A blog on issues affecting Australia's newsagents, media and small business generally. More ...

Sunday newsagency management tip: manage your back room

The back room of a modern newsagency is not an ideal place of work. It’s away from the heart of the business, the shop floor.

Smart newsagents have reduced their use of a back room, transferring previous back room work to the shop floor and the shop counter, they have adjusted their buying so that stock needed arrives just in time to go straight onto the shop floor.

Using a back room less will often reduce the labour cost in the business and this is where real savings can be achieved. In your average newsagency business, an hour of adult rostered time saved is the same as selling $92.00 worth of magazines or $46.00 worth of gifts.

An better value of reducing back room focused work could be to not reduce rostered hours and instead focus the saved time on the shop floor. Good retail staff on the shop floor will drive sales and this is even more money in there bank.

Merely having a back room where work is done is an invitation to you and your employees to not be doing the one thing that makes the business most of its money – selling.

Use your back room as little as possible – if at all.

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Management tip

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