You know how there are always those conversations, that for some reason, just seem to stay with you? Years later, you can still recall exactly where you were, what the weather was like, even the sounds in the background?
The other day I was on a podcast, and the host asked me for a quick quote to finish up the episode and I said “The more money we make, the more people we serve”
Well of course, the episode DIDN’T end there, because he wanted to go deeper into the conversation.

And the first thing that popped into my head, was sitting on a train in new york a few years ago. I was catching the subway to the NRF show when I overheard two girls talking about how "money was evil". For a good 20 minutes (that's how long my ride was) they pretty much derided any person who had money. Kim K's life was "unattainable" this was pre the Kanye breakup). Some other so called celebrity I'd never heard of had "forgotten where she came from". And really, money is just plain eveil.

I didn't say anything (I know, shocking right!) but I was completely swept up in the conversation. Holding my ipad, trying my best  not to look straight at them. You know how you always want to look at someone when you’re interested in what they’re saying, clearly I would not make a good spy.

So I’m listening the them, but at the same time, in my mind, I’m kind of having an argument with them about how GREAT money is. I mean, I'd flown to the USfirst class (thanks to my frequent flyer miles and a measly $120), I was staying in a nice apartment, but most importantly, I was on the other side of the world, attending a conference to learn something new.
Now I’m a pretty easy to please kind of person. I’d rather have a good burger than a fancy 3 course dinner. I don’t own a $2,000 handbag and I like to DIY. Maybe it’s the fact I grew up pretty poor, so small things make me feel rich. Heck, I challenge anyone to NOT feel rich when you’ve flown first class for $120 right?

Meanwhile, my business was supporting my family and my team and I was adding to the local economy. Sure, I'm no where near being a billionaire, but having lived a life of borderline poverty and a nice middle class life, I can safely say, life is pretty good when you have money. You can support others and give to charity. You can make the world a much nicer place. And the good news is, you don't have to be a b* tch in the process.

Your business is there to make you money, so that you can live the life you want, what ever that looks like.

So, to make more money, we’ve got to do 2 things. Increase our profit margin and increase our sales, preferably both.
I’m going to cover the profit part first, because we don’t want you to end up growing broke. Been there, done that, had to sell my house to get out of the crapper. You don’t need to go there, ok. Learn from mistakes

Now when I opened my business, I did it because you couldn’t buy the things I wanted in AUstralia.
I had no retail experience, heck I didn’t even have sales experience, because before this, I was managing  hundreds of guys, contractors and before that, I was wandering around in people’s backyards as Tree Preservation officer for the local council.

Even my so called previous retail experience, was stocking shelves in the freezers in a supermarket. I’d go hours without actually speaking to anyone!

But here I am, passionate about making sure that YOU can sell more products to your customers AND make money in the process.

WHy, because I truly believe that the more we sell, the more people we help.

So, when i first opened my store, I had no idea how to price my products. So I did what I know a lot of people do. I googled the product, saw how much other people were selling it for and bam, I had my pricing.

Fast forward a couple of months, and just a backstory, we were in the middle of the GFC, which was very similar to what we’re seeing economically right now, and my sales are increasing, but I have less money in the bank.
Like seriously wtf is happening here.

Now you probably know where this is going, right?
I had no idea of what it cost for me to operate my business.
So, I had no idea what margins I needed to be profitable.

Wetbag story (you’ll need to find this in the audio - it’s about a bag that was $29.99 and I did it off the cuff)

Ok, so now that I’ve hammered home the importance of being profitable, lets look at how you can price your products to increase sales

So to get more sales, we need to either get new people to buy our products, expensive, or existing customers to shop with us more often, agreed.
The second is much cheaper, but you don’t want to fall into the trap of only doing this or you’ll exhaust your database.

Something that I don’t see nearly enough indie retail and ecommerce store owners, using, to increase sales, is subscriptions.
I get my toilet paper on subscription, I get my hair product auto shipped to me on subscription, my vitamins, pretty much anything that is consumable, can be a subscription.

