Is the Shrek season over?
A visit to a Coles supermarket on the weekend shows they think the season of Shrek is over. Everything Shrek branded was on the discount shelves. Maybe we need to take a look at Shrek greeting cards?
Is Saturday the best card selling day?
The rule low hanging fruit: it is easier to drive more success from something which is successful than to make something which is not successful a success.
I have been fortunate this week to be involved in Business Roundtable discussions with newsagents in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney where we delve into the performance of the newsagencies represented by those participating. Using reports from the Tower newsagency software we have been looking at business performance from a number of consistent angles. It is the day by day basket analysis which has interested me the most.
In Melbourne on Tuesday, during the roundtable, I noted that greeting cards were in more shopping baskets on a Saturday than any other day in one newsagency. One participant said this was because shoppers had more time on a Saturday. In Brisbane yesterday, another colleague said it was due to weddings in their area – Saturdays being the wedding day. Now, after looking at data from more newsagencies, Saturday does appear to be a stand out day for greeting card basket penetration in newsagencies. Checking data from my own newsagency I can see this is the case.
So, what does this mean? How can we use the data to our advantage? The first step newsagents ought to take is to report on basket penetration by product category by day of week. The Tower software provides this as a standard report.
In a practical sense, knowing the popularity of Saturdays with card buyers enables us to be more attentive, make sure the card section is clean and tidy, staff up to help customers who want it and consider Saturday only offers.
The rule of low hanging fruit in retail means it is easier to drive more success from something which is successful than to make something which is not successful a success. This is a rule I just made up – it is true though – if greeting cards are more successful for you on Saturdays than other days and in more shopping baskets it will be easier for you to leverage more greeting card sales on Saturdays.
Basket analysis such as this available direct from within the software can really help newsagents understand the flow of business and therefore find valuable low hanging fruit opportunities.
I’d be happy to work with any newsagent wanting to undertake deep level basket analysis and compare their business with the pool in my benchmark group.
The invitation wall
This photo shows part of the new invitation wall we are experimenting with in our Sophie Randall Cards and Gift shop. It follows the blocking approach we have been using in our newsagency for our new stationery layout.
Early indications are that the full face display will easily justing the real-estate commitment. Customer feedback is excellent. Indeed, we are planning to increase our range by 50%.
The only challenge of the fixturing is that it cannot hold as many packets of each design as we would like. Given that invitations are purchased in a minimum of two packets – managing non displayed stock properly is crucial.
The question we are asking ourselves is whether an invitation wall like this would work in our newsagency. The shopping experience is completely different between the two shops. We will have the space in the newsagency once we remove the Christina Re range.
Invitations are good business and price is less of an issue we expected. Done right, they can set you up for excellent add on business – matching stationery for the party and the like.
Cards to dance to
I’m told this is currently the top selling greeting card in the United States. It is kind of cute – hamsters apparently dancing on the cover. It’s when you open the card that you realise why it is a top seller. This music played from within the card is infectious. You can hear it at hamsterdance.com.
Sound cards are all the range in the US. There are hundreds and hundreds of them from licenced product based on popular movies through to cards based on iconic songs. Given the huge success in the US I am surprised that we don;t see more of them here. The samples I have been given would sell easily here.
Countdown
I like this Father’s Day countdown stand from Hallmark. It’s a good reminder of the day further strengthens our in-store pitch.
We are trying different locations including next to the magazine display we created.
Many newsagencies are set and forget businesses – little changes week by week. By aggressive and early embracing of seasons we can make our businesses feel fresh and relevant. The countdown panel from from Hallmark helps with that mission. The proof will be in the results the effort achieves.
Promoting Father’s Day
We’re trying to create a Father’s Day nook by bringing cards and Darrell Lea product together as shown in the photo:
We have not included the magazine offer here (see yesterday’s post) because of space and that the fixture is not easily moved.
For what people say is a soft season, Father’s Day is working well for us this year.
Greeting card challenges ahead
The New York Times published an interesting article August 20 by Elizabeth Olsen about how traditional greeting card companies are competing with online competition such as e-cards. Olsen says that e-card use has grown between 15 to 20 percent this year. Some of this has to hurt over the counter card sales.
