Data suggests newspaper efficiency for a newsagency improves as sales fall.
I have been tracking sales of newspapers in newsagencies on a Saturday for some time. While sales on other days of the week are flat or falling, Saturday seems to be the most volatile. Not in all newsagencies I should note – some are delivering excellent growth. With newspapers available in so many outlets now, newsagencies are not as important to the impulse purchase as they used to be – destination purchases make up more sales than before. This is reflected in growing efficiency of newspapers on a Saturday for newsagencies as shown in this graph.
Efficiency in the graph reflects basket depth when a newspaper is in the basket. From the data from the small group of newsagencies, newspapers sales have become more efficient as sales have fallen. This suggests that the newsagency is more of a destination for these customers, making the customers far more valuable for the newsagent.
While the vast majority of Saturday newspaper sales are single item and therefore inefficient sales, the upward trend on efficiency correlating with a fall in sales is interesting.
What does this really mean for newsagents? I’m not sure. I want to dig deeper into the data and look at other days of the week. I do know that if I can build more efficiency around newspapers I can neuter the impact of falling newspaper sales in my shop.