Gifts

We’re pleased with the range of graduation gifts we have found, the yellow mugs especially.  Graduation is a good season for us with cards and gifts – from primary school through to university.  Indeed, having good graduation gifts on display helps drive good card sales and this, in turn, gets people shopping the rest of the card department.

The table of Easter plush and related gift items we have located in our card department, at the front of the shop, is achieving excellent results.  Each week is better than the last. Since we do not have a defined gift department as such at our Forest Hill store it is a challenge for us to step in and out of the gift space each season.  The changes made by our team for Easter this year- better location, more integrated with cards and Easter eggs, broader range – are working very well for us.  We restock the table daily.

This is a good news business story which has been simple to make happen.   With greeting cards as our anchor for the seasons, it is easy for newsagents to make Easter and other key seasons count for more than just Mother’s Day. We know our Easter sales from last year and have passing them easily as a goal for this year.

The key in today’s climate, from successful newsagents I talk with, appears to be the decision to do more: more than just cards and eggs for a Easter, more than average gifts for Mother’s Day, more than an average magazine display, more than sales only when everyone else has them, more than being an average newsagent.

We are not timid when it comes to promoting seasons nor are we late to the party.  It is hard to enter our Forest Hill store and not pass Easter cards, plush and Darrell Lea products.  The display in the photo (click on the image for a larger version) is the latest created by our team and the second time the range has been moved since being put up two weeks ago.  Sales are excellent, up on last year.

Customer behaviour I saw yesterday vindicates putting all Easter items together – several times I saw people purchase a plush or gift item, an egg or two and a card.   Too often in newsagencies I see cards on their traditional place and a seasonal promotion, like for Easter, in another place and with other products in between.  No matter how much of a merchandising challenge, all product categories for a season work better when placed adjacent to each other with room for people to move around and easily pick up any product.

Historically, product layout in newsagencies has been dictated by suppliers, it still in in some areas.  Now, more than ever, we need to lead on this front in pursuit of what is right for our businesses as opposed to what may be right for one supplier or department.

If you are a newsagent and you have Easter products in several places, I’d suggest you place it all together in one area with a unifying, bold, theme.

Our team at Frankston has come up with a range of gift packs for Valentine’s Day. The one which intrigues me the most is the Monkey Business pack. Inside there are a couple of monkeys and a bottle of passion massage oil. Their goal in using themes with the packs and giving them a name is to bring some theatre to the occasion. Looking at the display as a shopper it works. All ages and situations are covered – usually with humor. The real test, of course, is in the sales. So far, so good.  Today is the real test for Valentine’s Day because it is with the last minute shoppers that you can do very well.

Several newsagents I have spoken with over the last  few days tell me that Valentine’s Day card sales are good even though the big day is three weeks away.  I prefer to go out early with seasons like Valentine’s Day because it shows customers who like to browse that you have the range.

The challenge is to balance seasonal space allocation such that it does not distract from regular card sales.