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Gifts

Making staples appealing as a gift

stationery-coolI love this staple pack I noticed at David Jones in the menswear department – it makes staples sexy, something to give as a gift … of course, that’s why David Jones had it placed there with a bunch of other items they are pitching as gifts for guys. this is something we could easily sell – in our gift departments, not stationery. It’s something that would also command a higher margin than traditional stationery.

I encourage newsagents looking for funky gift ideas to visit David Jones – there are plenty of ideas for next year.

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Fun

Trivia packs make excellent impulse

trivia90smusicWe’re achieving excellent sales with the trivia packs we have been selling for quite a while now. We have tried a range of ‘titles’ and we have not found any not working for us. It is items like these that are giving us terrific growth in basket depth as well as growth in overall GP. Surprisingly, they also generate traffic.

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Gifts

Expanded gift range – odd teapots

teapotCheck out one of the odd teapots we’re trying out as part of an expanded gift range appealing to tea drinkers and those who buy gifts for tea drinkers. This is not something I’d have expected to see in a newsagency a few years ago. Today it’s not so unusual as we seek to expand our gift sales further – taking more revenue from the traditional gift shop.

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Gifts

Excellent sales of named Christmas decorations

jacmanxmasThese Christmas decorations form Jacman which light up and have a name on each have been selling exceptionally well. We’ve had customers buying four and five at a time. We have used them on the lease line to attract shoppers. What’s interesting is that cheap and nasty discount retailers nearby have similar looking but inferior product. We’re getting the sales because we have a better value proposition.

These cheap and nasty discount shops are tending more and more to copy us for product. try as they might, they can’t and won’t match quality and ultimately it is quality the shoppers you want actually want for themselves. So I say to the copycats, copy all you like. You’ll ultimately fail.

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Gifts

Explaining the Peppa Pig phenomenon

peppahotHot Peppa screamed the above-the-masthead headline on The Saturday Age on Saturday. They’re right. Peppa Pig is hot. Our sales of Peppa Pig plush, magazines, activity packs and other items are excellent. It’s a brand we use to pull traffic from the mall outside our shop and it works! The article in The Saturday Age is essential reading for anyone selling Peppa Pig products.

plushwallnowallWe’ve been selling Peppa Pig products since their release and get excellent word-of-mouth traffic.

This photo shows how we place the Peppa Pig display unit on the lease line with two other plush display units. Each is sign-posted to connect with shoppers who know and love the brands.

These stands work best when full!

This is a brand through which newsagents can expand their offering and drive a better overall gross profit for the business. It all starts with understanding the opportunity.

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Gifts

Sunday newsagency marketing tip: thirty Christmas marketing ideas

For many years I have published Christmas marketing ideas as a resource for others to use and as inspiration for newsagents to think of their own.  Here are thirty easy to implement simple Christmas marketing ideas for newsagents for Christmas 2014. I’m not suggesting you use all: pick what suite you and create your own.

  1. Promote every day items as gifts within your displays.  magazines work in this situation. Too often retailers focus on items they have sourced for Christmas and then wonder why there is little flow on once the season is over. One way to embrace the opportunity is to pitch everyday products as gifts. This could involve packaging them that’d appropriate.
  2. Pitch magazines for different groups. For example: gifts for guys: create an off-location display of magazines for guys so that those buying christmas cards and gifts in your shop can consider magazines as a gift.
  3. Pitch magazine putaways as gifts. You could offer a title put away for three or six months – something different to subscription lengths.
  4. Make sure the front of your shop, the window our the front facing the street or mall has your best offers. This is what the majors do. If you have an amazing deal, put it on show for all to see.
  5. Use a spruiker once a week at your busiest time to shout out about great items you have. If you can’t afford a spruiker, do it yourself. Go to any weekend market and see how it’s done. Have fun!
  6. Connect with a charity. In addition to products you may sell that raise funds for a charity consider a local charity and promote how every purchase in your store supports the charity.
  7. Have a box for collecting items for a local charity.
  8. Send Christmas cards to your customers – maybe invade a voucher for them to spend in-store.
  9. Give retailers nearby a discount card / coupon / voucher for them to do their own shopping. Consider a special buying night for retailers and their employees given the hours they are working.
  10. Have a crazy competition one day. Something like – come in and sing silent night in a completely fresh and crazy way and the best rendition wins, say, $100. Pitch it right and you’ll draw a crowd. Remember the crowd the now closed gaslight records in Melbourne drew for nude day.
  11. Offer a Christmas party flyer copying discount – half price copying of all Christmas party flyers.
  12. Host a colouring competition. Connect it with Christmas. Display all entries. Leverage an emotional connection through your theme such as: something good you have seen this year or your wish for someone else this Christmas.
  13. Keep it simple. While shops fill to overflowing with products this time of the year too often what you want seen can’t be seen because of the explosion of range and colour. Create space to show off your hero products, consider the less is more approach.
  14. Use stickers and or posters on your floor to show customers where you want them to go. Have Christmas themed basket builders at the counter – priced at under $10.00.
  15. Make an entrance. Create something around the entrance to your shop so that those stepping inside feel as if they are stepping into somewhere different, somewhere special.
  16. Have Christmas themed impulse items dotted next to main customer thoroughfares.
  17. Give every customer a flyer promoting your Christmas offers. Ideally you’ll have a couple of flyers through the season.
  18. Move everyday items elsewhere in the shop during the season – disrupt your regular shoppers.
  19. Dress up. Not just once but several times.
  20. Tell stories on your Facebook page about the season, what you’re doing and the fun you’re having.
  21. Have fun with your team and your customers.
  22. Thank your customers for their support.
  23. Setup a customer interaction board and invite them to post their best Christmas story.
  24. Have promotional days: free stamp Tuesday where you give free stamps with each card to people buying two or more cards; free tape Saturday for people buying two or more rolls or packs of wrap; free wrapping week where you offer free wrapping with every gift.
  25. Use your floor, Stickers and or posters on the floor can guide those customers who look down and not up.
  26. Place gifts / Christmas items in magazines. Your magazine department attracts shoppers to categories they love. leverage this with placement of appropriate items in those areas.
  27. Work the floor. At your busiest times have someone on the flor subtly showing off products you sell.
  28. Give your customers a reason to come back – an offer, a promotion, a discount voucher.
  29. Tell a story. If space permits, show how a feature product is used. For example, if you’re selling jigsaws, have a table with one half done. Getting shoppers interacting gets them more engaged with your business and engagement = sales.
  30. Love the season. This can be challenging with the extreme business of Christmas trading and the challenges that the season presents. But each day when you step into the shop try and love it as if it’s a fresh start.
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Fun

