Proven Data-Driven Retail Tactics for Higher Average Transaction Value

Let's face it, good service alone isn't enough anymore.

Shoppers expect more than problem solving.

They want discovery, inspiration, and experiences that feel

personal and authentic.

And when retailers get this right, ATV goes up.

This episode is all about shifting from reactive service

to proactive experience creation.

We'll explore how retailers can rewrite the ir front lines to think

like salespeople without sacrificing authenticity and customer care.

I hire for passion and I hire for communication skills and I can

teach retail, I can teach our processes, I can tell you how to use the till.

you've got to get your staff out of the mindset of thinking everyone's

like them with their budget or their salary or their paycheck.

approach customers as if you were meeting them at a barbecue.

Have that experience, talk to them like that that to me is

a kind of coaching natural.

Welcome.to Season 2, retail leaders.

This is the Retail Razor Data Blades, the podcast that slices through complex

retail research to deliver sharp, actionable insights you can use today.

I'm Ricardo Belmar.

And I'm Casey Golden.

In our last two episodes, we dug into conversion and loyalty with

Gareth Johns from TruRating.

Today Gareth is back to tackle another critical metric that every retail

executive should be paying attention to.

Average transaction value or ATV.

Because let's face it, good service alone isn't enough anymore.

Shoppers expect more than problem solving.

They want discovery, inspiration, and experiences that feel

personal and authentic.

And when retailers get this right, ATV goes up.

Exactly.

This episode is all about shifting from reactive service

to proactive experience creation.

We'll explore how retailers can rewrite the ir front lines to think

like salespeople without sacrificing authenticity and customer care.

Gareth will share proven strategies to increase ATV, improve staff

performance, and build a sales culture rooted in empowerment, not pressure.

We'll talk about why hiring just to get the job done can actually hurt sales

potential and how lean staffing or misaligned metrics can hold teams back.

And here's where it gets really interesting.

Data on the floor.

Gareth will explain how real-time behavior and outcome metrics can

help frontline staff create more meaningful customer interactions and

how retailers are using TruRating insights to boost ATV in measurable ways.

So if you're a retail executive looking to unlock

more value from every transaction.

Empower your teams and scale a culture of proactive selling.

This is the episode for you.

But before we dive in a quick favor.

If you're enjoying the show, hit us with a five star rating and drop a

short review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Goodpods, or wherever you're listening.

And don't forget to like and subscribe to our YouTube

channel so you never miss a minute.

Plus check out our other shows in the Retail Razor Podcast

Network, The Retail Razor Show, Retail Transformers, and Blade to Greatness.

You'll find them all in your favorite podcast app or

together on our YouTube channel.

Now let's raise our Data Blades and welcome

back Gareth Johns, Chief Data Officer of TruRating to the show.

Welcome to the Retail Razor Data Blades, Gareth.

We're excited to have you join us again to share more incredible insights based

on TruRating's amazing customer data to round out this three part series today.

Yeah thanks for having me back yet again

So Gareth,

three for three!

Yeah!

Three for three.

Today we're focusing on a huge topic that every retailer would probably admit to

losing sleep over on a regular basis, A-T-V-A-O-V the average transaction value.

On a recent TruRating webinar, if I remember correctly, you said that retail

isn't just about solving problems anymore.

It's about igniting discovery.

What's behind this evolution and how has customer expectations shifted

from good service to experience led retail in this context?

Yeah, so I think what we've seen is that I think for a lot

of retailers coming out of COVID.

There was a real kind of shift away.

Right after COVID staffing was a problem, right?

Lots of people got laid off.

They maybe came back thinking this could happen again.

Retail's not really that COVID protected.

I'm gonna go do else.

So I think in that kind of, it's hard to remember the years, but maybe 20,

21, 20 22, that all the focus from our retailers was around getting

the right types of staff into store.

Like how do you fill the positions and then how do you get people

that really understand retail and, I've got one teenager left at home.

But, I think that whole kind of concept of you employ people that maybe haven't got

the greatest communication skills as well.

I think what a lot of our retailers are seeing is that they've ended up

with a more of a service mindset.

I'm, as a, salesperson or as a member of staff in the store, my job is

to serve the customer and I, I do some of the things that need to be

done, but I maybe don't do the final things that really impact on ATV.

