What is retailing about?

Like any other business, retailing is about making profits, in this case by selling products to customers who visit your premises or website. The more you sell, the bigger your profit. Whatever retail format he or she is using, the retailer wants the customer to come back as often as possible. The better the relationship created with the customer, the more products the retailer will sell. Every relationship thrives on good communications, and your objective as copywriter is to present the core messages in a way that fosters strong customer rapport.

Products play an active role in the communications chain by attracting the customer’s eye and promoting their benefits in the most appealing way.

The hierarchy of retail communication

Dividing the mass of retail briefs into categories or types is a good way to break down the task of writing and to profi le the customer accurately at every step.

The categories are:

Your messages should help create a sense of place

Retailing is a simple process. Stores invite the public onto the premises and serve their needs as well as they possibly can. It’s a fundamental relationship. The problem is that the customers are free to go wherever they like. Retailers don’t expect one hundred percent market share, but they do need regular and repeat customers. While many struggle and fail, the retailer who understands the marketplace in detail and depth, and works hard to give customers exactly what they want, in the way they like it best – whether it’s bargain deals or luxury goods – will succeed.

Retail design is highly sophisticated, bursting with graphic displays, marketing promotions, and eye-catching products – all carrying messages as part of the mission to “delight the customer” and “exceed expectations.” Most retailers use some form of copy to attract more people into their store, to sell more of certain items, and to encourage them to spend more than they were planning to. Satisfied shoppers will be inclined to return to the places they like and make repeat purchases. If you’re writing retail copy your objective is to help create a strong sense of place, of belonging, comfort, and familiarity that the shopper will recognize, enjoy, and feel at home with.

“In the 1960s, if you introduced a new product to America, 90 percent of the people who viewed it for the first time believed in the corporate promise. Then 40 years later if you performed the same exercise less than 10 percent of the public believed it was true. The fracturing of trust is based on the fact that the consumer has been let down.”

Howard Schultz, founder of Starbucks

Whether within a local or specialist store run by a friendly storekeeper or for chains of larger stores, messages that guide or inform the customer and show the retailer’s personality greatly enhance the service provided by sales assistants. Shoppers don’t always want direct assistance, but will absorb the written messages posted around them as they browse, and will get to know the retailer and the products better. This helps to build a strong relationship with the customers – it’s your role to pitch the message to them in the right tone of voice.

It’s not just about each message, it’s the in-store “clutter” too

Writing individual customer messages, from promotional offers to in-store advertisements, from directional signage to customer service promises, is not too difficult in itself. These could be identifying different parts of the store (men’s, children’s, outdoor, bargains, etc.), highlighting where to pay, or explaining a price offer next to a product range. These messages usually require short, plain and simple copy (the sort that you feel anyone could write, but that actually requires a great deal of effort to perfect).

With these briefs, being clear, succinct, and on-brand is a challenge. This type of writing is all about the best use of one or two words. For example, is there a better way to say “3 for 2”? Should the message be “buy two get one free!” or “three for the price of two!” or “save 33% when you buy three!”, and how do we explain the rule that it’s the lowest-priced item that is the free one? Is there a better way of saying “Cheapest item free”? Do customers now know what BOGOF (buy-one-get-one-free) means, and can we just slap BOGOF next to a product range? Not only are these surprisingly knotty problems to tackle, but a lot of senior people, all with ideas of their own, will have to sign off the copy. This is less about creative writing, and more about the best – and most appropriate – use of language. Your role is to control the language used to ensure that it remains on-brand and is also as succinct and clear as possible. You would probably recommend “3 for 2 (cheapest item is free),” sacrificing your urge to create something wonderful and unique to the cause of impact and maximum take-up.

After all of the sweat and tears that can go into creating and signing off a new promotional line, you can be caught out by the “clutter” of in-store customer messages. Visit a branch of any major retailer and you could find promotions from last month still on display, next to this month’s. You could find homemade promotions displayed next to your national campaign (store managers like to do it their way), bits of other promotions mixed in with yours, or bits taken off (store staff can do a lot with the bits of display material they receive from head office). You may also find supplier-funded promotions clashing with all of this, confused even more by the directional signage. In a sea of cardboard, most messages will become soggy and drown.

These issues are all to do with proper and efficient store management, together with central control of the messages being created. The way in which the head office and stores communicate with each other is also a vital component. All of this is out of your hands. As the writer, all you can do is try to be aware of this bigger picture at all times, and to ensure that while the individual promotions may fight for space, they do not clash with or compete against each other.

Many supermarkets and warehouse-style retailers work to a system or hierarchy (in the form of a basic grid or table that categorizes customer messages into three or four types and prescribes how each will be written) that arranges their messages into clear levels and categories, with strict rules that have to be maintained. These are sometimes referred to as “value-pricing systems.” This is very restricting, and can be extremely frustrating for you, because your writing will come out looking the same as everyone else’s and you will have no room to think laterally. However, it does ensure that the overall effect of the myriad messages will not overpower the customer.

In-store messages can achieve the following:

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