How does signage affect your grocery or convenience store sales? Imagine the mayhem if shoppers arriving in your store found no signs to help them get what they came for or to encourage purchases of things they didn’t come for. And if you had no exterior signage, how would they even find you in the first place and pick your store out from among all the buildings they walk or drive past?

Grocery and convenience store signage matters, and serves two important purposes. First of all your signs, in particular your exterior signs, are your first, and often largest, brand ambassadors. Signage gets your grocery or convenience store recognized from among your competition, draws customers into your store, and guides them once inside. Your signage also drives sales, and when placed strategically in windows, in aisles, on shelves, atop counters, or hung as banners, they can influence buying behaviors and lead to loyal, repeat customers.

Your Grocery and Convenience Store Retail Signage is Always Selling

Your signs, whether you realize it or not, are always selling, even your wayfinding signage, because when they are deployed with purpose they show a focus on the customer. That means your signage strategies should all center around creating a welcoming and enjoyable experience for your shoppers. Using a mix of digital and printed signs, and adding QR codes to printed signs, gives you new and fun ways to share stories and information and connect with your shoppers. 

Exterior signage can stand out and enhance the appearance of your store with big and bold graphics, images, or logos in bright colors on brilliantly lit signs. They can also be used to add elements of your brands personality set the mood inside your store and give your interior dashes of brightness and color. Quality signage, exterior signs constructed to withstand the elements, and regularly maintained indoor signs made from recyclable, sustainable materials, make a difference. When your signage looks good, so do you in the eyes of your customers.

Grocery and convenience retail store signage can impact your sales in the following ways. 

Retail Signs Enhance Customer Service 

When you have a clear understanding of your customers, you can use your signage to anticipate their needs and provide solutions for them at every turn. This frees up staff to process payments and serve your shoppers with greater attention. Use your signs to create an atmosphere throughout your store that builds on the qualities of your brand. Use images and graphics that connect with your shoppers. Keep your messaging consistent and up-to-date, especially if you have multiple stores, to prevent customers from being disappointed if their expectations aren’t met. You want to make your store into a familiar, comfortable place that your customers want to come back to time and again. Signage can help you do it.

Retail Signs Inform and Educate

Today’s shoppers want to know more about what’s in the food and products that they’re purchasing than might be found on the label. Signs provide opportunities to show and share information your customers want to know. Digital signage can keep messaging current. QR codes printed on signs allow shoppers to watch videos, animation, and other digital content on their smartphones learn more about product and ingredient origins, allergy information and receive upsell opportunities. For instance, printed displays at the deli and fish counters can provide recipe suggestions through QR codes. Customers can watch a presentation on their phone while waiting in line or download the video to watch later. The store gets the opportunity to increase sales while also gaining trust as a source of useful information. 

Retail Signs Grow Loyalty Programs. 

Your store should never miss opportunities to recruit new loyalty program members or provide benefits to frequent shoppers in order to gather data about their shopping habits to craft a better customer experience. Use signs to display potential savings available to loyalty program members when products are on sale or at reduced prices for program members. Signs encouraging loyalty program membership are particularly effective at checkout counters or when incorporated into point-of-purchase (POP) signage. QR codes on the signs can direct shoppers to customized registration landing pages to sign up. This is especially effective when enrollment offers immediate rewards that the shopper can apply while in the store.

Strategic Retail Sign Placement Increases Impulse Purchases 

In order to be effective, your grocery or convenience store signage must be placed where it can be seen. Even more importantly, the strategic placement of your signs can increase sales and drive revenue when placed where they can influence buying decisions and spur impulse purchases. Signs placed higher on shelves attract more attention than ones down lower and horizontal displays are easier for your customers to process and understand. You can use you them to draw attention to promotional items or highlight seasonal items. They can be placed in high-traffic areas like endcaps, store aisles, near product displays, and at checkout counters as point-of-purchase (POP) displays to generate sales lift and increase sales volumes.

Retail Wayfinding Signs Lead To Sales

Keep in mind that your signage must attract and communicate with your customers while they are on the move. If your customers can’t find your store or have difficulty locating things, they’ll grow frustrated and go to one of your competitors. Your wayfinding strategy should be well thought out, using easy-to-read fonts and recognizable directional symbols, and adhere to Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) guidelines. Retail wayfinding signage offers countless ways to add creativity to function, with an assortment of wayfinding static and digital sign options, including pylon, monument, and channel lettering outside your store and customized wall murals, floor decals, banners, and overhead signs to guide people when inside.

Retail Signs Drive Promotions 

Your grocery or convenience store relies on a constant stream of promotions to attract new customers and give your regulars something special in appreciation for their business. Even as your promotions rotate, your signage must stay on brand.  This is a case where bigger is better for drawing attention, and large, colorful aisle displays, banners, posters, and window decals can be designed and produced in all shapes and sizes. Exterior digital signage sells day and night with messaging that can be updated in moments as promotions change. Promotional signage inside your store has the capability of enhancing the shopping experience with signs that use QR codes to link to digital promotional content or social media that supports the sales event. Factors to focus on for promotional signage are relevancy, freshness, and consistency, especially for campaigns running in multiple locations.

Digital and Print Retail Signs Create Fuller Experiences

Digital signage lets you introduce multimedia elements like animations and video content into your grocery and convenience store signage strategy. Coordinated with print signage, adding digital into the signage mix creates a complete brand experience for your customer. Digital messaging can be integrated into physical, branded exterior billboards, monument signs, and store windows and can feature multiple promotions or provide helpful information, like time and temperature, that draws attention day and night.  Inside the store, digital screens can provide interactivity improve your customer’s mood, and provide a visual counterpoint to the tactile impressions made by your print signage. And while your print signage offers a consistency that shoppers value, bringing digital into the mix gives your messaging relevancy because you can change it in an instant.

When it comes to retail signage for grocery and convenience stores, two things remain constant. One is that retailers that place the customer experience first and foremost, and see every engagement and interaction as a means to develop deeper loyalty, are the ones that will succeed. The other is that effective strategies require attention to brand consistency and relevancy to attract attention and stand apart from your competitors. Marketing.com can help you connect the dots to find ways to make all your grocery and convenience store print and digital signage appealing and sustainable.