Quick Stick labels are another good habit based product for newsagents. They’re a strong brand, easily merchandised and support a good retail story without a chunky stock investment. We’re finding that Quick Stick customers are likely to return – hence the ‘habit’ tag. We’re also finding that Quick Stick sales are rarely single item sales. That is, people buy a box of labels and other products or they buy multiple boxes of labels.
Newsagents ought to be achieving a stock turn of six to eight a year with the right range. This is up on a year or two ago because Quick Stick products are stocked in fewer places. Bigger companies don’t like them because of the time involved in handling customer queries.
Newsagents wanting to grow stationery sales will need to carry at least sixty types of labels. I’d suggest more if you have the space. With a good range of stock it speaks for itself and acts as a magnet for customers. Quick Stick is not something to be timid about.
Our approach to rebuilding stationery this past year has been to build around strong brands which either through the nature of the product or range offer us a local point of difference. Quick Stick fits this and the range we carry generates good business elsewhere in the stationery department.
The only challenge is stopping customers taking a label of two.