I am contemplating introducing a 10c charge for a plastic bag for newspapers. While this would put me in the same league as Officeworks and Bunnings, I think it’s an important move. Shoppers who want to prove the purchased the item can instead get a receipt or a stamp on the paper.
I’d donate 100% of the money collected to a local environmental charity.
I’d appreciate people sharing the products they promote at Chinese New year time. While we have some terrific Hallmark cards and red packets, I would like to know what else people offer for what is a season growing in popularity in Australia.
I think we can do more with minor seasons like this – beyond traditional gifts and with lines especially for the season.
While I appreciate it is not a gift giving season, it is a season with opportunities related to items we could carry and sell.
I was pleased to see a local Coles supermarket introducing modified shopping trolleys that lock if you move them beyond the car park. This is an excellent move that will reduce trolleys being abandoned on the streets some distance from the supermarket.
So I saw this sign at a local Coles and my first reaction was well done Coles, thank you! The reality, however, is that this benefits them commercially since lost trolleys are a significant cost for them. But I doubt many will see it with that cynicism. No, they will see this as Coles doing good for the community. … This is what we independent retailers are up against – amazingly well resourced and powerful businesses that virtually own the hearts and minds of people we want in our shops.
We are engaging with the New Idea brand campaign with this placement of the floor display unit at the front of the business facing shoppers in the mall. We set the display back so that we could make use of the floor to ceiling collateral. Almost all shoppers entering the business will see this display.
We will support the campaign for the full four weeks – to give our customers an opportunity to win one of the cash prizes.
We’re promoting the latest issue of Australia Property Investor magazine with the full cover on show in the front of business, money and property titles. being the start of the new year it’s a time when people will be thinking about and planning property moves.
We sold out of a top-selling monthly magazine in the week of on-sale just prior to Christmas. We ordered more online and a day later were advised by the distributor they were out of stock. I contacted the publisher and they helped the distributor discover that they did indeed have stock. We were told we’d have stock in two days, on the Thursday. The replacement stock actually arrived the following Monday but it was the old issue.
Frustrated that we had been out of stock already for several days I bought copies of the magazine at retail and put them on the shelves for sale. I’m in a shopping centre with five other magazine outlets and I refuse to encourage my customers to buy magazines elsewhere – hence my decision to purchase additional copies at full retail for re-sale in my business.
By doing this I have set my business up to fail the data compliance requirements of XchangeIT. I am sure I am not alone in this.
XchangeIT, magazine distributors, magazine publishers and newsagency software companies need to agree on a mechanism by which I can report that I have acquired additional stock elsewhere. My newsagency software background tells me this is quite achievable. I envisage a simple transaction through which I add quantities of an item purchased outside the usual magazine supply grid with this transaction advising XchangeIT electronically and through them the distributor.
This approach can stop me and other newsagents who engage in this practice be being told off by XchangeIT for failing by being a good retailer. It can also give visibility to the distributor so that they know what I could have sold had they been able to supply the additional stock I sought.
While there have been discussions around the XchangeIT table about this on several occasions, no action has been achieved. This needs to change – especially in this current era of undersupply of some key titles.
Magazine distribution failures hurt our businesses not only in lost immediate sales but in educating shoppers to consider other retailers that compete with the newsagency channel. We need to do everything possible to serve our customers for the future of our businesses. If this causes us ti fail XchangeIT standards in the meantime so be it.
How prevalent is this move of purchasing magazines at full retail and selling them in the newsagency? I’d guess that it happens between 1,000 and 2,000 times a year.
On a side note: I wish magazine distributors better handled spare floor stock. Too often I am told there is no additional stock where there is stock.
It was good to see the ad for Feast magazine on SBS tonight promoting newsagents and supermarkets. Ads from some publishers don’t promote retail channels. The publisher of Feast specifically lists newsagents and supermarkets and while some may complain that supermarkets are mentioned I’m not concerned at all – we’re one of two retail channels.
On this issue of Feast, the cover looks stunning. This is a magazine to promote in a prime position. This cover featuring delicious ice-creams will help you sell more copies this summer!
The customer who won the Sony PSP as part of our Hallmark Christmas card promotion came in and collected their prize. They were thrilled.
The photo is another for our gallery of happy customers picking up a prize. We will have five prize opportunities like this in 2014, promoting our business with prize opportunities that separate us from the 300 or so other retailers in our centre. It’s small differences like this that matter.
We sold 8% more Hallmark cards in December 2013 compared to December 2012. One of several factors driving this year on year growth is promotions like the prize opportunity for our customers. I am thrilled we decided to spend the money on this promotion.
I love the Australia Day-themed window at my local Thomas Dux supermarket. While being part of Woolworths I’m sure they have people coming up with and executing these ideas, this window looks terrific for this time of the year in Melbourne. A great connection with Australia Day.
Here is a good example of a major business connecting with a small retail season. This ANZ Bank in downtown Adelaide has an excellent branch-wide promotion of Chinese New Year. I was surprised when I saw it as it was the only retail business I noticed downtown with the CNY connection.
The Australian Financial Review yesterday reported on a Christmas Eve It outage for the Myer department store. The AFR report points to issues related to PC-EFTPOS. This is a bridge commonly used when connecting POS software to a bank.
With many hundreds of newsagents using Tyro it’s worth noting that PC-EFTPOS is a competitor (with banks) to Tyro. Typically newsagents with an integrated Suncorp or St George or similar bank issued terminal will connect through PC-EFTPOS.
Myer competitors not affected by the outage benefited.
It’s timely we are promoting the Eat Well Stay Slim magbook with slimming / dieting season in full swing in Australia right now. We have it placed so the full cover is on show as it works best this way in our view. It’s in the heathy area of our food section.
