Check out the front-of-store interactive display established in airport retail locations in Australia this week to support the launch of Tictac gum. I love the display. It is eye-catching, perfect for attracting shoppers to check out the product, far more useful than a static display.
Mars is embracing temporary re-naming os Snickers like plenty of other food companies to give shoppers an additional reason to purchase. A Snickers bar labelled as a chocolate bar called Absurd turns the Snickers into a fun gift for someone, thereby expanding the reach of their product.
This is a smart marketing move, not trail-blazing, but certainly smart. Retailers have the promotional product at the counter for impulse purchase.
In our own patch, we have seen Smiggle, Typo and others follow a similar model of getting people to buy more of an item than they would by focussing on product design over function.
The more reasons there can be to purchase an item the better. Emotional reasons are the best as they are more likely to drive impulse purchases.
I love what Allens is doing this Christmas with their pop-up shops in some capital cities. I saw their Sydney pop-up a couple of weeks ago at Westfield in the centre of the city. They are getting people to pay over the odds for jars of personally selected lollies with a personalised name sticker. It is a very smart marketing move recasting the image of the Allens products.
What Allens is doing is recasting their image and driving appeal with a a broader pool of customers. Its is a smart move. Just about any business can do this.
Confectionery companies are renaming products to broaden the appeal. Heinz did it with ketchup, Coke with fizzy drink. Now we have Snickers renamed with hip words. It makes sense as it broadens the appeal of the product. That means people could purchase for a reason beyond the bar inside the wrapper. That is good for the manufacturer and good for the retailer.
I do wonder how far this trend will go.
I was surprised to see Darrell Lea liquorice at Officeworks in Pitt Street Sydney yesterday. The Officeworks price is $1.00 per pack higher than I can easily find it elsewhere. So much of the Officeworks low prices claim in their expensive ad campaigns.
The other surprise was the placement of the product in a dump bin, next to what look like cheap products. This is not the type of representation I expect to see for a quality brand.
Dump bins in Australian retail typically suggest a deal. This is not a deal.
If you sell Darrell Lea and have an Officeworks nearby, be aware.
A newsagent told me yesterday two customers had referenced the Lottoland ad to them at the counter in the last week. One made the fun of the ad while another said they tried Lottoland as a result and liked it. In each case, the customer initiated the discussion about Lottoland.
Until the comment at the counter, Lottoland was not on the radar of the newsagent. Now, they are concerned as it brought the competitor to their attention.
What is interesting is their view since this happened. The newsagent has realised the vulnerability for their lottery business from online and the lack of engagement by Tatts on the Lottoland competitive challenge. The lotto land comments across the counter were like a light being turned on in a dark room.
I would be interested to hear from others as to whether Lottoland is being mentioned in the newsagency.
Coles is promoting Easter confectionery at 25% off in-store on in the media, trashing the margin opportunity for other retailers, especially small business retailers who can’t strong-arm suppliers to discount to allow 25% off retail to be profitable.
So rather than compete with Coles, Woolworths and other mass retailers and the price games they play, I pitch other products for seasons like Easter, products the majors tent to not pitch or, at least, not discount like this.
I wish we had politicians in this country with the requisite guts to dilute the market power of Coles and Woolworths. The pressure they put on suppliers and primary producers is not socially responsible.
Darrell Lea has a national TV commercial running to boost brand awareness, specially for liquorice products. The TVC promotes the packaging shoppers will see in-store.
If you stock Darrell Lea, now is the time to refresh your pitch, to leverage the TV ad spend by the company. While the TVC ought to raise awareness, this will not help you unless you act. How valuable the TVC is for your business is 100% up to you – based on what you do.
The ad does not pitch any retail channel, which is good in my view.
So, how can you leverage the Darrell Lea TV commercial for your business? Here are my suggestions … and I say this as a retailer who does to stock Darrell Lea, who has no relationship with the company:
While supermarkets, petrol outlets and others have Darrell Lea product, they are likely to be lazy retailers, doing little to actively engage with the product and the latest television commercial. This is your opportunity to separate your business from theirs.
If you do engage using any or all of the ideas I have suggested you can pitch your business differently, you can position your business as the Darrell lea expert.
if you do engage, let the company know. make sure they understand the value of having you as a retail partner.
Counter confectionery is ready for a shake up. With c-stores, petrol outlets, supermarkets and newsagents all offering the same brands, I think there is an opportunity for a point of difference. I have looked at many different offers recently in a range of retailers from different suppliers. This photo is one example. I like that almost all the products on offer are mints. Indeed, I suspect inside each tin is exactly the same mints. But the product is not the mints, it is the tin. The tin enables shoppers to purchase the mints as gifts – and that is what I like here – turning the counter based confectionery purchase into a gift purchase … and an impulse gift purchase at that.