I did some research and in a global study, aside from food and bev, 

38% subscribe to personal care products

34% to household products

32% to clothing

26% to toys games and books and

26% to pet products.
People, as customers, we want our buying to be EASY

And of course, the easier you make it for us to buy, the longer we stick around. On average, a customers lifetime value can increase anything up to 200%

The bonus of the subscription model is that it helps you to forecast your inventory and provides MRR, which in biz speak, is monthly recurring revenue. A consistent amount you know is going to show up in your bank account every month.
And MRR is something you can take all the way to the bank!

No sometimes when you see subscriptions, you’ll see a spend and save. For my vitamins, it’s subscribe and get it 5% cheaper. You don’t have to do that, in my case, I simply do the subscription, so I don’t run out, but as we all have experienced, people are tightening their belts, and so sometimes that simple 5%, which, remember, can double the amount of times your customers spends with you, its a fair trade off.
So taking this model, and flipping the script a little, you can look at tiered pricing.

Now you’ll often see this with services, the gold, silver and bronze package, but not so much in retail and ecom, but I think it should be used more often, or at least tested.

I know one of the homewares stores near me charges a $100 sign up fee, and you get 10-15% of the RRP.
As a customer, once you spend $900, with your discounts, everything after that is money back in your pocket

Now you might be thinking, I can't afford to give 15% off, but I’m pretty sure the non member price is stacked in the stores favour.

Now, one of the biggest mistakes I see retailers making, other than just chagrin what othe r people are chagrin, is that the price their products based on how much THEY would be prepared to spend.
But you all, retailers are tightasses. We are so used to paying wholesale , we have a distorted view of how much value a customer place  on a product.
And I use this example often. C warm bottle of coca cola in a supermarket is what 2.50 for a 2L bottle, but a COLD can of coca cola, in a convenience store, where you can grab and go, is ⅙ of the amount, but can sell for anywhere from $3 - 5. Twice as much, but you want it cold, and you don’t want to schlep into a grocery store and wait in a queue to pay.nI did a podcast with Dean Salakas from The Party People and he was telling me, that they charge more for a party staple, like a paper plate, because they have a large range, and people want the convenience of buying  the plates, the hats etc in one go.

Pricing for your business, is a crucial part of your business strategy. Because your overheads, your costs, are going to be different to your competitors. It doesn’t matter what you sell, you have to make money. Now of course, there will be that critical oint, where you might overprice something, to a point where your customers don’t see the value.
And this is where something like our PPM comes in handy. Being able to map out margins versus sell through rate. No point having a product that has a fantastic margin, but you only sell 4 a year. I tried that in my store when we stocked this fancy baby bags. I loved them, everyone LOVED them, but no one freaking bought them. I think we sold 4  in a year. Those bags were $200-300 and now I cringe, and how many tens of thousands of dollars i lost as a result of having that poor moving product for my store.

So, that leads us to psychology. You’ve probably noticed a lot of products are priced at $4.99, $24.99, I call it the Penny effect - in sales, we do this to make something appear CHEAPER than it is.
So in our brains, $24,99 is better value than $25. We can argue it, but so many studies have been done on this, let me just assure you, that if you have a brand or you have a range, that is pitched at the affordable customer, try changing out the price to .99.
However. If you have a premium brand, and trust me, i researched it for you  to the prada site - Prada Re-Edition 1978 small Re-Nylon backpack

AUD 3,350

Davis H Sellier cap - AU$1,045

Louis Vuitton wallet, $2770

There is not a 99 in sight. Because, these premium brands don’t need to convince their customers to buy.
So if you have a premium brand is this something you can try out. Rounding up to a full number.

Or as a retailer, can you adjust your pricing, to make those more premium brands stand out, from the more affordable range.

And of course, this also works on price tiers, so the pair of jean that’s $99.99 is always going to be perceived as a lot more affordable than the pair that are $120. Even though, the difference is only $20.

So let’s just quickly recap before I get onto the last one
So far we’ve got MRR - subscriptions

Tiered pricing, especially the members vs non members

The convenience factor - people will pay more to be able to get what they want quickly

The penny factor - using 99 versus whole dollars

And my last one, is the Better than Chocolate bundle.
When I bought a new podcast mic, in fact, whenever I have to buy anything that;s is music adjacent, like my prompter pedal, I always go to one particular store.
They aren’t the cheapest, BUt they will help me set up what ever I buy.
So when I bought my prompter pedal, they connected it up to my ipad, tested it out, made sure the remote on my phone worked - I walked out with a plug and play system. Same with my podcast mic.
So you might be thinking, well sal, what you’re paying for is service. Yes and no, what I’m paying for is something that I value more, potentially the product itself. BEcause if I spend $700 on a mic, and then can't get it to work perfectly, i’ll waste time, ‘ll be annoyed, I’ll be cranky with the store I bought it from, and likely, my podcast won't go out in time, frustrating my team.

