Lottoland looks set to disrupt lottery operations in Ireland and Germany. Click here for one of the many reports online. This organisation is getting bigger and bigger. Newsagents need to factor their growth and commitment into business plans.
Easter is weeks away and we have sold out of Easter plush a week ago. That is hundreds of pieces. Thankfully, additional stock arrived last week.
Plush sales are already past last year’s numbers, which were terrific in themselves.
Easter is a financially rewarding season for us. We love it.
For many years we played in then chocolate space. First with Darrell Lea, then with Chocolatier – with some Cadbury in the mix too. Three years ago we quit chocolate for an expanded plush offer.
What is interesting is the price range. Our Easter plush is priced from $4.95 through to $150.00. The most common item is $20.00.
Everything has sold well, including at the $150.00 price point. This is great news. It is also what makes Easter a commercially valuable season for us.
To drive new traffic we pitch the season on the lease line as well as in our out of store marketing. We use the Hallmark greeting cards for this too, especially the new on-trend releases for this year.
My advice to newsagents who are experiencing a flat Easter is take a look at your product mix and your marketing. If it is traditional, expect a traditional result. Our approach is anything but traditional and the result speaks to this.
We love Easter for then happy retail displays and experiences of the season.
Footnote: Easter is an excellent season through which to re-cast perception about your business and in particular, the type of business you run. This is what I mean when I talk about being traditional.
If your posters are traditional and your products then the result will be the same old. It can be nothing else.
If you find yourself sighing at flat or declining sales, that is your wake-up call to play outside what you have been doing. Easter would have been a perfect season through which to do this.
It is good to see more stationery brands prepared to deal direct with newsagents rather than going through the traditional wholesalers.
The closer the connection between these brands and retail newsagents the better for both those parties.
Stationery sales tell us that a shake up was necessary and from what we have seen over the years, the needed shake up was unlikely to be at the wholesaler level.
The more brands that deal direct with retailers the better as this should improve the investment by brands in the retailer relationship and investment by retailers in the brand relationship. Yes, a true win win.
No, I am not going to name brands here as that is not the point of this post.
My goal today is to acknowledge that change inn this space is occurring and to record my opinion that I think it is a good move. I do this hoping more stationery brands will explore direct relationships with newsagents, turning their back on the expense of wholesaler relationships that may not benefit them as needed.
There are opportunities for stationery growth in newsagencies and the best parties to work together to make this happen are newsagents and the supplier brands.
Thanks to integration between you newsagency software and accounting packages and easy expense and other tracking tools, the need for a bookkeeper for a retail business has all bust disappeared.
Many retail businesses I know have eliminated the bookkeeper cost overhead. This drops money back to the bottom line of the P&L.
If you use an external bookkeeper today, look at what you can do to reduce or eliminate that cost. The freed cash could help with inventory expansion or out of store marketing – two key activities for a transitioning newsagency business.
Engaged suppliers often have access to videos that are ideal for use on social media. Use these on your business Facebook page and elsewhere to leverage their professional and often fun content for promoting your business.
Here is an excellent example of a video ideal for promoting your business. Who doesn’t want to watch people playing with these new things that are arriving in-store shortly? This video is perfect for the marketing tip I offer today.
Pokemon product at the counter displayed professionally and competitively priced drives impulse purchases and drives return traffic to the business. Also, it pitches authentic Pokemon product. With some discount variety stores selling knock-off products, being proud about selling authentic products is important.
We have many products in our retail businesses that can make people happy. Every one of these products is an opportunity to reach new customers and to attract them to our shops.
You only have to look at how people use facebook to understand that people like optimism, that they are drawn to inspiring images and quotes.
We can leverage these in our own business-based social media engagement, and give people what they like and connect the positive emotional response back to our businesses.
Take the image of the duck with this post. The message, Quiet the mind and the soul will squeak, is simple, inspiring, optimistic.
This is not an image or text people would expect to see from a newsagency yet it is perfect for the business I want to pitch as mine.
The photo is perfect to load as is. That is all I need to do as it will do the rest. This is a perfect social media post in my view – because it does play against type, against what people expect from a newsagency business. Plus, it is happy, inspiring, heartwarming.
As I noted earlier, we have many products in our retail businesses that can make people happy. My advice is to find them, shine a light on them, use them to attract people to your business who might otherwise not be attracted to you.
But remember, once there you have to give them an experience that matches the expectation of the social media post. Don’t allow there to be a disconnect as you could lose them forever.