When I have written here about disruption, this is what I mean. Changing the offer, changing the newsagency story, disrupting what you deliver as opposed to what people expect, getting people to thin about your business differently.
We can do this. we can change what the newsagency is, what our newsagency is and we can do it in a way that is appropriate to the needs of our customers.
The mints are one small example. The opportunities for challenging expectations exist right through our businesses.
The other reason to love these mints is that you will not see them supermarkets, c-stores and petrol outlets. we have to do more to pull our businesses away from these channels that have taken a percentage of newsagency shoppers over the years. We separate ourselves from them through the products we stock. I think starting this at the counter is a good move.
I pulled out of traditional candy at the counter of my newsagency two years ago. I’m happy with the result in the context of impulse purchases, margin and differentiation.
While a tin of mints will not define a newsagency business, it is another brick in the wall of change and change is essential in my view. We need to embrace every opportunity to change shopper perception and there is no better place to make such a move for change than at the sales counter.
A CTC store I visited this week sells hempers (SIC) of licenced products. I’d love the Australian licence holders to ensure they are genuine licences for if they are, the licence owners may want to see how their licences are represented. A couple of the licenced characters looked off to me, like a cheap copy, but that could be my eyesight.
Licences are expensive to obtain, making licenced products sold in-store more expensive than similar unlicensed product. This is why suspicions can be raised when you see cheaper than expected licenced product.
Lovers of a licence deserve to be provided an authorised licenced product and not a knock-off. Any retailer of genuine licenced product would be interested in cheap off looking product.
CTC is on my radar as they are cigarette shops using kid-targeted plush and other items to attract shoppers. I am surprised landlords who claim to be focused on family shoppers welcome them to their centres.
A couple of days ago I got to visit and get a good look at Choccywoccydoodah, a chocolate shop selling chocolate cakes and confectionery.
Their displays are stunning and inspiring, showing the value of allowing good products to be the hero. The fittings and the shop itself are not relevant as the products are all you see.
When you first enter the shop you are hit with a sea of colour – so much so it is hard to notice individual product. Once you have been in the shop for a couple of minutes and have realised that everything on display is edible you realise you are in a special place, especially for chocolate lovers.
This is the sort of shop you talk about once you have returned from a trip. It is a one-off, a wonderful place you’d probably want to visit again.
Thinking about it over the last couple of days, while we do not sell these stunning chocolate cakes, the challenge for us has to he to create stunning retail experiences that set our shops apart from others selling what we sell. We can do this through our buying but more so through thoughtful displays that leverage colour to create a visually rich experience.
We have been sampling a terrific gluten free confectionery item at the counter of the newsagency with excellent success. We have had access to the product for months and love the point of difference it offers in-store and in generating new traffic.
The sampling has lifted engagement even further.
Yes, this photo is from the counter in the newsagency as it looks now. And, yes, we have a glass dome over the product to protect it.
I love the display as it helps alter the perception of shoppers about the type of business we run and, through this, what customers can expect from the business.
The display also is resulting in a reaction of delight by customers and this is terrific to see. Happy customers are more likely to remember the business. They are also more likely to spend more.
Changes like this are important as part of my commitment to and obsession about continuous change in the newsagency – evolving from the old-school newsagency retail offer that has now future.
7-Eleven outlets pitch up-sells well at the counter. No matter when you visit there are several offers. I have noticed recently in Victoria they are targeting Myki top-up shoppers. This week it is offering Extra gum with a Myki top-up or purchase. The $2 offer is good value.
There are several lessons from the 7-Eleven approach here: the offer has to be good value, targeted to the destination shopper and professionally pitched. Confectionery suppliers to the newsagency channel can make these offers. Sometimes all you need do is ask. Remember, though, a professional sign is vital.
Newsagent sales basket data indicates that transport ticket purchases are among the least efficient for newsagents with the destination traffic rarely extending the basket. 7-Eleven combats this with its approach to up-sell offers.
Australian made Darrell Lea soft eating liquorice is on the shelves of supermarket and convenience outlets here in New York. I checked the packaging – yes this product is made in Australia. this is a good export story from a company that a couple of years was down and out.
Near the terrific Darrell Lea product is a US made knock-off product: soft chewing Aussie style liquorice. The packaging has Darrell Lea elements to it.
While imitation is the best form of flattery, if I was Darrell Lea I’d feel ripped off by this Walgreens house brand product – especially given the Darrell Lea product is almost twice the price.
In a national discount variety store yesterday I noticed that half their Easter chocolate is being discounted lower than their already discounted price. Some of the lines are selling for less than the wholesale price paid by newsagents if they purchased these lines. I notices a nearby Coles, too, was discounting some Easter chocolate lines.
