I took this picture while out shopping on the weekend. It breaks my heart to see a newsagency without stock, especially in core category such as greeting cards. This situation reflects not only on the individual newsagency but also all other businesses operating under the newsagency shingle. It also reflects on the supplier brand names represented inside the business.
Our industry associations need to develop a national plan to deal with newsagents in difficulty. Such a plan would need to cover assessing the cause, co-ordinating support if considered appropriate and monitoring the results of any such activity.
With the economic challenges which have emerged in the last few months, more retailers will struggle. Unless the industry has a co-ordinated national response, too many newsagents will be among those who close their doors unnecessarily.
I do my orders on empties. Not a lot though, but just enough to create a sense of “There’s a few gone, they must be good cards”.
I wouldn’t let it go as bad as in the photo. How do other people order I would like to know.
As we are in the process of selling our shop we are also ordering on empties and 1’s if it is popular range. I can’t stand empty pockets as it creates a bad image on the store. Upon checking my shelves this morning there are a couple of empties so I will have to check with my rep to get them filled up.
Just keep your eye on them though as i have often found pockets with 10 -12 copies of the same card in each pocket.
I am not a newsagent……..yet……..but as a shopper and a keen observer of the industry, I hate empty shelves. There is a newsagent near me that always has empty shelves, dirty shelves & floors and the lighting is terrible (bulbs gone and not replaced).
It is a real shame as the little pocket of shops it is located in are always busy. I reckon it could be a potential goldmine. If only these people could see that.
Having said that, maybe they do see it but finanically cannot do anything about it. Now that is the real shame.
Niall, buy it!
I’ve seen a few like that and am very tempted into purchasing another one that is run down. The one’s that tempt me are fitted out in the wrong way so they can’t actually hold a good amount of stock and variety. These are the one’s that don’t have the funds or the time for cleaning and maintence. Gold mines for the motivated.
I want out of my Nextra contract, Greg Campbell you area pig and a liar. Newsagents if you want to help me email, greg@nextra.com.au I should be able to choose my destiny. I hate Nextra, I am trapped, help!
Ummmm … why are newsagents doing their own orders? We have always had our merchandiser do this and have rarely had a problem.
Michael – shoppers don’t equate lack of stock with product popularity. In fact, they usually do the exact opposite.
Jarryd, I tell my rep what I want ordered (amount of pockets) so there are less mistakes made. In my situation I don’t need 800 pockets with 15 cards in each.
If you let some reps go for it they will see one card sold then order another ten for that pocket – Great for the card company but not for me.
I’ve had tremendous growth in the last year so it might be horses for courses
michael,
I feel that there should never be more than six cards to a pocket and our reps from john sands and other groups respect that and have never overstepped the mark – diligence in these matters falls with the owner, as it should, to oversight and manage every item that is deposited within the store from reps.
If you are strong with the reps from day one and they know that they cant put one over you then the playing field is set for future benchmarks – be strong
Jack I’ve only had to be strong with one rep who noticed one card had been sold from a pocket and ordered another six. The problem being that it had taken nine months to sell the one card, now we were stuck with twice as much of a slow moving card.
But my regular reps are fantastic, I’ve worked with them on changing the layout and getting rid of stock like above and putting in newer cards that have sold like crazy. It’s one department we newsagents have control of and should exploit as much as we can.
did you get permission before you photographed this persons shop or do you sneak around covertly taking happy snaps for your own voyuerism
Voyuerism? You too classy for this blog anon, go somewhere else or make up your own.
Michael,
We let our supplier know what min quantity we would like for each category. We have found both the major card suppliers have trained their merchandisers well enough that we don’t get noticable overstocks.
I would rather have too many cards than too few. The worst thing you can do is run out of stock.
Jarryd,
I understand, I manage them differently so I can get in newer cards with the latest designs. Customers notice it when we bring out new stuff.
just a point in passing, a great card company understands the need to replace lifestyle cards in quick succession, our major card supplier turns over our lifestyle close on every 8 weeks, great,new and fresh all the time. Cant understand having empty pockets on show, doesnt look professional.