I am in the middle of participating in user meetings around the country with my POS software company Tower Systems. Today, I am in Canberra, where I will meet with 20+ small business retailers.
These sessions are being attended by newsagents as well as owners of garden centres, jewellers, bike shops, gift shops and pet shops.
It is a thrill to see the retailers from different retail channels interact with each other, learn from each other, share experiences and find common challenges.
What is most interesting is what matters to newsagents. Whereas years ago newsagents would want to talk about magazines, newspapers and channel-specific issues, at these sessions newsagents are more likely to talk about retail business marketing, inventory management, webstore integration and accounting software integration. They are more likely to talk about the future rather than the past or today.
The newsagent conversation has changed.
Many newsagents are no longer obsessed with newsagency channel specific issues. They are talking about issues that matter to all small business retailers.
This is a good move. It means we have more retailers in our channel than newsagents. I love that.
In one meeting last week a newsagent had an excellent discussion with a bike shop owner, learning plenty about attracting shoppers back into the business. In the same discussion, the bike retailer learnt a couple of management ideas from the newsagent. The interaction was terrific.
There is little happening in the newsagency channel that warrants us being insular. We can learn plenty from retailers outside our channel and others who will pressure us to play beyond what has been traditional for a newsagency. This is where the future is: new traffic, higher margin products and deeper baskets.
At the heart of our businesses, retail is retail. Our challenges of chasing new traffic, employee management, marketing, shop floor efficiency – almost anything you name – are the challenges of other independent small business retailers.
Networking outside our traditional channel is good for us and our businesses based on what I am observing. It is a thrill to watch this change.