Of interest in the article is news, to me, that American Greetings (John Sands here in Australia) has launched Kiwee, a site through which you can send free postcards and expressions that can be posted to MySpace and MSN accounts.
Australian newsagents often leave the greeting card part of their business up to their card suppliers. In this changing marketplace it will be important for newsagents to more actively engage in activity surrounding the card department.
Father’s Day at Sophie Randall
Here is the artwork for the Father’s Day poster for our Sophie Randall Cards & Gifts shop. We have developed this in house and will display in-store in two sizes.
It reflects the subtly of the Sophie approach to retail, an approach we hope to bring to more outlets soon.
Newsagencies and gifts
I have spent time today at the Gift Fair in Melbourne and discovered more product which fits well with some products newsagents already offer. Take the products at Giftware Agencies. Their English fine bone china products cover many categories of special interest magazines: dogs, cats, motor bikes and cars. While there would be some display challenges for newsagents, it would be worth trying to connect the gifts with the magazine categories.
Their range of birthday and anniversary china connects well with the range of cards you will find in a newsagency.
it is a challenge to find gift lines which work in a newsagency for the more conservative and older demographic. These products are ideal in my view.
Father’s Day 2007
We have started dressing our card area for Father’s Day. The posters are up as is the greeting card product. On the weekend we have a retail designer coming in to more fully dress the offer.
The posters are from Hallmark and newsXpress. I like how the compliment each other. We also have t-shirts from newsXpress to underscore the message.
Extending the gift related range
The success we are having with the Compendium range in our Sophie Randall gift shop is encouraging us to add it to our newsagency. While we can see that each business attracts different customers, our feeling is that this range will work especially well for seasons such as Father’s Day and Christmas.
We want to move the newsagency away from traditional newsagency lines at these seasons. While some of this competes with the offerings of card companies, my vewi is that a broader range of suppliers for seasons would be healthy.
Growing wrap sales
When developing the layout for our card and gift shop we decided to move from the traditional wrap fixtures. Instead we went for this unit:
We are so happy with the results that we are using an expanded version of this display in a new newsagency we are involved in. Customer feedback has been wow! and that is enough for is to copy the idea.
Certainly we notice that customers are more likely to touch the product and any retail expert will tell you that once a customer touches a product they are more likely to purchase.
Dog and cat cards
We get offered different products at our Sophie Randall Cards and Gifts shop compared to the newsagency. Take for example, this from the Dog birthday card. It is part of a range we have never seen before in the newsagency. We have the range in the gift shop and it is selling well. People like that there are sympathy cards for a pet which has died as well as birthday cards for a dog or cat.
Okay, these cards may seem odd to some – our customers are happy knowing the range is there.
Ellen DeGeneres greeting cards
The Arizona Rebublic reports that American Greetings (parent company of John Sands) has launched a line of greeting cards around the humor and a cartoon likeness of Ellen DeGeneres. What I found interesting in the report was this:
Pat Sandy, program director for humorous-card planning at American Greetings, said the 32-card Ellen line is a result of extensive humor research that found women buy the majority of greeting cards, and those women are attracted to humor that is reality-based and inclusive.
While we know from Australian research that women buy most greeting cards in Australia, I would be interested to find out what Australian women look for in a humor based card because, frankly, most of what we have is American and UK designed product.
The DeGeneres line of cards can be seen here. Given the popularity of her show on Foxtel I’d expect to see the cards available here.
Inspiration from small spinners
One of the biggest challenges newsagents have when bringing in a new line is location. Too often the product is displayed in such a way that makes finding the right location difficult. Such was the case with the inspirational cards and mini books. We have these for several years, in one form or another, but it has only been in the last few weeks that we created a small display at the end of one of our card aisles that they started to work for us. Here is a photo of what we did:
The easy comment is that we should have done this ages ago. Time and space were a challenge. It was only when we moved the Darrell Lea display from this aisle end and bought the table that we were able to use the space in this way. Now, instead of having these small, and annoying, spinners spread in various places, we have them grouped together. As well as each line selling better, we are finding customers buying two or three.
