Condensing stationery to chase a better return

We have reduced the display space for stationery without significantly cutting the lines we have on offer.

The photo shows our main stationery aisle. The plush on the left is there to attract browsers – it faces a busy part of the shop floor. It is not the start of the aisle.  To the left of the plush and out of shot is ink and our range of everyday pens. These two categories account for close to 60% of all of our stationery sales.

By reducing the floor space allocated our goal is to significantly increase to return on floor space for stationery, thereby making it more valuable in terms of our shopping centre lease costs.

We have looked carefully at what attracts shoppers to the business. The items shoppers are prepared to look for are placed appropriately.  Stationery is one such item.  As with many city based newsagencies, we are not the first destination for a stationery purchase. We considered this when we made these more recent changes to our stationery configuration.

Our stationery revenue was up 3% in November year on year. year to date is even better.