A diligent newsagents has sent me this comparison of the current ink prices laid out next to the same products from Staples and Officeworks.
The newsagent’s prices are cheaper for more items than Officeworks – yet Officeworks promotes that they have the Lowest Prices.
The newsagent’s prices are cheaper than most of the prices from Staples – yet Staples relies on a lazy 100% best price guarantee to make it look like their deals are better.
Yet Officeworks and Staples crow that their prices are better, using a variety of attention grabbing language in their expensive marketing campaigns.
The other big difference between this newsagent and the two national businesses when it comes to ink is that the newsagent spends very little advertising their better prices.
Maybe the value actually delivered by a business is the inverse of what the business spends advertising that they offer value.
In this election year I would like firm promises from politicians from all sides about this issue – big businesses claiming their prices are lower or the best when they are not.
I’d like to see firm commitments to fund an office within the ACCC for reporting situations where companies claiming their prices are the best can be reported and penalties easily imposed, penalties of sufficient scale to change their misleading behaviour.
In the meantime, if you sell an item for less than one of these national retailers that advertises that they are they cheapest, promote your advantage. Name and shame them. We have to stand up for ourselves.
Click on the image for a closer look at the comparison.
Ironically I did exactly the same thing and in EVERY case, our prices were significantly cheaper than Officeworks, Big W, and Kmart. I have made up an A5 flyer with these comparisons on it and we distribute it via bag stuffing, slipping them into peoples mags and papers at the counter, telling customers when we get the chance etc. its just amazing the BS they feed people when they have multi millions in advertising budgets!
maybe we ned a change of direction, instead of trying to out do them on price, what if we could advertise as a group that we will match any advertised price on ink from officeworks/big w/target/aust post. that way we could piggy back off their advertising and actually make more GP as we could charge more. And people would think thry have knocked down our prices by bringing in a flyer for us to match 🙂
We have many customers that come straight to us as they know we are the best priced and I would hate to looses that reputation. I prefer that that the word spreads and we become the first port of call for ink and that the customers know they are getting our best price without the hassle of haggling or comparing us to the competition. If we educate customers that we can and do compete then I feel that longer term benefits are there for us.
Nerissa is on the mark.
Bunnings plaster competitors advertisements over a wall at their main entrance showing the (eg) Mitre 10 price and the Bunnings price.
These generally apply to special offers and letterbox drops.
Newsagents should be pushing a similar tack but emphasising that their prices are the normal cheaper price, not just an occasional special offer.
It works well for Bs, it will work better for newsagents.
Do it for a month and see what comments and extra sales you get.
I did up a large stationery order for a lady who likes to shop local. My price with no specials and normal retail price $329.10.
Lady was told off by her boss ” You should have got that through Staples. It would have been about $200.00″
I checked out Staples and used the cheapest prices I could find. Their price was $328.98. A whole 12 cents cheaper than me. This was on an order with around 270 items