So, if you’re a homewares store, and you offer to let customers by a selection of cushions and returns the ones they don’t want, this can be a nightmare. No one ever wants to do refunds, the products can get stained or dirty in transit, your team then have to argue with the customer, but what if, you had a service, where people could upload a picture of their space and your team, with their excellent styling eye, chose the best selection.
That selection isn’t going to be based necessarily on price (which is something that a shopper like me would make choices on, because I’m a tightass), but rather what works best in the space.
Now when I shop for cushions, I am NOT buying the $120 ones. I can’t see the value, But maybe that’s because no one has every shown me just how good my sofa, or my bed could look, with the exact right cushions.

So, ask yourself, and more importantly, ask your customers, what extra thing they would want, that would be of more value to them, than the product itself.
A strategy like this, could literally double your sales overnight.
Speaking of which that is the perfect segue to my upcoming 5 day challenge “How to Double Your Sales in 90 days”.

Not only will you get strategies like these in the session on how to create a predictable and repeatable repeatable plan to increase your revenue

But, you’ll be rolling up your sleeves and taking action to change the trajectory of your business. Working on your business but also, working on yourself. Right now, I bet you’re the driving force behind your business. So if you’re feeling flat, if you’re in a rut, if you’re not coming up with great ideas, then the business is going to suffer, right?

So I’m teaching you the strategies and the mindset changes, you need to make to double your sales in 90 days.
Yep, it sounds big, it sounds bold, that's one of our core values here at the retail strategists, bold, knowledgeable and insightful, So are you ready to come along and learn how to do it?

I’ll be giving you real life examples, that you can take and put into place in your retail or ecommerce store.
Just like this podcast. If you take just one  of these strategies away and implement, how much more money could you make? How many more sales, how many more customers could you get, by implementing, not all 5, but just 1?

But, you gotta do the work.
SImply listening to this podcast won’t change a thing,

You have to take action

I don’t want you listening this on your phone whilst you’re walking your dog, or you’re running on the treadmill at the gym and thinking, oh that’s cool.
Commit to taking action

And it’s going to be the same in this challenge.

You’re going to have to show up and do the work
It’ll be confronting
It will probably be emotional

I can safely say, It will be the smack in the face and the kick up the rear that you know that you’ve probably needed to get you unstuck.

So head over to salenaknight.com/challange, I want you to secure your spot. I’ll be teaching these classes, you’ll hear about the mistakes I’ve made, the strategies that worked and how other retailers just like you have implemented this into their retail and ecom businesses.

You guys know I’m straight shooter, so I’m giving you the heads up. I‘m creating this content for you in advance, to prepare you to make a financial decision that's going to make a financial decision that’s going to change your life and business.

Just like these strategies you’ve got handed to you on a plate today.
Let’s quickly recap them

So far we’ve got MRR - subscriptions

Tiered pricing, especially the members vs non members

The convenience factor - people will pay more to be able to get what they want quickly

The penny factor - using 99 versus whole dollars

And my last one, is the Better than Chocolate bundle.

This my friends, is how you price your products to increase sales.

Thanks so much for listening, and send me a DM and let me know which one of these you put in place and the results you get.
You might just end up as one of those real life examples in the challenge.

Back when I first opened my business, the economy looked a lot like it does now.
It was the Global Financial Crisis, people were tightening their belts, interest rates were rising…

But there were still things that would sell.

And for me, it was these super cool wet/dry bags that i used to import from America
(fun fact, nearly 20 years later I STILL use those same bags, but I digress).
I started out selling them for $29.95, but with exchange rates blowing out, fuel price increase affecting shipping prices and import duty, I had no idea how one of my competitors could still be selling them for $29.95.

What were they doing, that I wasn’t?

Click to find out

 >> Want to Double Your Sales in 90 Days? Join my FREE Challenge here <<