Our message for sales reps out of this is: as well as promoting product, show us via photos how to best display it in a busy and real-estate poor newsagency. Otherwise the spinner gets shoved from pillar to post, as we did, until either it is tossed or re-born when space and time provide the opportunity.
Our message for ourselves is to pay more attention to the stock we have and to keep working categories until we find the best way to display them in our store so that we achieve the return we need.
Treasures cards are a hit
Never have I seen such excitement around a new range than I have seen with this Treasures range from For Arts Sake. We put this tall spinner of regular size cards and a small counter top spinner of gift cards into our new Sophie Randall Cards and Gifts shop last week and the reaction has been immediate.
While I was reluctant to bring in a spinner to what has, until now, been a spinner free zone, it is the best way to display the pop out cards. Browsers can easily see what they are buying without having to handle the product. Indeed, the spinner is one reason the interest has been so strong.
I was in the shop yesterday and was surprised at how many comments these cards attracted – particularly from women. They loved the detail and that they could browse the range without having to take each out to look at it opened.
The gift cards – not shown in the picture – are especially popular. The $4.95 price point is no barrier because, as one customer said, the card is part o the gift.
We did consider the Treasures card range for the newsagency but considered the card space there already at its peak in terms of range. Maybe in a few months we will fold out an existing range with this.
For the record, I have no stake in For Arts Sake. They have not asked me to write this post.
Water and cards don’t mix
We had more flooding dramas on Friday as a result the construction going on in our shopping centre. This time the problem was right above our greeting card store room. Our entire backup stock was wiped out as well as new season stock. We are yet to hear from the landlord about compensation for the flood damage from two weeks ago and the resulting severe disruption to the business.
Social stationery challenges the newsagency
Card companies are extending more and more beyond greeting cards and into social stationery and related items. Newsagents are taking up the opportunities of a broader product offering.
The challenge for newsagents is how to extend into what for some is a new category. Take the Lady Jane Note Blocks (see photo) from For Arts Sake. They are a brilliant gift, idea for Mother’s Day and beyond. Even though they come with an excellent retail display, it is not enough to have this unit alone – it needs to be part of a broader story of social stationery.
Newsagents moving into this space will need product from three or four suppliers so that they can create a striking visual display. They need sufficient stock and range so that social stationery can own its own space in store. This product cannot be located in the stationery department nor can it be located in the card department.
Products like the Lady Jane range work well when placed in a space of their own with complimentary products which, when seen together, demonstrate a choice for the consumer. The attractiveness of these social stationery items lend themselves to a bright and happy retail story. That cannot be achieved by one or two ranges.
The risk for newsagents is that they will be told by one card company rep to take their range of social stationery and nothing else. Better advice would be to take this range and be sure to get two or three other ranges too.
Social stationery is hot. It is not an easy fit for a traditional newsagency and requires different retail skills. The best way to learn how to make it work is to visit gift shops and some of the majors such as David Jones and Myer.
For me, success in the social stationery space begins with an appropriately diverse range.
Dressing for Mother’s Day
Like most newsagencies, our store is well dressed for Mother’s Day. We are fortunate that the newsXpress Mother’s Day materials integrate well with the Hallmark materials. We have used both to create a store within a store feel – somewhere special to find the right card and gift for mum.
Mother’s Day has evolved from being primarily about greeting card sales for newsagencies. Today, it’s equally about gifts such as journals, note paper, pens, books and magazine subscriptions.
We’re using our main display window to support Mother’s Day season.
Please excuse the reflection off the glass in the photo.
Mother’s Day 2007 greeting cards
In keeping with our strategy of starting early with seasons, we have the just half of our Mother’s Day card range up. It’s moving well and we are still a month away from the day. The Hallmark materials make the display.
We use seasonal displays like this to underpin our relevance and our range for the seasons. It’s a way of demonstrating our point of difference over the majors.
