Sell the Store, Not the Chair

Sell the Store, Not the Chair
As with all technology, there are positives and negatives.
This is evident with the web as a new marketing source.
Most products are becoming a fast commodity, even if they
were not before. If you are interested in buying a chair,
you can quickly search on Google, eBay, or any other major
search engine, and you will instantly find all chairs of
the kind that you are looking for. You will also know the
appropriate price of that style of chair, give or take a
few dollars.

This wonderful technology makes it much more difficult for
a furniture store to compete in the marketplace. The chair
may be selling for much less on the net, because the
furniture store has a great deal more overhead to run the
business.

In order to overcome the problem of being technologically
put out of business, the furniture store will have to start
selling the benefits of dealing with the store more than
the benefits of buying the individual chair.

Imagine two sales clerks who are approached by a prospect
looking for a new chair. Sales clerk number one takes the
prospect over to the chair that they are interested in and
begins to describe the chair and the price. Armed with
information from the web, the prospect knows the prices
that are available around the country as well as all the
details about the chair. The salesman is in the difficult
position of having to either match the online price or lose
the sale.

Instead of spending time discussing the chair, salesman two
discusses the store. The salesman describes the history of
the store, the customer service philosophy of the owners,
and how the store stands behind its product. When the
prospect and salesman arrive at the demonstration of the
chair, the customer now has additional factors to consider
when comparing the e-store with the furniture store. For
example, the prospect also considers the possibility of
effortless returns or exchanges if problems develop after
the customer takes the chair home.

The purpose of teaching the salesman to spend extra time
with a customer to discuss the store's long-term
relationships with customers is to attempt to educate the
buyer and create brand loyalty. Over time, brand loyalty
and the desire to work with a store that stands behind
their product can overcome many objections, including
pricing. Price is always an important element, but in most
cases and particularly over time, brand loyalty to a local
store is stronger. The key is to make sure that the sale is
made based on the store benefits and not the chair.

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