Fewer newsagency designs today have the ‘bag shelf’, the flat shelf on the counter on which customers used to rest bags. We have one in our Frankston location – the photo shows half the length of the bag shelf. I thought it looked out of date and was planning for it to be eliminated in our refit. The fact is, this shelf works. Magazines sell well – even though people rest their bags and other things on there when making purchases. We’re able to promote themes (as shown in the photo) as well as the high volume titles. So, I am looking at counter options which maintain this premium display space in a back to the future move. As the old saying says, if it ain’t broke…
The reality is, over time I expect the bag rail to become redundant – in a few years as more magazine traffic moves online. So, the new bag rail will be done in such a way that we have flexibility to place other products at the counter. This is key to newsagency design today – flexibility in fixturing.
For our next round of changes the bag shelf remains. But we may tweak it to leverage more sales from the real-estate but more on that another time.
There’s nothing wrong with keeping things the way they are if it works, right?!