What is the RRP? is a common question retailers ask of suppliers when considering an item and I think this is the wrong question to start a conversation with.
I have been talking about this with suppliers at the gift fair in Sydney over the last couple of days. One bemoaned to me about this question for their terrific range of beautiful giftware. The range looks expensive. But it is not expensive, not in the overall scheme of things as the purchase is an emotional one and with emotional purchases price is less of an issue.
Questions I’d love retailers to consider when contemplating new products include:
- Who is the customer for this product?
- Will this product attract new shoppers to the business?
- Is it a product people will easily understand?
- Does it lend itself to impulse purchases?
- Is this something I can promote outside the business, like online?
- How does it fit with why my shop stands for today?
- Does this product fit a niche I need to be in?
- What margin can this carry? No, this is not a pure price question – it is more about you looking at the product and wondering how far you could push price.
Asking the RRP as the first question and often the only question denies you the opportunity to consider that, maybe, price is not the issue.
I know of newsagents who have sold items priced at $100, $200 and more that they initially, on first seeing the product, said they could not sell. Price is often not the factor we retailers think it is.
We need to not be the barrier to shoppers spending money with us. We need to do this by being more open to products, more considerate of factors other than price as being more important.
Having products that are not easily compared or that can be packaged in a way to look unique to us is the another way to make price less of an issue.
Buying products for the shop based on price keens the business operating a price based model and while that works for Aldi and the like, it does not work for newsagency businesses where growing margin is important.