How’s business? This is a question often asked between newsagents. I have created a new category on this blog for irregular posts I’ll make about month to date to year to date business performance. This will hopefully open more conversations between newsagents about how they are trading.
To the close of business last night, March 15, here are our numbers for March 2009 compared to 2008:
- Magazines. Down 13%. Women’s weeklies down 6%.
- Lottery products. Down 15%.
- Ink. Up 15%. HP accounts for 73% of sales.
- Newspapers. Up 2%.
- Stationery. Up 32%.
- Cards. Line ball. Non seasonal – up 5%. Easter was earlier last year.
- Stamps. Up 91%.
- Art. Up 18%.
- Copying. Up 5%.
- Gifts. Up 415% – off a low base.
All percentages are based on unit sales except for stataionery, ink, gifts and lottery products.
Magazines is our biggest department by far – the financial pain of the sales fall is significant. As regulars here will know, we promote magazines aggressively and certainly pursue a point of difference around range.
In regards to the lottery section i recently heard a staggering number being quoted as to 7/11’s weekly sales volumes,even more alarming was the double digit rate of growth they are experiencing on a weelky basis,it has to obviously be harming our sales and will continue to do so
Magazines – down 7% Woman weeklies up 4%
Ink up 50% – now 15% of sales overall
Stationery down – 16% (football cards have not yet started)
Cards – flat
Gifts – up 34%
Phonecards – up 28%
recession? WHAT RECESSION?
on unit sales
Mags down down a whopping 37% W/weeklies down 39% ouch
Lottery up about 15%
Ink up 135% (thank god) on $$ sales
Newspapers down 22%
Stationery Up 35% on $$ sales
Mobile phones & Recharge up 37% on $$ sales
Cards down 10%
Stamps up 100% (but no profit there)
Books about same
Overall not a good month so far
MTD ON UNITS SALES
BOOKS 430% UP
CARD & WRAP 1% DOWN
CONFECTIONERY 10% DOWN
DRINKS 32% DOWN
FAX/PHOTOCOPY 119% UP
GIFTS (even)
MAGAZINES 10% DOWN
PAPERS 12% UP
PHONECARDS 17% UP
STAMPS (who cares)
STATIONERY 8% UP
TOBACCO 27% DOWN
TATTSLOTTO 4% UP
BOOKS 100%
GIFTS -16
LOTTO-10%
MAGS +21%
PAPERS +7%
POSTAGE +62%
SCRATCHIES +2%
TABACCO +89%
STATIONARY -4%
The interesting part is that my magazine sales are up and i have also in the last 2 months cut back on 3 meters of wall space that was magazines last year and now i have turned it into a permanant position for novels which makes a lot more money than the magazines ever did . It was originally all the universal house magazines and a lot of the arts and crafts mags i still carry them but now i only carry what sells .
Vaughan, what surprises me about stamps is that sales are up and we are opposite a Post Office.
Whilst units analysis is important, I would personally look to Dollars as my measure of concern. Afterall you bank dollars not units.
Just curious, how many people out there put in place targets for each category and also plans to reach those targets? Do you keep a note of “things” (events) you do each month and remember to anniversarise the following year (if they worked).
Apologies to those who do these things as the norm, I am just curious as to how differently newsagecies are run.
We took over our teeny weeny agency late last year, and have tuned the business around, as it was a real lame duck when we got it.
Income/sales figures across the board for last year were woeful. Slowly we are changing this in terms of mag and newspaper sales, with good results so far, given the timeframe, and the amount of hard slog that’s gone into it.
Now that it’s started paying its way, we’ve started a rejig of our titles, to expand some ranges, and compress others. NDD of course knows this, as well as the fact that we are ‘new’, so sales comparisons are not relevant to our business in terms of supply.
So where do they get off sending us a letter today, advising that, based on last year’s crappy sales data, they have suspended our account, except for “Friday exceptions”, as from next week. They suggested we take on a sub-agency role with our nearest “main agency” to retain titles for regular customers, citing incorrect titles anyway!
No discussion entered into. End of story.
WTF?
So, our first 5 months in business has rewarded us with NDD playing god, based on sales that aren’t even OURS? Not to mention how unsupportive and arrogant, not to mention inaccessible, they’ve turned out to be.
Ironic that we’ve had a few weeks of much better mag sales recently.
We look forward to sharing our March figures comparison next year…
Why do we use units ,when i look at units in my photo copy area we are down by a heaps but when you look at the dollar value it puts a smile on your face
Overall down 1%
Stationery up23%
Cards down 14%
mags down 11%
print up1200% (new department)
ink up 15%
lottery up5%
Papers down by 10%
Gift up13%
Profit wise we found that mags could have only netted $1000 as The Distributors failed to capture some credits. Could have been a much worse Feb.
Niall, Comparing units is useful in a year on year comparison because it eliminates a false sense of security from price increases. It is especially useful in circulation departments. That said, you can only bank dollars.
Brad,
Interested in your print. Have you done something different here?
chris
nx reservoir
Y&G Take the opportunity and tell them to shove it .no one needs NDD now that lovetts are with network tyhere is no need for NDD
Y & G, I cannot agree more with shaun’s comment, we told NDD to stick their supply over 2 yrs ago and our mag sales actually increased. They are the worst at oversupply and not giving credits. Tell them to go jump, you will not notice a drop in sales as mags provided by NDD are cashflow negative and do nothing but drain your bank accounts and take up space.
To compensate for the effect of price rises one can take into account CPI.
Personally I rarely use units as a measure.
