More and more Back to School business is being won by overseas owned businesses. This sees more profits shipped out of Australia, to overseas shareholders.
Schools which care about jobs for their students when they leave will award business to and encourage business for Australian owned businesses, like the local newsagency. This is a pitch I’d like to see newsagents make to schools in their area … support us and we support your kids and their families with jobs.
This is a campaign newsagents could run … demonstrating the importance of purchasing stationery from businesses which employ locally and from which profits are kept locally.
If we don’t make a stand on this more and more Back to School business will be shifted overseas and more local jobs will be lost.
For their part, newsagents need to look at the source of stationery they sell. It could be that a made in Australia education campaign fits with our needs and the interests of a school – not only around the issue of local jobs but also in terms of carbon footprint.
As Staples asserts more control over what we used to Know as Corporate Express we will see more pressure in the Back to School space. Newsagents urgently need a strategy to combat them and other overseas businesses pursuing business from schools and students.
We were unsuccessful in winning the High School book packs for the 1st time in 3 yrs – the organiser likes to support local businesses but said the new P&C Committee was only interested in the lowest price – even thought they make a huge profit selling these packs back to the students. Very short-term thinking!
We were told by the schools in our area that as well as the lowest price we would need to “donate” a large sum to the P&C or we would not get a look in. It was simply not worth the effort.
The GNS offer this year beats most of the majors on price including officeworks but still parents think they are getting a better deal shopping in the big stores, you just cannot talk them out of it, so we have gone light on BTS this year.
i gave up on back to school , even though a private high school right next door.
i have done everything correctly promoting back to school for 15 years and the always come in last minute just for the contact paper or grid books , why should i shoot my own foot when they always think we are dear? we are busier when students back to uni
Back to school use to be big for us but not anymore after most schools went with a catalogue system. It shot them in the foot a bit because when they asked for stationary donation for their formal (which we use to do) we said no. Schools have to support us to support them.
Kenzie, even though their schools don’t support us, but their teachers still come to you to shop. i have 7 schools in my area virtually 100 meters radius, i do still support them with donations every year when they ask.
we still give them donations etc for school fundraisers but we have just limited it to that now and give to other charities.
I have all the books for three schools in my area. Parents here are always slow to start buying and I panic every year. I would like to see GNS or QNF help us to set up on line odering for back to school. I have no idea how to do this but with the younge parent vey computer literate and buying on line for all sorts of things it may generate more buniness for all of us. I pick and pack but do not have deals with the P&Cs and they have not asked for them, I deal with the Heads of Schools. i find it funny when teachers send parents to us to buy the correct books after they have sent their kids to school with wrong ones purchased cheaper elsewhere. I usually invite them to put their order in with us next year as we specialise in what the local schools want.
I am a bit cheeky and put up notices on the Post Office and Supermarker notice board for back to school. We have a big back to school banner we hang across the front of shop ( mains street) and we do advertise that suporting us allows us to employ their kids. We have a big sign in view of customers as they leave the store saying “Thankyou for Shopping Local” We also have this message on our reciepts.
i wonder how long this roman empire enherited by uSA will last?
sorry wrong post
I feel phsycally ill this morning………i had a friend in this morning buying a couple of bits and pieces for her daughters back to school list. When i enquired why she didnt need all of the items she informed me she bought the rest from the Big W back to school sale the other day. This woman has been to my house and vice versa……what hope do we have if that is peoples attitudes. When she told me she purchased exercise books for .54 cents i told her they would fall apart her answer was “yeah, they did last year too, but i just taped them together”………..as i said i feel crook in the guts…..probaly from the massive kick to the same region.
There’s little you can do when a consumer’s major deciding factor is price. There a many people out there who don’t want books that fall apart. That is that market we need to focus on … even if we have to do it with a giant sign pointing out the fact our books won’t wall apart when looked at.
We stopped playing the price game some years ago with BTS and started to focus on quality, innovative and fun product. Slip on book covers, quality brands like crayons and staedtler, innovative products like erasable Frixion pens and fun products such as those from Maped.
We also do book packs for year 7 (from a list provided by the school). We used to compete on price and the packs would sell for just over $50. We now sell them for over $100 (given they do include some additional products over the last few years) but we only use high quality products and have earned a reputation for it.
We started doing up packs for years 8, 9 and 10 (based on what basics they would need for compulsory BOS subjects) last year and while the sales weren’t record breaking it was easy money. Sales of these packs are currently tracking higher than last year.
Jarryd your approach is the right one.
It is dissapointing to see so many giving up because of price alone.
We started off supplying one school because our children went there. We now have arrangements with over 20 and we no longer approach them, they approach us.
The multinationals approaching schools might win on price for one year but they will be back as they cant supply the wide variation and the service individual schools need.
Same applies to Officeworks. They are not capable of supplying over 75% items on any school list . We know because we have tried them out !
We tendered again for ur local school, and agaon we lost… This time we did not loose on price as we know we were the lowest, but there was graft and corruption in the P&C – canot prove though.
So completely pissed off, we ran a full page add in the paper offering 10% off books packs to the specific school (nearly 1,000 students) under the banner of givving something back, and keeping busines local (even though your P&C does not)…
Well surpise, surprise, we got nearly 400 orders @ an avergae bookpack price of $180 with a margin of over 30%… The tender also includes all text books…
P&C pissed off, parents happy… Princiapl is getting heads to roll in the P&C. And winnig tenderor has now pulled out…
Dirty tactics sometimes require dirty tactics…
We only do the one school, but it is worthwhile. My only issue is getting the school to finalise their lists early enough to get the BTS pricing at GNS. New principal did better than the old one but still had to order “blind” for some of it, and then make the rest up at normal prices.
Reading these posts, it reminds me why BTS is a waste of time and money for a lot of newsagents.
It used to be the case that you could call the school in December, get the lists and then have stock on hand so the parents could decide to shop with you or not. Now it is all about backroom deals and dirt tactics as Peter puts it and who can bribe the P&C the most. I have a friend that works at a school and she has stated it is not worth her job to give out the lists.
We stock a range of stationery all year round but do not pump huge $$$$ into BTS when people just go to Big W, officeworks even if they are dearer on a lot of items which is the case the majority of times but as Allen has commented people do not get it anymore.
Could any body tell me where can i order school textbooks? i think i wiull do what Peter did next year though
Eric – it depends on the text books they use… We have accounts with 3 main ones – Kluwell, Pearson & Pascal Press as thse are the text book providers – you normally get a 30% discount to the retail price… Our school is particular in that they only use Tudor Exercise books… Tudor wont supply direct (normally), however GNS will get in… I get mine from a Newsagent who does have direct supply and he charges me less than GNS…
May I add:
If PARENTS want their kids to have jobs, the WHOLE FAMILY should start supporting Australian Manufacturing AND Retail.