Newsagents are pressured by some influential suppliers to give over window space. As the photo I took earlier this week shows, suppliers are successful. Here you have a magazine publisher, lotteries and newspaper publishers succeeding in getting their product on the window to the detriment of business.
The question is my mind is: how appealing would this newsagency be to a passer-by if you could see into the store?
Retail is all about theatre. This store is keeping the curtains closed – in part because that is what the suppliers want. It’s a billboard for three or four products – theatre is nowhere to be seen.
We newsagents need to resist suppliers who want to block the windows of our businesses. Our decisions need to focus on the whole of the business and not a product or two.
We are experimenting in two of our locations with a less poster strategy. I expect to find that smarter, more theatrical, placement supported by less poster real-estate works.