Author: Mark Fletcher

The first 3 metres of your shop from the front windows and door in represent your headline.

If you want to transform your newsagency and have people see your business as changed, change this space, dramatically, completely. Leave nothing as it was.

It’s this first 3 metres people will see and decide the type of shop you have. This is where you get to play against expectations, it is where you have to disrupt. Don’t give them what they expect.

Products, fixtures – they are all up for grabs in terms of the changes you bring.

If your counter is located in this space, it needs the same dramatic attention.

I think the best way to do this is one day when the shops is closed, take everything away from the first 3 metres, remove it so you have a blank slate. Set a rule for yourself that you cannot put back into the space anything that was there. It will be difficult. You’ll have the urge to put oe thing back into the space, then another. Resist this urge.

What you really want from the experience is for customers to tell you there are surprised to see you stock something you always have stocked but that they only notice now because of what you have done in the first 3 metres of the shop.

Here are four principles for making the first 3 metres of your shop work:

• Declutter and Create a Visual Feast: As you place new products, keep the entrance free from clutter. Make it visually appealing. Try and not use traditional retail fixtures. Use clean lines, captivating displays, and well-maintained fixtures.

• Sensory Experience: Consider incorporating subtle elements that engage other senses. Play upbeat music at the front of the shop – music people will know, showcase beautifully scented products, let people smell your type of business and enjoy it.

• Storytelling Through Displays: Don’t just display products, tell a story. Create thematic displays that showcase how your products can be used or benefit the customer. Don’t have too many of an item in a display. Show less quantity but more range of products – to tell that story you want.

• Interactive Elements: Make it easy for people to engage with what you sell, to touch and smell. Having products on display in a box of so old school. Take products out. Encourage touching and engaging.

The first 3 metres of the shop is the most valuable retail real estate in the shop if you make good use of it. Be in charge. Set the tone. Make a statement. Keep changing it. Show that yours is a transforming business.

If you know you need / want to transform your newsagency and your business data is not in good shape, there are steps you can take on the shop floor to drive change in the business.

In my experience, businesses often in this situation often have a traditional shop floor layout.

The advice I provide below is all about disrupting what you have as I have found this can help retailers see what they could see. It’s radical and rough, designed to seriously change things up in the business.

It is important to know that whatever you do is forever. Make these moves, watch, learn and adjust. Shops needs to be continuously evolving.

First: the old newspaper and magazine unit

If you have a traditional magazine fixture running down the business of the business with newspapers on the front facing shoppers and they enter the business: take all the stock off and rip it out. Don’t overthink it, rip it out.

This is prime retail space you should be using for products with 50% gross profit and more. Giving this space to products from which you make 25% GP and less is a bad business move.

Rip the whole unit out.

Now, using low cost basic everyday shelving, put your magazines on the back wall of the shop. What ever was in that spot needs to go somewhere else.

Basic strip shelving with brackets that hold the shelves will suffice.

Put your newspapers below, on a bottom flat shelf.

If you’ve ben putting out newspaper or magazine posters, stop. They do not increase sales.

Second: fill the freed up space.

Grab a couple of old tables, or some old wooden boxes. Create display places on the shop floor and on each tell a product category story. Bring products to this part of the shop that people might otherwise not have seen.

If you don’t have tables, look at a local op. shop, in your garage or somewhere like Amart. Spend as little as possible.

Resist using spinners here in this recovered space.

Choose products you are proud to offer.

Be sure to include products you are certain would not work for your customers – it’s important you do this to figure out what you don’t know about your customers.

Be prepared to change the displays within a week if they are not working for you.

Three: watch what happens.

The moves may be a bust. It’s okay if they are, make more changes and keep doing so until you see a good result.

You may see some early success. If you do, lean into that, do more.

If your business is that traditional that it has an old magazine and newspaper unit running down the middle of the shop, I suspect you will experience good news for that’s what I have seen in every business I have seen try it.

Have fun.

One newsagent I know who made these moves hosted a Saturday afternoon sausage sizzle so people would watch as they used a chain saw to exorcise the old magazine unit from the shop.

The key point of this first move is to disrupt your view of the business. Sure, the shop floor will be disrupted. You need to be disrupted more and that’s why you need to do something radical that you are likely to want to resist. The suggested changes could do more for you personally than the business itself.

If you want to change your retail newsagency business, no matter whether it is a traditional newsagency or one that has already seen some transformation, it starts with being sure of where you are at, it starts with your data.

Knowing where the business is at is the foundation of steps forward. This involves looking at the business from a range of angles.

• Up to date profit and loss statement.
• A current debtors report and a current creditors report.
• A list of all monies owed by the business, both formal and informal.
• Stock listing showing total value of stock.
• Dead stock listing showing all items for which zero sales have been recorded in six months or more – showing the total value of this stock.
• A floor map showing gross profit percentage contribution by product department / category floorspace allocation.
• Total rostered hours in a week, including owners regardless of whether they are paid, and a calculation on revenue per hour.
• a revenue comparison down to the category level comparing the most recent 6 months with the same 6 months a year earlier.

It’s not enough to say you want to transform your business, you need to understand where you are at and the capacity for change. The above information will provide insights as to immediate opportunities as well as the capacity of the business to fund the cost of change. This list is the starting point of what I ask for from any business I work with on transformation.

In looking through the pool of data from this list, my recommendation is to seek our easy wins that can set up for productive focus next. For example, if there is $10,000 or more in dead stock and all of that stock has long since been paid for, quit it. The freed cash and space will give you a boost. Now, to quit the stock, place it in one location, a clearance location. It could be a table, or two or more. Put it together with the same discount for all. My suggestion is 50%.

While you are quitting dead stock, work through the rest of the data to understand the business performance as it stands today and look at the comparison report for any easy green shoot opportunities you can see allied to current business categories. This could provide you with an easy first step.

As you work through your data, make a list of ideas, action items. It could be that on that list there are some easy wins you’d not seen before or had been ignoring.

Some retailers I have spoken with over the years about business transformation or improvement have been tempted to use their accountant to guide them. I think this is a mistake unless the accountant has current hands-on retail experience in your type of shop. Others have been keen to use a business consultant. Unless they have current retail experience in your area, I’d not engage with them.

My point here is that it’s your business. You are at a point of wanting change, transformation. The next steps are up to you and best done by you so that you own the changes.

This first step starts with gathering the data, cleaning house and getting fit.

All of this work is about getting you match fit for more considerable change, that comes next.

Footnote: I’ve owned newsagencies since 1996. I’ve been a Director of newsXpress since 2005. I started Tower Systems in 1981. While I am no guru, I have had a range of experiences that have helped me see the value of changing our businesses, transforming them beyond the traditional and doing so on a minimal budget. If you are embarking on the transformation and what to talk to someone, I’m here: mark@towersystems.com.au or 0418 321 338.