The gift department continues to perform at a stand-out rate in many newsagents. I am seeing this in my own stores – excellent year on year growth. Valuable basket building. This is being driven by our team with terrific tactical engagement at the local store level – by placing appropriate gift items near getting cards and by creating traffic attracting displays – like the Sesame Street range in the photo. Attractive and bold displays like this are with their weight in gold. They are playing a key role in helping this newsagency attract sales from nearby gift shops.
Standalone gift shops do not have the underlying regular traffic of newsagencies and this makes them more vulnerable. Most newsagents who are leveraging their existing traffic with a move into gifts are doing well. The key is to carry stock which suits cards which are most often purchased.
I would have to agree with your comments Mark. Gifts offer great margin, and help card sales. I am looking at trimming tradiotional lines (magazines and some lines of stationery) to make space for more gifts. They are a risk, but you have to be prepared to flog it off if they do not work and try something fresh.
Every market is different, each newsagent just needs to find theirs.