I spend a lot of words on this blog telling newsagents what to do. Cut this category. Chase that one. Review your card range. Watch your roster costs. Plenty of advice, week after week.
Today I want to say something different.
Back yourself.
You already know your shop better than anyone. Better than your suppliers, better than any consultant, better than me. You know which customers come in on pension day. You know which lines move and which ones sit there gathering dust while you tell yourself they will come good. You know, honestly, what you would change if you stopped putting it off.
That knowledge is worth more than you give it credit for.
I have been around this channel for decades, and the retailers I have seen thrive were rarely the ones with the best location or the deepest pockets. They were the ones who trusted their own judgement and acted on it. They tried things. Some failed. They tried something else. They did not wait for a supplier, a landlord or an industry body to save them, because nobody is coming to save any of us. That sounds bleak. It is actually liberating.
If you have been thinking about dropping a category that no longer earns its space, you are probably right. If you have been eyeing a product area that excites you, something you would enjoy selling, that enthusiasm is data too. Customers can tell when a shop owner loves what they sell. It shows in the displays, in the buying, in the conversation at the counter.
The shops growing in this channel right now do not look like the newsagencies of twenty years ago, and thank goodness for that. Every one of them got there because an owner decided their own instincts were worth acting on.
Doubt is part of running a small business. Anyone who tells you they have never lain awake over a decision is lying. But doubt is not a reason to stand still. It is the toll you pay for doing something that matters.
So here is my Sunday encouragement. Make the change you have been sitting on. Start small if you need to. Measure it. Adjust. You have survived in one of the toughest corners of retail, through structural decline, a pandemic and everything since. That is not luck. That is you.
Back yourself. You have earned the right.