Even though it is plenty of months away, products have already started flowing for the celebration of the Year of the Snake.
We have offered Chinese zodiac related products for years. This year, the Year of the Dragon, it has been worth thousands of dollars in revenue.
Several state governments are in on the opportunity, offering birth certificates tailored to the various zodiac characters. I mention this to show that interest is broad from the practical through to high end gifting, like coins valued at $5,000 and more.
Current search engine searches for Year of the Snake in Australia are at 12,000, making it an easy keyword to leverage. That will spike as the year draws closer. The Year of the Dragon searches, for example, peaked at 350,000 a month. Each search is an opportunity for retailers.
I’ve talked about this opportunity with several newsagents who said they did not have customers who would be interested. What I know for sure from online sales is that we don’t know what we don’t know. Chinese zodiac shoppers come in many forms across a broad age range and many social settings. And, people buy for different reasons: for their home, for friends and as an investment – this is certainly the case with high end coins.
I think local newsagencies offer and excellent opportunity for leveraging Chinese zodiac related products and gifts and while the Year of the Snake will not reach the peak interest we have seen in the Year of the Dragon, it is valuable. I think of the opportunity as a season. In my own case, that season passes easter and Father’s Day in commercial value to the business.
There are plenty of fringe seasonal opportunities like this with which we can engage to attract new shoppers to our businesses. It’s vital as new traffic is truly the lifeblood of our future in retail. If you are not attracting new shoppers you are not nurturing the value of your business given declines in core product categories.
If you are not sure about Chinese zodiac products, do some research. There is plenty of evidence of excellent product availability and ways you can promote these in the context of your newsagency business today.