Southern Jewelry News

Enhance your store’s curb appeal

14:31

May

2008

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Article Autor: David Rodgers

Marketing Concepts

After being on the market for a new home for several months, I’m realizing how drastically home prices are affected by a single factor: curb appeal. Two homes with the same amenities, the same amount of space, and in the same neighborhood can vary in price as much as 20-30% depending on the quality of the curb appeal.

Although it is seemingly expensive, creating the curb appeal might cost the owners as little as 3-5% of the home’s value. Subtracting the costs, that is still a 15-27% increase in home sale value. Let’s take this idea of creating value, and translate it into increased profits for your store. The following are three ways for creating curb appeal for your store and for your merchandise.

1. Enhance your store’s exterior

There are an endless number of ways to do this. Consider a new awning, professional landscaping, new windows, fresh paint, a pressed-cement or brick walkway, a new sign, new logo/store artwork, pillars, and the list can go on and on. The most important things to change first would be the areas that look the least aesthetically pleasing. Remember the saying “You’re only as good as your weakest link.”

Now, these changes certainly will take some money, but in the end, you can see it as actually turning your store into a higher-end establishment. Think about the difference in curb appeal between the deep-discount department stores, and the very upscale department stores. It certainly cost more for the upscale stores to create their atmosphere and curb appeal, but they are rewarded with customers willing to pay far more for the merchandise. Not only that, but this improvement is a one-time fixed cost, rather than an ongoing expense.

2. Enhance the appearance of your interior

This is something I touched upon more in depth last month, however it bears repeating. The interior of your store is vital to the overall feeling you are trying to convey to customers.

Consider enhancing your showcases, wall space, carpets, lighting, paint, trimming, windows (these help inside and out, and can also save energy costs), bathroom vanities/tile/toilets and general décor. Frequent cleaning is also helpful, for example showcase fingerprint smudges, vacuuming, and bathrooms. Your interior is where the customer generally makes buying decisions, and they are more likely to feel comfortable buying in a visually pleasing setting.

3. Enhance the appearance of your merchandise

This is an often-overlooked aspect of retail business. For example, when you sell a ring, does it come in a standard box, or a more upscale package. If you haven’t shopped for jewelry boxes lately, make sure to do so, as there are some stunning examples.
How about the bags that you put the purchases in? I bet you can think of certain stores that have unique, you’d-know-it-if-you-saw-it-anywhere bags. Why not look into getting that type of bag for your store? While fancy bags and jewelry boxes might have a higher cost, you might well be able to more than compensate for this in a greater number of more profitable, high-end sales.

A restaurant that I frequent recently renovated, and not surprisingly, people are now coming out of the woodwork to eat in the new and improved atmosphere. There were no advertisements touting the new improvements. It was more of a “if you build it, they will come” happening. Existing customers came back more often. They referred their friends, who then referred other friends.

This same phenomenon will happen by simply increasing the “curb appeal” of your store. Not only will more people be showing up, they will also not be quite as interested in deep-discounts, because they will view their purchases as more upscale and worth the added cost. And to me, that’s pretty appealing.

David Rodgers is Business Director for the JewelryTalk service, which provides informative, fun-to-read weekly columns for jewelry stores to use in their newspaper advertising. He also owns DR Jingles, a radio-advertising firm. Contact him at jewelrytalk@yahoo.com or 248-514-9376.