Newsagents should read the report in The Age today about the closure of the Kleins jewellery group corporate stores and the re-branding of franchise stores. Philip Hopkins’ interview with Administrator James Stewart of Ferrier Hodgson is telling:
Mr Stewart said Kleins had failed to stay relevant to its market and customers. Its stock was not fresh.
My question is how relevant are newsagencies? Not how relevant do we think we are but how relevant are we? Consumer research data by at least one major supplier to newsagents suggests that our relevance in the minds of consumers is fading with time.
“In the past few years, new competitors such as Diva and Groove have appeared,” he said. The changing dynamics were reflected in the companies’ respective websites.
“Diva’s website offered a more sexy vision than Kleins’.”
Most newsagents don’t have any web presence. The YourNewsagent website is an excellent initiative for newsagents to at least get a basic web presence up and running. The Find It free online classifieds business for newsagents project I launched a couple of years ago failed to attract interest from more than 30 active newsagents. Newsagents need to understand the need to be online before it is too late. Once there, they need to be relevant and to evolve – in a way that Kleins did not.
Stewart’s comment about stock in most interesting for newsagents to consider. How fresh is our stock, especially our stationery? I know from data I see that many newsagencies have stock which is years old. In today’s market, stock which is six months old is too old.