In my trip to the US a week ago I saw several more lottery product kiosks. I have now seen these in five different states and in a variety of situations including in-store in supermarkets and convenience stores as well as in public areas in transit locations.
The unit in the photo sells lottery tickets as well as scratch tickets. While there is a warning about customers needing to be 18 or older, there is no mechanism as far as I could see to properly monitor or check the age of customers. I am surprised by this given the influence conservatives have over governments in the US.
These lottery kiosks and the expanding use of Apps to sell lottery products in Australia present a greater risk to newsagent lottery revenue than whether supermarket chains sell lottery products through their petrol outlets.
Hi Mark, need some advice please in relation to kiosks. We own a newsagency in Brisbane (since 3yrs). Due to a expansion in the centre we have been told by the centre management to open up a kiosk in the new building while our store is in the old building. If we do not we risk someone else opening which may or may not be a newsagency kiosk. Our current rent will go up irrespective of us opening the kiosk or not in addition to the yearly rent increase. We are tense about what to do next. Are the landlords taking advantage of us by putting pressure on us? Will opening a kiosk make any difference to the existing shop in terms of sales? Is is a good idea or are we getting sucked into retail blackmail by the landlords? Please help.
Rashi, we were forced some years ago to
have a kiosk in a centre mall (as well as our shop and rounds). It didn’t pay its way because it had to be staffed all day and apart from large superdraws it was just a small flow all day so the person who was running it was hardly doing anything else.
I used to wheel returns (mags) around to her so that she could be kept busy but it
is far better having lotto in the main shop as when it is a slow day there is plenty of other stuff to do.
Just my opinion and I might be wrong but the extra rent and wages was debilitating.
Thankyou so much June. That is exactly what my opinion was after we visited a similar set up in another shopping centre, a big newsagency and a kiosk quite far away. The kiosk was not busy at all, not a single customer there. Both the employees working there were just chatting. Paying extra rent and wages for very little return if at all is just not worth it. Is your kiosk still operating and what were the reasons you went with it? Sorry for asking but advice from our family of newsagents is what matters. What happens with the purchasing side, are orders done under two different business names? I guess everything would be done separately. Thankyou again for your guidance. It really helps.
Rashi, centre management wanted our spot (kiosk) for a coffee shop and we were
‘required” to close and we put the lotto into our newsagency and made it larger (at centre management request again).
Three years later, they wanted to move us again into a smaller premises to allow Bupa into our larger premises and we are still here today and it probably wasn’t a bad move at the time when newsagencies were not flourishing and the smaller shop is now (with lotto) doing quite well and the rents are smaller and the wages are smaller and the purchases are smaller to fill a smaller shop so it is – I hope – a win/win.
However, after being moved so many times by CM I am wary of being too sure of myself because our lease says CM can move us at anytime that they desire.
I tried to change it when they last moved us but to no avail.
The other thing to remember is that Lotto is only approx. 7% return as commission and it is hard to pay rents on that return with no way of increasing your return unless you sell more lotto (at 7% which is a lot of lotto)
Agencies are, in some cases, quite unviable and we newsagents have had our share of them e.g. lotto, Western Union, Ticketek, bus tickets, phone topup,
etc, etc.
I only handle Lotto and Ticketek these days, because, in truth, agencies are not
paying my bills.
Diversity in gifts and stationery is my main focus as their profitability far exceeds any agencies.
Having said that I wouldn’t like to be relying on the shop without Lotto which is
a crowd puller.
Hi June, CM’s are the bullies as small shop owners have no choice but to do as they say. They don’t contribute in any way other than dropping of their invoice for rent which goes up every year so in the end how you get around pay it is not their concern. I will be wary of the lease conditions if we go ahead. Going through a lot of mental agony about should we shouldn’t we with the kiosk. In terms of wages, you mentioned that wages are smaller..sorry didn’t get that part. Did you mean hiring youngsters and is one person enough? Also with the purchases, do you buy under the big shop account and is the kiosk a different entity in terms of accounting.
Totally agree with the gifts and stationery side of things. Without them it would be very hard to pay off the bills. Lotto commission is hardly anything for the effort put in. Also noticed that during super draws lotto sells and everything else slows down. Have you noticed that too? Sorry if I am troubling you but I am tense as a lot of effort goes into managing one. Thanks again.
Rashi, I meant smaller wages because we no longer had to use extra staff to man the kiosk. The staff in the shop did the Lotto as well as the shop because they were right there situated to do so.
We had the kiosk under our trust a/c with our shop and round but have since shut the kiosk (as explained above) and sold the distribution round so we only have a retail shop with Lotto now.
I did all purchasing for two shops and kiosk under the one banner.
I do agree with you about Lotto superdraws Rashi.
Today my shop sales were disastrous as we had a 50M Powerball jackpot and customers other than Lotto could hardly get in the door to purchase anything else.
If you want to ask me anything else you can ring me on 08 83797578 or email me
at jasscar@bigpond.com
I certainly am available to answer any questions you might have about kiosks.
Thankyou so much for your help June. Every info helps. I am sure I will either call or email you. Many thanks again.