Do you want to increase sales in your antique mall? If YES, here are 10 best ways to increase sales in antique malls. Antique malls are more or less shopping malls that offer shoppers the opportunity to browse through a varying range of items that are considered to be collectibles.
Various stores or booths in the antique mall may be devoted to such items as furnishings, clothing, jewellery, and even appliances. In some cases, the mall is located in sites formerly occupied by department stores, such as the anchor store space in a strip mall.
Note that one of the primary reasons why so many people enjoy antiquing at a mall of this type is the wide range of selections. Unlike a single antique store, where the type and number of available items is usually more limited, the antique mall creates a selling platform for collectors of both the usual and the unusual.
Have it in mind that stores of this type are likely to carry more predictable items like beds, dressers, and sofas, as well as hard to find items like fainting couches, original wood burning stoves, tapestries, and even authentic period clothing from eras gone by. Even for people who are not looking for a particular item, browsing through an antique mall may provide hours of enjoyment.
As demographics change and large department stores move to new areas of the city that are growing in population, a good number of these older shopping hubs fall into decay or are torn down to make room for new construction.
Whether you open an antique store or an antique mall, you need customers in both the situations. Acquiring customers for your antique mall is not some kind of a child’s play, but requires a solid amount of hard work and purposeful marketing. Here are some of the most practical ways to increase trade in your antique mall business.
10 Ways to Increase to Sales in Antique Mall
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Create Some Helpful Resources
There are so many antique malls in nearly every region of the country. You are going to want people to trust that yours is the one they should visit first. Note that you can do that by ensuring that you are offering up some helpful resources on various antique types. It is not actually important what these resources are, but showing that you have these resources means a lot to the antique collector.
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Make a Real Website
A real and meaningful website is the face of your antique mall or store. In this age, very few people have taste and money for purchasing antique items. Your target is to get those few customers into your mall. The information that you put on your website should be captivating for the educated section of the society. Consumers today have very little extra money to spend on antiques. You are trying to attract the few that do, and those individuals are likely intelligent and successful. You should have a website that doesn’t immediately turn them off from the idea of shopping with you.
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Blog
According to experts, Antique malls are lucky because they may actually have the easiest products to market. You can blog every day in just a few minutes and build mountains of content in no time. Post that content to your social media sites as well, and you’ll find that your products start to sell quickly.
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Location Pages
At any stage you should start to develop location pages that are designed specifically to attract other people in your city or state. You don’t want to limit yourself to your specific city. You want to make sure that no matter where someone is, if they are within driving distance of your antique mall, they are willing to come down.
Only very few antique malls take the time to market their website, so if you are adding content and ensuring that your site is marketed well, there is a good chance you are going to rank well for all of the locations you enter.
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Create Social Media Profiles
First and foremost, social media is overrated for a lot of businesses. If you are a roofer, for instance, you are not going to get a lot of business because you run an active Twitter account. People really aren’t that interested in keeping in touch with their roofers. It is nice to have them, but it is not going to make you rich. But antique malls are different. Antique stores regularly get new items that may be of interested to the antique shopper.
Building relationships with those that love your antiques is actually incredibly valuable – far more than most antique stores realize – and so you should create a Facebook and Twitter account at minimum (maybe even a Pinterest), because this will keep those that regularly shop at antique stores up to date with changes or new products in your store, and possibly get them to come back when they see something they are interested in. You can also use it to announce sales, which is great for driving in business, and if people come to you asking if you have a certain product you can address them directly.
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Provide An Organized Look To Your Mall
Nobody will be impressed by the dirty appearance of your antique mall. Note that keeping antique items inside your mall doesn’t mean that you will be negligent towards its cleanliness. Additionally, give it a touch of a systematic outlook. Display more captivating items near the window or a glass door. People walking past your mall will certainly notice them.
- Promote Community Or Club Events
Reaching out for community events where you can openly share information about your antique mall adds worth to your promotional efforts. Nonetheless, if you have enough space close to your mall, then you can specifically allot that place for a book club event. Invite all the local bookaholics and shopkeepers for a small event and acquaint them with the brand new collector’s items over a cup of coffee.
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Word Of Mouth Marketing Is Essential
This is another way to directly market your antique mall. Old customers, friends, family, and business partners can be helpful medium to make new customers hear about your mall. If the words appeal to them, then you can look forward to a good selling deal.
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Take Advantage of All Free Strategies
Make sure that you are on Yelp and any other free posting places that people go to in order to find posts. If you are on Yelp and have few reviews, see if you can offer incentives to customers that are willing to review your business. They should be genuine, but if you have a regular customer, think about offering them a 10 percent discount on their purchase if they write a review. The more reviews you have, the more you’ll show up in Yelp searches, which will garner you more business.
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Prevent theft
In any retail business, there are the associated factors of shrink and loss. There will be items stolen, damaged, or misplaced within the antique mall. You would be naïve to think that it won’t happen to your mall, but you can absolutely put preventative measures into practice. Security cameras, theft-deterring signage, mirrors, and other theft deterrents will have that shoplifter walking right on by. Reducing loss will ensure that you get to keep more of those hard-earned dollars.
While many may think that an antique mall would be an expensive place to shop, the fact is that many items carried in malls of this type are very affordable. Some of the items are not restored, making them attractive bargains. However, to make this business successful, you need not only great items but also great customers, and to get these customers, consider these strategies and tips mentioned above.