Regardless of your familiarity with ordering online, we wanted to make your experience as seamless and easy as possible by sharing some helpful tips.
Today, when your customer asks for something you don’t have in stock, the standard answer is “I don’t have it here now—but I can order it for you to pick up next week”. There are a few problems with this situation:
- Your customer doesn’t get the products she needs when she needs them.
- You have to take on the capital risk of ordering inventory you wouldn’t normally buy.
- You risk that she doesn’t come back to buy the item, and orders it online instead.
- You risk that someone else comes in the store to buy the item before she has a chance to come back to pick it up.
Special Ordering solves all these problems. With it, you can sell the product immediately from behind your counter. Your customer will get the box in 1-3 business days with hassle-free home-delivery. Plus, there’s no cost for you to use it, except for your normal Phillips cost of goods, shipping, and handling. Sold yet? We hope so!
The next step is to make sure your customers know about it. Do NOT let them walk out of your store without purchasing something! Make sure they know that if they can’t find it, you can ship it to them. This could mean everything from having signs in your window, to having t-shirts that say “Can’t find it? Ask us!” or “Can’t find it? We’ll ship it!” The key is to let your customers know that you have what they need AND can deliver it to their doorstep.
You may be asking, “How do I make money?” Well, the truth is not every item is profitable to ship. That’s why we included the easy margin toggle within Special Ordering. Simply turn on the toggle, and you’ll see exactly how much money you’ll make on that order.
Luckily, in those situations you can make the order more profitable by charging your customer for shipping. Better yet—ask them if there’s anything else they need for their pet that you don’t have in the store. This can add to their order and qualify them for free shipping. Who doesn’t need a nice cooling bed for the summer, or a cute Halloween costume for the fall?!
In other cases, you may want to let an unprofitable order ship if it means pleasing a good customer. For example, if a customer comes into your store and spends $100 but you’re missing a special toy that she wanted. Offering her free shipping on that item may guarantee her commitment to your store.
We hope this post was helpful for your understanding of Special Ordering! Stay tuned for more posts on how you can make the most out of Endless Aisles.