Sales Tip: Put your retail shopper hat on

Aug. 26, 2020

Technicians have a variety of options to choose from when purchasing tools, so it's important to keep your tool truck clean, logical, and well merchandised.

Alan Sipe

Think of those other tool-shopping alternatives your customers have: Home Depot, Lowes, Harbor Freight, O'Reilly, NAPA, and your own local independent tool stores. Each of them is well merchandised with silent sales displays and are organized logically. If you are thinking to yourself that your mobile store is just a tool truck and it doesn’t need to be clean, logical, and well merchandised, you are setting yourself up to miss those add-on, impulse, and very profitable sales.

Take off your mobile jobber hat. Put on your retail shopper hat. Walk onto your truck and decide, “Would I shop in this store?”

About the Author

Alan Sipe | President, Toolbox Sales and Consulting

Alan W. Sipe has spent the last 42 years in the basic hand tool industry including positions as President of KNIPEX Tools North America, Sr. VP Sales and Marketing at Klein Tools, Manager Special Markets at Stanley Tools and sales management at toolbox manufacturer Waterloo Industries. Currently Sipe is the owner of Toolbox Sales and Consulting specializing in sales strategy, structure, development and training. Sipe can be reached at [email protected] or 847-910-1063. Connect with Sipe on LinkedIn.