Every Business owner knows that you need to bring in people to your store to bring in sales. Just as selling is an art, so are marketing and advertising. To have an effective business strategy, every bakery owner must know every detail that might or might not lead to his successful sales.

The truth is that a massive variety of factors influence the footfall you receive every single day.

If you can make these factors work for you or adapt to these factors working against you, you will be flush with insights that help you make hay even when the sun doesn’t shine.

Here are the six major factors that have a direct or an indirect bearing on the sales a bakery makes every day:

1. The Look And Feel Of The Store

Just as a person’s personality matters to a great extent, similarly, the atmosphere that your store creates plays a monumental role in reeling customers in.

One study has found out that customers rank stores subconsciously based on their perceived atmosphere.

In a bakery store, the cleanliness and the ambient lighting play a decisive role in attracting customers, but the ultimate selling point that pushes the sale of food items is food display counters.

If you are a bakery owner who aspires to make phenomenal sales of bakery products, never let the display counter price influence your decision before purchasing one.

Get the best display counter for your bakery that keeps your products refrigerated and safe for consumption. Most importantly, get a display case that presents your food products in the best possible light- both literally and figuratively.

2. Weather

The weather affects what humans think and how humans feel. It is only human for your customers to let their purchase choices be governed by the same. It is no hidden fact that summers are for ice-creams and beaches, and winters are for family dinners by the fireplace.

Similarly, you won’t see much footfall on days when the weather is at its extremities – snow in the winter or the scorching summer heat.

When the weather is pleasant, you will see a dramatic increase in footfall, with individuals and families visiting you to take away cupcakes, muffins, biscuits, and cakes or to enjoy pastries and other delicacies at your store itself.

To counter the weather during tough times, you can always run special summer and winter discounts that pull people out of their couches, into their cars, and into your shop.

3. Location

Is your shop in a residential area or a commercial one? Is it in the centre of the city or on the outskirts? Is it easily accessible by road or will people have to walk to get to you? Are the roads that lead to you bustling with traffic or are comparatively less crowded with cars? People that pass you by are often in a hurry, or are they often looking for something to buy? Are the residents that live around your shop economically well-off, or are they from a low earning part of the populace?

Looks like that there are too many questions to ask over just the location. No, not at all.

It would be best if you asked yourself these questions, better sooner than later.

You don’t need to get overwhelmed by these questions; neither should these discourage you.

The answer to each of the above questions holds the solution you need to incorporate into your sales strategy. Adapt to your surroundings, get creative with your signages, study the crowd that always drops in to take a look, and contemplate over ways in which you can turn them into regular customers. Create creative ways of serving the community that surrounds you without burning a hole in your pocket.

The best way to decide on an ideal location is to identify your target audience and think about where they live, work, and eat. You will experience an enormous jump in traffic if you can find a location that’s convenient and accessible for your target customer.

4. Economy

Getting a grip of the current economic condition of your country and your prospective customers is of utmost importance to help your business thrive despite the highs and lows of the economy.

The worst transpires for any business during a recession.  Basically, companies resort to cost-cutting to stay profitable during such times, which means the workforce is cut down, and those working have less or no money to spend on things other than their basic necessities.

A select few items of a bakery business, such as bread, toasts, sandwiches, etc., classify as basic necessities for many. Still, other items such as cakes, pastries, biscuits, and muffins might see a decline in sales. Suppose you are a bakery store in a region that is facing recession. In that case, you can keep your business afloat by closing your business’s needs-offers gap, which is the gap between what the customer needs and your business offers.

Other than that, if you have ample space at your disposal, you can always set up a lit-up photogenic area that becomes the talk of the town.

If there are restrictions on space, you can

5. Type Of Business

If you are a store that sells Christmas trees, it is no surprise that your tree will bear fruit only once a year. Thankfully, a bakery business is the one that remains in business throughout the year, so you wouldn’t face the enormous challenges that other businesses might.

Also, footfall is not a question of marketing or luck; it is heavily dependent on what type of good or service you provide that cannot be matched elsewhere online.

To understand this further, we will have to closely examine two businesses that attract the most footfall: McDonald’s and Subway.

Both McDonald’s and Subway offer affordable food that isn’t available for delivery online, paired with easy-to-access delivery locations. Once you reach their store, it gets easier to access their services.

6. Marketing Efforts Of The Business

The internet is full of thousands of marketing ideas that promise an exponential increase in sales. But the most effective ones that bring people to your store are the ones that engage the community at a grand scale. As a bakery, you can offer increasing discounts with the increase in the number of visitors. Special discounts for families and couples. Offering eatables that can be enjoyed in twos and groups of more.

Organise sweepstakes contests for in-store visitors. Share coupons that can be redeemed only in the store through email newsletters.

The post 6 Factors that Affect The Footfall Of A Bakery Business first appeared on TamilDada.