Behind your counter, in your window, on your business Facebook page or on an a-fram outside the front of your newsagency list NEW MAGAZINES OUT THIS WEEK. Use this to show off your point of difference by listing magazines shoppers are less likely to find at competition supermarkets, convenience stores and other outlets. Change the list every week, on the same day.
Set a sales goal for a product, a category, a spinner or some other measurable part of your business. Share the goal with your team members. Track performance. Share the joy of passing the goal or involve everyone in working out why you did not make it.
If you don’t set goals you will never reach them.
I served a customer last Saturday who wanted a clothing marker for new school clothes. The Artline 750 was perfect for their need. While looking at this they discovered the Artline Garden Marker next to the 750. They took that too.
The customer was thrilled as they had looked everywhere for a clothes marker. You should have looked here first, I joked. I forgot about newsagencies, she said. Gee that hurt.
Price was not an issue – because of the difficulty they had experienced in finding what they wanted.
I have found myself thinking about the interaction over the last few days. While it is easy to bemoan the fading interest in newsagencies as the first stop for people looking for any stationery item, we have a responsibility in this. We have stood by and watched as Typo launched, Smiggle grew, Kikki.K grew, Officeworks improved, supermarkets introduced better stationery departments and variety stores such as K-Mart and Target introduced better stationery departments.
But in our businesses, through products like the Artline 750, we have products we can pitch that no one else has or that are too hard to find in large businesses like Officeworks. We can use these long-tail products to promote a point of difference, a finely tuned customer care a a seasonal pitch that draws attention.
With Back To School in full swing it is a crowded marketplace. But who is promoting clothing markers? It is easy for us to pitch these online, in-store and elsewhere – because no one else is.
This is how I am responding to what my customer taught me on Saturday – I am promoting the Artline 750 on facebook and at the counter. This is one of several niche products around which I am promoting the newsagency, to draw attention to the specialty stationery we sell and through this to reinforce that shopping with us ought be more top of mind than it has been.
We, all of us, have to give people in our communities more reasons to shop at our newsagencies. The shingle is not enough nor is the general Back To School marketing. The best approach is result promotion of niche items like the Artline 750 to build the impression that your business is the go to place for stationery – because you care, because your service is knowledgable and personal.
Congratulations to the team at newsXpress Eli Waters in Hervey Bay, Queensland, for selling the sole winning ticket in the $70M Powerball jackpot last night.
this is a good win for a business that represents best-practice transition. while respecting traditional products and services, the business is kicking terrific goals in new product categories and attracting new shopper traffic as a result.
Beyond the sale of Powerball tickets, what did the jackpot mean for you? Did the sales of any other products increase? If so, what?
I think it is important for newsagents with lotteries to know for sure the broader impact of lotteries so they can do more of what works next time and less of what does not work.
Every day can be tough in small business. You can feel like the big competitors are winning and that you can’t climb the mountain to compete. You may not know where to start.
There are green shoots of good news and opportunities in every small and independent retail business. The key is to find these and to leverage them for more success.
A green shoot is a product or a category of products or a supplier performing above average in the business. Often, these successes have gone unnoticed.
We were working with a retailer recently who said business was down by 20% and they did not know what to do. It turned out that the best performing product category in their business was ‘failing’ for six months because they had not replenished stock.
They invested, instead, on new lines that had not gone as well as the successful product.
They, in part, created their own downward spiral and had not looked at their business data to understand that contributed to the problems they were confronting.
Once they realised the situation, they re-stocked the successful range of products and numbers started to improve. More important, their confidence level grew and with this their business decisions improved.
There are opportunities for optimism in every business.
Finding optimism is like mining, you have to look for it, sometimes for a long time. It is there, though, in every retail business.
As soon as you hear yourself talking your business down, STOP. Look at your data, look for the good news. That is what you need to think and talk about.
By looking at your data, we mean looking at year on year, quarter on quarter or month on month comparison data for departments, categories, suppliers or even individual products. Look for growth and once you see growth, think about what you can do with and around the products achieving growth so that you can achieve other growth.
Any product achieving year on year increases in unit sales is a product to be appreciated, nurtured and used to help grow other products that can sell to the same customer.
This is how you grow optimism. Find those small green shoots, leverage them with some small steps and, over time, build more success for your business.
While overall revenue, traffic count and profitability may be down, growth even at the smallest data point, such as for one or two products, could be enough to get you looking at your business differently.
Finding optimism is important as it is through this view that you are more likely to make better business decisions.
Sugar is under attack in 2016 and with justification to those who have seen That Sugar Film. The latest issue of That’s Life is ideal for promoting with the full cover on show – including the No Sugar Diet in this issue. I suggest placing this issue either at the counter or with your major newspaper to drive impulse purchases.
I appreciate some are frustrated by the promotion of the Powerball jackpot online by tatts and OzLotteries. This photo is another ad that came up in my facebook feed this morning. Sure, OzLotteries has a divveret cost model to newsagents and none of the compliance challenges that are expensive to newsagents.