I don’t get businesses disrespecting brands during peak season by discounting. It speaks to their poor point of difference that it comes down to price.
Shoppers who purchase on price are less like to come back, unless you entice them on price.
Our Easter offer in the newsagency does not compete with these other retailers. Deliberately, we have an offer which cannot be price compared, an offer which appeals for reasons beyond the traditional everyday Easter product. In one category we are already well up on last year.
I like the Darrel Lea Easter packaging this year. It’s bold and colourful. It cuts through visually in a way which works for the season – separating it from other Easter products this year.
Darrell Lea lost plenty of newsagent outlets when the company was sold and their retail footprint considerably expanded. I know of some retailers who started stocking the product as changes from new management flowed through and a more compelling retail offer emerged.
Surrounded by majors with brand name Easter chocolate offers we knew we could not match their offer. Checking the reject Shop and the discount sweets shop in the centre reinforced this – their discounts on brand name easter products are deep. Instead, we have focused in very different product which cannot be compared as no other retailer nearby has this product. Our approach is in line with our focus to play outside but not too far from what people expect from us.
Last week it was Earnest Hillier falling into administration. Today, it’s liquorice maker Betta Foods appointing an administrator. The ABC has the report. I wonder how much of this is brought on by supermarket pressure on supply terms. Or, is it bad buying as the businesses were only recently acquired.
With some Hillier stock in newsagencies it will be interesting to see how their administration plays out – given the extraordinary changes following the Darrell Lea wash up.
I have noticed that Coles supermarkets are stocking more imported lines, especially in parts of the business where local products used to dominate.
Most recently I have noticed biscuits from the UK that are less than half similar style and size biscuits made in Australis. Yesterday I noticed these chocolates – also from the UK and also much cheaper than Aussie made equivalent product.
I don’t know how Coles is doing this, bringing product from around the world, from a country with relatively high labour costs and putting it on the shelves for less than local product.
Part of our job as local newsagents is to spread the shop local story. Key in that story is supporting Aussie businesses wherever possible.
In our case we have sourced several Australian confectionery and chocolate makers to help us pitch local in this space. With two Coles outlets in our centre, understanding the differences we can pitch in this locally-sourced product area will help us as we increase our pitch on this in 2015.
I visit Coles a lot to look for opportunities like this. I think Australians want to support local businesses – as retailers we need to help them do this.
We found these cards torn in our Spirit Humour stand on Saturday. Our prude shopper who judges what we sell by damaging our stock is back.
What an arrogant yet weak act. Arrogant in that they clearly want a world reflecting only what they approve. Weak in that they don’t have the guts to speak to us.
People are entitled to their views and interests as long as they are legal. What they are not entitled to is to deny others of their views and interests. What a horrible world this prejudiced shopper wants.
We will identify them and when we do let’s see if they stand up for their convictions.
Check out the display of healthy snack food on show at a Newslink store in the Qantas terminal of Sydney airport.
On this display they are offering a good range of snacks presented well and with terrific signage.
This is an excellent pitch. Plenty of shoppers were browsing the range. It’s something other newsagents in transit locations could try.
I used to love school excursions and fondly remember visiting the Newcastle steelworks and a Gippsland cheese factory in primary and high school respectively.
Today, I got to go on an excursion to the Chocolate Gems factory in Brisbane. While sure it was wonderful taste-testing, the real pleasure came from learning about the products, how they are made and how they are different to more mass-produced products.
Knowing how this chocolate is made compared to other products helps us better serve customers and better promote the Chocolate Gems product. There is nothing like getting valuable product knowledge direct from the factory floor of the manufacturer.
I recommend Chocolate gems to newsagents – their products are ideal for local store bagging or purchasing pre packaged as gifts. They are also good for singles sales at the counter. The margin is double wham you get from Darrel Lea. They ship in a smart way so that anywhere in Australia the product arrives fresh.
FYI the folks at Chocolate Gems have no idea I am writing this. They have not asked me to. I am mentioning it because what I saw today was a small business operator competing against some massive international businesses. It reminded me of newsagencies and our competitive situation. We need to support more small businesses.
The double page spread in a convenience magazine is an excellent example to other publishers on how to launch a new line to newsagents and other retailers.
They tell us their ad spend and where they will spend it. But it’s their steps for sales success that I like the most, especially how they show the right location. A picture really does speak a thousand words.
How many times do you get a flyer with magazines telling you this or that and end up binning it because you don’t have time to read the essay.
I’d urge all suppliers to newsagencies to look at how Ferrero has pitched the new Tic Tac line and how they have communicated and encouraged retailers.
Click on the image to see the details I mention.
