Welcome to a brand new video in the Best Practices in Truckstop Merchandising blog series!
Every other Thursday, I share a video from Darren Schulte, NATSO’s vice president of membership, on one component of truckstop merchandising. Merchandising consists of how you organize the product in your store both physically and financially. With nearly three decades of experience in truckstop and travel plaza operations and merchandising, Schulte is a truckstop merchandising expert.
NATSO Best Practices in Truckstop Merchandising: Store Flow
In today’s video, Schulte walks listeners through the importance of understanding the flow of your store and how to better capitalize on it.
His best practice advice includes:
- It is important and easy to understand the flow of your location. Take a few hours periodically to watch where people go:
- When they first walk in;
- When they go to the bathroom;
- When they want to pay, etc.
- Take a look at your merchandise. Do you have too much redundancy that is resulting in a cluttered store? Does your fuel counter have 20 different things on it making it hard for people to pay?
- After you watch where people go, put end-caps and displays in the places they routinely walk. Use this space for new products, seasonal promotions and high impulse buys.
Tell us in the comments below: What simple things have you done to improve the layout of your store?
Be sure to subscribe to NATSO’s YouTube channel to be alerted every time a new video is added here.
Watch last month's NATSO Best Practices in Truckstop Merchandising: Build Sets to Your Customers here.
// Schulte frequently visits NATSO members to review their locations and offers impactful merchandising and operations improvements. (Learn about joining NATSO here.)
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