There are two types of traffic generation I obsess about in my newsagencies: getting customer inside and getting them further inside.
Often in a newsagency customers only shop the front part of the business. We need to work hard to lure traffic further inside our newsagencies. We can do this by giving shoppers a reason to shop the shop.
One product we use to lure shoppers deeper into the business is the humor spinner from card company Spirit. I find this works a treat. The stands attracts two types of people – those looking for a funny card and those who pass time reading funny cards. The stand is a perfect browsing opportunity.
We move the Spirit humor stand around the store every few weeks. Right now it’s located in front of our magazine department where it is attracting more shoppers to our magazine department. I’d encourage other newsagents with the stand to try this placement. You’ll see upside in Spirit card sales as well as upside in magazine sales.
The other day I noticed a shopper browsing the cards and then moving to browse magazines. While I can’t be certain, it looked to me like they only got to our magazines thanks to the card unit. They bought a magazine.
It’s important we do this, place products such that they bring shoppers deeper into our shops. Indeed it is this above average behavior as retailers that will help deliver for us above average business results.
Newsagents who run their businesses in an average way will achieve average results. Yes this is a glib comment. It’s also true.
I urge newsagents reading this to look at their product placement to assess whether they are, through this, luring shoppers deeper into their shops. Excellent spinners, like this one from Spirit, can help us achieve better results from existing foot traffic.
FOOTNOTE: Reflecting my obsession, I’ve asked staff to ensure the spinner is turned to a specific facing of cards as I see this as working best to get people engaged. Crazy, yeah – but chasing sales.
This Spirit range of cards is fantastic. They are exactly what humour cards used to be like before Political Correctness took all our fun away from us. My customers are loving this product and we too have been moving it to front of store o occassioons. Watching people interact and laugh along with cards is great.
I do have to talk to the rep about oversupply on some pockets but hey we are all used to that arent we?
Cheers
Al
I have added four rows of these cards and I see customers who shop regularly go strait for them.
We have been moving ours around too since taking the off the wood. We always know which cards a customer is looking at when we hear the laughter.