For small businesses with brick-and-mortar stores, foot traffic is (almost) everything. That’s bad news for both rural towns and small business hubs like San Francisco or New York, which haven’t yet recovered to pre-pandemic foot traffic levels.
With fewer people walking along city streets and a seasonal dip in sales after the holidays, small retailers face a challenge: how to attract customers to their stores.
In 2024, small businesses will need to get creative to bring potential customers through the door. A simple neon sale sign will no longer do the trick. Here are three ways you can help increase foot traffic to your store(s):
1. Ingrain your business into the local culture.
Take time to get to know your regulars and connect with new customers on a deeper level by bringing people together. Use your store to host fun community events like book signings, trivia, live music, classes, etc. To add even more revenue, offer snacks or drinks for sale during the event. For example, a local brewery may host an “Arts and Craft(s) Beer Night” or a clothing boutique might offer weekly yoga or meditation classes.
Also, don’t be afraid to tap into your neighbors. Could you place special vouchers for in-store discounts at the concession stands at local youth sports games? Sponsor a local rotary club event? Join forces with local merchants and/or business councils to find ways to bring more people to your store through shared community efforts? The more value you can offer customers and your local community, the more loyalty your business will receive.
2. Prioritize customer convenience over everything.
Audit your business around how convenient it is for customers, and be ruthless. Walk around your store as if you were a customer. What do you notice? Do customers have options to shop in the way most convenient for them?
For example, a recent GoDaddy survey revealed that 73 percent of Gen Z and 83 percent of millennials said buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS) is important to them, but only one in three (34 percent) small businesses offer it. Smart point-of-sale devices work in sync with your website so you can easily provide in-store pickup options. This service can also get folks coming into your store more often.
3. Create an attractive and “Instagrammable” space.
These days, consumers are aesthetic-minded, and the more appealing a space looks, the more people will want to check it out.
Can you paint a mural in your parking lot? Or perhaps a social media moment inside your store that provides a fun backdrop where customers can take selfies? You can even offer customers discounts for posting those pictures using your brand’s official hashtag to their own social pages.
Also, keep color psychology in mind when building that attention-grabbing wall or considering your overall store design. According to the Institute for Color Research, people make a subconscious judgment about an environment or product within the first 90 seconds — and between 62 percent and 90 percent of that assessment is based on color alone. Warmer colors like red and yellow illicit excitement, while colors like green and blue give feelings of relaxation or trust. Be strategic with your color choices.
With more opportunities to shop online and in-person, small businesses are increasingly tasked with finding new ways to capture consumers’ attention. But with innovation comes opportunity. Use events, social media, and payments technology like curbside pickup to build more touchpoints with your customers. Who knows, a couple of small changes could be all you need to get some more feet through the door.
Pranay Agrawal, director of product at GoDaddy, oversees payment experiences and apps that simplify the way small businesses accept payments.
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