Private label strategy has been around for decades. Smart retailers use private labels to build loyalty and achieve better margin. Look at Woolworths, Australia Post and Officeworks – they all have well established and successful private label strategies. Newsagents do not. Our newsagent owned private label brand, Sovereign, is used on inferior product which does not deliver better margin and which is not restricted to our channel. All the tenets of private label are broken and we, the newsagent shareholders in the brand, miss an opportunity.
If we want to be considered serious competition to Australia Post, Big W, KMart, Officeworks and Ofis in the stationery stakes, we need a national private label strategy. This could range from no private label products (and focused 100% on brands) through to a fully integrated and researched private label offer.