Physical stores are experiencing a bit of a renaissance in today’s increasingly digitalized retail environments. Despite the massive growth in online retail, the in-person retail experience still allows businesses to pack a unique emotional punch that not only gets people to buy but turns them into repeat customers.
But whether you’re starting a purely brick-and-mortar business or are opening a shop as part of an omnichannel sales strategy, launching a new storefront can be an overwhelming experience. Fortunately, we’re here to help. Use this checklist as a guide to help you prepare for your store’s upcoming grand opening:
1) Plan Several Months Ahead of Schedule
As a rule of thumb, you want to start your preparations as early as possible, no earlier than four months in advance. Planning early is essential as it gives you time to secure equipment, temporary staff from manpower agencies, food from exclusive caterers, interesting entertainment, as well as other services that would be difficult to book at short notice. Importantly, planning ahead gives you breathing room so that you aren’t overworked and are better able to set up a smooth launch for your store.
2) Consider Your Launch Expenses and Budget
Chances are that you will have to make some compromises to fit everything within your given budget. After all, marketing, decorations, equipment rentals, photographers, and food and refreshments all cost money. Be mindful of overspending and make sure whatever it is you want offers a justifiable positive return on investment.
3) Set Up Your Modes of Payment with a Maya Terminal
The Philippine retail payments environment is incredibly diverse, and you’ll need to accommodate a wide variety of payment cards and e-wallets to meet basic customer expectations. Having a Maya POS terminal such as the Maya Terminal or the Maya Terminal Lite at your store will enable you to accept a full range of digital payments, ensuring strong first-day sales. Be sure to look at the Maya Terminal price table to compare the merchant discount rates (MDRs) of different payment types.
4) Go for an Omnichannel Marketing Strategy
Maximize your store’s early potential with a comprehensive marketing approach that integrates both online and offline channels. Try to leverage social media, email marketing, and traditional advertising to create buzz around your grand opening. Consistent branding and well-placed promotions across all channels should reinforce your store's identity and drive more interest ahead of your grand opening.
5) Invite Key People to Your Launch
Identify and invite key individuals who can contribute to the success of your grand opening. Shortlist important local influencers, business partners, and community leaders, and incentivize them to come to the launch. Most importantly, don’t forget to invite members of the press, especially those from local and industry publications. Their presence can enhance the visibility of your event and attract a broader audience soon after your store launch.
6) Think About Your In-Store Entertainment
Entertainment plays a significant role in keeping attendees engaged and excited. Importantly, it helps encourage visitor-initiated social media shares related to your store launch. Consider inviting a well-known musical act, setting up unique interactive displays, or doing anything else that aligns with your brand to create fun memories that your store’s first guests will want to share.
7) Get Your Website Ready Ahead of Your Launch
Regardless of whether you plan on having a simple informational site or a full-blown e-commerce operation, getting a branded website ready ahead of your launch will help get the word out and legitimize your business. If you already have a website, make sure to indicate your upcoming launch somewhere on the homepage. If you don’t already have a business website, make sure that it’s ready at least a month before you launch your physical store so that it will be crawled early by search engines and the details of your upcoming event will be searchable online.
8) Optimize Your Inventory for Your Launch Strategy
Evaluate your inventory strategy to ensure that it aligns with your grand opening goals. Consider offering exclusive promotions or limited-time discounts to attract customers to your store. If you already have a good idea which items will be bestsellers, make sure to have enough of these on hand so that you avoid stockouts at your launch.
9) Make Sure Your Staff Is Ready
Your staff is a crucial component of a successful grand opening. Provide training well ahead of time to ensure that they are knowledgeable about your products, services, and any special promotions. Well-prepared and enthusiastic staff contribute to a positive customer experience that ensures more sales after your opening event.
10) Plan for the Aftermath
Once the grand opening festivities are over, have a plan in place for the aftermath. This includes analyzing the event's success and setbacks, gathering customer feedback, and implementing any necessary improvements down the line. Also, maintain your store’s momentum with post-launch marketing strategies to keep customers engaged and returning.
Maximize Your Store’s First Day Sales with Maya Terminal
The Maya Terminal lets you process more than just credit and debit cards. With the Maya Terminal device, you can effortlessly process credit and debit cards, QR Ph codes, and e-wallets like Maya GCash, and GrabPay, at your physical store. Create your Maya Business Manager account today to accept any digital payment at your store’s grand opening.
Signing up for Maya Business Manager instantly gives you access to the Maya 1-2-3 Grow bundle. Maya 1-2-3 Grow gives your business a 1% MDR discount on all QR Ph transactions for 3 months after signing. With this incredible discount, your business will save an extra PHP 14,600 for every PHP 1 million in QR Ph sales.
The Maya 1-2-3 Grow bundle also entitles you to a Maya Business Deposit account for your settlements. It comes with a market-leading 2.5% per annum interest rate, which is 20-25x faster than other business savings products on the market. At 2.5% per annum, your fund will earn PHP 25,000 each year for every PHP 1 million deposit. With Maya Business Deposit’s zero maintaining balance and free transfers via InstaPay and PESONet, you’ll save even more.
The bundle also qualifies you for a Maya Flexi Loan offer of up to PHP 2 million in just 3 months—enough to ensure the perfect opening day for your new brick-and-mortar store. To get a larger loan offer, just regularly use Maya as your primary processor for all wallet and card payments.
Send in your completed Maya Business Manager application to enjoy Maya 1-2-3 Grow and to order your first Maya Terminal device.
