Ink continues to the star category of stationery for us, generating excellent new traffic and driving wonderful year on year growth.
We are into double digit growth on last year – even in our temporary downsized store of 97 sq m compared to our original 330 sq m. As a comparison, stationery has shown only limited growth for the year.
Ink accounts for 50% of our year to date stationery sales.
With all the talk of newsagents needing help and struggling to find their place in today’s retail landscape, I thought it might be valuable to summarize how we have approached ink for the last four or five years.
- We only carry brand name ink. We did try compatibles some years ago and while the margin was good, the return rate was higher.
- We promote ink outside the store five times a year through catalogues. This brings in excellent new traffic, plenty of it sticky – new customers who come back having had a good price and service experience.
- We also promote ink in-store with flyers handed to customers, attractive shelf talkers and posters promoting hero items.
- We back the category with great customer service – special orders and other services which help our customers have an enjoyable experience.
- We promote our ink offer online on a range of listing websites.
Ink customers are valuable, not only because of the repeat business they generate but also because the boy other items regularly – magazines, stationery and even greeting cards.
Ink fits with an important aspect of newsagency shopping, habit. As a channel we are great at habit based shopping. This is why many newsagents are doing well with ink. It is a natural fit.
While the last five years have been good for us, I expect the future to be even better. There are excellent growth opportunities for ink ahead thanks to new marketing initiatives.