This video from Sideliners, an ABC TV comedy show.
Warney's Women – the hot new collectable card game coming to newsagents near you! Collect them all, including the Tinder subset #Sideliners pic.twitter.com/4iPFwbQvpz
— Sideliners (@Sideliners) July 23, 2017
Australian small business newsagents will rejoice today on the news of a new magazine supply model to start immediately.
What a wonderful day.
This display unit of miniature slimy body parts is generating a terrific reaction from shoppers as they pore over our Halloween products. We have a heart out of its bag so that people can feel it. When they screw up their faces it’s terrific to see – almost as much fun as when a boy hands the heart to an unsuspecting friend or parent. For a tiny cost, these gross body parts are playing unimportant role in our interactive approach to Halloween 2014. I love it!
These oversize watches, standing a metre tall, have worked a treat attracting shoppers, getting them thinking of the business differently than would be usual for a newsagency shingle.
The watches are a perfect example of the value of using products as a shingle with which to attract shoppers than the shingle itself.
People smile when they see the watches. Kids drag their parents in.
The shingle Newsagent or Newsagency is burdened by history and the performance of others whereas these oversized watches represent fun and get people in without the bias or expectation of the shingle.
Sometimes, what we stock and how and where we place it can me more important than the name of the business stuck above our front door.
These big watches say something about the newsagency that could not be easily pitched in marketing.
Smart buying and good merchandising are activities we need to view as an extension of our business marketing.
I received this bag containing 8g of high-grade marijuana at my office yesterday. There was return address, no note, no Thank You card … just the bag of dope inside three carefully packed layers of sealed bags and inside a prepaid post bag. It was addressed to the office.
With a street value of around $80.00 it’s either an expensive prank, a mistake or some other game. I delivered it to the local police to be on the safe side.
What’s the craziest thing you have been sent to your business?
I first heard about Poo Pourri from a supplier at the start of this year. Not long after we started pre promotion to customers, long before the product arrived and long before it featured on the Sunrise TV show.
Going out early with pre release marketing connected shoppers with the product and the newsagency. While others only started promoting when it arrived, we had been out there for ages having fun with this unique product.
Watch this video to find out what I am talking about.
Poo Pourri is from Gibson. They started selectively offering it early this year. The first shipment sold out. So did the second shipment. While product has only recently arrived, forward orders suggest this will be a hit product for a long time.
While some newsagents focus only on the price the purchase a product for, sometimes the insights and information you can access through a supplier relationship are more valuable.
You can only bank sales revenue. Good information helps you drive sales.
Now watch the video and have a laugh. Tomorrow I’ll show you the poster in one of my stores – it’s hilarious.
We continue to have success with retro products from mugs to magnets to retro toys like these pushing puppets.
I love seeing an older shopper showing them to someone. You know if they pick it up the chances of them purchase increase dramatically.
We have had these on the shop floor – near our greeting cards – for just on a week and have sold four. I’m happy with that. The margin is excellent.
I did not expect the Fart Pen in our impulse / counter lines range to sell all that well. I was wrong. In a couple of weeks we close to selling out. On any measure that’s a good stock turn. Take-aways I’ve been reminded of from this are: I am not my customer, don’t judge, people like fun products and people don’t always buy a gift for why you think.
The most important of these take0aways is having products that make customers smile. Happy customers spend more. They are also more likely to remember the shop. It’s a delight when people tell you why they are purchasing a product like this.
When a customer placed another card from front of this one in the photo on Saturday I thought it was in error so I put the other card into its pocket. The same customer a couple of minutes later randomly picked a card and put it in front of this one. I asked why and they said because it’s pornography. I explained that many customers thought the card was funny the customer said I don’t care and walked out.
Another customer who saw what happened laughed and briefly clutched my arm – in comfort I think.
I’ve thought about both interactions a bit since it happened. Beyond the reminders that we serve a broad cross section of people in our shops and that our shops are public places, I have found myself questioning the ethics of what we sell.
I have no issue with this card. Indeed, I think it’s hilarious, and certainly not pornographic. But if someone does think it is pornographic then what do they think of other things we sell and what do they think of the business as a result?
While I don’t want to pander to fringe or extreme views, it is worth thinking through – to know where you stand.
I also wonder if this customer from Saturday is the person who slips Picture on the side so it can’t be seen? Are they the same person who covers DNA magazine? because someone does these things.
If you have never heard of Loom Bands or are just considering stocking this product now you’re coming late to a craze than has been hot for months. Kids, especially young girls, love these things. We have been selling them since last year and have struggled to maintain stock – especially when the craze hits a new school. You can tell based on th wave of new shoppers.
If you are coming new to Loom Bands, be careful as interest will wane. You want that to occur when you’re almost out of stock. But, hey, what do I know. I thought YoYos would never come back.
We are stocking expecting to get a few months more out of the craze so by mid year we will reassess our stock plans.
Have fun, promote your business and encourage engagement with a product or group of products in your newsagency with a dress-up promotion. Nothing too crazy because you want as many people engaged as possible. Here are some ideas I think could work in a any newsagency business – high street, rural and shopping mall:
These and other ideas you come up with from reading this list should be single day promotions. In addition to any purchaser discount, offer a prize of the best – this can drive better engagement. The promotions with a local community connection offer you bonus kudos as a local business.
A side bonus of these ideas is that they can drive interaction with shoppers – another point of difference for small business newsagents.
Have fun!
Valentine’s Day brings out a range of strong customer reactions from the sweet and romantic to the smokin angry – and everything in between. While people at both extremes are interesting, the angry ones are especially so as I’d love to know drives them to react that way to what I see as a reasonably harmless retail season.