But I want you to focus on something else. OzLotteries does not have a shop. They have to go out and put themselves in front of potential customers.
You can do this too – go outside your business, online and elsewhere, and promote this and other jackpots. But I don;t think that is wise use of your time and money.
Your best success with lotteries and their large jackpots like tonight’s Powerball $70M will be due to the location of your shop, the speed of your service, the value of the service to the shopper and tactical decisions you make for your business on the shop floor.
My advice is that you look at the online ads from Tatts and OzLotteries as a reminder of the importance of going outside your business to find new customers. To do this, you have to have products and services that are not commodities easily available online and elsewhere. you need your point of difference for your area. That is what you need to market as that is far more valuable to you than any commodity, easily available, product such as lotteries.
What is it you can promote that makes your business stand out? What is it that can attract people who otherwise might not have shopped at your business? What is it that can drive better GP on to of net new revenue for your business? These are the questions on which I would prefer newsagents to focus.
Opening your door is not a marketing activity. Calling your business a newsagency ties you into an old model that has no future. Doing in 2016 what you did is 2015 will give you 2015 results.
Take the anger / frustration / annoyance of these online promotions by Tatts and OzLotteries of their online purchase options and direct it to finding new traffic for your business.
In the meantime, here is what I am pitching to my online communities today:
I would love to know what others here think about The Simpsons as a product licence. My two cents: interest has slowed to a point whereby I am unlikely to stock product unless there is some major reinvention or reinvestment to make the brand more appealing. Bottom line: The Simpsons is not paying its way.
I took this photo in a funky shop last week and share it here as inspiration. To provide focus to some products they created a wall in front of the wall, to make for what looks like a shrine. They lined the cavity with gold paper and painted the new wall a nice contrasting blue. The result was a display you could not miss as you enter the business.
Ignore the products they are displaying and focus on the idea – of creating a feature space for a low cost, creating a space everyone entering the business notices as it is different, unexpected.
This is a perfect, simple and low cost way to get people looking at a category of products you want to feature. What is even better is that the materials you use can be repainted and used for another display at a later stage.
On the display itself, the more we make our businesses look less like newsagencies the better for this helps shoppers shed newsagency related perceptions when they shop with us.
I received this email from telco Telstra several times this week. It is another phishing email, an email that ought to be deleted and not acted upon.
Already this year there have been emails from the ATO, banks, telcos and airlines.
I know of several newsagents who have been caught and have lost time and, in one case, money, as a result.
It is important you take care with emails, especially those from organisations from which you do not receive emails on a regular basis. Make sure your employees know to be equally careful with your work email.
Tatts retailers are charged a percentage of sales by Tatts, imposing a cost of sales that fluctuates with sales revenue. The fee is like a penalty for success – the more you sell the higher the fee you pay. yet there has been no extra cost for Tatts.
Last week, a newsagent colleague doubled Tatts sales from $45,000 a week to $75,000 for the week. Their Tatts percentage of sales fee increased from $450 to over $800. This is in addition to other fees imposed by Tatts and the margin Tatts has embedded in their ticket prices.
Tatts agents have said to me this fee as a percentage is unfair, a disincentive to grow sales. Why do you think?
I am writing about this today in response to a request from a colleague.
If I was running Tatts and was serious about incentivising retailers I would charge a lower percentage the more they sold.
Customers love optimistic and inspiring products. Better still, people we encounter online love them – commenting on the message and asking where the store is located. Products like this one inspiring you to FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS help us pitch the newsagency differently to what people expect. They also help us promote optimism … the more we do this in 2016 the better.
On December 12, I booked a table of six people at Syracuse restaurant, through their website, for December 19. I received a confirmation by email from them.
On December 18, the day before the booking, I received this email saying they were closed on the 19th:
Hi Mark
I just tried to call the number provided on the booking but couldn’t get through.
I was calling to apologise about being closed tomorrow Saturday night.
The bookings from the website were kept open by mistake, this is why you were able to lodge the booking for 6 people for tomorrow dinner.We close from tonight and re-open on the 4th of January. I hope to see you back after then, and please accept my apologies for any inconvenience caused.
Have a merry Xmas and a happy new year!
I was shocked they advised me they were closed barely 24 hours prior to the booking and that they would be closed in the busy week before Christmas. I let them know this in response to their email. They did not respond to me. Then, at 8:30am in December 19, I received this email:
Hi mark fletcher,
Friendly reminder regarding your booking at Syracuse this Saturday 19 Dec. The details of your booking can be found below.
If you need to modify your booking in any way, please contact us on 03 96701777.
We look forward to having you dine with us.
What?! I checked by calling, they were closed. The email was sent in error.
Why am I writing about this here? The experience is a reminder of the importance of ensuring your online operations are fully integrated and aligned with your offline operations.
Your opening and closing hours on your website, Facebook page, G+ page and elsewhere need to be consistent. Your online backend processes confirming orders and engaging in follow up need to reflect exactly how you do trade at that time and to ensure a consistent operation.
