Easter is an odd season. We’ve had our greeting cards out for a month and they have been selling consistently – we’ve needed extra stock to cover the demand and we should finish the season up 20% on last year. We’ve had our Easter Eggs out for three weeks and sales have really only kicked in this week. It’s been a busy three days. We’ll beat last year but thought going out early we might do even better.
Easter is a great feel-good season – especially when you have access to the well packaged Darrell lea product. The margin is tight but having an exclusive offering makes it worthwhile. I am surprised more newsagents don’t chase the brand. The bright packaging allows us to tell a good retail story.
We’re cracking product open today and giving a small egg to every customer. Saturday is our Easter Egg hunt … hmmm, that could be interesting.
I had to lobby Darrell Lea for about 4 months before they got sick of me and granted me a mini unit with a $15k per year minimum sales requirement. The reasons I was given at the time were that it would not sell in the quantities they would prefer given that I am in a regional town of around 4500 population.
Well, I love retail and have pushed DL hard in my shop. The results speak for themselves. With close to two months left for my one year anniversary of stocking DL we will have sold close to 2.5 times my mininmum annual target. I’m happy, DL are happy and we are just about run out of the two pallets of product we ordered. I am now being offered a larger compact unit and could not be happier with the result. It really is a point of difference in this small town as I have a large IGA and confectionery shop right next door to me and I can still manage to move this much gear in my first year.
Happy Easter Mark et al.
Angelo
i feel one of the reasons that Newsagents don’t move into this area is because the people at DL pass your request on to the nearest DL seller and tell you to become a sub agent to them or nothing at all, which is crazy. We have had first hand experience with just that. DL expect me to buy from the agent in Albury. He will then set me up as a sub agent and halve the commission rate, then send me the stock he needs to clear (or with the shortest shelf life that he would normally be stuck with. No thanks.
I would happily deal direct with DL and would then compete directly with Beechworth Sweet Company, which would give me great pleasure!
Vaughan Lawrence