RETAIL NEWSAGENCY SALES BENCHMARK COTOBER – DECEMBER 2015 vs 2014
The December 2015 quarter was tough for many newsagencies, especially with print media products. Here are the year on year same store comparison numbers.
- Customer traffic. 78% of newsagents report average decline of 1.2%.
- Overall sales. 76% reported an average revenue decline of 1.6%.
- Basket depth. 68% report a 1.5% decrease in basket size.
- Basket dollar value. 63% report an decrease in basket value of 1.2%.
- 37% of respondents using a structured loyalty offer.
Benchmark results by key departments:
- Magazines. 81% of newsagents report an average decline in unit sales of 9.5%. The average decline in weeklies was 10.5%.
- Newspapers. 82% report average decline in over the counter unit sales of 7.9% . Capital and regional city dailies lead the decline.
- Greeting cards. 51% of report average revenue decline of 2.1%.
- Lotteries. 51% of those with lotteries report an average decline of 2% in unit sales.
- Stationery. 67% of newsagents reported a decline, with an average of 5%.
- Ink. 25% of stores report ink separately. Of these, 52% reported decline of 2%.
- Gifts. Of the 68% in the offering gifts, 60% reported growth with an average of 7%.
- Tobacco. Of the 45% with tobacco, 70% reported an average decline of 16%.
- Confectionery. 50% of stores reported an average decline of 2%.
- Toys. Of the 25% with toys, 65% reported growth of 5%.
While these numbers do not reflect good news for the channel, the positive side of the numbers are good for the businesses reporting them. For example, close to half newsagencies reported a decline in greeting card sales while almost the same number report growth. The difference between the two, the gulf, is considerable. Allowing for local situations, there is a point difference of eight between the average decline and the average growth. This is considerable. The businesses achieving 6% year on year growth from high margin card sales are in a different situation than those experiencing 2% year on year decline.
Look at gifts, the story is similar but even more complex. While the gam between those reporting growth and those reporting decline is considerable, more than ten points, that 32% of newsagents do not have a gift department is alarming given their greeting card sales. Even more interesting is the difference in gifts sold. Whereas in an average newsagency, gift revenue is equal to around twenty percent of card revenue, there are newsagencies where gift revenue is more than double card revenue. These are businesses aggressively pursuing change.
I saw data for one store that is a stunning turnaround. Indeed, the result was so good I made a YouTube video about it and other stores in this benchmark group: https://youtu.be/f-YilFlFG68
In my own newsagency: My key category numbers off a good base, are: Books: up 500+% due to trend chasing. Diaries: up 219%. Cards up 19%. Gifts up 60% and account for 15% of sales; Magazines down 1% and weeklies down 3%; Stationery up 5%, Plush up 18% and accounting for 9.15% of sales. Traffic: down 2%; Average Sale Value: up 9%; Average Item Value: up 11%.
2016 OUR YEAR TO EMBRACE
Success is there for the taking in any newsagency situation. I firmly believe that. In cities and country towns. In shopping malls and on the high street. We, each of us, can make our own success by embracing change and being serious about how we run our businesses – through the deliberate choices we make.
We have more control over our businesses than ever before. What we do with this is up to us. The trends affecting us are obvious. Our future is ours to own.
Please take this benchmark report as a call to action. Make 2016 the year you want.
Thoughtful product placement adds to theatre in the newsagency and drives sales
Take a careful look at this photo and see the value of thoughtful product placement. Click on the image to see a larger high-res version of the photo.
Look at the squirrel: he is looking up at the acorn-like ornament being held by a hand above his head. The hand is attached to a larger figure outside the photo. This thoughtful placement places each item in a connected scene. The scene represents a story. It is theatre, in-store.
Rather than lining products up as you see in mass retailers, this display is more thoughtful, more entertaining and more engaging. It is the type of display you see in a higher end homewares or gift store. It is a display newsagents selling gifts could do. All is takes is thoughtful engagement with the products you purchase with care, with a view to telling a story.
Telling a story like this requires obsession with storytelling, in the belief that the story will drive sales. It does drive sales. I saw it for myself.
We can’t be average in visual march rising choices we make in our newsagencies for average makes shopping with us unmemorable and there is no commercial future in that. We have to thoughtfully buy and thoughtfully engage on the shop floor.
