We are about to design a new shopfit in our Frankston newsagency as part of re-branding to newsXpress and have been looking carefully at the space allocation for newspapers. In the pre-planning phase we have been watching how customers approach the newspaper stand. Less than 1% look at the poster. This is making us question the value of the real-estate taken up by the posters.
Removing the posters in the photo would provide display space for between eight and ten magazine titles. I estimate that giving this space over to promoting magazines, impulse stationery specials, appropriate gifts or even seasons greeting cards could generate significantly more revenue than incremental sales of newspapers.
A common question we get from non-regular customers is where are your newspapers? I am sure we are not alone in getting this question in a newsagency. The posters are missed.
As the person paying the rent, I want to maximise my return and this space above the stacks of newspapers is valuable.
I;d like to see newsagents test my no poster theory and see if newspaper sales in those locations are different to newsagencies where posters are maintained.
Gooday Mark, no comment directly related to this topic, but I was looking for a contact link for you. I can’t find one on the new setup.
Have I missed it ?
best
Lance
No longer owning a newsagency, I can only offer current comment on the agents in my local shopping area. A number of my most frequented newsagencies use this space, no longer for the newspaper posters, but for related (and non-related) merchandise. Magazines are the most common item to have sitting above, followed by seasonal merchandise. The colour and differnce (to the newspapers) of these items attracts the eye and more often than not, will lead to extra sales to the newspaper customers.
{In my newsagency, I had the newspaper posters outside and kept the weekly gossip rags above the newspaper stacks. We used the posters to draw people into the store.}
Of course, having said this, some customers still don’t notice anything, as they are set on grabbing their paper and going.
Where are the newspapers? I’m sure some customers would not see the papers by themselves, if the papers turned into a dog and started nipping at their heels! The newspaper posters don’t do much to help them.
Mark, I don’t own a newsagent so I’m going to comment from a customers view – When I go into a newsagent, I don’t take notice of the posters because I already know which newspaper I want to buy & I would already seen most of the articles online.
So I reckon that you could use the newspaper poster space to advertise other magazines/items, but (earlier in the year) you had a blog post about how you have LCD screens in your store to advertise number of items – maybe the newspapers should have something to display on the screens (e.g: front page, RSS feeds of newspaper articles, etc)
Hi Mark
I read this with interest. For the past 12mths now we have not displayed any newspaper posters at all. We were instructed to dispense with those metal cages by our centre manager in Sep06.
Above the newspaper stacks we have various dialtime or autotrader posters/competitioons & any magazine posters are attached to our full glass window next to the centre’s automated entrance doors.
If has not affected our paper sales one iota however, we do regularly see people reading the posters as they leave the centre with some even stopping to actually read them, then purchase a mag.
Tks’n rgds, Lindie