"The three most important things in retailing are – location, location and location".

                                                          -Lord Sieff (Marks and Spencer)

To own and run a successful business it is key to plan your finances, know your customers, own a bulletproof product, brand and market yourself well, analyse your competition, pay attention to detail, be consistent, dedicated and committed etcetera etcetera, but no matter how well you prepare yourself your venture will never turn profitable unless your customers are able to find your business.

Already profitable enterprises or those with a respectable starting capital are the few who are fortunate enough to get a pick of the litter where locations are concerned. The other enterprises aren't as lucky, as good locations are usually the most expensive in terms of rent, and require a constant inflow of profits to make sense.

Decisions about design, products, customer experiences are all dynamic i.e they can be altered, reversed and changed to benefit earning potential and can be done so quickly and frugally, but decisions about location, that are static, take a significantly longer time than the former to revert and are are difficult and costly to undo. The costs of moving an operation are often significant and run the risk of inconveniencing customers and staff. It is always best to get the location decision right first time.

Hence it is essential for a business to be easily accessible to its customers, as we have learnt it isn’t always the case where one finds a suitable location from the beginning itself, one must capitalize on the locations they have and concentrate on profit making as if the product/service being sold is worth their time, customers will travel from afar to avail those services.

There are essentially 2 ways you can get customers to find you:

1. Heavy advertising: Which is expensive and will not guarantee walk ins,
2. Using Tech: In the age of the internet where everyone seems to be connected this turns out to be the most cost effective and frugal way of getting your word out.

Businesses that fail to adopt tech often suffer the fate of the Eastman KODAK company who had the first movers advantage into digital cameras as they were the first to invent it! Long story short their belief in the fact that digital cameras would never catch up resulted them in losing out on the entire camera market, which they owned, eventually leaving them with no other choice than to file for bankruptcy.

All that being said, a business should and must adopt technology to be found by those seeking for it.

With the advent of GPS, it is no longer a task to get directions. And with daily cell phone users estimated to cross 2 billion by 2016 it is safe to assume that a good fraction of them will come installed with a GPS system.

Zippr helps solve the problem of addresses and gives your biz a digitised address (called a ‘Zippr’) which can be shared with customers who can use that new address to avail GPS guided navigation to your retail outlets location. This not only generates visibility for your undertaking but also increases its reachability which in-turn helps you garner a positive footfall. Zippr is cross platform so as long as your customers have a smartphone reaching you shouldn’t be a problem to them.

You can also use Zippr in deliveries by asking your customers their Zipprs instead of their addresses helping your delivery fleet find your customers exact location quicker, giving you the capability of delivering a larger volume of consignments.

If you’re wondering about how one gets a Zippr, it takes lesser than 30 seconds to create one. All one has to do is select a point on a map and assign a name to it. That locations detailed address is grabbed by the software itself. You can also give your Zippr a unique identity by customising it, which can be done by requesting for one.

Zippr gives your business a competitive advantage over the others, check it out today!