Talking to a capital city CBD based newsagent yesterday and they commented that shoppers are not interested in lottery tickets in their shop unless the prize is $20 million or above. For them, a $20 million prize is there entry point. What’s yours?
Talking to a capital city CBD based newsagent yesterday and they commented that shoppers are not interested in lottery tickets in their shop unless the prize is $20 million or above. For them, a $20 million prize is there entry point. What’s yours?
Yep 20 million the starting point for interest , they need to lift the jackpots to make the super draws special again . I remember sat super draw days you would always get in extra staff but now its just the normal sat staff ,yes it is always busy on a super draw but not like it once was . Then again maybe that’s just me ..
Yes the same shaun, superdraw just have the same staff as normal. Casket need to find better ways and more up to date ways to stimulate the market. The double dividends including 1st division last week was an excellent promo that worked well.
Same, $20M does not justify extra staff, its when it goes to $30M and better it gets exciting.
I’ve noticed this ever since we had the $100M a couple of years back
Yep Under 20m we only get the habitual rusted on customers. After 20m we see more occasional customers. No extra staff till after about $30m.
Totally agree. One million for Monday and Wednesday nights for example doesnt even buy a house in the CBD’s these days. No interest here either until 20 million….
Around the 20m mark starts getting people turned on in our town. Apparently 2, 3, 5m is “not worth it”. It’s almost as if some customers believe that the odds of winning change for the better when the Jackpot gets over 20m.
Another curiosity is the number of interstate visitors who ask “if I win the big one does it mean I have to come all the way back to NSW to pick it up?”
My usual answer: “If I won $10m I’d gladly walk from any State barefoot and buck naked to pick it up!”
Angelo, I agree with you but we also get
customers who when the lotto machine
does its song and dance routine and we have gone over our limit say things like “oh dear, do I HAVE to go to head office” and my answer is “just call a cab which is free in our centre and you can be there and back in half an hour”.
Fascinating stuff!!!!!!
Or the ones that will not buy into the million dollar draws but yet when buying their ticket for the 20m they say they only want one million no one needs 20m .
I agree Shaun. It would be good to have a Lottery that paid $25m to 25 winners. I think it would be a great success. Our Bread & butter players are those who just won’t miss putting an entry in every week. Lately our sales don’t seem to increase greatly until it reaches about $40m. I must admit that $1m is not looking as attractive to me as it used to. I would like to help my family out and have a nice comfortable retirement. I reckon about $5m at least for me. Too big a prize would be too much of a destiny changer for the whole family.
20 Million for Oz & Powerball is when things get better. Customers have been exposed to a lot of huge jackpots over the last couple of years and now 2,3,5 or even 10 million doesnt seem to interest them too much. Tatts is probably a little hamstrung in what they can offer on the monday & wednesday draws but I would like to see them start the base level of Oz & Powerball to something a little more interesting like maybe a starting base of 10 Mill and let it climb from there (2 & 3 doesnt stack up anymore).
On the saturday I would like to see this go to maybe 8 or even 10 million every saturday and have superdraws of 50 million. Once upon a time 20 million dollar draws were absolutely beserk on a saturday, we used to have all staff on hand and the line up would be out the door now its just a better than average saturday. 50 Million would bring that enthusiasm back.
I would also like to see everybody that reads this blog put thier two bobs worth on this subject, if we got more comments then Tatts might just have a look at making some changes.
Allan,
I totally agree.
Lotto has just ticked along ever since it was sold. No promotions anymore, no Mothers Day promotions like used to be run.. So their loyal customers don’t see the value in spending huge dollars anymore.
I think the prize pools on offer for each game are ‘tired’ and need a revamp – and not just advertising revamp. Prize pool amounts need to be raised.. I agree 1 million Mon and Wed is nothing. Sat at 4 million is what some folks houses are worth in my area now. 40 or 50 million each Saturday would bring the punters back…
Natalie, where are you?
In SA we had heaps of Mother’s Day posters, banners, a lot of POS for ISI gift packs and we pushed like crazy. ISI gift packs made up in advance sold really well as did tickets in the $21 million mega draw. Friday before Mother’s Day was our best ever Friday for lotto sales and Saturday was our third best Saturday.