So yeah, so I guess what I was saying about, it's not just

about serving the customer.

Almost every retailer we work with has got some sort of sales approach.

They're all four or five step processes.

They've all got cool kind of acronyms linked to their business.

Generally, the first two stages are very service based.

Did I say hello?

Did I ask you why you were here?

And did I point you in the direction of whatever it was you needed?

Most people are okay at doing that.

I guess there are retailers out there that employ people

that even that's a challenge.

But for most of our retailers have at least shown an interest

in better customer experience and therefore are using TruRating.

They've managed to at least crack those kind of first two stages.

I think where we see the drop off in performance and where customers are

telling us it doesn't happen so much, it kind of what I was talking about is

the the shift from service to sales.

That's the bit that I think they've really got to focus on improving.

So what are some of the obstacles that retailers face

trying to make that move from a service only to a sales and service mindset?

Is it primarily a lean staffing issue?

Is it misaligned metrics that are undercutting these efforts?

And what would you say are the main obstacles?

I think from what we see, it's that there's

definitely a communication issue, training issue, a hiring issue.

You hire people with maybe retail experience, but you don't hire people

that are passionate about your brand.

That customers see through that.

So I think it starts with hiring the right types of people and what a lot of our

kind of, more forward thinking retailers are saying is I hire for passion and I

hire for communication skills and I can teach retail, I can teach our processes,

I can tell you how to use the till.

And I think for maybe for a while there was that thing of people were just

hiring whoever they could hire and they hired based on you've got previous

retail experience so yeah, I think it, some of the problems start quite

early on in the process, if you like.

I think from a sales person point of view, what some of our other retailers

have told us is they're hiring younger people who don't have a lot of cash, and

therefore if they are trying to sell, upsell to a slightly higher range of the

brand, or if they're trying to increase the number of items in that basket by

talking about the additional products that are available, they're thinking at it

with their head of I couldn't afford this.

Why would I try and push this from somebody else?

Even though that other person might be very grateful for the fact that completed

their outlook or helped them with their, make the most of their main purchase.

So I think, yeah, there's a hiring issue and then there's a,

there's almost a cultural or kind of mindset issue to get over.

And so I don't think it's a, I don't wanna do this or that type of thing.

I think it is more that you've gotta train people how to do it.

I need a manager that wants to manage.

Great managers.

Like, great, that great management leadership.

yeah, I think that's another thing we see actually is when

you see the difference in performance by different stores, whatever a lot of our

retails will come back to is it's the manager that sets the culture in store

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, absolutely.

so if you don't get the right manager in that store, that

doesn't set the right culture, then it doesn't really matter who you employed.

But what we are able to do with that kind of four or five step process is

really say look, these are all the stores that are doing well at these ones,

and this is where you've got the gap.

This is where the opportunity lies.

It's, and it's generally comes down to it staff make a specific recommendation.

And did staff help?

Did staff offer additional items in a, in a nice way I guess is what we're

trying to get at is you don't want somebody just doing the hard sell on,

I'm trying to grow my ATV or my average basket size from kind of 1.4 to 1.6.

Please take a pair of socks.

I don't think that one works as well, but

I think if you can do the, hey, that top would go really well with the these

jeans or whatever else this is with a lot of people wear this in this way.

We have these additional services.

You've bought these shoes, you really need to protect them.

This is how you do it.

There are ways to do it that, that come across as a customer

benefit rather than a hard sell.

And I think it too much of this is people are worried about the hard sell, right?

They feel like, I, I don't wanna do that hard sell.

So if you've gotta give people the tools to be able to feel confident that.

Yeah, sales has always had a bad name when it should just be sales

is helping and everybody likes to help.

Sales is helping, it's not a bad word.

Let's talk tactics.

What are some definitive ways retailers can cultivate a sales driven team?

Team and how do you reframe sales KPIs so they inspire rather than intimidate.

So I think that's to some of the points that's of, you've

gotta, you've really got to focus on the benefit to the customer of what

you're trying to do, what customer, you know, what your staff are trying to do.

And you've got to get your staff out of the mindset of thinking

everyone's like them with their budget or their salary or their paycheck.

