Following discussion here last weekend about the newsagency shingle, I have visited twelve newsagencies in two states over the last few days to see for myself how we treat the newsagency shingle. In short, we treat the shingle badly.
The businesses I saw fall into four types of newsagency businesses:
Old. Old and tired businesses with poor lighting, empty shelves and disinterested people behind the counter.
Cheap. Businesses filled with cheap no-name brand products ranging from toilet paper to stationery. Looking from the front it was hard to tell the type of business. Poor lighting.
General store. Magazines have been cut way back and the shop filled with cheap stationery and gifts but it does not feel quite as bad as the cheap outlet above.
Relevant. A clean if not new(ish) shop-fit, thoughtful magazine layout, brand name focus for stationery and gifts, good lighting and staff in uniforms. A business with a purpose. Not necessarily a sexy looking business but one which certainly looks managed.
Despite the differences, each of these businesses was called a newsagency. There were more in the Relevant category but it is the others which I remember the most.
I am sure that I could visit more and find more groupings. We have evolved into a diverse channel with little connecting our businesses other than the sale of magazines and newspapers.
With newsagent proprietors creating such different businesses it is appropriate that some want to move away from calling their business a newsagency.
You can look at any industry and make the same comparisons Mark, for those that want to move away from being a “newsagency” then do so but it is still my belief that these people still want to trade off the goodwill and consumer sentiment that has been built over the years by newsagents. i have seen newsagencies that do not offer lotto and those that do not deliver newspapers or even those that choose not to sell cigs heaven forbid.
I have recreated my business with less focus on mags, newspapers, stationery as these have been ripped off and watered down by other channels with the help of the very suppliers that want us to sell there products but they are still in my department mix as are other newer departments like an ABC Centre.
There are bad operators in every channel as there are those that soon forget where they come from.
Again this is my opinion after 23yrs operating the one newsagency, in which time we have sold and move away from selling insurance, being a bank branch, a western union outlet, offered postage services and a thousand other things but are still and will always be a newsagency as this is who we are not what we sell.
I’d love to put staff in uniforms, but $30 a week laundry allowance each for five women is just too too much for my business to pay.
laundry allowance ? what the .
never in my working life have i ever had laundry allowance ,isn’t that something they can claim on there own personal tax ?
Luke, I agree with what you say. I do believe Mark is saying the same only that he means the tired ones; the run down ones; the ones that don’t want to be there anymore. These should change the names from ‘newsagency’ because it gives newsagencies like yours and mine a bad name.
h, I don’t know where you’re from, but there are no laws in Australia that require an employer to pay an employee $30 a week for laundry – at least not at present.
Reminds me of the time I visited a suburban Melbourne newsagency.
Looking in the stationery section I found a deplorable selection of dusty, faded, overpriced rubbish.
As a retailer it made me want to cry.
The “stuff” was unsaleable, not even worthy of a dump bin.
I wanted to scoop it all up and throw it in the bin, I had to hurry out of the shop to prevent myself doing it.
The basics of retailing involve cleanliness, freshness of stock and a general “care factor”.
If it’s not selling, put it out for half price before it’s too late and try something new.
It’s not rocket science.
Until this Christmas I have never put in cheap $2 line but believed customer will buy on quality and I have good regular cutomer looking for this. As sales have been a bit slow I have put in some toys in this price range from TNW. I am now getting kids with pocket money and Grans buying top ups to their other purchase. Selling heaps as impulse buys – add ons at the counter. I geuss this in evolving. Wish I could afford new fixtures or even some but trying to keep all the fluro changed and cleaning I think we look OK for a country town in a stand alone shop. We have clean new shop signs outside and have just painted the buiding. Not sure that my look would fit into a major chopping complex though.
I can honestly say I have never walked into another newsagency and thought these guys are giving my business a bad name and we shouldn’t associate with them. When we are out and about we visit other shops to get an idea what everyone else is doing.