Looking around my newsagency a couple of days ago I saw plenty of opportunities for this level of engagement. Opportunities for linking products, even products outside the same departments. All it took was inspiration from this squirrel display.
Footnote: a reader messaged me asking why write this on Australia. Well, many newsagents are working and with most businesses closed I figured content that challenges might get more attention than at a busier time.
Sunday newsagency challenge: take down your cards
Okay this is a challenging challenge, fraught with danger. But think about. When was your card unit last completely emptied and cleaned? The answer is probably when you last changed card companies or installed new fixturing. A clean shop is a good shop. Consider, carefully, taking cards down, cleaning and rebuilding – with all cards going back in the right place. I saw a retailer doing this last week and was inspired.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: Host an 80th birthday party
Ask most Australians where they would got to purchase an 80th birthday card and most would say a newsagency. We are known for specific captions far more so that supermarkets with limited ranges. We ought to celebrate our unique captions by hosting events – like an 80th birthday party one afternoon. Or a 90th birthday party or a 100th birthday party. Get known for celebrating the wisdom of those of age and, at the same time, reinforcing our businesses in them minds of shops buying cards for these folk.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: be noticed with the unexpected
On the wharf I was drawn to the pink bollard because I did not expect to see it. I was not along. Almost everyone I saw walking down the wharf noticed it, pointed it out and took a photo. That bollard got all the love because it stood out.
Marketing all about getting your business noticed.
Engage in the same marketing and you will get the same results. Think about this the next time you run an ad, send out a flyer or engage in a seasonal promotion. Ask yourself: How is this different? How will it stand out?
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: new this week
Behind your counter, in your window, on your business Facebook page or on an a-fram outside the front of your newsagency list NEW MAGAZINES OUT THIS WEEK. Use this to show off your point of difference by listing magazines shoppers are less likely to find at competition supermarkets, convenience stores and other outlets. Change the list every week, on the same day.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: demonstrate just about anything
In a Lush soap store the other day I witnessed the perfect in-store product demonstration. The shop assistant gathered people around with a loud voice. Before I realised I was in the crowd watching her demonstration of bath bubbles. The demo was short and the pitch compelling. People purchased as a result.
I think the key to the sales success I saw was the engagement of the shoppers with the product. They say, touched and smelled the bubbles. How could they not purchase?
When was the last time you demonstrated something in your newsagency? The shelves of a typical newsagency are full of products to demonstrate: pens, magazines (food, crossword, heath, craft and more), paper products, sand, glue, glitter, soap, toys … as I said, plenty.
Sure it can be a challenge to demonstrate publicly. Give it a go, lean into your fear and have fun. You could find sales increasing as a result.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: market with a message that will be heard
How many times do you promote your newsagency business with message similar to other retailers?
For example, promoting back to school when Officeworks, K-Mart, Big W, Staples and others are promoting Back to School means your little voice will struggle to be hears.
Promoting back to school before them or after them and you will be heard more.
Or, promoting something non back to school related during the back to school season for be even better.
This is what Renée Mauborgne, W. Chan Kim talk about in their excellent book, Blue Ocean Strategy.
Your marketing message will be more easily heard if the message does not have many competitors. I urge newsagents to think about when and what they promote, to do so in a way that is fresh and stands out.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: give a courier a drink
In the peak of summer give each courier delivering product to your business a bottle of chilled water for while they driving between drop-offs.
How is this marketing? Couriers talk. They will share their appreciation of your thoughtfulness with others.
Regardless of what they say to others about your gesture, you will benefit from doing good.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: have a coffee with a magazine
Grab a magazine you sell, that you enjoy and is not available in supermarkets. Grab a coffee, or some other favourite beverage, and sit out the front of your shop or at a table in your shop for a read.
Hopefully, people engage with you while you engage with a product you sell. At the very least they see you loving something you sell.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: enjoy what you sell
What do you sell that you love to engage with yourself? Is there a particular magazine you enjoy reading? A particular pen you like to write with? A calendar you like so much you take it home? A newspaper you start the day with? A range of cards you love to look at and read because they inspire you?
Think about the product you sell that you enjoy and write about it on your business Facebook page and elsewhere.
