A newsagent earlier this week was surprised and thrilled to discover that more than 10% of their card sales are for religious occasions – confirmation, christening, baptism. They knew that religious cards were popular in their newsagency but not to the extent they now know. Religious card sales are more than double they thought was the case.
Knowing card sales at the category, segment and card level, by drilling down into card performance data and comparing trading periods, provides an insight which can change a business. It certainly is in the case of this newsagent. Armed with factual data, they are planning several changes to leverage the extraordinary traffic and sales they are generating around religious occasions.
The discovery of the value of religious cards in this newsagency was made as a result of the new Hallmark category level reporting developed in association between my newsagency software company, Tower Systems, and Hallmark Cards. The new and exclusive reporting provides a hitherto unavailable insight into the performance of cards, from the top level down, and in a format which newsagents can use to drill down into micro level data.
I have seen excellent examples over the years of greeting card sales data being extraordinarily valuable to newsagents in expanding other product categories. Take the example of the newsagent discovering this week the value of religious card sales. They can now, with certainty, expand the range of gifts they sell with religious cards. Indeed, since they have the data breakdown by religious occasion, they can expand gifts in a targeted way.
The card performance data allows the newsagents to act in a pull approach to cards and gifts rather than accepting a push approach. The data in a newsagency is far more valuable for determining what products should be carried in that newsagency than the data held by a supplier.
Newsagents who I see expanding their businesses are usually doing so by analysing the performance of a department, like greeting cards, and using that data to expand other departments in their business. I’d be happy to be a sounding board for anyone looking for such expansion opportunities in their business performance data.
Newsagents with the Tower Systems software should implement the free change to produce the new Hallmark reporting. Those with John Sands cards will have access to something soon. Newsagents with other software will get access soon as the Tower initiative has some approach Hallmark.
Based on your advice early last year Mark I started building a gift department based on my card sales. Ignoring seasons, my gift department has generated more than $30,000 in (new) sales to the end of March. I track my seasonal products separately.
What’s interesting about this new report you have done on Hallmark data is that I can see more gift opportunities.
I recommend Mark’s approach to other newsagents.
Thanks for the feedback Helen. Newsagents have, within their Point of Sale systems, valuable data which can provide excellent opportunities for growth. Sadly, too few harness this and prefer to be average. Today, average is not good enough.