I love the customer who shares anticipation about the card or gift they have bought and about what they may receive. I also love the customers outside the usual who buy a card or gift – especially those 70, 80 and older. It’s sweet. I also love the kids buying cards. In fact that’s a real treat – seeing a teenage boy or girl agonising over a card for young love.
Yes, Valentine’s Day is a commercial season, one we gladly support for all its commercial glory but it is also a season drenched in tradition and expectation and we newsagents play a role in reinforcing the tradition and in helping people find fulfilment from expectation. In our small businesses we get to see people engage more so than in other places where a Valentine’s Day card or gift is just another SKU. Across the newsagency counter, as with much of our interaction, it is more personal.
This is what is special about seasons like Valentine’s Day for small business newsagents, the opportunity for us to watch people as they engage with their feelings, and the opportunity to engage with them. It’s a pleasure not many retailers have, one to cherish.
Happy New Year to all for whom the new lunar year is just starting. May the year of the horse be healthy, prosperous and happy.
The photo is from one of the public squares in Guangzhou. Behind the large display is 1,000 stalls from which people will be buying flowers and plants mainly as part of the New year tradition.
I was in a newsagency the other day and noticed that the range of retro / raunchy magnets they had in November when I took the photo had sold out. Indeed, they had sold out in a matter of weeks, delivering an excellent return on small inventory and space investments.
They were placed perfectly next to cards, enabling easy leveraging of card purchases into a magnet as a small gift to go with a card.
Retail success in independent retail businesses like newsagencies is all about attention to small steps detail – the many small things you can and should do to attract that extra purchase with a core item like a greeting card.
The key is that each small step, each additional item we carry, must connect with something else we sell of do in our business. This is where the magnets fit. They start to work leveraging card purchases but have the range long enough and they can generate their own traffic if you become known for the niche product.
All of this matters in 2014 as the nature of the traditional Australian newsagencies continues to evolve – but at a faster pace than in 2013.
This post is about the small steps detail we need to focus on as retailers. Selling sixty magnets in a few weeks at more than 50% gross profit is a good story. Many of these small stories combine make the newsagency business considerably more valuable.
While back to school is not big for us – due to out situation, space restrictions, that we make more money from plush and gifts than back to school could ever deliver and due to not being able to or wanting to match the massive investment of the majors in the season – we are having fun with a range of magic items including some that connect with the back to school / school holiday theme like The Magical Pencil Case.
We put these out as stocking stuffers in the final lead up to Christmas and they sold well. The pencil case and other items in the range have continued to sell well after Christmas – the work as school holiday and back to school purchases.
We have the pencil cases at the counter. It’s a pleasure to see customers add them to a purchase on impulse.
The pre and post Christmas rush, crush and tumble in shopping centres is enough to test the nerves of even the most hardened retailer and most experienced shopper. It’s the shopping amateurs who make it difficult, the people who shop less than ten times a year who slow us down and detract from our experience. yet it’s these people we crave as they spend big when bedazzled by the bright lights of Christmas retail.
What to do? How to deal with these retail amateurs?
Here are my rant and rules for amateur shoppers and the busy retail season generally. Feel free to add more – it’s therapeutic.
Car parking, well that’s a whole separate topic.
Before you think I am a bitter and hate-filled retailer in need of retirement … while there are some truths in what I’ve written, it’s mainly in fun … oh, and therapeutic.
We put a display unit of Lucky Elephants with Christmas gifts late last week. In 24 hours we had sold almost all of them. We expected them to sell but not so quickly. It’s a good ‘problem’ to encounter and a reminder that retail is about constantly trying new products, especially products you would not buy yourself.
In a newsagency recently I heard a staff member complaining to a colleague behind the counter about the roster, the weather someone at home. I was several metres from the counter. Shoppers in the newsagency could hear too.
Unhappy staff are a turn off for shoppers and for the leaders of the business keen to create a happy place where people enjoy themselves.
We need to hire happy people and train them in their tasks rather than hire skilled people and hope to train them to be happy – if that is a choice you face.
Being happy in a newsagency can be a challenge some days with customers complaining about the smallest thing, some suppliers treating you appallingly, you discovering how much theft has cost you recently, your bank rejecting you banking a fake $50 note … and so on. Yes, there are many opportunities for us to be unhappy. This is another reason we need to surround ourselves with cheerful / happy people.
But there is plenty we see and hear in our newsagencies that makes us happy – if we look for it. If our natural disposition (as the owner and leader) is to be unhappy, we need to push back on that urge, we need to choose to be happy. Surrounding yourself with happy people is key to this.
We need to show unhappy people the door and encourage them to go work somewhere else.
I was fortunate to see a balloon outpost yesterday where there have some excellent crestings on display as Christmas items and also promoting their creativity in terms of what they can create using balloons.
This amazing free-standing tall Santa is just one of many products they had on display for people to purchase and take away from the outpost. If I was doing balloon displays in a shop this Santa would make for an excellent window feature. He’s what drew me to the outpost in the first place.
This Christmas tree is another terrific Christmas-themed balloon product that I am sure would sell easily almost anywhere. It’s something I’d like to have the space and time to try next year. What I saw from the outpost has shown me that maybe this is the way to go since the margin is good.
I suspected the two thirty-something ladies were up to go good in our men’s magazine area. They were laughing too much. Wouldn’t it be nice one said to the other looking at the abs on the guys on the covers of the three health and fitness titles. I could buy him all three and say that’s what I want the other said with a laugh. We can only dream the first lady said as she wistfully brushed the abs of the guy on the cover of Men’s Health.
When they turned to leave they saw me watching them and giggled like naughty girls.
Watching customers can be fun and occasionally creepy (if you get caught).