The only way to push Saturday up to 40 or 50 million would be either a very steep increase in game costs or to make the game more difficult to win – perhaps out of 50 or 55 numbers so there are frequent jackpots.
@ Carol re “I agree Shaun. It would be good to have a Lottery that paid $25m to 25 winners. ”
How could that be managed? There would need to be some manipulation of the draw or do we go back tom the old sweepstakes days and have the first 25 tickets drawn declared the million dollar winners?
Yes, some aspects need a revamp, but maybe a little more realistic though could go in to the suggestions.
For example, NZ Lotteries have a jackpot but with special occasions, such as MD, Xmas, etc, everyone who buys a qualifying Lotto ticket gets a ticket in to a draw for one of 10 new cars or one of $10,000 prizes. Maybe Tatts could look at that as an added incentive.
And, as we still lack a Friday game, maybe something like this could work here.
https://mylotto.co.nz/bullseye/
Some of the points here are why I’m happy to not have lotteries in my shop. No jackpot driven peaks. People shop because of products sold. More pressure to be a retailer for sure but more control too.
A lot of my customers also wish there were more winners but odds of the games like Powerball and Oz reflect the difficulty it is to win. The fact that most of the time it goes to only one winner sometimes two only increases the frustration but the odds are what they are.
With regard to the lower jackpots I recently had a first division win of $1m for a local who was in a work syndicate of 10 giving each of them $100k. They were all over the moon about the win and whilst we all would have liked to have won the $1m or pined for more I’d really like to meet the person that would knock back $100k because “it’s not enough”. If I’d win enough to pay off my mortgage or lessen it by any amount regardless of what the house is worth wouldn’t that be enough incentive? I think it’s a perception problem causing people to only open the wallet for mega jackpots.
Mark (post 13). Lotto is very good in some newsagencys, even without the huge Jackpots. The large jackpots provide the icing. Like all of our businesses it is horses for courses.
Craig I agree – we all need to do what we think is best for your own business.
I have had a look back on my sales over past 4 years and find that the Saturday lotto’s for about 20 million have the same results today as they had then. However if there are big jackpots for Oz or Powerball at the same time some of the sales are lost to those games.
As for more winners with lower prizes I would like to see one game changed as a market research game where the % allocated to each division are altered so that 2nd division and 3rd division prices are increased. There would be more bigger winners then instead of the $1million down to $5000 that there currently is. I think if Monday was allowed to Jackpot but with second and third divisions achieving say approx $100000 and $50000 prizes this may increase the interest. I dont know anyone who would sneeze at $100k.
As for the jackpots and superdraws they bring in the new customers(younger) who may get into the habit of becoming regulars. On Saturday gone we had 680 people as opposed to the normal 520 mostly new faces. Whilst there was a rub off on newspapers we may have lost slightly on cards and gifts. I would like to think that thoiose new faces will have seen that we sell other stuff and may well come back for a gift in the future. Lotto was 50% up on a normal saturday. We do lose market share to the larger centres on big lottery days as I think there is more impulse in the larger centres.
Finally without Lotto we would not exist as it makes up 56% of gross profit. We had to reduce floor space because we could not generate enough sales to pay for the realestate from gifts etc. The centre generates 5000 people per day many of whom are the same 5000 everyday. As Mark says there is nothing the same it is horses for couses. Our weeklies are almost 30% of mag sales.
Hey Wally it was interesting reading your post and to realize how different one newsagency can be from another.
It was interesting that your store earns 56% of its gross profit from Lottery product. I was shocked on reading this. It must be hard for you to support all the other stock that a newsagency usually carries. We are in a neighbourhood centre and the same people shop there every week, every day. Most of our suburb are younger families. Our Lotto and ISI income makes up 35% of our GP. We are trying hard to make this percentage lower by sellling more other products. I am worried about that 35% percentage and am aiming at 25%. Tatts scares me.
It must be different in states, we have a lot of promotion in victoria as well.