The range of magazines in my shop are my point of difference in my shopping centre. The supermarkets and variety stores carry the top 100 or so titles. I have 1,600+ titles (and growing).
In June 2004 sales were okay. Under 10% growth though. With business costs rising and cover prices reasonably static the only option we have to cover higher costs was to increase sales.
Having watched consumers embrace coffee shop loyalty cards we decided to use a similar campaign in our newsagency.
We have this card to each customer who buys a magazine. That’s our only promotion. No advertising. No posters. No flyers in letterboxes. Just word of mouth across our counter.
The result – 25% year on year growth in magazines and excellent flow on sales in other categories across the business.
It’s this kind of promotion which independent retailers can engage in to compete against the supermarkets and others.
We planned to rest the campaign in May but with growth still strong we are now expecting to give it another three months.