Upselling is as easy as ABC – always be closing!

    59Club director Matt Roberts continues to look at how the company’s ‘service calculator’ can offer an insight into ‘lost’ revenue and how to address it.

    Last month we looked at how the 59Club service calculator could assess how much money you were potentially missing out on during the golfer’s arrival process. Now, we delve even further into lost revenue by looking at further missed upselling opportunities.

    Figure 1 shows an illustrative return for Club X – a fictitious proprietary club, not, you will be reassured to learn, a nightclub.

    The ‘service calculator’ uses a number of simple formulae to give you a good indication of the revenue you’ve still to tap into. It takes many factors into account and is still based upon the mystery visits carried out by 59Club. It looks directly at the ability of staff to sell and considers availability, pricing and the probability of sale.

    Here, we can see five separate items which can be upsold to visitors to the pro shop. We’re working on a figure of 1,500 rounds per month and the prices for each item are, here, generic – though, of course, you would insert your own retail price for an accurate summary.

    As with last month’s figures, there is an adjustment to be made on each of these. We will work on the basis that not everybody will venture into the shop. Regular visitors, for example, may have one golfer who collects the green fees and hands over the hard-earned in the shop, while others ready their trolleys or attempt a last-minute clean of their spikes.

    So for illustrative purposes, we’re saying one in two golfers will enter the shop, 50 percent. So that’s your first adjustment. And, secondly, the purchase adjustment is an assessment of the likelihood of somebody actually purchasing one of the items. The differences here are common sense. For example while around one in three will buy a bottle of water or a Crunchie (other chocolate-based confections are available), it seems reasonable to assume that fewer people will require a course guide or a new golf glove.

    So here we apply a relatively simple mathematical equation: on course guides, for example, we have 3 x 1500 x 50% x 20%, which gives us a total of £450. And, you can see in Figure 2, where this total appears … and, like the mist rolling back to reveal the early-morning dew on the first tee, it all starts to become clear.

    Follow the identical process for the other items on our ‘shopping list’ and the figures suddenly take on a whole new meaning. Total up those amounts and – working on our chosen illustrative figure sold of none – you can see that during the month in question, the golf club missed out on £2,118-worth of revenue on these product lines alone.

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    And, taking it a stage further to compare Club X’s figures with competitors and national averages, one can see also that the average club in the industry will generate almost £400 more revenue in one month on these five areas alone than Club X.

    What’s more, the best-performing clubs – those known in the 59Club programme as the ‘podium’ set – are nearly £800 better off. And Club X’s primary competitors – clubs named by Club X and monitored by 59Club as part of its service – are £200 to the good. Without wishing to be condescending to GOLF RETAILING’S knowledgeable and intelligent readership, it should be noted that, over a period of twelve months, at the same rate, that final figure equates to the not-unsubstantial sum of £2,400 – and who among us can say that our esteemed number-crunching colleagues would not be happy with that extra figure?

    The reason why these clubs are making more money than Club X is simple: the staff are better at seizing upon upselling opportunities. The figures also show that the industry as a whole upsells drinks and confectionary more easily than larger items.

    And, if you think about it, that should not come as a surprise. Just recall the last time you bought a newspaper in WH Smith – remember those chocolate bars on the counter? “Can I interest you in a bar of chocolate today?” came the question. You may not have responded in the affirmative but quite a few people do.

    If you can’t remember all of the foregoing, rest assured: once registered with 59Club simple guidance notes can be found by clicking on the entry boxes and they explain the process that will need to be undertaken before entering any data.

     

     

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    Miles is the Owner and Managing Director of Robel Media, and the award winning GOLF RETAILING Magazine. With over 25 years in the media business, Miles has a wealth of experience in magazine publishing, digital media and live events. HANDICAP - 7.2