At our Tower Systems gift shop software stand at the Melbourne Gift Fair we saw plenty of newsagents over the last five days. Some were first time attendees looking to expand their retail ofer while others were seasoned hands looking to expand well established gift departments.
While I do not yet have attendance numbers, my feeling is that newsagent numbers are up on previous years. This is good news for the newsagency channel.
The most recent sales benchmark study also shows good growth from gift sales in newsagencies.
There is no doubt that gifts present an excellent and somewhat easy opportunity for newsagents to grow sales and extend the shopping basket. The category is also presenting an opportunity for some newsagencies to devolve from the traditional newsagency to a gift shop with a selection of magazines.
Given that we sell 50% of cards sold in Australia, selling gifts to go with the cards makes sense.
The gift channel is maturing too with a better approach to electronic invoices evolving over the last year.