Retailer Community

Best Practices

Listed below are some of the best practices followed by high volume lottery retailers. Take a look at them and see if you might be able to use some of them to increase your sales and profits.

• Sell Lottery tickets at every checkout for the widest product exposure and greatest sales potential.
• Keep Scratch ticket dispensers clean and free from obstructions so your customers can easily see their favorite games. A clean dispenser and counter also show that you want their business.
• Ensure jackpot signs are current and visible as a reminder to players to buy their tickets.
• Keep Scratch ticket dispensers full at all times to avoid out-of-stocks and missed sales opportunities. Offer your players a full complement of Lottery games to buy.
• Ensure sales associates know the games and can answer questions about the features and benefits of each game.
• Discuss different ways to “ask for the sale” so your staff can adapt the style that works best for them. This technique keeps Lottery purchases at the top of your customer’s mind.
• Use Lottery “fun” to motivate your staff with frequent Lottery sales contests. Motivated sales associates have better attendance records and make better workers than less involved employees.
• Keep players returning frequently with exciting, low-cost promotions. Review with the Lottery sales representative the full range of available programs to generate customer interest and build player loyalty.
• Use Lottery in your advertising when possible to enhance your store’s image as a destination lottery retailer.
• Carry multiple high-price-point ($5, $10, $20) Scratch tickets. Higher price points provide more prizes and more profit. The two charts below demonstrate (1) the increasing sales of higher price point tickets into the marketplace, increasing the average retailer commission on the sale of a single Scratch ticket, and (2) the high prize payout percentage your players will receive, by price point.

• Follow plan-o-grams for Scratch ticket dispensers. The general concept is to place highest price points in the upper left and lowest price points in the lower right. See the picture below for an example.

• Post winner awareness signs that relate to customers that they can win too. Lottery sales representatives can supply oversize checks to display or posters that indicate the number and amount of winners paid by your store. Or you can take pictures of winners and post them so friends and neighbors can share in the winner’s good fortune.