As more newsagents represent their businesses online in one or more ways, it is important that this part of the business receives regular attention so you do not provide a failure of service as was delivered by Syracuse restaurant.
More and more people want to be able to conduct business through websites, by email, through Facebook or by text. They are less likely to use the phone today than a few years ago. Instead of ensuring one platform, the shop, is run right, we now have multiple platforms need to get right, every time. Get one of these platforms wrong your business can look bad.
Next time you go to put up a sign in your window about anything, consider whether you need to put up a digital sign in your online ‘windows’.
The free gift of a tub of Nivea cellular anti-age day cream with Prevention magazine is terrific. We are displaying the gift with the magazine. But we have deep enough shelves for this to work. In more regular magazine fixtures and in the magazine wave wall fixtures this issue would not hold up well.
A couple of newsagents contacted me saying they had removed the gift. While I understand their need to do this, it means the gift cannot help drive sales.
This is another example of challenges presented by some gift with purchase campaigns.
I love the cards packaged with the latest Dolly magazine. They are beautiful and well targeted at the Dolly shopper. They are similar to a line of small format cards we sell in-store … and this is what will challenge some newsagents who don’t want gifts given with magazines that they might otherwise sell. For me it depends on the gift. In this case, the gift is terrific and just like products we have – I can argue both sides.
The gift with the latest Girlfriend is challenging too as it is perfectly targeted yet promoting a brand in fierce competition with newsagents. The notebook is like ones we sell. Typo is hurting our stationery sales. It will gall some newsagents that they are being used to promote Typo. Yet I understand the publisher connecting the Girlfriend brand with the popular Typo brand. We don’t have a single notebook brand the publisher could have used for the gift.
I don’t know what the answer is here. On the one hand we want publishers to offer thoughtfully targeted gifts with purchase that drive purchases of the magazines. However, we do not want this to impact similar priciest we can see for good margin in-store. It is a complex issue I would like to see explored more fully by publishers.
I spent time at Officeworks in Richmond yesterday, looking their approach to Back To School 2016. I decided on the visit having been inundated with BTS advertising on TV, online and in print.
Newsagents tend to love to hate Officeworks – often ignoring strengths that make them a compelling competitor.
If you have an Officeworks nearby, they are the benchmark for Back To School and here is why:
From inside the front door they have excellent value deals that cannot be beaten – like the Cruzer Facet 8GB USB stick for $2.73. The best price I can find elsewhere is $6.00. I go through USB stick like candy so I purchased ten.
It is the six or each dump bin deals like this USB stick that tell you this is a good place to shop – and you are only a few steps inside the front door. They have just as good deals dotted through the business, especially where BTS shoppers are likely to shop.
There were more staff on the floor that I usually see at this Officeworks – customer service attention is heightened because of BTS. The quality of customer service is good too based on answers I got to a couple of questions.
The store is well laid out, well sign posted. There is a consistent BTS message throughout that connects with all their advertising.
At the counter they offer multiple options for donations to The Smith Family BTS campaign helping needy kids and families.
I suspect I could go into almost any Officeworks right now and have a similar experience. This would have to be the case for their national advertising to leverage maximum value for the national chain. From the product mix to pricing to their charity connection, there is a consistency that newsagents are challenged to match.
If you think poorly of Officeworks and if you are doing Back To School this year, I urge you to visit an Officeworks. Look carefully at what they are doing. Pick up ideas you could leverage for your own business. Even their use of dump bins for compelling offers is something newsagents could do through BTS to pitch a value proposition from inside the front door.
Supplier reps are employed by their suppliers to represent them. Each time you get them to break their rules to get an outcome for you there are consequences. For example, if you get a supplier rep to create a card credit to match unsold form sale product it will eventually effect the card supply model for the business.
There are consequences when you are a supplier rep to cut a corner or break a rule. My advice is to not ask – like with the consequences of firm sale product not working. Bending the sale or return rules for firm sale product can only end in tears.
People expect easy access to information about business opening hours now more than ever. Thanks to Facebook, Google and other platforms, people expect to find answers to questions about when you will open and closed. If you are not on top of these and other platforms people will be frustrated in not knowing what your hours are during holidays such as Christmas and New Year.
Sure, it is a bit of extra work – but being open with your customers across a range of platforms is good customer service in 2016.
In a Lush soap store the other day I witnessed the perfect in-store product demonstration. The shop assistant gathered people around with a loud voice. Before I realised I was in the crowd watching her demonstration of bath bubbles. The demo was short and the pitch compelling. People purchased as a result.
I think the key to the sales success I saw was the engagement of the shoppers with the product. They say, touched and smelled the bubbles. How could they not purchase?
When was the last time you demonstrated something in your newsagency? The shelves of a typical newsagency are full of products to demonstrate: pens, magazines (food, crossword, heath, craft and more), paper products, sand, glue, glitter, soap, toys … as I said, plenty.
Sure it can be a challenge to demonstrate publicly. Give it a go, lean into your fear and have fun. You could find sales increasing as a result.
