Increasing Revenue without Raising Prices

Your business could always be doing better. There will always be room to improve in anything you do and like most businesses revenue turn over would be high on that list. Of course the obvious choice to increase revenue would be to raise prices within your venue, but this isn’t always the best decision. In a lot of cases, raising your prices will alienate those loyal followers or the budget conscious clientele, so unless your margins are decreasing due to suppliers and materials costing more than a lot of times its best to avoid this option if possible.

We explore a few tips and tricks that could be implemented within your business to increase the number of customers, traffic and sales without resorting to raising prices and therefore increasing revenue without raising prices.

Sell more

Do you want fries with that? - Use your POS to upsell

It’s a classic, and it is that way for a reason. The simple fries upsell is an effective model to implement within your business to increase your customers average purchase size.

Nearly every item sold at cafes and restaurants and even in retail stores can be offered with an upsell, and the reason your store may not be achieving that is because your staff are just forgetting to offer the customer the add on. So why not use your POS to prompt a staff member on those certain items? You can literally make your Point of Sale direct your staff member to offer customers upsells as a workflow addition. Adding simple prompts on items such as burgers for add ons like bacon for $2 extra, more cheese for $1, buy this meal and you can get this drink for $5, are all simple things that over time will add up to a much bigger picture.

Increase the number of customers

Attention Attention, Read all about it

Yes of course this is an obvious one. If you sell something to 100 people at $5 each then you will make more money than if you sold the same to only 50 people. But the question is how do you get those customers through the door?

The answer to this is a tricky one and there isn’t a one set model that will work for every business out there, but a simple answer lies in Marketing. Marketing your business to the masses who have social media and tweaking your offering to entice them can help.

A first stop at looking to get these customers through your doors is through their smart phones. A large portion of your customers have a mobile phone and all of them need to eat at some stage, so why not tap into their pockets and offer a convenient offer that is too good to refuse.

This is where you need to make sure your business has an online presence. If customers want to know where the best coffee is in town, or where sells a particular type of product, most will turn to the internet for answers. So by making sure that you have as much detail as possible about your store in as many places as you can think of can be a great way to capture clientele. Set up social accounts that have all the information needed, from daily trading hours, specials, and if you are a cafe or restaurant your FULL venue menu. Having this kind of information at your customers fingers tips will drastically help them search for just what they are in the mood for. Read more here >>

Order ahead

Investing in putting your business onto an order ahead application is a smart way to increase your exposure. Apps like Boppl allow you to list your store in a proximity search of your customer who can then place an order, pay and collect at a time that is convenient to them. Programs like this can also integrate with your Point of Sale so that you can get the full benefit. It streamlines your work flow as orders are automatically received on the till, eliminating the possibility of manual entering errors and payment is automatic so your staff can focus on what they do best, preparing the magic.

While this technique isn’t going to send droves of new customers your way it definitely gives you an opportunity to not be over looked and capture those customers who are in too much of a rush to wait in long queues at busy times.

Reward your loyal customers

Acquiring new customers costs five times as much as it does to keep an exisiting one so building a loyal relationship is an easier alternative to increase your sales.

While not a constant, it is proven that having a customer loyalty program does increase repeat business within your store. Implementing a program effectively increase the frequency of transactions by offering little rewards and incentives for purchases.

It could be as simple as offering something like buy 9 coffees and receive your 10th free, this can often be incentive enough, and you can also look to manage this within your POS system. Which is a great way to reduce the need for those pesky clip cards that the customer keeps on them or forgets and leaves at home under a pile of loose change. Having your customers details in your POS system is a great way to continue to offer them tailored specials and marketing. You will have a complete history of what that customer has purchased and what trends, styles or types they like, giving you the insight to push across offers they can’t refuse!

You can also offer those loyal customer an incentive for introducing a friend to your venue, which is a double bonus, as it gets you more foot traffic and a solid introduction to new customers that could also turn into regulars.

These are some great options to explore and try out within your venue before looking to raise your prices to boost your revenue a little more. Of course you are not always going to be able to avoid price increases, there will always be supplier cost increases, and the price of production can always change but unless your margin is is minimal and reducing these are some areas to look at first. Some great sure fire ways to use the tools that are readily at your disposal to expand your business and grow your revenue just a little more.