Adventures with Corndog: Corndog's Fish Store
- Thread starter Corndog
- Start date
opiate82
Bronze Squire
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Loyalty is more about getting your current customers to spend more money than they would have otherwise. Yes, if you provide a good service and product they will be back, but once you get them back you want to maximize returns by trying to drive up incremental sales on that customer.
Money wise, I agree Corndog should focus his advertising efforts on getting customers in the door. But since he said he has a built in loyalty program already (financial investment is made) as long as he has time, he should absolutely put in some sort of loyalty program. It can be a huge revenue generator for retail.
Money wise, I agree Corndog should focus his advertising efforts on getting customers in the door. But since he said he has a built in loyalty program already (financial investment is made) as long as he has time, he should absolutely put in some sort of loyalty program. It can be a huge revenue generator for retail.
Internet wise I have become a sponsor of the local aquarium fish forum. I also have a website that aims to put up a new picture of a fish from the store every day. This will feed the link onto Facebook. I also setup a mailchimp account and have a newsletter with 15 subscribers so far, most of which are not friends or family so far.
I've confirmed my google places account with the snail mail so far. Waiting for the store to be built out to have a friend who is a professional photographer take a bunch of pictures to seed yelp and google places.
I have not started the keyword targeting on the website yet. An overall overhaul will be happening this week most likely.
There's an email list for a local club that I'm already well known in and once the soft open happens feb 1st. I'll be posting to there frequently, becoming a sponsor and getting a monthly ad announcement there.
I agree about focusing on getting people in the door. However the square register app for the ipad has a built in loyalty program. Which lead me to the research. In all reality I'll just use that program, as I expect them to upgrade it quit a bit within the next year etc.
opiate82
Bronze Squire
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Now that you have your Google Places confirmed, I recommend you also do some Adwords. I started using adwords to promote online ordering (average customer who orders online spends $5 more than the customer instore or on the phone). After a 12 week test run I concluded that my ad was generating 9 additional online orders per week at an average cost of $0.85 per impression and $3.52 per redemption not including the discount, which was modest. Those redemption costs blow away any traditional form of couponing I have ever done. I am trying a more aggressive offer for Q1 to compare numbers.
Bottom line, search works, you should use it.
Bottom line, search works, you should use it.
Shonuff
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Nice data there. Since I have customers call me from my site, it's hard for me to track. When we ask for more data (other than they looked us up on the Internet), they get a little testy.
opiate82
Bronze Squire
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You could try getting a test phone number set up specifically for your ad so you can track your calls that way. We did that a couple of years ago when we were trying to decide whether Yellow Pages were worth it or not. Either just pony up for an additional phone line or maybe something like Google Voice would work?
BrutulTM
Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
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Maybe just give then 10% off fish for 6 weeks if they buy an aquarium? Or put together a "package" that includes the filter, aggregate, heater, stand, lights, etc. and include the 6 week fish discount in that? I just can't personally imagine carrying a punch card around in my wallet for a fish store let alone paying to be in some sort of loyalty program.
Also, I think you should change the name of this thread to "Corndog's fish store" or something like that.
Took 47 minutes on the phone to order internet and phone and it won't be installed until the 22nd unless they can get it expedited through a local manager. Throws a kink into things when they can't guarantee the phone number until it's installed. So no business cards printed etc.
BrutulTM
Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
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You could get a Google Voice number and forward it to your cell phone until the new line is hooked up and then forward it to the store line? One kind of nice thing for me about Google Voice at least in this area is that they get a different prefix and there aren't a lot of numbers taken so you can pick an easy one to remember. You could also set it up to forward to your cell at different times of the day like while you're at lunch or whatever. I don't know if GVoice is reliable enough to be your main business number though.
They were able to push it up to the 16th. Electrician was in today. $340 worth of stuff to get what is already there up to code. Going to present that to the landlord on Tuesday. $1250 roughly for the additions of stuff I want done. Plumbing should be finished up on Tuesday as well.
Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
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Tmac
Adventurer
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Today is an "off" day for construction. I have a countertop that we put a glaze on that needs to cure. Nothing is being done in the store but my builder is working on things at his shop and I spent the day looking for paint. Trying to find a 5 gallon bucket or 2 of gloss paint for my store. It's incredibly cheap when it's a "mistint". So if a customer goes into home depot and wants a nice aqua blue color, then never comes back to pick it up after mixing it, or returns it the next day. The same $125 5 gallon bucket of paint gets marked down to $25. I'm told it shouldn't take more than a week or so to find a suitable color. I'm looking for a green or blue to put up on the walls once all the sheet rock is fixed. I stopped by the habitat for humanity store, which is a recycle store. Found a nice stainless steel small microwave for $15. Looks like it has never been used. First time there, and the prices on stuff was really awesome. Only problem is you gotta check it out often as supplies are constantly rotating.
Shonuff
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Yay. Corndog, please keep us posted on what's going on, congrats on living out your dream. Remember that your level of focus determines your reality in business.
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I've a question about fish tanks from local fish stores. I was interested in a saltwater tank a while back and there's a specific quality all in one tank I wanted, and the local fish store had it, but it was $75-$100 more than I could have bought it online shipped for. My buddy (who is in sales) mentioned that it would have seemed wiser to price the tank competitively to get you to buy it, so that you'll turn around and buy fish from them to stock the tank with, and all their other shit (live rock, sand, corals, etc.) So I guess my question is do you sale tanks for little markup, and do you lose a lot of business to the internet?
Tarrant
<Prior Amod>
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