Australian Newsagency Blog

As part of helping a business recently I reviewed stock on hand for greeting cards.  One card company was found to have more than thirty pockets with ten or more cards per pocket.  In three cases, there were twelve cards.  In thirteen pockets there were  two designs with more than three cards for each of […]

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The day before Mother’s Day is usually the busiest of the Mother’s Day season.  This is when Dad and the younger kids get out to buy cards and gifts for the first time in the season along with others who shop at the last minute.  All of the stores in which I have a financial […]

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Happy Mother’s Day for tomorrow to all the mums reading this. On a business note – I have been surprised to see some newsagents and other retailers discounting Mother’s Day products for the last week, even longer. One shop I saw was offering Mother’s Day cards for 25% off from two weeks ago. […]

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I have put in some counter time this week and have been surprised by the number of sales of Mother’s Day cards where two or more Mother’s Day cards are purchased.  Even guys were buying two or three cards.
This may be premature but Mother’s Day feels very strong this year.

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The pink camera we have as our Hallmark Mother’s Day Giveaway is a great promotion. I like that it is a local prize – one of our customers will definitely win. This is important given that we are pitching local shopping at every opportunity. A national prize does not have the same local […]

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The marketing collateral from Intralot promoting scratch tickets as gifts for Mother’s Day looks enticing when placed with greeting cards.  While this is not how it was intended to be used, I saw it at our Frankston newsagency today - in with Mother’s Day cards.  Enterprising!  I’d love a camera trained on this and see […]

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Mother’s Day is the second biggest season for greeting cards on the newsagent seasonal calendar.  It is beaten only by Christmas and is around 50% ahead of Valentine’s Day. While card sales equal only 20% of Christmas, is a very important season, generating considerable additional traffic in newsagencies.
Like most newsagents, we are pursuing every opportunity […]

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We have been testing a new line of greeting cards at our newsagencies and our Sophie Randall businesses.
The I told you so range was conceived and written by Jason Schwarten, manager of our newsXpress Forest Hill store. The original artwork is by Vienna Chen, our graphic designer at Tower Systems. The cards are […]

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The new Simpsons card range from Hallmark is popular.  We are seeing excellent results in our stores.  Since the range is right at the front of the shop, it is working as a good drawcard.  Licenced product like this Simpsons range is important for newsagents since shows us as being current.  The card department plays […]

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We are supporting Secretary’s Day or Administrative Professionals Day as it is called now.  We have a small selection of cards available and some appropriate gift lines.  While this is not a major retail season, we felt that we needed to have an offer if we want to call ourselves greeting card specialists.
The more we […]

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With Easter later this year the pressure was on to get Mother’s Day out and into promotional space.  It is an important season for us in terms of sales of cards and gifts.  Mother’s Day is also important in connecting us with the National Breast Cancer Foundation though the sale of Hallmark cards as part […]

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Our team at Frankston created a display featuring Cardplai music download cards and the latest issue of jmag which features cardplai next to the counter.  This is a clever promotion.  Cardplai is struggling to gain traction - promoting with a music title is designed to attract the appropriate demographic to the offer.  The alternative is […]

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Who needs to buy the real thing when you can send Easter cards and Easter eggs using a new application on the iPhone?

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Easter card sales are up on last year in the newsagencies for which I have sales data.  I’d expect to see the season end with double digit growth in some stores.  This is excellent given the economic conditions and that, at this stage, the same growth is not being seen for Easter Eggs.

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We’re pleased with the range of graduation gifts we have found, the yellow mugs especially.  Graduation is a good season for us with cards and gifts - from primary school through to university.  Indeed, having good graduation gifts on display helps drive good card sales and this, in turn, gets people shopping the rest of […]

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We are getting good comments from customers shopping the new speciality card fixturing at our Sophie Randall shop at Toorak.  Click on the image for a larger copy.  We continue to play with product location within the fixturing - constant change works well for sales because of the regular customers who love cards.  I’d note […]

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The table of Easter plush and related gift items we have located in our card department, at the front of the shop, is achieving excellent results.  Each week is better than the last. Since we do not have a defined gift department as such at our Forest Hill store it is a challenge for us […]

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In addition to traditional St Patrick’s Day cards, Hallmark has provided this and some other fun cards.  Our St. Patrick’s Day card sales have been good - we are getting known for these smaller card seasons.
St Patrick’s Day is the big day, one day of the year, for the Irish Echo newspaper.  Unlike other ‘foreign’ […]

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We are not timid when it comes to promoting seasons nor are we late to the party.  It is hard to enter our Forest Hill store and not pass Easter cards, plush and Darrell Lea products.  The display in the photo (click on the image for a larger version) is the latest created by our […]

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Going out early with Easter cards and gifts is paying off - sales are good.  I’d be surprised if we are not more than 10% up on last year by the time we reach Easter Sunday in April.  Easter is a feel-good season so sales growth amid the doom and gloom stories makes sense.  Easter […]

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With Mothering Sunday (Mother’s Day in the UK) a few weeks away, we are promoting a selection of cards and some gifts appropriate for mailing in our newsagencies.  We promote all minor seasons as we see ourselves as a greeting card specialist.  This attention to the minor seasons pays off over time.

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We are introducing the new Hallmark baby card, gift and packaging range with a display at our counter rather than across in our card and gift department.  This front-of-shop corner location has more foot traffic so it makes sense to show the new range off to more shoppers.
I like the decision our team made to […]

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Our team at Frankston has come up with a range of gift packs for Valentine’s Day. The one which intrigues me the most is the Monkey Business pack. Inside there are a couple of monkeys and a bottle of passion massage oil. Their goal in using themes with the packs and giving […]

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My understanding is that males are more likely to buy a card from a newsagency than other outlets. We are trying to tap into this at Forest Hill by bringing Valentine’s Day cards right to the front of the shop, at the lease line. Rather than scare the guys off with too much […]

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The team at our Frankston newsagency have created a wonderful display for Valentine’s Day, part of which can be seen in the photo. The centrepiece is the coffee machine which one lucky customer will win. Around this they have placed a selection of our Valentine’s Day gifts and behind is the start of […]

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