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When customers can buy a stroller for less than $100, how can you sell them one that retails for close to $800? Think Porsche versus Hyundai and you’re on the right track. Automobile manufacturers target their sales by touting a car’s features and by creating an appealing lifestyle context to which customers can aspire. What can you learn from what they do?
Educate your customers about what they need and how what you sell can fulfill those needs and you are moving along the track toward sales.

Parents and would-be parents out to purchase their first stroller want to know what the differences between one model and another are and the relative advantages of each. How much do they need to spend to get what they need? Display your merchandise, with easily readable information, spiced with panache. Answer their questions. Make things appealing. Just as the car ads offer glamour and speed, create warmth, love and laughter in a family setting. When you throw in a little glamour or make a customer laugh, you’ve added to the mix.

Educate your customers and offer them service. Display your strollers on a slightly raised platform so they can be seen from all sides, then brought down to the floor easily and given a test run. Be sure you have an aisle sufficiently clear of clutter so your customers can take them for a spin. If they have a growing child for whom they are looking to find a fit, make sure you have enough space for them to make the switch from one device to another.
Prepare a laminated card containing a list of five to eight questions, things customers need to know to help them make an educated choice. Make sure your staff has the expertise to answer their questions. If you’re selling cars, you test drive them and enjoy their glamour firsthand. It’s easier to rave about them and much easier to sell. Encourage your salespeople to take the strollers for a spin and note the way they handle the corners. Do they know how to collapse, stash and then put them up again, one-handed? Firsthand insights appeal to customers and provide sales people with the confidence to sell. It’s a win/win situation.
Ask customers what they want the stroller for - quick trips to the supermarket or all-day outings? For instance, runners and walkers will need special running models with larger wheels and properly placed handlebars. A stroller is a lot like a car; it has to fit the lifestyle of its owners. How much can customers afford to spend? Are the handles at the right height? Can they be lifted, if needed? Is the material washable and stain-resistant? Can the cover be easily removed to wash? How heavy is it? Do the wheels rotate easily? How do they maneuver on corners? If you want your customers to be happy with what they have chosen, you want them to choose wisely. They need information. Provide it. Asking these questions helps you know what they need to know.

If you can’t set up a circulation track around your store, keep at least one aisle clear. It’s a question of space. Ask yourself, how many models of any one item do you need to have in stock and on display? If you keep 30 and regularly sell only three of them, why not get rid of the dead stock and focus on displaying the hot sellers to their best advantage? Determine your priorities, based on what your customers buy, and cull the lines that don’t move. Organize an evening to show off new product, inviting would-be parents in the area, offering child-friendly snacks and a demonstration of the relative merits of different strollers, cots, diaper systems and layettes. Organize races; have some fun. Use in-store and window posters to advertise your evening; send postcards if you have a mailing list or hand them out to browsers. Educational marketing is more satisfying for both customers and staff alike. You’re developing expertise. Keep your staff up-to-date about all new products.

Electronic signage is a big rave just now. Some discounters even have their own in-house network and sell vendors ads. But do you really need it? While customers often show negligible interest in the plasma screens except perhaps when they first encounter them, to sales staff they can be as annoying as the same song or set of songs playing over and over again. When sales people switch off the screens to avoid their own aggravation, the blank screen is even less enticing. Instead, use your store’s computer to generate some large, colourful, simply worded signs with good contrast between the words and the background on which they are printed, containing the information they need to know. If you’re not confident in your own sign-making abilities, utilize the expertise of the younger generation for whom computers are second nature. Once you’ve made the signs, place them where customers can read them easily and make some of their own choices.

Make your store the home for expertise and provide a warm body to impart it. Plan your space to allow for the visual merchandising to change regularly. To keep things simple, utilize systems where products can be displayed and stored. What do you need to extol a product’s virtues? Posters, blown-up pictures, some back-lit transparencies are easily made and changed. Remember that not all your customers come in the same sizes, shapes, colours, abilities, and ages. Reflect this diversity by having older models, of different racial and ethnic identity, possibly with some in wheelchairs.

Today’s lighting offers a plethora of choices with lots of opportunities to get it right. Ambient light should be bright and welcoming with some spotlighting to highlight product. Ensure that your fluorescent light is warm and colour-corrected. Hire a professional lighting designer or a retail expert to ensure you have the right lighting. It’s worth the investment and may ultimately save you money and help make sales. A well lit store is like a sunny day; both energize and appeal.

To sell quality merchandise, you need attitude and information. Select the models you can sell and reserve uncluttered space for customers to try things out. Educational signage and groupings of products are best shown off by knowledgeable salespeople. Being a parent is challenging enough without having to make all the decisions yourself, without help. Create a store that is the warm and supportive place where new parents and new grandparents shop with confidence. Offer informed service to help your customers make the right choices. It’s a matter of planning.

Keith Kovar is a partner in the Manhattan-based retail design firm of GRID/3 International. Sarah Yates is the Director of Marketing.