It's payday weekend - what does it mean to me?

Its payday weekend again - either this weekend or next weekend for your customers, with the last day of June on Tuesday. I've often posted payday weekend notices on my blog here (http://mytimeinretail.blogspot.com/2014/03/it-payday-weekend-again.html & http://mytimeinretail.blogspot.com/2014/02/payday-weekend.html) but without too many mentions of what that actually means. So I'll go back to the basics.

What is payday weekend?

In basic terms, it's the weekend straight after the majority of your customers get paid. This is when they are feeling the most flush with money and traditionally when they spend more of this money. The last week or so of the month before payday has often been where people have cut back and only dorms on essentials. They then break over that threshold and have their monthly salary in their account and are ready to treat themselves again. This is when the pursestrings are loosened.

What is different?

In actuality nothing is different - even more so in these days of ready credit but psychologically people feel that they have more money. And this applies to your team as well. And the difference to the town you operate in is that there are more people out shopping for more items at more money. And you have to prepare differently. Depending on your retail business, you will probably need more staff, more stock and your shop needs to be as ready as it can be in time for the expected footfall. So all non-customer tasks should be completed and out if the way long before the weekend trade really kicks in. Replenishnemt needs to be spot on and targeted in the right areas - as effective as possible and not disruptive to the flow of customers.

To some of you, this may seem like the basics but it's important to ensure that you have a plan and a routine to ready yourself and your team for these occasions, a they can make the difference in gaining new customers and retaining existing customers.

Customers

How you are set up for payday weekends and how your customers experience you at this time sets the time for their future visits. If you are more likely to see customers at this time, then you will have a larger pool of customers to make an impression on than normal. Each customer's experience with you this weekend can determine whether they see you as a delight to shop in (for those of you prepared for the extra trade) or a hassle (for those playing catch-up) and you need to ask yourself what you want to be here. The "delights" will see new customers converted and existing customers retained. The "hassles" will see a slow erosion of their trade.

It's time to step forward!

Not everything can be bought on the High Street-