I have seen run down shops that are making money hand over fist and I have seen shops with all the bells and whistles and heaps of great stock go belly up, that is the great thing about small business they are so diverse. People who love to compare themselves against others and think they are doing it better will never get ahead as there is always someone doing it better then them. We have 8 newsagencies in our town and some owners go around and compare prices and see which customers are in which shops, all I think is they have too much time on there hands. Do the best you can and focus on your business.
Luke, AUSTRAC the Anti-money laundering regulator might be interested in your list of “run down shops that are making money hand over fist” :))
Carol, retail is dynamic and we constantly need to improve. We’re not big businesses with big pockets – but we do what we can to drive our business further and experimenting niches (like your kids and grandparents story) is the key. But we shouldn’t stop there.
In my travels all over Northern Territory, Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria, I can tell you that there ARE vast differences in newsagencies. I have been lucky enough to see and learn from newsagencies that evolve and also learn from the ones that wither away.
I don’t think that the newsagency shingle stands for the same consistent message that it stood for ten years ago. This is the core point of my post. It is why you will see brands use the term newsagency less. It is why some suppliers no longer refer to newsagencies.
That said, it is the most common term available to us at the moment.
Mark,
It is interesting that you mention suppliers referring to newsagencies. As a comparison, in the supermarket industry suppliers almost exclusively refer to stores by their banner (IGA, FoodWorks, SPAR, etc) and have done for some time. Reference to “independants supermarkets” is usually only seen in internal paperwork when having to refer to the industry outside Coles/Woolworths.
Nothing to do with dodgy dealing Peter, the stores I was referring to have a loyal customer base and know their market inside and out and cater for this market. They opt not to spend money on updating shopfits or fixtures but instead maximise what they have. Like I stated before I have seen people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on shopfits and have the best looking shop with a closed sign on the door.
Fine Luke, but you did say they were “run down” shops. Have a look at it’s definition below. Can’t imagine too many “run down” news agencies having loyal customer bases let alone making money hand over fist. The days you could get away with running a business like this are well and truly over
Definition: shabby, in bad shape
Synonyms: abandoned, beat-up, below par, broken-down, crumbling, debilitated, decrepit, derelict, deserted, desolate, dilapidated, dingy, dog-eared, down-at-the-heel, drained, enervated, exhausted, fatigued, forsaken, frowzy, in a bad way, neglected, old, out of condition, peaked, ramshackle, ratty, rickety, seedy, tacky, tattered, tired, tumble-down, uncared-for, under the weather, unhealthy, untended, used up, weak, weary, worn-out
Each of us makes business decisions for our own business’s, For the time being we are Newsagencies, fine if you are a marketing group and are happy with your business decisions and it should be fine also if you are a Newsagency.
Lukes posts 1 & 12 makes a good argument for a guy and his family running a small business without being part of a marketing group and being successful.
My post is about the challenge of the newsagency shingle and the diversity of businesses which trade under it. I was seeking to explain why there will be some who seek to distance themselves from the shingle.
I understand that Mark and I do not disagree with your post.
I think it is diffucult to explain in one post why we are so varied, I would like to actually see a comprehensive review to go underneath the top layer like your post has on the different categories of Newsagents and why we are so varied.
We are all different for example my personal circumstances are : I own my home, I own my business, I make a nice wage a week however I am not going into debt for a 500K Newsagency and then to be told I need a shop refitt every 5 years, I just am to conservative for it.
I do not personally see a problem moving away from the Newsagency shingle however I would like to understand why their is evidence of deteriation of a lot of Newsagencies. My thoughts are people are overwhelmed with debt and that they are burned out however we need to identify why the gap is getting wider between Classy & Nasty.
laundry allowance ? what the .
never in my working life have i ever had laundry allowance ,isn’t that something they can claim on there own personal tax ?
shaun s
My understanding of the Retail Workers award is as follows, please correct me if I am wrong:
If you work a casual shift and the boss puts you in a uniform, in NSW you get $1.25 loading for laundry. Each shift !!
Full or permanent employees in NSW should be getting $6.25 each week laundry allowance if they have to wear a uniform.