Personalise your business through connecting what you enjoy with products you sell.
The more connected people feel with you the more they will trust you and trust sits at the heart of every business transaction.
Sunday newsagency marketing advice: leverage obscure
Where can you buy dice? From a newsagency of course! Sure a toy shop may have dice as might a major like K-Mart. But good luck finding it from either. Your local newsagent is more likely to have dice and to make it easy for you to purchase. However, the newsagent is not likely to promote this in any way.
My marketing tip this week is to call out obscure items such as dice and promote then on social media and elsewhere.
Make sure you are known as the go-to retailer for hard to get and infrequently purchased items.
A test I did of this recently revealed stretch community interest in where people could reliably purchase such items.
Consider a feature somewhere in-store, away from Christmas business, promoting obscure items.
Using Doctor Who to drive traffic for the newsagency
Doctor Who is one of those worldwide product licences we can use to drive traffic and revenue for the newsagency. Using the image of one of the various Doctor Who 2016 calendars, posters, figurines, books or other products we can get good traction on Facebook and elsewhere through regular posts as well as boosted posts.
We are using this to attract new shoppers to the business – and it is working. We find the best posts are those using an image like the one I have included here. It is colourful and therefore easily noticed in a Facebook feed.
Our newsagency businesses are full of licenced items like the Doctor Who calendars that we can use to drive traffic. Using them is free and takes little time. It’s no brainer marketing.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: improvise and get noticed
At a concert at the Palais Theatre in Melbourne Friday night, down in the middle of the theatre during intermission, I noticed a bright bottle of water bobbing above the heads of the crowd. It was a beacon in this venue packed with close to 3,000 people on the night. It aught my attention and I had to go see what looked like magic up close.
On approaching the bottle of water, I could see the person holding it up high had a torch on and facing upward into the bottle – providing the beacon effect. This was a perfect way for the water to be noticed from a distance, for the theatre management to drive water sales inside the theatre in interval, a perfect marketing initiative.
Often when it comes to marketing we look for complex solutions to simple challenges. In this case, theatre management placed the pitch in the right location and used a low-tech approach to ensure it was noticed.
My marketing tim for retail newsagents today is to look for simple, low-tech, ways to promote products from your business in-store and outside.
A secondary time from this experience is to create marketing for the curious, so they will go see up close and, maybe, consider a purchase.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: use a breathing dog to attract shoppers
We a ‘breathing’ plush dog on the corner of the Christmas display, just under the tree. It is working a treat at attracting shoppers to the business and driving sales. The small rise and fall of the dog’s chest is all it takes for this item to be a hit this Christmas.
Too often we think of marketing being advertising or some promotional activity we undertake. As our experience shows this week, product placement, of the right product, can be a valuable marketing activity.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: stepping out with product as a walking billboard
Walking 400 metres or so to my car from the newsagency yesterday carrying the brightly coloured extra large plush item you can see in the photo, I was stopped twice by people asking where I bought the item.
The first to stop me was a guy looking for a present for his girlfriend and the second was from a grandmother looking for something for a grandchild. Several others along he way pointed and commented.
The experience reminded me of the opportunities we all have to show off items we sell when we carry them to our car or elsewhere. It’s like a moving billboard without clogging traffic. It provides people a safe way to ask about the item – as they will not expect a sales push.
We have these opportunities carrying products into our businesses and our from them. It works best with large bright products – like this large plush item.
Not that there is spare time in a busy day, but if there was – maybe get someone to walk around with a large item and a walking billboard. My thought here is that only a certain numb er of people near your shop enter your shop. It is likely you have items they would purchase if they knew you had them. This tip is about showing them. It only works, however, with items easily seen and understood and even then only if they can see it comes from your shop or they ask you where you ‘bought’ it.
This is a free marketing idea. You don’t have to pay a local paper, Facebook, Google or any media company to run your ‘ad’. You or someone working for you becomes the ad.
Sunday newsagency challenge: don’t hang on to dead stock for two long
If you have stock items that have not sold for more than six months and there is no prospect of them selling, consider giving them away. dead stock is like a ball and chain, it holds you back and gives off the wrong message. Giving it away could save you money.
