Ch. 18 - Sales Promotion and Personal Selling

Now that I've been investigating my company, Coach USA for about 2 and a half months now I've realized that they DO often put some of their items on sale. In an earlier post I mentioned how the only sale I've seen from Coach is during the winter holiday when they offer 20% off coupons. Right now, for example if you go to Coach Outlet Online Sale you will find a Coach sales promotion offering customers 50% off all handbags for the next 17 hours (Please note today's date April 8, 2013). Coach has no history of ever having used rebates, contest and sweepstakes or sampling as a way to attract new customers or get the attention of existing customers.

Coach USA sells directly from their store locations and from their websites to consumer so some of the "Steps in the Selling Process" don't apply - but within those store locations there are "sales people". The theory behind these salespeople is that they are their for your convenience to help you find what you need.

Yeah right, who are they trying to fool?

These sales people are placed in the stores to try to get you to buy more then you need, they want you to spend as much as you can and they all have sneaky ways of getting you to do just that. In visiting the Coach stores I've learned that every sales person has a different approach but we can use the industry standard described in the textbook.

Step 1: Generating Leads - This is when a sales person notices a customer walking into the store.

Step 2: Qualifying Leads - this would be when a sales person takes the time to examine the customer to see what they're looking for and to determine how they can make a sale.

Step 3: Approaching the Customer and Probing Needs: This is probably the most important step for the sales person because this is where they would either succeed or fail. Depending on how they approach the customer will determine whether the customer will be receptive to receiving their help.

Step 4: Developing and Proposing Solution: This is the point where the sales person tells you how a bigger, more expensive bag would look better on you, it'll fit more of your makeup (like if I wear any).

Step 5: Handling Objections: This is where we attempt to negotiate which doesn't really happen with Coach because you can't negotiate the pricing with the sales person. The prices are what they are and the sales person can not change that at Coach.

Step 6: Closing the Sale: At this point you have decided whether or not you are buying that new bag and the sales person is finding out how good they do their job. If they can get you to buy that bag then they've been successful.

Step 7: Following Up: This is another step that I don't think Coach uses. Coach is the kind of company where customers either buy or don't buy and following up with the customer is not usually needed. Coach can assume that customers follow up with the company by coming back to buy more.