What gets your attention

Getting a customer’s business with slot machine techniques

Only if you are well up in years will you remember going into a casino and experiencing a mechanical slot machine. When 1964 rolled around the first hybrid or electromechanical arrived in your favorite casino.

It was 1976 when slot machines began to transition to what we now know as the computerized video slot machine. As with many other items that have become digital, the slot machine of today could be a lot simpler and a lot smaller. They could be completely quiet.

Perhaps the most noticeable change is that today’s slot machine gives winnings by way of a piece of paper instead of with coins. Yet, today’s machine looks a lot like the machine of some 60 years ago. Why?

We suggest the answer will have a strong connection to the way you merchandise your store.

A casino is very unique. A person has an expectation when they enter; there is a certain level of lighting; a closeness of the games and slot machines; a smell, although tempered by cigarette and cigars, no clocks to remind you how long you have been there, and the noise of slot machines talking to you and bells, and the sound of coins, ringing to announce winners.

Sensory overload! Whether a person got their impression from a movie; stories from a friend; or from their first trip to a casino, all of what we have noted come into play. And there is a certain “sameness” to casinos whether they be in Las Vegas where people play for hundreds of thousands of dollars or a small town where they play for a couple hundred dollars.

Now let’s look at your store. Most people have five senses; sight; hearing; touching; tasting; and smelling. These same senses that work in a casino to engage people can work in your store.

Unlike casinos, our stores do not have a need for that sameness. If we want to compete with something other than low price and size of our sales floor, we need a strong uniqueness.

Sight is always a challenge, due in large part to the merchandising assistance we receive from our vendors. But, once a customer gets past your front door and the sign announcing the name of your store, what do they see? Usually it is a collection of vendor provided illuminated signs along with stack out displays and in the absence of vendor provided displays, we show the products in the same cases used when the product arrived at our store. (Sameness)

Smell; We notice a business that has a unique, attractive smell to it but for a store that does nothing we think nothing. Think about walking into a Bath and Body Works store. Granted you are smelling the products they sell, but our stores could also easily have an attractive smell to them. We would then have a unique difference when compared to other stores.

Hearing; Unfortunately, many settle for playing a radio station the staff likes. Sometimes it is the radio station we advertise on that customers hear. We are reminded of a study we read that suggested the best background sound you can have is light instrumental jazz.

Uniquely it is not because it is so well liked. It is because it is the genre of music that is the least “dis-liked” by your customers. You know the expression of, “you can’t please everyone”; this music is the “you offend the least” genre.

Taste; Depending on your state laws, this sense has a lot of possibility. Think of the light snacks that you have at home when enjoying a mixed drink, beer or glass of wine. If your laws do not allow your store to sell this merchandise, what about inviting a cheese shop, or even a grocery store, to offer a tasting much like you do when vendors want to have a tasting?

Touch; While the easiest to implement and with a minimal expense, touch only requires instruction and practice with your staff. Instead of your staff telling a customer what aisle an item or group of items is located on; and even instead of walking the customer to that same aisle; the part that increases sales by some 15% is that of putting the merchandise in the customer’s hands. There is a psychological experience happening as the customer is now mentally owning the product they have asked about; all because they have touched it.

As the gambling industry, which does billions of dollars each year with on-site customers, sees fit to retain the components that appeal to the five senses, perhaps it is appropriate to suggest in your store you invest in each as well.

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This article is copyrighted by Tom Shay and Profits Plus Solutions, who can be reached at: PO Box 128, Dardanelle, AR. 72834. Phone 727-823-7205. It may be printed for an individual to read, but not duplicated or distributed without expressed written consent of the copyright owner.