Sales data I have seen from a selection of newsagencies for April 2010 and compared to 2009 shows we have just experienced a very tough month. Even allowing for the Easter impact, sales in core departments – magazines greeting cards and newspapers – are down in most stores. Several newsagencies have reported a double digit decline in sales. The average overall decline in sales is 5%.
There is some good news – some departments have reported growth. Books, Gifts and lottery products have all performed well in stores reporting an overall decline.
horror month for me, only stationery showing good growth, thats mainly due to ink. new line of gifts ok, but cards, papers, mags all double digits down. But silver lining is ive been tightening up the back office and running down stock levels where i can. will be leaner and meaner going forward.
Mixed bag for us.
Books up 13%
Cards down 10%
Cartridge up 38%
Giftware up 97%
Mags down 12%
Papers down 20%
Religious up 19%
Station down 7%
Tobacco up 22%
Overall ok Month for us, but certainly a massive change as to where our profits are coming from.
Cheers
Chris
Reservoir
slower month here too cards up 2% stationery down 13% mags down 27% gifts up 15% sratchy down 14% lotto up 9% newspapers down 1% seems our main newsagency products are on the decline with our gifts books and toys keeping us going
Books UP 595%
Cards DOWN 9%
Giftware UP 123%
Ink UP 16%
Magazines DOWN 5%
Newspapers UP 16%
Stationery DOWN 18%
Tobacco UP 6%
I agree with Chris – we’re seeing a clear shift in where our profits are comming from.
I should mention that newspapers are up because we handed back our run and no one has taken on the territory.