Our sales were up 15% year on year in the September quarter. This is an excellent result which I put down to a combination of a terrific in-store offer, excellent staff and our discount voucher loyalty program.
Indeed, discount vouchers are driving basket depth, shopper return and bringing in new traffic thanks to word of mouth. The discount vouchers are getting destination shoppers shopping more of the shop.
Nowhere is the value of discount vouchers more evident that weekly magazines – up 12%. These are retail only sales by the way. Everyday counter cards are up 10% and stationery up 27%. Calendars are up 28% on last year and in the transactional data I can see the vouchers driving this.
The keys to success are clarity of the discount voucher offer, consistency of the pitch, generosity in value and pulling levers in your software to drive higher margin business.
In addition to the 15% increase in revenue there is excellent growth in gross profit.
POS Solutions published yesterday a post about a newsagency pulling out of what they call discount coupons. In their blog post they link to a previous post of theirs where they refer to a report about my business and suggest that the discount vouchers are not delivering the benefits I say. The evidence does not support the claims they make. It is unfortunate that they have published what they have as it distracts from the truth.
Newsagents need to choose the best loyalty solution for their business. This choice requires thorough research and talking with newsagents with experience. This is why I have published my results here over the years, to be transparent.
The Tower newsagency software offers four different types of loyalty facilities of which discount vouchers is one. I am confident that right now discount vouchers is the best practice approach for newsagents. The success is a combination of good software, properly and fully used in a well run newsagency with a good range of product.
Using discount vouchers or discount coupons in a poorly run business or in software that does not have appropriate business levers will not give you the results I am seeing. It would be wrong to assume that all discount voucher / discount coupon facilities are the same.