Author: Mark Fletcher

I didn’t expect the Santa shopping bags to work for us but they have – in yet another reminder that I am not my customer.

One lady bought one on the weekend because she had to have it to get into the Christmas shopping spirit.

Successful retail is about having the right products in the right location at the right time. Those three factors are far ahead of price in importance – as the sales of the bags show.

The best successes are from products we are not known for that are easily purchased on impulse.

The Priceline billboard in Pitt Street Mall offered a voucher if I pressed the button – so I did. Spend $50 and get $10 off.

It’s a clever use of the billboard but old school compared to interactive billboards in some European and Asian countries where offers are tailored to the person in front of the billboard … or better still – where offers are sent to your phone based on past purchases from other retailers. That’s the future of mobile marketing to shoppers.

Further to my post on the weekend about not discounting before you need to, I was surprised to see GAP is Sydney yesterday offering 40% off everything in store. While they control the entire supply chain of what they sell, the 40% off sign suggested to me that they’re having a soft Christmas. They’re smart retailers, I’m sure they are doing this because it works for them – probably because the discount is in their price. The shop was full.

In the newsagency on Saturday a guy in his early thirties was speaking into a Chatter Santa saying over and over my Mum is an idiot. Chatter Santa was repeating it back to him, over and over.

I heard this from behind me and looked around to see what’s what. His mum was standing next to him rolling her eyes.

You see and hear some crazy things in retail – especially at Christmas. 3 days to go.

I found this shopping list note on the shop floor the other day and loved the opportunity to see what one shopper was looking for and where they are looking.

Take a look under Gift Shops. We have an excellent range of coffee mugs and plenty of teacher things.

I didn’t see who dropped the note. I don’t know if they purchased from us – however, the note was onear our mugs.

There was a second note, folded with the first, for what they were to look for in Target and Chemist Warehouse.

From Target, this shopper was looking for calendars, Forever Friends products, Top Gear / car products and a large cup for dad. We can help with each of these. I don’t know if we did.

I am fascinated by the groupings on the lists by shop. It reveals how some people shop as well as the challenge of attracting shoppers to shop on impulse with us as we were not on their list, not obviously at least. It also reinforces the importance of marketing the business by purchase destination.

We have to think about what pulls people into our businesses. This time of year, cards are an obvious choice. If we have an excellent range of Christmas cards at the front of the shop that could be the lure. It’s what a card shopper attracted to the business notices next which matters. There needs to be a second lure for when then are finished shopping the Christmas card display.

The same is true if they step into a newsagency because of the better magazine range … whet else is pitched to that shopper, what is done to gets them shopping the shop?

Every destination needs to have another opportunity nearby. Each opportunity encourages shoppers to break away from their plan, to move away for their shopping list.

The two lists I picked up from the shop floor this week reminded me of the challenges and opportunities we have in our newsagencies as we leverage existing excellent traffic and evolve into retail businesses of the future. It also reminded me of the value of talking more to shoppers to learn what they are looking for.

I would love to be able to read the lists of every shopper in our shopping centre who has one. I appreciate it is impractical … but it would be fascinating, educational and inspiring.

We all see it in our shops, the product left abandoned far away from its usual location. Usually, it is a common product, nothing particularly noticeable. Sometimes, it is a personal product – and I wonder whether there is a back story to it being abandoned.

On the weekend I found a personalised Christmas bauble, for Matthew, shoved in with our men’s health and fitness magazines. I got to thinking about why Matthew was abandoned: had he been naughty and this was punishment, had the customer found something else to spend money on, had Matthew brought it down to a parent to show them?

While the future of the newsagency does not hinge on answers to these and other questions, I enjoy letting my mind wander when I see things like this. It personalises what goes on in the shop and is a factor in how I look at my time in the business.

In many ways, many times a day, people’s lives are touched – in good and bad ways , happy and sad ways – by experiences in our businesses. Thinking about this helps our connection with our own businesses. the thoughts personalise our connections with our businesses.

While I will never know the real back story of the abandoned Matthew Christmas bauble, it’s been good to think about it.