will be loyal to a store that satisfies their needs, even if the price is higher.

What to do: Survey customers on what services and goods they need.
Visual merchandising. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a display is worth a lot more than a verbal description of how to use a product.

What to do: Establish displays that answer common customer questions and show customers how to improve their lives by using the merchandise and services you offer.

Professional help. Shoppers will patronize the store with staff that can answer their questions. When customers can’t get answers they need, they lose time. And time is money.
What to do: Make sure your employees are more knowledgeable than anyone else’s. “Ask yourself how your store can address these issues,” says Rice. “This will go a long way toward defending you against the warehouse competition.”

3) Exploit niches that the competition ignores.
Despite its size, the warehouse store can’t cover all of its bases. Smart retailers identify and exploit the holes in the competition’s marketing plan.
Shop the Big Box store to discover what merchandise and services they lack. Then promote these at strong margins. This is the right time to involve your staff. “Let your people decide what niches to get into,” suggests Shay. “Suppose one of your key employees has a special knowledge in one aspect of your business. Have this person train others in that area, and then promote this as a special service to your customers.”
No matter how much you have engaged your employees in the past, chances are good that you can benefit more from them. For example, why not get their input on sprucing up store displays that are less than noteworthy? Take a photo of each bad display. Then have your employees work up ways to improve the display to spark more sales.
Constantly survey your customers. What merchandise or services could you offer to make their life easier? The answers are golden clues to business treasure.

Bonus tip: Up-selling is vital. Train your employees on how to move your customers up to the next level of quality.

4) Network in your business and community.
If the Big Box retailer can buy its way into the hearts and minds of the market, you can earn your way by networking with all of the organizations you can.
“Create synergy by banding together with other small businesses in your community,” says Dr. William Rupp, who conducted a study of mass merchandising and who now teaches strategic management at Robert Morris College in Pittsburgh. “The Big Box competition is counting on you to try to go it alone.”
As an example of retailers who did it right, Dr. Rupp points to a group of six small bookstores which banded together to develop a strategy to compete against a new Barnes and Noble super store. Part of their solution was a daily advertisement placed in the newspaper which emphasized the specialty of one of the six bookstores on a rotating basis.
Such an association need not be confined to other retailers in your industry, notes Dr. Rupp. Stores in many industries can band together to brainstorm marketing solutions that will heighten their profiles and grab more customers.
Don’t overlook the networking possibilities at local non-profit organizations, community fairs, and other events of all kinds, says Dr. Rupp. “Maybe you won’t sell a dime but you are laying the groundwork for future sales by shaking hands and kissing babies.” This kind of relationship marketing can pay big dividends.
Community involvement can give you an edge over the Big Box from afar with no roots in the community. “No longer can you just open a store and expect to survive,” warns Dr. Rupp. “You must be more active in marketing your store than ever before.”

5) Research what others are doing in nearby towns.

Networking with other futon stores in your town creates synergy. And involvement with organizations can heighten your profile. Now, why not take this idea far afield... to other towns?
“Visit outstanding retailers who are not in your town and see how they have tackled the warehouse store competition,” suggests consultant Rice. “The owners of these businesses will talk with you because you are not competing for their customers.”
Visit both stores in your industry and those that are in other retail sectors that have been hit with the warehouse store phenomenon.
In these intelligence-gathering field trips, a picture can be worth a thousand words. “Take a camera with you,” says Rice. “Whenever you see a store display that you think is good, ask permission to take a photograph.”

6) Get started early.

Most of the ideas in this article will help you develop your own success plan for battling the Big Boxes. For best results, though, get an early start. Make plans and take the right marketing steps before the warehouse operators arrive. “Too many retailers fail to see the storm as it’s coming,” says Shay. “There is some denial. People say ‘it can’t happen in our futon industry,’ or ‘it can’t happen in our town.’”
When the warehouse store arrives, the independent retailers are not prepared. “They start eating off their inventory and their assets,” says Shay. “And down the tubes they go.”
Facing up to the Big Box can be a challenge for even the sharpest of retailers. With a little guidance from the clues in this article, though, you can solve the puzzle of maintaining and growing in the new retail environment.

FL