With Christmas over and more space on the shop floor than we have had in months we took the opportunity to move our sizeable Beanie Kids display so that it faces shoppers as they enter the store with cards on the right and the counter on the left.
The result of the move is a terrific boost in sales.
With some kids coming back with discount vouchers from pre-Christmas purchases and others coming in with Christmas money to spend, the timing for moving the display to a higher traffic location is ideal.
This move is a reminder that we need to continually move departments and categories around in our businesses to combat store-blindness among our customers and those who work in the business. Our competitors do it and so should we.
With a surge in holiday travelling we are seeing many new faces. Our team has been leveraging this opportunity with this excellent aisle end display promoting puzzle titles. I was thrilled to walk into the shop and see the initiative they had taken – inncluding the crossword art backdrop and the eye-catching sign. This display is placed at the entrance on the right to our main magazine aisle and on the left to plush and newspapers.
Now is an ideal time for us to put astrology titles in the spotlight – with the new year just under way and all that. We have done this with placement of our three main titles between weeklies and food. This gives then an excellent opportunity of impulse browsing.
With a full allocation of pockets in the weekly & TV magazine sections of the magazine department, Bauer is challenging newsagents with launch of TV Week Soap Extra. In addition to making space we’re dealing with too much stock. This is a title they could have used sales based replenishment for rather than using newsagencies as warehouses.
We use Sundays to get some serious work done, work like:
With Sunday labour being so expensive we run the business to ensure there is plenty of valuable work to do.
What differentiates your retail newsagency from other businesses that sell what you sell?
ASK YOURSELF: How is your card offer different from others selling cards? How is your stationery offer different from others selling stationery? How is your magazine offer different from othgers selling magazines? And so on…
No, you can’t say service is your differentiator. I won’t accept that. It’s too vague. Specifically, what is different about your business? Think about it. Take your time. It has to be something you deliberately do in and through your business to compete.
Your difference has to be noticeable, valuable and memorable.
If you get this right and offer a genuine point of difference that truly is noticeable, valuable and memorable your business will compete effectively. If you’re losing business to your competitors then your point of difference is not working.
This is my management tip today for retail newsagents and other retailers – think carefully about how you compete, assess your performance and take steps to improve if your numbers show your current approach is not working as it should.
To read more on this see my post on How to develop your own Unique Selling Proposition.
If you are serious about toys or gifts or plush in your retail newsagency then consider offering a gift registry – especially if you are in a regional or rural situation.
I was reminded of the gift registry idea when in Manila early last month and I saw a gift registry promoted out the front of Toy Kingdom at the Mall of Asia. Their pull-up banner not only promoted the registries for individuals, it also promoted the service itself. Very smart.
For a gift registry idea to work, you would need to offer a reasonable range of gift / toys / plush for the target gift recipient. Plus you would need to establish a process as well as a marketing plan to promote the opportunity.
Offering a gift registry service could provide a valuable point of difference for your business over others covering the same categories. It could also be a way to pre-sell items from catalogues from your suppliers.
Small retail business owners often tell me that they feel lonely when it comes to the management of their business, that the have no one to turn to for ideas on how to improve the business.
My experience is that some of the best ideas for improving a retail business are in the business itself – in your employees, those who work in the business every day. The challenge for you as the leader of the business is to unlock the ideas.
Invite ideas / suggestions / tips / feedback from everyone who works in your business. Make it easy for their to share / submit their ideas. Here my suggestions:
Have no rules. Invite all ideas for improving the business.
I like the Ideas book best as it’s easy, cheap and accessible.
However you approach inviting ideas from employees, genuinely engage with the process, provide feedback, show that you value their input and that it means a lot to you. be open to being challenged. Trust the process.
While back to school is not big for us – due to out situation, space restrictions, that we make more money from plush and gifts than back to school could ever deliver and due to not being able to or wanting to match the massive investment of the majors in the season – we are having fun with a range of magic items including some that connect with the back to school / school holiday theme like The Magical Pencil Case.
We put these out as stocking stuffers in the final lead up to Christmas and they sold well. The pencil case and other items in the range have continued to sell well after Christmas – the work as school holiday and back to school purchases.
We have the pencil cases at the counter. It’s a pleasure to see customers add them to a purchase on impulse.
I am currently gathering sales data for the October – December 2013 vs 2012 newsagency sales benchmark study. I already have data for more than fifty newsagencies in a range of situations and trading under different brands. My goal is to have the analysis completed later next week – to provide a good early assessment of the busiest quarter of the retail year for newsagents.
Coles is offering newsagents a reminder to get in early for Australia Day product with this aisle-end displays in supermarkets of a range of Australia Day themed products.
While I know newsagents who will sell Australia Day products, most would not have it out yet. By going out now, Coles is grabbing business ahead of when we would traditionally embrace season.
I like the Lovatts dream holiday competition. It’s offering an ideal prize for the Lovatts customer. The pitch is easily understood thanks to a good design.
The floor display unit I saw a couple of days ago promoting it, while not holding product that well, stood out and should help drive sales. The WIN headline caught my eye.
With floorspace being expensive and in high demand I’m not sure I could hold the space for the stand for more than a few of weeks – if I was given a stand.
Click on the image for a larger version.
The Rockhampton Morning Bulletin today talks down lotto to its readership. This same newspaper relies on lotto retailers, newsagents, to promote its product to their customers.
Newspapers are happy to report stories that put other products in a negative or difficult light but rarely embrace the opportunity to do the same about their own product.
I am sure there is another angle the newspaper could have taken with the data on lottery wins.