Click here for a copy of the announcement from News Corp. this morning of its newsagent commission fee review. Not great newsier newsagents in this.
In my benchmark work with newsagents and through other data I see I have developed a list of items that work best with newspapers.
With more than 70% of newspaper purchases single item purchases, leveraging newspaper placement is key to make the most of destination newspaper traffic.
Here are the best items to place with with your top selling newspaper, the items people are most likely to add to their newspaper purchase:
Create the space next to newspapers. I have never seen a newsagency where this cannot be created.
Do not overload the space next to your top selling newspaper. If you clutter the space it will be too busy and people will not see what you want them to see.
Use my suggestions above to get you thinking about your situation. My ideas may not work. Something will. The moment you have success you will be encouraged to try more. Chase that success.
The goal here is to drive shopper visit efficiency from newspapers. Success will only come from active engagement by you in your business. No one else will do this for you.
As newsagency businesses transition to broader-appeal businesses, how we acquire new employees needs to evolve.
Whereas in the past newsagency retail experience was important, today this is not the case. Today, ideal employees will be more likely found away from the business.
For years when I needed a new employee I’d put up a sign in the business. Now I place an ad on Seek to draw from a bigger pool to present more opportunities the sign might otherwise not uncover.
Here is the text of an ad I have currently running:
Casual retail assistant: Knox and Southland
newsXpress Knox and newsXpress Southland are unique businesses. Their core products are cards, jigsaws, Ty Beanie Boos, jigsaws and gifts.We are looking for people who love working in retail and want to be part of an innovative and changing business.
While the roles are casual, chunky hours are available. Candidates must be available to work on any of the seven days of there week.
We are not looking for people with newsagency experience as these businesses are not newsagencies as you would know them.
Good communication, professional presentation station, customer care and appreciation of the value of work are essentials we are looking for in the candidates we will choose. Visual merchandising skills are a bonus.
Check out our Facebook pages to find out more about us.
In three days the ad attracted 266 candidates. While some are clearly not suited, many are, coming from diverse retail backgrounds through which we can benefit.
It is vital we expand the retail experiences in our businesses, beyond what has been traditional in newsagency businesses. One good way to do this is to bring in new employees with experience in other retail channels. That is what I am seeking to do through this latest job ad pitch.
Footnote: I have used Seek as it shows you are serious about hiring retail professionals. A free ad on Gumtree will not, in my opinion, attract the same calibre of candidates.
Here is a photo that a Tatts representative posted to its private Facebook group for retailers showing how one business is promoting St Patricks Day products. In a comment, a Tatts person on the page complimented the look of the business.
I am told by Tatts agents that this photo shows breaches of what Tatts permits.
Now, before the folks at Nextra call their lawyers about this post, I think what the store is doing looks okay. My issue is with Tatts and their promotion of a display that appears to be outside what it says to others is acceptable.
Here are my reasons for deciding to not embrace the Sunday penalty rates decision in my retail businesses:
This is not a permanent decision. It is possible I will modify my position as the marketplace situation evolves. If I did and thereby embraced a saving in labour costs, I anticipate through would be invested in more hours.
All business owners need to reach their own conclusions on this matter. Unfortunately, as a country we are bereft of leadership on broader issues that should be confronted in any economic setting adjustment as has been done with Sunday penalty rates.
Many retail newsagencies are traffic and margin poor businesses. Such businesses are high-risk businesses as most low margin products and services are delivering less traffic year on year … high-risk of financial failure.
In addition to low margin products and services experiencing traffic decline year on year, minimal or no retail price movement see a decline in margin in real terms. Further, too often we see the percentage cut by suppliers for selfish reasons, further diluting the value to the retailer.
But it is not all bad news with low margin products and services. If they are generating good traffic, the opportunity is to be proactive in leveraging that traffic. Here is a list of five must-do things to leverage this low value traffic in your business.
My advice is do all five of these things. If you don’t do some or all you are most likely only benefiting from destination business from low-margin high-traffic products and services and there is no upside in that.
For the record, margin poor products and services are those with a GP percentage of less than 50% in my view.
This post shows how to turn a negative into a positive. I hope it helps.
FTYI this advice is an example of one of many types advice newsXpress provides its members.
I am often asked what we charge for copying and other services. Click on the image to see our current price list. We balance this with free copying of resumes for unemployed people and significantly discounted copying for local charities. Our prices show we are not chasing business – that is a conscious decision by us.
