Stocking impulse buy products has, for a long time, been one of the best ways to supplement profits in any retail business, online or off. Impulse buying is inevitable whether you specifically plan for it or not and has for a long time been recognized as one the constants of the retail world. Typically, impulse buy products are attractive yet inexpensive, eye-catching and easy to simply pop in the basket (virtual or otherwise) along with the things the customer actually intended to buy. This is why impulse buy products are seen as a source of extra revenue. And even though impulse buying is inevitable to some degree, if you actually plan for it, you can make that extra revenue stream as lucrative as possible.
Olympic Eyewear, a wholesaler providing inexpensive designer sunglasses, say that their products are often bought specifically for this reason. That is why they are typically colorful, inexpensive yet handy. Encouraging impulse buys is common business sense and, if you run any type of retail outlet, strategically placing them around your store or on the pages of your ecommerce site is something of a no-brainer – it is almost certain to pay off.
Of course, though, not just anything can be an impulse buy product, and even those that match the criteria of low price and attractiveness might not be perfectly suited to your particular business. Although common to online and brick-and-mortar stores alike, the precise way in which an impulse buy happens is slightly different between the two.
Brick-and-Mortar Stores
In brick-and-mortar stores, impulse buy products can catch the eye easier – and they can usually be tried out too. Accordingly, they are usually placed in strategic locations around the store, and very often at the counter itself. This is because it is precisely at this point – when a customer has already picked up what they came in for – that impulse buys are most commonly made. Again, what products these actually are can vary a lot.
Ecommerce
How impulse buys work online is slightly different. The great disadvantage here is that customers cannot actually pick up the product and inspect it, which is normally the preceding stage before the impulse buy is made. Nevertheless, ecommerce offers some advantages for encouraging impulse buys too. The products can appear as a pop-up offer at the checkout stage, or they can be attractively presented to the side of the product currently being viewed on the site.
Top Impulse Products
So, impulse buy products are certainly worth investing in. Here follows some of the best:
Bulk Sunglasses
Placed on a rack just by the counter of your store or listed on your ecommerce site, customers will notice sunglasses as something useful. There are many uses for sunglasses (far beyond just the beach) and it is this impression of usefulness, combined with the low price, that convinces the customer to pop them in the basket.
Beauty Products
Beauty products have the advantage of being small yet brightly colored. Strategically placed, they can catch the eye very easily and be purchased without much thought.
Books
The advantage of books is that they can be about anything, meaning that you can even stock cheap paperbacks that have some relationship to the kind of business you are in. We all know about their popularity, as impulse buy products, at train stations and airports (where people have to wait) but they can fit in many more contexts than just this.
As mentioned, impulse buy products really are a no brainer – they cost little, and they work. This is why you see them everywhere.
