The announcement by the NSW State Government Wednesday that within six months all tobacco products must be removed from retail display will encourage newsagents to consider quitting the category. This is an opportunity for newsagents to embrace change at the counter.
In a shopping centre newsagency on average rents you’d need to be selling at least $4,000 worth of tobacco products a week to break even. The latest changes will add to that cost.
Newsagents in NSW need to start thinking about their options for this soon to be freed premium space. It could be used for displaying and promoting:
- Ink and toner.
- Premium pens and related gifts.
- Mobile phone handsets and SIMs.
- A technology offer – small gadgets.
- A new line of confectionery – boxed chocolates maybe.
- A feature magazine display.
- Invitations.
- A whiteboard with a list of new magazines just in.
The regulation changes are forcing changes at the counter. S,mart business people will use this to great advantage.
We quit tobacco products at Forest Hill in 1997 and at Frankston when we took over last year. In each case, sales were around $1,000 a week and not worth the investment. At Frankston we replaced tobacco with our Ink and Toner display.
I have thought this was coming for some time and made some changes over summer. We reduced our cigs to 25’s only and kept to the best selling high turnover brands. The result was no more dead money sitting in slow moving cigs and the reduction of packet facings from over 110 to just 36.
We have used the extra space for ink cartridges, memory cards, batteries, phone accessories (batteries, chargers etc) and some personal products like Panadol, sunscreen etc. The net return on the space has increased by an average 80% on cost and will increase even further once the last bay goes some time soon.
The area behind counters is at eye level and the spot every paying customer has to stop at and therefore golden real estate in my veiw. I sometimes use it to promote specials or some of the items you have suggested, all too great success. Although uncomfortable with giving this space over to other items it has come to be one of my favourite to play with.
No rocket science here, just stepping out of the comfort zone and being pleasently surprised.
Totally agree….we removed cigarettes over 2 years ago when we were last doing a major refit…the result was a much better utilisation of our money and less constraints on retail compliance issues associated with cigarettes, less the moral issue I personally had selling in them….it is definitely a dying category.
Maybe the ban on display of cigarettes will force supermarkets to move this product from the front of the store and stop the ludricous practice of smokers getting priority service.
Norman,
Supermarkets put cigarettes up the front because it is the only “over the counter” product they sell (aside from electronic vouchers). It is sold from a seperate counter to make complying with legislation easier (they don’t have to train and monitor tens or hundreds or staff in the selling of tobacco products). The ban won’t change this in the slightest.
Jarryd, what I object to is the priority service – make the addicts queue up like all other customers then I will not resent their presence.
all that most shops and supermarkets will do is put cupboard doors on their cigarette units and leave them where they are
Norman,
You make it sound as if they walk into the store and are allowed to jump the que of 20 people waiting to be served. There is a seperate counter so cigarettes are not served at each POS. If supermarkets don’t put tobacco products at a seperate counter (usually facing the outside of the store) and makes people line up then those customers will go somwhere else where they don’t have to que.
Saying that they get ‘priority service’ is like complainig that the que at register 2 is moving quicker than that at register 1. They are two seperate points of sale.
Scott, you’re right. Most cigarette cabinets have been designed so that the display trays can be blocked out easily without changes to the existing fittings.
i totally disagree. confectionary like chocolate is dying too. my customers are health concious now, but i put my cig. on the counter bulk head which did not waste any other space for ink jet ..etc. we are newsagent and we should sell anything to service customers , people even ask me if i sell phone rechargers, condom, …etc i think i will sell whatever they want to make a pleasant shopping.