Use your computer system to see what you could give away – it will take no time at all.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: ignore the Christmas crush
Letterboxes, local papers, radio stations and TV stations fill with advertising clutter this time of the year, much of it from advertisers with deeper pockets than small business newsagents.
This is why I recommend newsagents, especially city based newsagents, do not advertise through catalogues and in newspapers at Christmas time. I also suggest you do not discount at Christmas time.
Let your competitors drive shopper traffic. Leverage the extra traffic competitors who do advertise attract, lure people into your businesses, with stunning displays pitching appealing product. Ride on the back of the spend of others.
I am not a believer in the value of a Christmas catalogue filled with discounted gift items the shoppers these attract are less likely to be loyal through the year. Further, the catalogues from your business hit at peak catalogue season for your competitors – businesses that are regularly marketing whereas your business most likely is not.
Swim in the blue ocean that is not crowded with competitors. It is far more enjoyable.
What we can learn from the Woolworths decision to change its loyalty program
The announcement by Woolworths yesterday that it will replace offering Qantas points for purchases with Woolworths ‘dollars’ is one newsagents ought to take note of. The change is fundamental: points are being replaced by dollars, or, at least, something closer to dollars – that can be spent in-store.
The email from Woolworths to customers included this:
Members told us what they really want is money off their shopping, so we’ve changed points for Woolworths Dollars!
My own experience through my software company with a variety of loyalty programs including points, points for gifts, buy X and get Y (like the magazine club card), points for entries in competitions, discount vouchers offering a discount off purchases and points accruing to FlyBys and other programs is that shoppers want value now.
Value = real savings.
Now = today or at least soon.
People are tired of points based programs where the value of points is not easily understood. With good reason there is scepticism about points based programs.
For what it is worth, the discount voucher program, offering $$$ off purchases immediately, continue to work well, driving far greater value than the small cost to the business. The program continues to offer a terrific point of difference in the eyes of shoppers too. This is the closest to the Woolworths offer – except that with Woolworths you have to spend much more to get $10 in value. It does not sound all that good but compared to points it is better.
While not exactly what Woolworths is switching to, their program sounds like it will be pitched like discount vouchers – real savings available immediately.
This video I shot last year about discount vouchers is as relevant today as it speaks to how this type of loyalty offer works in a newsagency compared to the old-school points based program:
Sunday newsagency challenge: stop, change tracks
Stop any pitch that says shop here or buy me or promotes and offer or price deal. Instead, use your social media and other comms platforms to tell a story. Explain something about your shop, products you sell or your people that is unique. Share something that people reading or listening will appreciate.
Sometimes stopping the usual marketing and telling a story can get more attention than your usual marketing. This can help you as much as it helps your customers.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: clever use of a mirror in the shop window
The bear in the photo is facing away from the shop window – and looking in the mirror. This simple placement is more effective than if the bear was staring straight out the window. It is fun and haunting, which is keeping with the Halloween theme. I love the use of the mirror. It offers a fresh approach to grabbing attention of those in the street and grabbing their attention is the first step to a sale.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: make the most of Halloween
Halloween is a fun season. It helps you reset the business into Christmas. It is an excellent opportunity to let your hear down in the shop and in the community.
No, this is not a pagan season, something to upset religious people. It is also not a season to scare shoppers away. Done well, Halloween is a season with which you can show your business as being a fun and safe place for all – yes, including the whole family.
Even if you do not have much stock – as it is too late to buy now – you can still embrace the season.
Here are some marketing tips with which to have fun on October 31.
- Have a fancy dress competition on the day.
- A colouring competition for kids with a prize for the best and a charity donation to encourage engagement.
- Print a recipe sheet and give this away.
- Give away a Halloween cookbook.
- Maybe even involve a retirement village and sponsor a ghost storytelling night in a local park.
These ideas are to get you thinking. Go on, have fun. Boo!
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: use your floor
Promoting on the floor of the shop can work a treat in the newsagency as you connect with those who walk along looking at the ground and not up. The photo shows the floor striker supplied by the herald & Weekly Times for the new DVD promotion with the Herald Sun. We have two of these on the floor on the way to papers and then more collateral with papers. The floor sticker placements help drive awareness by the time people are at the paper stand. The shop floor is ‘free’ space and ideal for marketing certain types of lines.