You don’t have to be a Gucci or Tiffany to make customers feel at home. While those high-end stores might offer champagne and caviar to their high-end customers, you can do perfectly fine with cookies and coffee.

Improving the customer experience should begin with a good look at your customer base. Let’s say you own a greeting card-and-gifts shop. You find a lot of young mothers with small children come in but tend to leave early because the kids start acting up. Do what stores like Barnes & Noble do. Set up a play area with a toy train town. Put it within site of the cash wrap so you and your sales staff can always keep an eye on the kids if the mother can’t. Make her feel secure that her little ones are always being monitored. And be sure to glue the tracks and accessories to the table so they don’t go flying around the store. Now Mom has more time to browse and buy.

It all boils down to keeping your customers engaged. Investing in things like TVs and Wi-Fi shows them that you care about their comfort, and that you’re tuned in to their lifestyle.

Visit an Apple store to see how kids have their own games area: Macs on a low table with pillows for seats and oversized mice to make it easy for little hands to navigate. Some Gymboree stores play DVDs of the latest kids’ movies, with tot-size chairs and TVs on low tables. It’s all in the back of the store, again so Mom knows where the kids are at all times. You say you can’t afford new Macs or PCs? Sure you can! Check on Craigslist.com for used machines that have enough memory to run kids’ games.

Since men are noticeably less comfortable in a women’s clothing store than vice versa, it should be easy to keep them from fidgeting—and in a more receptive mood for paying for her wardrobe! Let them know you have free Wi-Fi so they can log in while she dresses up. Promote it in your ads, emails and even with a sticker on your store windows. For those who don’t tote their laptops everywhere, set up an internet station so they can surf on your turf. Again, check around for used machines if your budget doesn’t allow for new ones.

Consider installing a gaming console with earphones so as not to bother other customers. Install cable or satellite TV so the monitor can double as an entertainment center. Keep it tuned to ESPN or CNN so guys feel like they’re not missing anything. A refrigerator stocked with soft drinks, juices and water bottles will keep guys and gals hydrated. Free snacks like cookies, pretzels and mini-candies show them you’re hungry for their business.

Speaking of TVs, with so many flat-screen versions available, you can now put small TVs in or near dressing rooms, and larger TVs in waiting areas. If you can get HDTV, so much the better.

If you can’t afford any of the above, at least provide current issues of magazines that interest your customers. Nothing turns them off more than a 5-year-old copy of National Geographic or even a 2-month-old People. And don’t let daily newspapers accumulate around waiting areas. They look messy, so customers will think your store is messy as well.

It all boils down to keeping your customers engaged. Investing in things like TVs and Wi-Fi shows them that you care about their comfort, and that you’re tuned in to their lifestyle. They will thank you with great word-of-mouth and reward you with long-term loyalty—two things that, in this case, money can buy.