School holidays present an excellent opportunity for all retailers including newsagents. They bring out shoppers we might not often see and shoppers who are usually open to purchasing items they might not consider outside school holiday times.
School holidays present us with excellent commercial opportunities regardless of our newsagency location and situation.
Here are my suggestions for engaging with this recurring season:
- Treat school holidays as a season. Plan ahead with a clear focus in mind. Range a specific mix of products. Dress the shop for the opportunity.
- Change the entire front of your newsagency. With different and / or more people in the mall and on the street during school holidays than at other times this is your opportunity to get them noticing your business. Do this with a different looking shop front. All the products at the front of my newsagency are targeting kids as we are in a shopping centre and more shoppers in school holidays have kids with them than at most other times of the year.
- Range stock for the season. I love the idea of products that can be demonstrated – kinetic sand, bouncing balls, plush to hug, slime to throw and other equally interactive items to be demonstrated on the shop floor.
- Pitch an offer. Use the extra traffic as an opportunity to promote your value proposition. Promote deals in dump bins showing your offers as competitive against the majors in stationery, toy and gift categories.
- Engage your customers. School holidays are an excellent time for competitions or in store workshops.
- Engage your schools. Co-ordinate in advance with a local school an activity kids can do in the school holidays that connects with the curriculum. This can encourage the school to promote your business.
- Promote magazines. Magazines offer an excellent holiday pastime. Put together a display of school holiday fun and engagement from your magazine department. Get people looking at titles they might otherwise ignore during the year.
- Run a stationery sale. School holidays for some is about re-stocking supplies. It could be an ideal time to offer a deal on stationery.
- Have fun. Kids are on a break. They want to relax and enjoy themselves. Shopping is part of that. Help them have fun.
School holidays are not about dealing with more kids or being a child minding centre while parents browse magazines or even shop elsewhere. They are an opportunity to increase sales – by being proactive with the season.