A blog on issues affecting Australia's newsagents, media and small business generally. More ...

Points of friction you could consider eliminating from your retail business to improve the shopper experience.

Friction in retail is a hot topic at retail business conferences right now, in particular removing friction that can get in the way of shoppers doing business with you.

Here are key points of friction that if removed or addressed could improve customer relationships and increase revenue achieved in your business – if they apply to you:

  1. Minimum eftpos / card transaction value. Such a limit does not make any sense today.
  2. Eftpos / card transaction surcharge. The costs of offering eftpos are small. By all means is yours is an agency focused business with small margins, charge it. However if yours is not an agency business such a fee has no place and your shoppers know it.
  3. The customer in front of you is the most important task you have.  If the phone rings, don’t answer it.
  4. A complaint is an opportunity. 
  5. Accessibility. If you only sell while your physical store is open you are missing opportunities for half the trading time or more.
  6. Always use a bag. Asking shoppers if they want a bag for cards or gifts can be friction. Maybe not so much for a newspaper or magazine. With cards and gifts just do it and stop asking.
  7. Slow checkout. Make it fast.
  8. Check out mistakes. Eliminate them.
  9. Single item shoppers having to wait for people in front with more items or a long transaction. Let single item purchasers get in and out quickly.

I appreciate some of these will be controversial. The objective is to present ideas to be though through and evaluated as to suitability.

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Newsagency management

How Easter has grown into a commercially valuable season

Easter is weeks away and we have sold out of Easter plush a week ago. That is hundreds of pieces. Thankfully, additional stock arrived last week.

Plush sales are already past last year’s numbers, which were terrific in themselves.

Easter is a financially rewarding season for us. We love it.

For many years we played in then chocolate space. First with Darrell Lea, then with Chocolatier – with some Cadbury in the mix too. Three years ago we quit chocolate for an expanded plush offer.

What is interesting is the price range. Our Easter plush is priced from $4.95 through to $150.00. The most common item is $20.00.

Everything has sold well, including at the $150.00 price point. This is great news. It is also what makes Easter a commercially valuable season for us.

To drive new traffic we pitch the season on the lease line as well as in our out of store marketing. We use the Hallmark greeting cards for this too, especially the new on-trend releases for this year.

My advice to newsagents who are experiencing a flat Easter is take a look at your product mix and your marketing. If it is traditional, expect a traditional result. Our approach is anything but traditional and the result speaks to this.

We love Easter for then happy retail displays and experiences of the season.

Footnote: Easter is an excellent season through which to re-cast perception about your business and in particular, the type of business you run. This is what I mean when I talk about being traditional.

If your posters are traditional and your products then the result will be the same old. It can be nothing else.

If you find yourself sighing at flat or declining sales, that is your wake-up call to play outside what you have been doing. Easter would have been a perfect season through which to do this.

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Gifts

Stationery brands prepared to deal direct with newsagents

It is good to see more stationery brands prepared to deal direct with newsagents rather than going through the traditional wholesalers.

The closer the connection between these brands and retail newsagents the better for both those parties.

Stationery sales tell us that a shake up was necessary and from what we have seen over the years, the needed shake up was unlikely to be at the wholesaler level.

The more brands that deal direct with retailers the better as this should improve the investment by brands in the retailer relationship and investment by retailers in the brand relationship. Yes, a true win win.

No, I am not going to name brands here as that is not the point of this post.

My goal today is to acknowledge that change inn this space is occurring and to record my opinion that I think it is a good move. I do this hoping more stationery brands will explore direct relationships with newsagents, turning their back on the expense of wholesaler relationships that may not benefit them as needed.

There are opportunities for stationery growth in newsagencies and the best parties to work together to make this happen are newsagents and the supplier brands.

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Newsagency management

Sunday retail management tip: keep bookkeeping costs to a minimum

Thanks to integration between you newsagency software and accounting packages and easy expense and other tracking tools, the need for a bookkeeper for a retail business has all bust disappeared.

Many retail businesses I know have eliminated the bookkeeper cost overhead. This drops money back to the bottom line of the P&L.

If you use an external bookkeeper today, look at what you can do to reduce or eliminate that cost. The freed cash could help with inventory expansion or out of store marketing – two key activities for a transitioning newsagency business.

