From my experience as a business person, in buying and selling, I have discovered some helpful tips on how to increase profit. I an happy to share some in this forum.
Customer relation, a business person must understand that customer is king and should be treated like a royalty. Even it they are buying the least thing in your shop. When they leave your shop delighted, be assured that they will always come back to patronise you. And they will even market your products to their friends. Meaning more patronage for your business which will be increasing your profit.
Your business should have at least one season when you give out rewards and discounts to customers when they buy your products. This will increase your sales geometrically and when you remove the cost of the reward and discounts, you will still have increased profit.
Stock different brands of the products that you sell. Customers will prefer to enter a shop where they will see different varieties of what they need. More customers will enter and will even be tempted to buy more than they planned for. More customers equals more profit.
Please feel free to drop your own ideas on how to increase profit in businesses.
I guess it's boils down to good customer service and then promotions and marketing as you have said. Yeah, you need to offer variety of items. For example if you are in the shoe business, then you should have at least full sizes of the shoes that you are selling.
So talk to your customer, get feedback so that you can improved. They are the life line of your business, so obviously, you have to treat them very well. I also have online store that born out of the pandemic, and if I may add about the negatives though, there are competitors out there that wanted your business to be destroy so just be careful on who you deal with as well, just saying. Because as much as you are customer centric and giving rewards and discounts, sooner or later they will give you bad feedback because the people that ordered from your is from your competitor.