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Maximising margin in your newsagency

I have seen several situations recently where newsagents have been able to increase the price of popular products without any adverse effect on the volume sold.

In one case the newsagent increase the price of a range of plush from $7.95 to $9.95, in another they increased their cardboard price from $1.50 to $2.20 and in another they increased the price of a popular counter line from $4.40 to $4.95.

In the newsagency where they increased the selling price of cardboard they have added at least $3,640 to their bottom line in a full year as a result of their price move. No extra work, no lost sales – just extra profit.

My question for newsagents reading this is: what prices could you increase without impacting sales volume? If there are items then do it! The ideal items are those others cannot easily purchase elsewhere.

This is not something to procrastinate about. In fact, the timing right now is ideal with the lower exchange rate and rising labour and rent costs you have justification for increasing prices.

So, what prices could you increase without impacting sales volume?

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  1. shauns

    starting with softdrinks ,i am putting them up on monday

    2 likes

  2. allan wickham

    We have done this with a lot of our product and had no resistance from shoppers. The other thing we have been doing lately is looking at our price structures. We recently had a visit from our newsXpress RDM who gave us some invaluable advice regarding how we price products in store. Looking forward to the extra margin….!

    1 likes

  3. June

    We check our competitors (Coles here) and product they don’t carry like cardex
    we put the price up accordingly ($2.2O A2)
    If customers want it they pay the price and
    don’t demur.

    1 likes

  4. Angelo

    Another way to look at things is to break up something that sells in bulk and sell it individually for more than it’s divisible price for the bulk lot. e.g I sell a tin of 12 Scotch tape for $12.95 making individual rolls just $1.08 each but if I price them at $1.50 each I sell more than the combined number of tins.

    3 likes

  5. Jarryd Moore

    Couldn’t agree more. Customer perception of newsagents is that we are expensive. We can’t break this expectation so it makes perfect sense to meet it. Few customers are buying from newsagents on price.

    2 likes

  6. Mark Fletcher

    Angelo you’re right. The majors tend to prefer packs than singles. This is another way we can show off our point of difference.

    2 likes

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