retail transformation

I have written plenty here about why I think newsagents need to decouple from the channel. The data points to less than ten years of life left in the traditional newsagency. The question I get asked most is how.

Decoupling is not a slogan and it is not a rebrand you order from a signwriter. It’s not restricted to any particular brand of newsagency either.

Decoupling is five jobs, done in order, over about two years. I watch newsXpress members do this work, so what follows is drawn from real shops.

Job one: find the number that is not yours. Go through your last full year and add up the gross profit from lines where somebody else sets the commission and can change the terms without asking you. Papers, magazines, lotteries, parcels, bill payments. That total, as a share of your whole GP, is your exposure. For a traditional newsagency it usually sits between half and three quarters, which shocks most owners the first time they see it. The goal is below a third. One afternoon with your POS data gets you the number.

Job two: make the floor tell the truth. Your floor is a budget. For each zone, note the share of space it takes and the gross profit it produces, divide one by the other, and sort. Most shops find a quarter of the floor producing five per cent of the profit. Quit the dead categories through a proper clearance, bank the cash, and give the space to what earns: cards, gifts, celebration. Put the papers at the back. I mean that literally. The paper customer will walk for them, and on the way they pass everything you actually make money on. Rerun the table quarterly. Move one bay each quarter.

Job three: replace the traffic before it leaves. This is the hard one, and I think it is where most transformations stall. I know of a shop with a terrific mix, gifts leading, print under ten per cent of GP, whose customer count still fell seven per cent last year. Changing what you sell does not by itself change why people come. Agency lines rented us traffic for a hundred years. Now you create it yourself. A loyalty program with real names and birthdays in it. A window that changes monthly, without fail. Small events. Local product, because the honey from ten minutes away brings in people Hallmark never will. Social media about what you unpacked this week. None of it is glamorous. All of it is weekly.

Job four: change the word. Only now do you change the sign. A rebrand on top of an unchanged shop is wallpaper. New trading name, new signage, and update your Google listing category from newsagency to gift shop, because that one field decides what searches you appear in. Check your lease first, since permitted use clauses can trip you up. Tell the story as growth: we have outgrown the old name. And do it while you are trading well. The worst time to rebrand is when you finally have to.

Job five: decouple the owner. A shop that runs out of your head is coupled to one more thing that will eventually leave. You. Document the routines. Give staff real departments with real numbers. Review the figures monthly like a board would. Nobody is queuing to buy a newsagency, but a profitable gift destination with owned traffic and clean numbers is a business a buyer can imagine owning. Decoupling and exit value are the same project.

Four numbers on the back room wall, checked monthly: customer transactions, the share of GP you control versus the share others control, GP per square metre, and the basket. If transactions and your owned share of GP are rising together, it is working.

You are done on the day no boardroom decision made without you can materially hurt your business. That is the whole test.

It starts with one afternoon and your own sales data.

Let me know if I can help: mark@newsxpress.com.au.