The opportunity for newsagents to have a say on a change to magazine distribution has driven a 30% increase in traffic to this blog since Thursday. Some the the 400 extra visitors a day will be checking in to see what newsagents think about the opportunity. I know from calls that plenty of publishers are watching.
I shopped 3 large newsagencies over the long weekend (can’t keep away from them)
Our centre in the eastern suburbs of Adelaide is always closed on public holidays so we went down south where a lot of young people have built homes and visited 3 newsagencies there. The smallest centre was partly open and the newsagent was doing brisk business but the centre looked very dark with only 50%
of the shops open.
The second one was a very large centre and it had two supermarkets both open and doing huge business with people lined up at checkouts and right next door the newsagency which is quite a large one was closed and shutters down (No visibility inside at all). I was amazed and couldn’t help but feel aggravated that my centre closes and I don’t have a choice to trade (I would if I could) and here is an agency with just about everything open and he/she was shut.
The third one was a large, wellknown hub for the southern suburbs and it is similar
to a westfield with a large variety of shops which were mostly open but the newsagency was open and busy but the
cards and mags were barely visible with lighting out all over the shop and dark corners.
When I opened on Tuesday I sent my husband to buy more downlight globes for my shop immediately as 3 lights were out and I made him buy 20 so that I NEVER have globes out in my shop because it is a
huge deterrent to shopping.
I would say that this is one of our weaknesses – we are so different – both in our business practices and our presentation of our shops and that problem cannot be solved because even mags and cards are different in differing demographics.
It is a conundrum not easily solved.
June, you’re right about lighting. Poor and or inconsistent lighting (unless for mood) is a sign of a bad retailer.