There are people out there that are looking for I don't wanna say

validation, that's maybe the wrong word, but maybe it's not there's

the paradox of choice, right?

How is this the right choice?

Am I buying the right thing for me?

So I think the more that a sales person can be, passionate about the brand,

knowledgeable about the brand, and can give consumers the confidence that they

are making the right choice by buying.

Those are all great things to be that as a salesperson, you should

be proud that you're doing right.

I know this brand really well, I'm really passionate about it, and I can share my

knowledge with customers and make them feel great about what they just bought.

But if you can reframe it in those ways, then I think you can

get staff to do those things.

If you position it as you've got a target of 1.8 items per sale, push,

push the socks then I think, yeah that's where it it falls to pieces.

So our starting point is always we can tell you where it's working and where it's

not working, which categories it's working in, which stores it's working or not

working in from a retailer point of view.

Then we're really reliant on our retailers to have the playbook of

okay this is either a problem across my estate, I really need to reframe

what I'm asking staff to do, or this is a problem in a subset of stores.

I really need to look at some of my managers and the culture.

Yeah.

How should, how do you see frontline staff leveraging data to have more

of these meaningful interactions?

Are there particular behavioral outcome metrics that store managers, store

leaders should really be watching?

And do you have any examples of a retailer who used curating data really

to help them boost ATV in this way?

Yeah, so the, I think when we talk about ATV,

there's generally two things that you can do, right to impact that.

You can either get customers to trade up through the range to a more

expensive item, or you can get them to add the items, complete the look.

And I think there is, there's slight differences in those So one of our

footwear retailers, they, they sell trainers at a hundred dollars.

They sell trainers at 200.

They have to be able to explain to the customer why the 200 trainer is worth

so much more than the hundred trainers.

So talking about products in terms of the benefits rather than the features

has been a really big push for them.

That's part of their training.

And what they use TruRating for is to understand whether

or not they're doing that well.

They have a training program so that everyone in their business goes through.

They learn about the brands, they learn about the shoes.

They should be able to talk about the benefits of any particular shoe.

But then what we can give them is the ability to measure, did a customer

feel like, did that come through to the customer and did it not?

So that's I think where they're using data to understand things that matter.

And some of that is about the product.

Some of it is about understanding the customer need and linking those benefits

to that customer need and then some of it is just about building enough rapport

to have that as a natural conversation.

So actually what the retailer worked out was that if I get to the point where I'm

on first name basis with the customer, if I've the time to understand what they're

buying and if I've given them three benefits of the products that are relevant

to what they're buying, those are the three things that will get me to the 200

trainer versus the hundred dollar trainer.

So,.

Yeah, I think all we can do is measure, right?

The retailer already knows the kind of strategy of, or they can test at

least the strategy of these things work and these things don't work.

We can share best practice of what we've seen in one place that might

be relevant in another place.

But as a TruRating tool, most of it is actually about giving people

the data of rather than thinking you've got a problem everywhere.

Where have you actually got the challenge?

'cause then you can focus your efforts and you can make an improvement.

So that's I think the trading up side of it.

And then, yeah the average basket size is your staff have to be

able to authentically talk about how to complete the look or

what products go well together.

And I guess, yeah, you could use data to say when people buy this

item they quite often buy that item.

We can look at, you don't really need TruRating data to do that.

You've got, most retailers have got the data that they can use to say these

things quite often get bought well together, so maybe all my staff should

know that so that if somebody buys one thing, they can offer the other.

Or I can range my store and lay out my store in a different way that

makes that kind of outfit buying a much more obvious thing to customers.

That those are things that can grow average basket size.

They're probably things that are less to do with, the data for those

is available to retailers already.

They don't need us for that.

What we can help with is much more how did the interaction go and did the staff

actually make use of that data in a way that led them to the right place?

How does this coaching first mindset fuel performance?

What's the difference between managing to tasks and coaching to outcomes?

I think from yeah, I guess it comes down to what we were saying

about if you manage to a KPI That's really difficult because you're just

pushing somebody on a do these things.

And it just doesn't come across as authentic to a customer.

I think a customer can tell when, the member of staff doesn't really

believe in what they're doing.

So I think you've got to get the people that are passionate about the brand

and actually are, will come across as authentic to customers about that brand.

