I came away with five ideas for increasing sales from impulse purchases

I just bought six square pieces of spongy fabric for $20 and walked away happy - "victim" of an impulse purchase.I was at one of those big show events and walked past a demonstration booth. I even knew it was coming. About 50% of the people walking out were carrying two bright yellow cylinder-things.As we walked toward the convention center, I told Tim (my other 300D Oxford Fabric PU half), "There's one of those guys with a microphone inthere, doing a demonstration. He gets people so excited theythink they have to buy those things. They over-pay then never use them." I said this a bit smugly. I know of suchthings, so I wouldn't succumb.Yeah, right. This guy was good. So good, I came away with five ideas for increasing sales from impulse purchases. Nexttime you evaluate short-term sales and marketing strategies,think about and apply these five impulse purchase lessons...Impulse Purchase Lesson 1: Demonstrate an impressive,relevant feature.If the product is chocolate, sold at a retail checkoutstand, you have no need for this one.

Human nature takesover. When you are selling unrecognizable cylinder things,people need some encouragement.You would never know it to look at them, but these thingswere super absorbent shammies. They can suck 8 - 10 ouncesof soda out of your carpet in nothing flat AND it makes foran impressive demonstration. When the demonstrator mentionedthey could dry a sweater in three hours, I was hooked. Nevermind we have about two spills a year in my house and I don'town any "lay flat to dry" sweaters.This ability to get people to "live in the moment" is onekey to a successful impulse purchase demonstration.

Thesalesperson has a lot to do with it, of course. Repetitionof an incredible, attractive feature, however, is key aswell.Think of any infomercial or "Billy Mays" product. There isalways an "AMAZING!" feature - cooks in minutes, instantlyremoves stains, easily pulls dings from your car, etc.2: Try to "time it right".Quite coincidentally, one of those semiannual spills in myhouse happened the day before I bumped into the yellowcylinder guy. I was thinking "If I'd had these yesterday,right now we wouldn't have books stacked in the middle ofthe living room floor." Quite by accident, he had related tosomething that was top-of-mind for me.Fortunately, you do not have to rely on coincidence. At anyone time, there are usually six or eight generally popular"themes" you could tie into. Better yet, your targetaudience is likely to have it's own unique interests.On the Internet, you can "time it right" by associatingcomplementary products or services.