There are a couple of current stories about the Woolworths group from which newsagents can learn.
The first story is about the introduction of Optometrist services in Big W. The arrival of Optometrist services in several Big W stores is being advertised heavily on Melbourne radio. It is a compelling pitch around professional service and low prices on glasses and contact lenses – a change from the traditional big W pitch.
The second story is in yesterday’s Australian Financial Review (p51) and relates to the company’s moves in the electronics area. They are rebranding 300 electronics outlets to the Dick Smith brand. The article by Sue Mitchell reports that refurbished Dick Smith stores are reporting 11.7% sales growth. It says the Woolworths is investing in its electronics offer in pursuit of JB HiFi.
Here is this giant of a company expanding its product / service offer in one channel and significantly refurbishing its offer in another channel. They are doing what good retailers do, what we newsagents should be doing.
We are smaller and therefore more nimble yet we, most of us at least, continue to ignore or resist change.
Our new shopfits are, more often than not, old and inflexible. Our ranges don’t seem to change. Our business practices are from decades ago and we leave control over much of what we do to key suppliers.
We have opportunities for significant change without the need for major capital investment yet many newsagents appear to be happy being the newsagent which has always been. These newsagents will see their businesses shrink.
Smart newsagents are attending events like the Reed Gift Fair in Sydney this week and other non newsagency channel trade shows. They are reducing space for traditional categories and creating space for new categories targeted at their demographic. Changes like this need to be local, we cannot move thee channel as a whole into new categories. That opportunity was lost, as it should have been, with deregulation.
But back to Woolworths, my newsXpress Forest Hill business is opposite a new Dick Smith store. It is an appealing retail offer, motivating to drive change in our business. The range of product is good, thee price points keen and the customer service friendly and knowledgeable – all points that we in small business accuse national retailers of neglecting.
Every time I walk past this Dick Smith store, I wonder what a Woolworths designed newsagency would look like.
In Brisbane they have been in store for all most 2 years .May be it is about them not doing to well ,Never did see anyone in them .as with Dick Smith &Tandy the fit outs are the same as they were 20 years back I think it is about coming up to date .It just as you see fitouts from in newsagents who have the same old same for the last 25 years .You need to invest to grow and ajust your model to get it the agents who do not may go by the way side
big w have had branded optometry in south australia for over 3 years now, how do the laubman panks, eyes, opsm survive. in our centre we have all three of the above optometry business models and i have never seen them as busy as the big w set up, to get an appointment you have upwards of a weeks wait generally, you are bulk billed and you can purchase two pairs of glasses for under $110.00, who can compete, in the current economic climate i ask myself do i need another $500 visit to my optometrist or can i make do with a visit to the local big w.
when i think about the number of customers that go through our doors every day we really shiuld be able to sell a lot more than we do
To hayley.
Just because you have to wait weeks for an appointment at big w does not mean they are popular. It means they dont staff optometry full time. This is because not many optometrists would care to work in supermarkets. Therefore its my (educated guess) they are probably very understaffed. So just because something seems to be so doesnt mean it is due to obvious reasons. I think newsagents are here to stay. The local touch and people are used to their local newsagent.