Further to my post yesterday about our ink sale, this photo taken from inside my newsagency on Saturday shows just how close the permanent ink outpost of our competitor is. While their offer is different – they mainly do refills – it does not look that different to shoppers as they are promoting to the same shopper we chase looking for ink for their printer. They do this by promoting the major brands … even though selling cartridges for these brands is not their core focus.
I kind of like having a competitor right out the front of our business as it’s a reminder every day we walk in about competition.
I think some newsagents forget about the competition in some categories and are ‘shocked’ when they ‘discover’ competition.
Every department in a newsagency has tough competition in the marketplace. Too often newsagents are not stepping up to this. This could be because it’s too much – too many competitors because our businesses carry so many different items.
Being broadly based, newsagencies face competition from a bunch of businesses. This leads to us taking our eyes of our competitors – because there are so many. This is why I like the regular reminder of a very specific, and close, competitor.
A tough challenge for newsagents is to pitch their businesses competitively. Now more than any time in our past.
Centre Management of shopping centres show lack of judgement at times. It does just show what small business is up against.
I wish our competition was that far away!