Because as a, as a consumer, you know who you trust and who you don't trust,

and whether they know what they're talking about and whether you feel

confident on what they're saying or not.

So I think, yeah coaching staff on this is a benefit you are giving to

customers, not a, you're giving to the retailer at the expense of the customer,

and this is the way that you do it.

That feels great for everybody rather than this is the way that you do

it because it's written as a task.

I think is really important.

And I think retailers that are willing to give, especially in kind of fashion

footwear the ones that are willing to allow the staff to bring in some

of their own personality seem to be the ones that do that better.

So that is more of a coaching, if you say We really, we want, we've got one retailer

that talks about approach customers as if you were meeting them at a barbecue.

Have that experience, talk to them like that that to me is

a kind of coaching natural.

Allow each member of staff to do it their

Mm-hmm.

If it is, greet the members, greet the customer within 30

seconds with the following script, like

doesn't work.

So yeah, I think it's the difference between those two.

What's your, what would your one piece of advice be to

anyone in our audience listening or watching, who wants to kinda start

down this transformation tomorrow?

And how did TruRating help them?

I would say to begin with a bit like we talked

about with the loyalty stuff.

I just think knowing what, having a target is knowing where you're, and knowing

where you think you can get to is a really important point to start, right?

So I'm at these many items per basket.

I'm, am I pushing for more items in the basket or have I got an opportunity

to get a higher of my customers trading up to more expensive item?

I think knowing where you're heading rather than just saying, I'd like

to grow ATV percent is important.

And then I think for a lot of retailers, especially, I'm thinking

more the kind of, I guess the, and the fashion footwear side.

Some of it goes back to how you hire, right?

So that's maybe not a quick fix that, that's a how do I go, how do

I think about this in the future and how do I hire the right people?

Or how do I at least coach the people that I've got in the right way so

that there's more, they have more confidence in doing certain things.

I guess that would be, feel like I, I can start tomorrow and I'll get results

on Friday, but it it at least feels like those are the things that actually seem

to matter most for growing ATV there.

There are certain things that if the stores laid out poorly, if products

aren't in the right place, if it's hard to get around all those things,

they're definitely impact on ATV because people will miss one or two items

that they might otherwise have bought.

So if you're in grocery, if you're in big box kind of discount retail, the racks

and racks of pro products where people just go in and help themselves, then yeah,

it's a lot less about that kind of staff point, which we've been talking about.

And it's much more about, it's the store easy to navigate.

Have I actually got the products that people are after?

Can I make sure the store is clean so that I get the best

opportunity to grow basket size?

But yeah, I think for the, where we've, I guess most of this conversation

has been if you're talking about the role that staff can play, then

I think it comes down to conversion to hiring and coaching really.

And those are maybe not short term fixes.

Yeah, Gareth this has been a fantastic discussion on ATV.

I love how store teams have a strong impact on these outcomes.

It does always come back to people regardless of the tech

and the KPIs, we need the people.

I really appreciate you sharing such impactful data-driven

insights with us today.

And thank you so much for joining us and joining this great journey

across conversion, loyalty and ATV.

Thank you very much for having me.

It's been a great chat.

And for our, listeners or viewers today that haven't checked

out the first two episodes of this season, you definitely wanna go back

and catch those episodes with Gareth.

So Gareth, again, thanks for bringing so many insights to the

show in this three part series.

It's been a pleasure.

I'm looking forward to having you back.

Great, thanks very much.

I'd say, this episode's a wrap, Ricardo.

It is.

If you enjoyed today's episode, please give us a

five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods.

And don't forget to hit subscribe on your favorite podcast app or on

YouTube so you never miss an episode.

I'm Casey Golden.

We'd love to hear from you.

Follow us and share your feedback at Retail Razor on LinkedIn,

Bluesky, Threads, and Instagram.

You can also subscribe to our Substack newsletter for highlights

from every episode, and visit retailrazor.com for transcripts

and more details about our guests.

Data Blades is part of the Retail Razor Podcast network.

I'm Ricardo Belmar.

Thanks for joining us.

Until next time, Stay Sharp, Be Data-driven and Harness AI.

This is the Retail Razor Data Blades.