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Management tip

Sunday retail marketing tip: use supplier videos

Engaged suppliers often have access to videos that are ideal for use on social media. Use these on your business Facebook page and elsewhere to leverage their professional and often fun content for promoting your business.

Here is an excellent example of a video ideal for promoting your business. Who doesn’t want to watch people playing with these new things that are arriving in-store shortly? This video is perfect for the marketing tip I offer today.

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marketing

Visual merchandising inspiration: Pokemon

Pokemon product at the counter displayed professionally and competitively priced drives impulse purchases and drives return traffic to the business. Also, it pitches authentic Pokemon product. With some discount variety stores selling knock-off products, being proud about selling authentic products is important.

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visual merchandising

Selling optimism makes you happy and attracts people to the newsagency

We have many products in our retail businesses that can make people happy. Every one of these products is an opportunity to reach new customers and to attract them to our shops.

You only have to look at how people use facebook to understand that people like optimism, that they are drawn to inspiring images and quotes.

We can leverage these in our own business-based social media engagement, and give people what they like and connect the positive emotional response back to our businesses.

Take the image of the duck with this post. The message, Quiet the mind and the soul will squeak, is simple, inspiring, optimistic.

This is not an image or text people would expect to see from a newsagency yet it is perfect for the business I want to pitch as mine.

The photo is perfect to load as is. That is all I need to do as it will do the rest. This is a perfect social media post in my view – because it does play against type, against what people expect from a newsagency business. Plus, it is happy, inspiring, heartwarming.

As I noted earlier,  we have many products in our retail businesses that can make people happy. My advice is to find them, shine a light on them, use them to attract people to your business who might otherwise not be attracted to you.

But remember, once there you have to give them an experience that matches the expectation of the social media post. Don’t allow there to be a disconnect as you could lose them forever.

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Newsagency management

The best items to place with newspapers to maximise the value of these destination shoppers

In my benchmark work with newsagents and through other data I see I have developed a list of items that work best with newspapers.

With more than 70% of newspaper purchases single item purchases, leveraging newspaper placement is key to make the most of destination newspaper traffic.

Here are the best items to place with with your top selling newspaper, the items people are most likely to add to their newspaper purchase:

  1. Thursday through Sunday – Better Homes and Gardens magazine.
  2. On a Monday – your top selling weekly magazines out that day.
  3. On a Thursday – your top selling weekly magazines out that day.
  4. Crossword magazines.
  5. A stack of boxes of paperclips with a price offer of, say, 3 for $x.xx. You could substitute paperclips with everyday tape of any sort, staples or similar home stationery items.
  6. A carefully curated selection of cards, maybe no more than five, for an every day useful caption: Thank You is good. You could also pitch card captions people would never think you have.
  7. A selection of gifts from a single line your shoppers would never expect you to carry in your business.

Create the space next to newspapers. I have never seen a newsagency where this cannot be created.

Do not overload the space next to your top selling newspaper. If you clutter the space it will be too busy and people will not see what you want them to see.

Use my suggestions above to get you thinking about your situation. My ideas may not work. Something will. The moment you have success you will be encouraged to try more. Chase that success.

The goal here is to drive shopper visit efficiency from newspapers. Success will only come from active engagement by you in your business. No one else will do this for you.

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Management tip

How to advertise for new staff for your retail newsagency business

As newsagency businesses transition to broader-appeal businesses, how we acquire new employees needs to evolve.

Whereas in the past newsagency retail experience was important, today this is not the case. Today, ideal employees will be more likely found away from the business.

For years when I needed a new employee I’d put up a sign in the business. Now I place an ad on Seek to draw from a bigger pool to present more opportunities the sign might otherwise not uncover.

Here is the text of an ad I have currently running:

Casual retail assistant: Knox and Southland
newsXpress Knox and newsXpress Southland are unique businesses. Their core products are cards, jigsaws, Ty Beanie Boos, jigsaws and gifts.

We are looking for people who love working in retail and want to be part of an innovative and changing business.

While the roles are casual, chunky hours are available. Candidates must be available to work on any of the seven days of there week.

We are not looking for people with newsagency experience as these businesses are not newsagencies as you would know them.

