We have reduced magazine space by 30% at our Frankston newsagency with the removal of a unit which covered the area in the middle of the photo. We have also removed our purpose built newspaper unit. Thanks to a change in the way we display titles, this will see a reduction in magazine range by just under 20%.
The bare concrete will be carpeted Monday and we will then have a second dance floor in this business which can be easily reconfigured for key seasons and used for high margin gifts at other times of the year.
The new open space makes the shop brighter, easier to shop and easier to zone. Zoning is crucial in retail yet a challenge in most newsagencies because of old purpose-built fixturing.
Given how we will configure the new space as well as magazines and newspapers, we will be drawing more customers deeper into the shop and thereby giving them more impulse purchase opportunities.
As part of the magazine and newspaper units coming out this week, every magazine was moved and many were moved a second time. The result is a new layout with which we are very happy. We have kept space for tactics we know work like a column of crosswords next to women’s weeklies, a column of food titles in with women’s weeklies, beacons branding and full waterfalls to denotes the start of some new segments.
Congratulations FRanston News. It appears that you value your commercial space and closely monitor the nett profit re4sults for each category within your newsagency. The days of newsagencies allowing such valuable space to taken over by a low margin,labour intensive product most surely becoming to an end as I see more and more newsagencies being forced to challenged the old concepts of’specialist magaine suppliers’ as our point of difference. The return (nett return) in retailing of magazines when all costs both operational and capital are considered are neglible at best and in most cases reveal a nett loss!.
Newsagents should demand that they control the space and /product /and quantity and not be forced to take stock they know is unviable.