A colleague sent this photo from their local Woolworths showing ink that was priced at $29.99 now available for $6.00.
Beyond the pleasure for the newsagent of seeing Woolworths not been able to sell the ink within the shelf life, this photo shows Woolworths quitting stock at below cost price, taking action to move dead stock. I mention this as newsagents often ask me about when to quit non-performing stock and how to go about this.
My approach to quitting stock is to let the customers show what the discount price needs to be to move unwanted stock even if it’s offered for free. Moving stock from the shop becomes more important that it sitting on the shop floor and taking space. Once we decide to quit an item I want it gone within a week or sooner.
But back to the ink. Woolworths setting a price of $6.00 is interesting. This is easier for shoppers than, say, a % off or even the term – half price. People looking at cartridge can see that it’s $6.00 – no doubt about that.
It’s important we have a clear strategy for quitting stock in our newsagencies – including knowing how we will show the discount to our shoppers.
People have become dumber about discounts, unless it is 1/2 they just cannot work it out. We ran a promo recently with 25% off and took it down after a week because they just could not figure out for themselves what 25% off was. Im not talking hard price points Im talking $10, $20 stock so it is not complicated (or so we thought). In the end we put up a before and after price and then we get the question how much is that off. Same goes for when we tell people the stck they want is about 3/4 the way up the shop, and they go straight for the back wall. PS Im not that old even though I sound like it.