Movember product selling well

movembermovingOur Movember products have been selling well. We needed the prime display space for Christmas so moved Movember to the counter. I love the signage  by one of our team members – professional and fun. Product left at the end of the month will revert to our funky gifts display.

Footnote: Allan Wickham from newsXpress Eli Waters is going a mo as part of a Movember fundraiser. Click here to support Allan. I’ll happily promote any other Movember fundraisers here.

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Gifts

Good resource for gifts

You can access the latest issue of Giftwrap magazine from the Australian Gift and Homewares Association here. Giftwrap is an excellent title with great product, merchandising and management ideas. It’s not your usual industry association magazine.

I use Giftwrap to get product ideas and to plan for seasons – the magazine is generally at least six months ahead on major season.

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Gifts

Plush for all occasions

bearbestThis bear is an example of plush products that work as gifts for more occasions that we traditionally target in our plush (or soft toy) ranges. It’s an adult style bear that could work for an older person. It could also work as a gift for someone dealing with health issues.

This is my favourite bear in-store.

25% of our plush appeals to non-traditional plush situations. This has been key in driving our sales.

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Gifts

Promoting small gifts at the newsagency sales counter

gift-smallI love the sign they created at one of my stores to draw attention to small gifts. Need a small gift? is a simple question and by asking it our smart team is drawing attention to a niche of gifts we have to serve the need. Sales have been good of these and other small gifts in the small gifts section. It’s at the counter, making the promotion more valuable since many are purchased on impulse by shoppers who have already made their selection.

It’s simple attention to detail like this that can drive incremental business.

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Gifts

Classy clocks selling well

gibsongiftsWe’re selling these classy  clock gift items from a $99 stand from Aldi and placed next to the sales counter. The smart looking price tags placed next to the items are helping drive sales. It’s important to use price cards / signs that match the quality of what you’re selling.

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Gifts

Bacon makes anything taste good

baconBacon makes anything taste good said a very wise person. Check out the bacon-themed candy I saw on a trip to the US earlier this year. This range reflects a specialisation that surprises me. Talk to a bacon fan and they will want to know where to get this in Australia – as I found out when telling someone about this recently.

I’d give this range a go. Sadly, I can’t find it from any supplier here.

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Gifts

An ideal add-on with tattoo magazines

tattoo-aftercareThese Tattoo Goo products present an opportunity to build margin dollars from tattoo magazine traffic. We are introducing them to the business with a promotion at the counter along with a selection of tattoo titles.

Too often newsagents see magazines as a chore. The reality is that the interests reflected in our deep magazine range present us with excellent opportunities.

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Gifts

Selling contact lenses!

hal-contactsWe have been selling contact lenses as part of our Halloween offer as a trial to see whether they are something we could add to our gift selection throughout the year. While sales have not been massive, just offering them has helped drive interest in Halloween more broadly and this has been commercially valuable. I think there is an opportunity to play more in this costume space. It fits well with party, cards and gifts.

Beyond the point of difference for us and our halloween offer compared to other retailers, these contact lenses challenge the perception of what a newsagency sells and I like that.

