The instant gratification that comes from impulse purchases can be an important source of revenue for your business. Learn more about different ways to promote impulse buys in your business with the following tips.

What Exactly is Impulse Buying?

Before we jump right into out tips, let’s take a brief moment to consider what impulse buying really is. Regular purchases are usually made after careful consideration. Impulse buys are often made without any thought at all. These impulse buys occur when emotions take over our rational thinking processes, making it difficult to stop once we’ve started buying something.

Most people now buy impulse products without even thinking twice because the instant gratification feels good.

Impulse purchases can be an important part of your sales strategy. Here are some ways to encourage these unplanned purchases at your business.

Increase Your Visibility

How can you get your impulse products seen? Signage! Use eye-catching signs to get the merchandise noticed.

Me mindful when choosing your color palette. Colors like red and yellow are established attention-getters, but you can also use other colors depending your impulse products, audience, and branding.

Further, high-visibility areas (e.g., end caps, checkout counter, etc.) are the perfect places for low-priced items; make them unmissable. You can even set up “impulse buy stations” in areas of your store where shoppers spend the most time.

Be Aware of Your Pricing

Pricing is major point to consider, because impulse buys are most often low-cost products. Consider the types of impulse products you see at the checkouts of many retailers: they are usually smallish and inexpensive, like lip balm or candy, which makes them popular products for customers to purchase at the last minute. If you don’t usually carry inexpensive items, maybe you could offer trial-size versions of your regular-sized products to catch the eye of impulse buyers. Perhaps look ahead to seasonal items that you may be able to work into your merchandising just for this purpose.

Use Baskets in Increase Impulse Buys

When shoppers hands are full, they cannot grab impulse buys. It’s common to keep baskets at the entrance to your store. Consider keep basket racks strategically placed around your store. You can even have employees walking around your store to offer shopping baskets to shoppers with full hands. This way, you also get bonus points for great customer service!

Clever Cross-Merchandising with Complementary Items

Though it might sound counterintuitive, a great time to capitalize on an impulse buy is when your customer has already decided what s/he would like to buy. If your shopper is looking to purchase a specific product, you can spur impulse purchases by recommending complementary additional purchases to the items already in their shopping carts. This is an effective tactic, because the shopper is already halfway to making that impulse buy.

Promote Products That Are Easy To Buy

Many impulse purchases happen because a shopper wants to complete a transaction quickly. Make sure your staff knows how to handle these types of customers. For example, if you sell a lot of gift cards, give your cashiers instructions on how to process them. You might also want to train your staff to help customers find the right size or style of shoe or clothing.

Gift Cards Encourage Impulse Buys

Speaking of gift cards, one of the reasons gift cards work so well is that they essentially promote impulse shopping. Why? Because the card is a gift and gifts trigger our pleasure centers, which can change the shopping experience. For this reason, customers will take their time and cover every inch of your store looking for the perfect treasure to take home. Since they are looking for gift for themselves, emotions are in play. There is no fear about picking the wrong product(s), because the money they are using was a gift; it’s not money they had to earn through hard work, which can often make shoppers give pause when considering an impulse buy.

Hold a Demonstration

Demonstrations are a great way to promote impulse buys, which is why stores like Costco and Meijer and other success brick-and-mortar stores hold them frequently. If you run an apparel store, consider hosting fashion show. If you run a music store, offer free clinics that highlight new instruments/products and how they sound. With a little creativity, you can surely come up with plenty of options for just about any retail stores. Be sure to have plenty of whatever you’re demonstrating in stock and within reach.

Offer Free Samples

You’d have to look far and wide to find a more effective tactic than offering free samples. The average customer usually won’t turn down free stuff. For instance, I enjoy shopping local farmer’s markets, mainly to get my hands on fresh, locally-sourced produce. When another vendor offers me a free sample of organic soap, scented candles, or personally-crafted seasoning packets, I’m almost always walking home with those, too.

In Conclusion

Impulse buying is a great strategy to boost business. There are some things you should know before implementing it into your retailing operation, though. First, you must understand the mindset of the impulse shopper. Second, you need to determine whether your current operations support this type of behavior. Finally, you need to ensure that your staff understands how to handle the situation. Once all three elements are in place, you’re ready to start promoting impulse buys.