Thanks, Shaun and Luke.
We have done just that.
I’m still reeling at the gutlessness of the way they went about it all, though. Even if I’m not really surprised, given how difficult they were to work with from day one.
And sorry to hijack the thread – was timely, I guess, but also I don’t know how to start a new one in this format.
cheers.
Hi Guys,
MTD for March 1-15 2009 (2 Saturdays) compare to March 1-15 2008 (3 Saturdays)
Overall down by 5%
Interesting month it will be this month as we are chasing Easter figs and last year there were 5 saturdays in March as to 4 this year.
MAGAZINES: Level WEEKLIES +4%
Lottery Products: -9%
INK/TONER: +225%
Phonecards: +4%
NEWSPAPERS: -20%
Stationery: -12%
CARDS/WRAP: -7%
Cigarettes: +3%
DRINKS: -17%
Movie Hire: +12%
BOOKS: new category going very well contributing 4% of T/O
Confectionery: -34%
The month is far from over, hopefully the next two weekends will bring us back especially Sat,28th Sat Lotto $20Million draw.
Happy trading!!!!
Manni
Chris,
We added extra service with the photo copier and built around it with other service products. For example we no do laminating, binding, print from usb, colour copying and business cards (small runs). It is most likely not too different from most but the fact that we do the copying for people seems to get them back in. We can also print posters.
Our shopping centre has 150+ shops and we have used that as a base to build off. Most shops not come to us to have flyers printed, posters made and general copying even Woolies use us.
Brad
Sounds good Brad, well done. I thought you may have dedicated a whole section of the shop to printing, such as a copy print centre.
I have been looking into this lately, as a way to build greater income through our copier and other print services.
cheers
Chris, The greatest success in these new areas is where you arein the blue ocean – i.e. without many competitors. If you don’t have many in the printing space around you then play – but be careful about capital investment.
Hi guys ,
Whats the best place to find the supplier of Stamps . We get asked about stamps alot
thx
Roop as far as i know you get them from AP ,well that where we get them from no discount no profit just customer service
Shaun, Vaughan, rick, Manni,
Just wondering where you source the books/novels from?
I go to Herron ,not sure if they give me the best deal out there but the customers seem to think they are of good quallity .For my store the paper back novels seem to go very quick as well as having a good range of kids books also works well .This month i tried for some hard copy books but people just don’t seem to be interested in them it is more the novels that they want .I will still give the other books a go and if they don’t work they can be sent back for a return
Wendy , VBW OR AXIOM for books and novels
Wendy,
I get it through newsXpress preferred suppliers
Manni
Hi Wendy,
We use Australian Book Wholesalers in Queensland. I have found their service fantastic and the ease of business when dealing with them exceptional. We sell their ‘remainder novels’ year round and participate in major catalogue promotions through the newsxpress group.
We were using Carinya, but changed last year as a result of poor supply on a continual basis.
I have not regretted the move.
wendy,
we deal thru the main book companies, penguin, harper collins, pan mcmillan, allen & unwin, cqu press, lonely planet etc, for more obscure books that a customer wants, i have an arrangement with a angus and robertson book store, i then throw in the odd herron order to do a discount sale
i also find sunstate books a good one for the hard to find books for special orders
Hi Chris,
We sort have given a portion of the shop to print. The area that we have used held a staff fridge, boxes and a bin. In other words part of a back room that was not used very well. Since that transformation we have begun to look at another portion of the stock room going to printing and putting together invitations for weddings etc.
As Mark keenly pointed out your outlay must be controled. We spent 5k on invite paper, 1k per month for 2 copiers and a further 2k on laminators, binders etc. I am lucky that myself and one of my business partners can put wedding invited together. It is now starting to bring a ‘new’ client into the business and the margins can be upward of 80%. But it is a fine line for 6 months or more. Hope information is usefull in your decision. It is worth the build up as these people will buys wedding gifts, mags, sign in books etc.
Brad, MArk,
Thanks for the advice. Much appreciated. Currently no one around me is into print so there could be a opportunity there. We have just spent a great deal of money on a fitout, so not sure what might be left of the pie to further enhance our copy/print strategy. In any case we will continue to ask questions of ourselves and our business, and see if we can play a more prominent role in this space.
Mags for us which constitute over 30% of our turnover are down over 20% for Feb 09 to Feb 08, so we need to source greater sales from other departments and or introduce new departments.
Cheers and keep punching.
Chris
reservoir
No worries Chris. It’s important we do not knee-jerk react to a fall in magazines. While I think some of the fall is natural and resultant from disruption, some is economic and that will bounce back.
Many thanks to everyone who replied regarding book suppliers. We have been using BookMargins, but feel we need to add some newer titles. Novels do ok, but non-fiction titles move quickly for us(particularly wartime themed titles which work well with our popular wartime themed mags).
Wendy,
What is working for us in the Books are the cooking books retailing between $4.95 to $9,95 as people are rather cooking at home in these economic times than going out to restaurants,also kids books between $2.95 – $7.95 and Inspirational books-
Manni
Wendy what are the book margins like to deal with ?
You should be making at least 40% from books and preferably 50% or more.
just did 2008 Vs 2009 sales comparision, overall not too bad (except mags of course), as it felt like 2009 was a slow year
Books +39%
Cards/Wrap +1%
Cigs -3%
Conf -2%
Scratchies +1%
Lotto +9%
Mags -11%
Mobile phones & Recharge +27%
Papers -2%
Stationery +27%
Ink +9%
Vids/DVDs +623% (new)