Newsagency counters for decades featured bag rails. They were used primarily to flat stack display popular weekly and monthly magazines. While I have not used them in any shop fit I have done in the last ten years. I wonder if they are useful in newsagency businesses.
We have a bag rail in our Frankston location (see photo) from where we sell plenty of magazines. You can see customers looking at magazines as they approach the counter or wait to be served. I am certain we get sales today which we would otherwise not get if we did not have the bag rail.
Hence my question: Are bag rails obsolete?
I can see that they look like old retail. However, if they generate sales, why eliminate them? I am interested to the opinions of others on bag rails.
Not obselete, but I liked the look of one I saw at a servo that had the counter, then shelving below it with mags, confec, etc.
Looked very neat, you didn’t have to stretch over stock to make the payment.
We use our bag rail to sell impulse confectionery. It took us a while to figure out how to display them so they were visable but also protected from customers putting heavy items on top of them but we now use plastic dividers that work a treat. This allows us to make good profit from the area as well as gives us great upsell without having to push. It also allows us to keep an eye on little fingers while mum isn’t looking. I would not have my confec anywhere else as our sales of these lines are more then we make out of paper sales.
They are a bit ‘old retail’ and we have to determine if the damage that image does to the business outweights the impulse sales gained.
The bag rail is far too ‘busy’ for a modern retail store. I would be asking the question – How can we change the concept of the bag rail to get the same benefits without the downfalls?