Sophie Randall Cards and Gifts – one week on
Our Sophie Randall start up card and gift shop is a week old this morning. While we are yet to undertake any marketing or even hold an opening event, sales are strong. We took in our first week 80% of what we budgeted for weekly takings three months in. So, the signs are good – but we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves.
The experience behind the counter in this 100 square metre shop is very different to what we experience in the card and gift space – shop within a shop – in our newsagency on the floor above. Here in Sophie’s space customers are friendlier, they take more time, they’re happy to wait to be served. In the newsagency if there is a line (which we don’t like) it is not uncommon for customers to let us know they are annoyed – usually over a $1.10 newspaper purchase.
Beyond happier customers, we are surprised at the products which are selling. $49.95 paperweights for example, cows, Beatrix Potter product and high price point cards. We knew the products would move but not in the numbers achieved in the first week. There are some categories we expected to do well which have not moved at all. But, as they say, it’s early days.
As we move between the two stores we have to change our mindset. In Sophie’s place we’re in control, not one supplier is dictating rules to us – we choose the products, pricing and how we display. In the newsagency, for two thirds of what we sell, suppliers are in control of range, price point and, often, how we display. I am not complaining about this but, rather, observing the difference between the two.
Suppliers often complain that newsagents are lazy, don’t engage with campaigns and are not ‘compliant’. Associations complain about this too. My view is that this comes about because of the rules suppliers impose. They train newsagents to NOT think for themselves and then complain when they do what they are trained to do. While newsagents can be entrepreneurial, it is a challenge with so many rules to live by.
In the meantime, we’re enjoying navigating the freedom of the Sophie Randall playground.
Sophie Randall – a new retail concept for newsagents
I talk a lot here about the need for newsagents to take ownership of their future. For more than a year I have been working on a new retail concept to complement my newsagency investment, a concept which affords me more control. Last Friday, we opened Sophie Randall Cards and Gifts at Forest Hill Chase in Victoria.
Even though I own this first store, the Sophie Randall concept has been developed by the same people behind newsXpress. We have created it to provide newsagents with a complimentary retail strategy – enabling a second store in a centre without creating just another newsagency.
Startups are challenging and Sophie Randall is no exception. It has been an intensive year negotiating with the landlord, developing the unique design, choosing product and building a concept which can be easily replicated. Most important has been the work developing who Sophie Randall is and what she stands for.
We opened Friday afternoon and trading for the last three days has been most promising – even though we have plenty of work to do before we are satisfied. It has been a wonderful experience creating a retail concept from scratch and without supplier rules – challenging too because of a lack of supplier rules. This is why we will take some time to finesse the offering before we have a noisy opening celebration. We have not promoted the store whatsoever at this point.
Landlords have been watching our model develop and we already have three offers from centres keen to get access this new concept. We’ve told them that we need time to settle this first store in before we contemplate our next moves. Our preference is to work with newsagents who are keen to develop their own retail portfolio.
Many of our products are unique. We have sought to provide our customers with a broad selection covering all key gift and card giving occasions. Our range includes Italian master craftsman boxes, Italian glass, American stationery sets, monogrammed paperweights, journals, candles, photo frames and soap which look like cupcakes.
We’re creating a website which will tell more about the Sophie Randall story. It should be live next week sometime.
Easter, chocolate and seasons
The Easter retail season is truly under way. Card sales are strong as well as the sale of eggs. We have the Darrell Lea range and it helps us present a bold message on what we call our ‘dance floor’ our main promotional area. We’re running the promotion in store rather than an outpost because of the hike in outpost costs – we could have outposted in the mall right in front of our shop but the direct sunlight would not be good for the chocolate.
We’ve had this display out for two weeks. While sales have been okay – they usually are early on with Easter – it provides a bold difference to the traditional newsagency – something we are always keen to achieve. Card sales have been strong, justifying their early placement.
Happy UK Mother’s Day
UK Mother’s Day (today) is another micro season for Australian newsagents. It provides an opportunity to demonstrate a point of difference over other greeting card retailers. The more we are known for having a card for every occasion the more we will be shopped. The majors are not interested in this space and it amazes me that many newsagents ignore it as well. To me these micro seasons are what small business is all about.