Good communication, professional presentation station, customer care and appreciation of the value of work are essentials we are looking for in the candidates we will choose. Visual merchandising skills are a bonus.

Check out our Facebook pages to find out more about us.

In three days the ad attracted 266 candidates. While some are clearly not suited, many are, coming from diverse retail backgrounds through which we can benefit.

It is vital we expand the retail experiences in our businesses, beyond what has been traditional in newsagency businesses. One good way to do this is to bring in new employees with experience in other retail channels. That is what I am seeking to do through this latest job ad pitch.

Footnote: I have used Seek as it shows you are serious about hiring retail professionals. A free ad on Gumtree will not, in my opinion, attract the same calibre of candidates.

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Management tip

Has Tatts redefined its retail standards?

Here is a photo that a Tatts representative posted to its private Facebook group for retailers showing how one business is promoting St Patricks Day products. In a comment, a Tatts person on the page complimented the look of the business.

I am told by Tatts agents that this photo shows breaches of what Tatts permits.

Now, before the folks at Nextra call their lawyers about this post, I think what the store is doing looks okay. My issue is with Tatts and their promotion of a display that appears to be outside what it says to others is acceptable.

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Lotteries

Why I am not embracing the reduced Sunday penalty rates in my retail business

Here are my reasons for deciding to not embrace the Sunday penalty rates decision in my retail businesses:

  1. I value my employees. To pay them less as a result of the decision could suggest to them they are worth less. I have hated it when suppliers reduced margin or commission and argued then that they value me and my business less.
  2. I want to be competitive for good labour. Paying a competitive rate is key to this.
  3. The business reward. It is open to employees who are now told their pay will not be cut to return the favour to the business.
  4. Competition. A range of competitor business have made a similar announcement.
  5. While of economy fairness. While I agree with the decision, it should only be taken as a whole of economy review that fairly adjusts economic touch-points for all and not only salaried workers.
  6. Weighing everything up it is the right thing to do.

This is not a permanent decision. It is possible I will modify my position as the marketplace situation evolves. If I did and thereby embraced a saving in labour costs, I anticipate through would be invested in more hours.

All business owners need to reach their own conclusions on this matter. Unfortunately, as a country we are bereft of leadership on broader issues that should be confronted in any economic setting adjustment as has been done with Sunday penalty rates.

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Management tip

Five things you can do to leverage low-margin value high-volume shop traffic

Many retail newsagencies are traffic and margin poor businesses. Such businesses are high-risk businesses as most low margin products and services are delivering less traffic year on year … high-risk of financial failure.

In addition to low margin products and services experiencing traffic decline year on year, minimal or no retail price movement see a decline in margin in real terms. Further, too often we see the percentage cut by suppliers for selfish reasons, further diluting the value to the retailer.

But it is not all bad news with low margin products and services. If they are generating good traffic, the opportunity is to be proactive in leveraging that traffic. Here is a list of five must-do things to leverage this low value traffic in your business.

  1. Place at least one offer / stand at the door facing people as they leave. If you have room, have one stand / offer either side. Make sure the offer is easily understood and relevant.
  2. Use a portable table for pricing stock and other stock work and place this with a staff member doing the work during busy periods between the door and the destination for most traffic.
  3. For the highest volume items, like newspapers, weekly magazines and lotteries in a retail newsagency, always pitch other products such that these destination shoppers see the other products.
  4. Always have an offer at the counter unrelated to the low margin destination purchase. Get creative as to how you pitch this at the lottery counter if you have Tatts.
  5. Establish a floor unit to guide counter traffic. the right type of unit is best used for holing products people are likely to purchase on impulse while standing in line to make their destination purchase. All sorts of retailers do this, even if they do not have the shopper to warrant such a floor unit. The impulse purchases should make the space valuable for you. if Tatts complains, explaining it is about best practice traffic management.

My advice is do all five of these things. If you don’t do some or all you are most likely only benefiting from destination business from low-margin high-traffic products and services and there is no upside in that.

For the record, margin poor products and services are those with a GP percentage of less than 50% in my view.

This post shows how to turn a negative into a positive. I hope it helps.

FTYI this advice is an example of one of many types advice newsXpress provides its members.

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Management tip
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