What makes parents choose your shop over any other? And what can you do to convince more of them to walk through your door?

In our survey of 280 parents and pregnant women, their biggest reason for shopping at the local independent retailer was for the "chance to find something different" (42%). Other important reasons include being able to have a "Convenient shopping experience" (33%) and finding "Better prices" (32%).

This presents the independent retailer with a challenging balancing act. To help you compete with the nationals like Mothercare and Argos you need to offer something different – whether it’s a specific niche or hard-tofind products that you’ve discovered.

At the same time, the big brands sell. If possible, you may need to offer some of the well-known names and accessories to get people through the door. Some retailers chose to be a specialist for one specific brand, offering a wide range, advice, parts and accessories.

Apart from competing on product range alone – we’ve identified other methods for attracting customers.

Certain items in the list aren’t possible for some independent retailers. If you have a smaller shop that is short of space it could be a challenge to offer changing facilities or places to sit down, relax or feed baby (but if you can – mums chat with other mums, so your personal referrals would be likely to increase). Financial resources and floor space can also restrict whether you’re able to offer a wider range of products.

If you knew you were going to get more return customers could you offer parents a small loyalty discount or perhaps a rewards scheme? If that would be too difficult to administrate – then perhaps combining several baby essentials for a set fee could help entice more customers.

Home delivery and set up is also a popular option – again, if it’s something you wouldn’t have time to do, perhaps a friendly ‘man-with-van’ could work with you

With competition from national and internet retailers, setting yourself up as being known for either selling or doing something different is a way of standing out from the crowd and increasing your customer base.

Gideon Wilkins

Gideon Wilkins is a qualified member of the Market Research Society. He is Managing Director of Wilkinet Ltd, manufacturer of the Wilkinet baby carrier, baby carrier rain cover and the Wilkinet clothing range. Send your questions and comments to:

survey@wilkinet.com, call him on 01239 841844 or visit www.wilkinet.com/survey

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