We moved newspapers from front of store prime position in the newsagency to a side wall barely a metre away, a less expensive space, less visually disruptive.
This is in a newsagency we bought in December 2021. We’re making changes slowly so as to not disrupt valuable regular shoppers and to do so within a tight capex budget – we are frugal when it comes to making changes in the shop.
Our shop floor location and space allocation is guided by GP contribution. Newspapers in this business generate around $15,000 in GP. This does not justify the prime position they had occupied in this shop for decades.
We will experiment with the freed space over the next couple of months to find the categories that work best, and cycle through them with changes every week to keep the visual offer fresh.
As the photo shows, our preference is for visual variety in colour, shape and size. This provides flexibility as to what we display here. This particular display is centred with self care and around that is allied products we think will appeal to the same shopper.
The big magazine unit behind this space is safe for now as it delivers north of $450,000 in revenue for the business.
Back in the day we would have brought in a shopfitter to completely overhaul the shop and spent $150,000+ more doing this. Today, our approach, and our advice to newsagents is – make changes over time, to give the shop a feeling of perpetual motion (change), do the changes yourself, or use a handy person – certainly not a shopfitter.
My point is – anyone can make changes like this in their business. Do it on a budget. Do as much as you can yourself. measure the results. Keep at it, keep making changes.