I have now reviewed sales data for May 2010 and compared this with May 2009 for twelve newsagencies. It’s been a challenging month for newsagents and retail in general.. While there is a risk in only looking at data for a month, here is a summary of what I have seen:
- Magazines. The average decline in unit sales is 4%. That said, my newsXpress Forest Hill store recorded year on year growth of 4% in May. Our weeklies are up 7%. Looking closely at the performance of the 12 stores though, May 2010 is better than thefirst quarter of the year – the decline appears to have softened.
- Newspapers. Down 4% in unit sales. Newspapers are more affected by the news cycle.
- Stationery. Sales are pretty much line ball year on year in most stores for which I have data.
- Books. Excellent growth in the stores with book sales at $2,000 a month or more – i.e. stores selling more than the discount novels. Of the twelve in this initial sample, only three were into books in any reasonable volume.
- Copying & faxing. Double digit growth in all but two stores.
- Gifts. I only looked at stores with $2,000 a month in sales or more – double digit growth in most. Of the 12 stores, only four were into gifts in any volume.
- Cards. This is the hardest hit department. Red ink everywhere – declining unit sales ranging between 5% and 20%.
- Customer traffic. Down on average 7% – but a couple reporting a concerning double digit decline.
I have seen Year to Date sales data from a landlord for our retail category and they are reporting a decline of 9%.
While the news does not look ideal, there is good news in the data for entrepreneurial newsagents who are driving change through their businesses.
We seem to be running two sets of books in May. One that includes everything shows we are down 9% on last yr but if you take out lottery products and phone recharges we are 11% up on last yr. While we are serving the same amount of customers this yr, our lottery and recharge customers are buying lesser amounts then last yr. We are moving more and more into so called non traditional areas like books, Gifts and DVD’s and these departments are more then making up for the short falls in Mags, papers and cards. We are hoping that when the core lines bounce back to normal once people start getting confidence back we should be in a great position.
i dont expect any bounce in mags and papers, long term decline will continue
Mark thank you for posting these figures. My numbers are:
Mags down 7%
Gifts up 10%
Books up 8%
Stationery up 12%
Papers down 4%
Lotto down 7%
Cards down 9%
We are all in this together and having somewhere like this to compare and discuss is useful to me at least. You are making me look at my numbers more regularly.
I really worry each month when looking at our monthly figures ours are 8% down but knowing others are much the same makes things seem a little better
The best thing to do Kellie is not look at them – ignorance is pure bliss; perhaps not good business practice, but you’ll sleep better
Our ‘down’ figures are pretty much similar to others’ last May.
A pleasant surprise, however, was the 200% ‘up’ for our coffees.
We’re very hopeful of that trend continuing, and our investment in that side of things starting to pay for itself.
Yaaay!
Mixed month here in Nth Qld
Books -27%
Cards/Wrap +6%
Cigs -3%
Conf +9%
Drinks +44%
Gifts +154% (new lines)
Scratchies -24%
Lotto -9%
Mags -19%
W/Weeklies -16%
Phones/Recharge -1%
Papers -7%
Souveniers +76%Stationery +11%
Ink +25%
Videos/DVD +173%
Non traditional dept like gifts, cd/dvd proving they are the way to go, stationery continues to grow especially ink.
Overall number of sales down 11%
Cigs not as bad as i thought after price hike, maybe extra money needed to buy cigs is reflected in big drop off in scratchies. People still smoking so extra money needs to come from somewhere.
We continue to experiment with new stock lines, and have actually increased our advertising activity even tho business is noticeable much slower. Ink continues to draw new customers, even from nearby towns as our reputation for range and price grows. Anybody out there doing printers? Am thinking its a good fit with our ink, if the PO can do it, i know i can do it better and cheaper, if your doing printers some feedback on how its going, suppliers etc would be good.
thanks
books up 35%
cards down 1%
dry cleaning down 2%
lotto up 4%
papers down 1%
stationery down 1.5%
tobacco down 2%
overall down 3% on last year (incl lotto)…