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Tips on how to grow card sales in your retail newsagency

Following from the release of the latest newsagency sales benchmark results yesterday, I share small selection of the advice newsXpress members have access to on how to grow card sales. I am doing this today to show that there are actions you can take in your newsagency business to grow card sales.

  1. Pitch at the counter. Always have a small selection of cards for impulse purchase at th counter. Change this every week.
  2. Staff picks. Close to the counter have a selection of staff pick cards. These should change weekly.
  3. Pitch outside the department, disrupting traffic. Ensure that every shopper is pitched cards every time they visit, even with a small format stand. You choose the cards for the start. Do not purchase extra cards.
  4. Reward loyalty. Ensure every card purchase is a step toward a loyalty bonus.l Dfferentiate your business through this.
  5. Train. Ensure every staff member understands your cards and knows how to approach shoppers.
  6. On social media. Every few days, talk about a card in simple way that pitches the card without being to marketing oriented.
  7. Promote to businesses. Businesses send cards – if they do not they should – pitch bulk purchase at an offer.
  8. Focus on low-volume captions. Captions like Thank You Coach and New Home give you the opportunity to remind people about giving cards.

Key in this activity is the objective of getting people to purchase more cards than they otherwise might. All of us in the greeting card supply chain need this as the purchase volume per capita in Australia is behind the US and UK.

I think we as retailers carry the prime obligation to drive card sales and to attract new shoppers to our businesses looking to purchase cards. We need to do this by being engaged with the category, loving it for its high margin and traffic generation and being creative in our pitch. Our influence is greater than we and suppliers have allowed it to be over the years.

As I noted, this is a small selection of a target kit of advice designed to help retailers grow card sales.

I hope you find the suggestions useful.

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Greeting Cards

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