April newsagency sales benchmark to gauge COVID-19 impact

Yesterday morning, I launched a new sales benchmark, comparing April 2020 with April 2019 to gain an insight into the impact of COVID-19 on our channel.

I have already received data from 44 newsagencies, which is terrific – more than is usual for the first 24 hours of a benchmark study. Already, this is a diverse dataset – city and country, mall and high street, banner group and not. This is good as diversity is key for insights.

I am particularly interested in product category trends as this information could be useful to retailers as they start to consider the other side of lockdown.

For any interested, here is the notice of the study:

APRIL NEWSAGENCY SALES BENCHMARK STUDY.
I invite you to provide data for a special COVID-19 related newsagency sales performance benchmark study. The benchmark provides data against which you can compare your business performance. 

How to participate.

1. Please run a Monthly Sales Comparison Report for 01/04/2020 – 30/04/2020 compared to 01/04/2019 – 30/04/2019.
2. Tick the category box. IMPORTANT.
3. Tick to exclude home delivery and sub agent data.
4. DO NOT tick the supplier box.
5. Preview the report on the screen. Save as a PDF and email this to me at mark@towersystems.com.au.
6. Read the report yourself and see what it shows you about your business.

I will email the results to all participating newsagents and publish the results on theAustralian Newsagency Blog as a service for all newsagents.

COVID-19 has impacted our channel in myriad ways. I am aware of significant differences between city and country, mall and high street. I’d love to collate data from a good pool of businesses to provide back to the channel useful data on this.

I own and run three newsagencies. Over the years I have had three others. I own newsXpress, the newsagency marketing group.

Tower Systems serves 1,750+ newsagents with best practice newsagency software, We are thrilled to note that our customer base is growing. We welcomed 30+ newsagency businesses as new customers in the last year. Overall, Tower Systems serves in excess of 3,500 small business retailers.