10 Ways to Add Value for Your Customers

Differentiate your business from your competitors by making a difference to the lives of your customers. Whether it’s saving them time or offering them a little something extra to sweeten the deal, these ideas can help to increase your customer loyalty and build a strong community for your brand.

1. Build Gift Sets

Not only does building gift bundles create value for your customer by providing them with an extra special, easy to purchase gift, but it will also help improve your ATV by grouping products together that your customer may not have considered doing previously.

If you have a bricks and mortar store you could set up a display asking your customers to pick 3 or 4 items to be gift wrapped together for an interactive experience. You could even include a small postcard so your customer can write a special message to their recipient.

If you sell online you could pre-package gift bundles to sell or use an app like PickyStory which is a tool for Shopify which helps you to create an online bundle builder tool so your customers can pick from a selection of items to add to a gift box.

This offers a great experience for your customer and also helps to automate some of your workload.

2. Offer Gift Wrap

It might seem like a small idea but by offering a gift wrap service you’re offering convenience and saving precious time for your customer. It means customers can come to you for last minute gifts en-route (if you have a physical store) or send their order directly to their recipient (if they’re shopping online last minute). Customers are also often willing to pay a small charge for the convenience of gift wrapping which can help to increase your order value.

3. Enhance Your Packaging

We know your time is precious too, which is why gift wrapping might not be an option for everyone. Instead, why not consider upgrading your packaging in general? Whether it’s a high quality shopping bag or a coloured cardboard postal box, what seems like small details can make all the difference to how customers perceive your brand. You may want to think about boxes with a thicker cardboard for a more premium feel, choose materials which are recyclable and add small details like coloured packing straw, branded tape or stickers.

Getting your packaging right is a big deal and can be the difference between a customer wanting to post a picture of their new purchase on social media or not - just take a look at how often Birchbox’s packaging is posted on Instagram.

4. Offer Subscriptions

Home fragrance is one of our top categories for volume of products sold because it has a high repeat purchase rate. When your customer chooses an item like wax melts, tealights, incense or candles, why not offer them a subscription for that item? It’s one less thing for your customer to have to remember to purchase and when it arrives with them every few weeks or months it’s a reminder that you’ve got them taken care of.

5. Offer Free samples

You can’t beat a free sample or gift but aim to provide items which are useful or consumable to avoid sending your customer clutter they may not appreciate. It could be something seasonal like a bag of sweets in all your orders dispatched on Halloween or part of a campaign to build awareness of a new product e.g. Offering a few sticks of incense for a new fragrance so they can “try before they buy”.

6. Offer Local Delivery

Just like a florist will offer local delivery of bouquets, how convenient would it be if your customer could order a hand-delivered gift for a friend or loved one and get it there the same day? If you have a branded vehicle this will also help to increase your visibility in your local community.

7. Offer Loyalty Vouchers

Whether you sell online or offline there are great tools and apps you can purchase to create an easy and effective loyalty programme for your customers. It might be a voucher for £5 off for their 10th purchase or it could be more intricate where pounds equals points that build up to a bigger discount.

8. Add a Feel Good Factor

Even if it’s in a small way, contributing to charity or purchasing from a company which is carbon neutral or negative, gives us a feel good factor and a sense of achievement. You could opt to donate a small percentage of each sale to a charity which means a lot to you or choose a more simplified message like ‘Every order plants a tree’.

Make sure to share the message with your customers at checkout that their order will make a contribution. I

f you don’t already, you could implement PayPal checkout which offers users the chance to round up the cost of their purchase to donate to a charity.

9. Team Up with Other Businesses

If you sell garden accessories, why not team up with a company which sells plants or seeds and offer each other's customers a discount voucher to spend at your partner store when they make a purchase?

10. Offer Advice and Ideas

We offer thousands of homeware products and we know first hand that trends and styles shift continuously which can be overwhelming for almost anyone just wanting to refresh their home with a few small tweaks. People buy from people so whether you have a passion for interior design, a talent for selecting great gifts for any occasion or a knowledge of gardening, why not share your tips and recommendations?

It could be through the form of an email newsletter, live Q&A sessions on social media or in store workshops or masterclasses. This will help your customer to find something that’s right for them and also to feel part of your brand and community.

We hope these ideas to add value for your customers offer you some inspiration, if they aren’t quite right for you and your business, hopefully they will get the ball rolling to help you think of ideas which could be unique to your brand. If you do decide to get started with one of our suggestions, we’d love to see a picture of the idea in action so make sure to tag us on Facebook or Instagram.

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