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Gifts

Everyone is doing Halloween

halloween-duxI walked past a Thomas Dux store yesterday and saw this Halloween display in the window. Halloween is becoming more mainstream in Australia and this will make it more valuable for us as retailers. We’re still not discounting our Halloween products by the way.

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Fun

Great counter product for Halloween 2013

We’ve sold out of this melting monsters in the run up to Halloween. It has delivered easy impulse purchases without a thought by customers. Extending the basket with a good margin product is always a pleasure.

It’s small moves like this with the right impulse purchase product that drives basket value.

Too many newsagents are looking for a big bold move they can take to make their business more successful. I think success comes from many small steps – like the right good-margin counter offer.

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Gifts

Skylanders opportunity for newsagents

I urge newsagents to seek out the new Skylanders title which arrived in-store this morning and get in in a place where kids will notice it. Skylanders is a mega hit video game brand with kids. Wikipedia has good background.

If you are not sure of the interest, consider this. Skylanders generated US$1.5billion in sales over two years to mid 2013 according to The Economist.

This brand is an excellent business opportunity.

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Gifts

Majors make a big push with Halloween

Halloween is much bigger this year in major retailers like Coles and Big W compared to previous years. Indeed, one Big W I was in earlier this week had more than eighteen square metres of Halloween product at their main entrance. The products placed here included costumes, wigs, brooms, make-up and toys.  Further in they had almost as much space again setup with candy packs.

Then, outside the shop and in the mall, is this Halloween m&m thing promoting the candy and a competition built around the Halloween theme.

Comparing our Halloween products to that available from the majors, our product quality is far superior and our prices are very competitive.

Sure it is frustrating that two biggest retailers in the country are chasing more revenue for what has been a very lucrative season for smart newsagents for the last eight or nine years, what I have seen makes me more determined to make a better consumer offer than theirs. For Halloween this means more fun and more scary. For example, Big W does not have a coffin on display nor do they try and connect with the zombie phenomenon.

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Gifts

More hand-grenade themed products!

First we had a hit with the hand-grenade dog toys and now we have these hand-grenade themed alarm clocks. They’re a cool gift certain to appeal to a specific demographic. These clocks are part of a broader range of clocks we have in our expanded gift department in the lead up to Christmas.

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Gifts

Halloween is not Halloween without a coffin

The coffin arrived and is now in place as the centrepiece of our Halloween 2013 display. Sadly, like all Halloween centrepieces, it will probably sell early.

We’re making the most of the opportunity and showing others in the centre how to do Halloween – we;re expecting their displays this year to be like last, very vanilla (boring).

Sales continue to be excellent – up on 2012.

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Fun

Using tents to attract newsagency shoppers

We’re promoting tents at the front of the newsagency for the last week of the school holidays to pitch our shop to kids and people shopping with kids. This teepee is one of three designs we have accessed to broaden our range of kids gifts in the run up to Christmas.

We’re the only retailer with this range in our centre. We’re excited to see how it performs.

Making moves like this is important as we have to attract our more shopper traffic from our own efforts rather than relying on attracting shoppers with products available in other retailers nearby. What we place at the front of our newsagencies is vital to pulling people off the street or in from the mall. It’s up to us.

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Gifts

Attracting shoppers with licenced product at the front of the newsagency

Check out the terrific display created yesterday on the lease line facing into the shopping mall by one of the guys on our team.

While created to promote the licenced – Batman, Spiderman & Superman – money-boxes, I love that the display has been built including greeting cards, magazines and plush covering the same licences. Very smart.

I love the use of coloured paper to visually support the products on show.

This is an excellent display in the ideal location and at the best possible time (school holidays) for this product. The display is  good example of how we can attract new traffic to our newsagencies.

If you click on the image you’ll see a bigger version of the photo.

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Gifts

The world can’t get enough back scratchers apparently

Proving once again I am not my customer, these back scratchers are selling very well. We’ve had this box out for less than two weeks. While managing impulse lines is hard detailed work, the reward is excellent with good products selling out well in advance of when the bill falls due. This, a 50%+ gross profit and that the range attracts its own traffic makes the work worthwhile.

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Gifts

Impulse lines drive a deeper newsagency shopping basket

Our focus on impulse items is delivering a deeper and more valuable shopping basket. One customer earlier this week brought a $5.99 greeting card to the counter and added items on impulse valued at more than $36.00. Yes on impulse.

Our customers are older yet these funky items sell well – because they’re buying for younger people.

Our gift strategy includes traditional gifts, gifts based on themes and impulse items among other things. The more broad our gift base the more valuable it is and the more we are insulated against trend changes.

One recent break out impulse line for us is these spike laughing balls. They light up and laugh when you play with them. At more than 50% GP and a very fast turn, they’ve been a valuable addition to the impulse item mix.

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Gifts