Newsagency management

Okay, that’s not quite true, I am sure that you do sell some products at the counter. By sell, I mean have a customer choose, at that moment, to purchase the item. In most situations, however, in a newsagency the customer comes to the counter with the items already selected.  If we are lucky they will ask us a question and we can leave our command post and venture onto the shop floor and help them and maybe sell them something.

As newsagents have taken on more counter based services over the decades, we have moved the selling, what little of it is done, in our businesses from the shop floor to the counter.  I first worked in a newsagency when I was in High school too many years ago.  My recollection is that we had people on the shop floor serving customers helping them. This was what the more experienced people did. The school kids were left to take payment once we were trained. Now, the counter is the area where the most senior skills appear to be in many newsagencies.

If you agree that selling is what we do when we help, guide and encourage a shopper to make a purchase from us then this is where you need to focus more attention in your business … on the shop floor. This is where your best people at dealing with customers should be.

This is the tip – to look at where you sell in your newsagency and to adjust resource allocation in pursuit of more sales.

1. Track your employees and learn who delivers the best return by hour worked.
2. Consider a financial reward for the employees you charge with selling, genuinely selling.
3. Be careful in allocating your resources, focus on the busiest times of the day.
4. Make sure that your people have excellent product knowledge with which to add value.
5. Drive this personal shop floor experience as a point of difference for your business. Shoppers will pay more if the shopping experience is more satisfying.

It all begins with understanding where you sell … it’s not at the sales counter.

Here are ten free to implement ways newsagents can drive sales in their business:

1. Stop looking at your counter as your customer service hub. By the time people reach your counter they have most of the items they wish to purchase. The shop floor is where you can do the most to drive sales.
2. Include coupons (ads) on receipts.  These should be designed to drive incremental business and / or bring customers back sooner.
3. Run a loyalty program, not a competition but a loyalty program.  Track what your customers and buying and reward them.  Also, target marketing based on sales.
4. Make offers: buy two and get three.  Use the catalogue facilities in your software to make the offers.  This is where you can separate your business from others retailers with the same products – by creating packages.
5. Consider installing a LCD customer display – run ads between sales and DURING sales.  Make sure that your ad slide show is consistent and focusing on a category.  We have had a lot of success with mobile recharge ads in my own stores.
6. Run an employee rewards program.  Set sales targets and offer bonuses and rewards for over achievement.  This helps employees understand the role they play in driving your sales.
7. Use your top selling items to sell other items. Your top selling items are a magnet – what do you have near them? What do you have facing sippers heading board and away from them?
8. Track everything in the front third of your shop.  Change these items regularly.  Be ruthless – if something is not working, quit it.  For example, I look at the sales from spinners every week.  If they are not giving me a return I look at moving or quitting them.
9. Include a sales pitch / marketing message on your statements.
10. Email your customers once a month with news and offers.

This list is by no means complete. Hopefully, reading it will help you one up with your own ideas which are appropriate to your needs.

We have just become a premier stockist of the Beanie Kid range in one of my newsagencies and are loving the new traffic being drawn to the business. We are seeing shoppers of all ages being drawn to the excellent selection of collectibles.

This is our first time in the collectible space beyond artworks. It is a whole new world. Beanie Kids collectors are tremendously valuable and smart shoppers. We have found that we need better than usual product knowledge to serve their needs and to help convert infrequent Beanie Kids shoppers into regular shoppers.

This is where Skansen Brands is helping, with good products knowledge with which we can be better prepared to attract good business. Their website is a wealth of information and on the phone their people have terrific knowledge. Understanding their engagement with social media also helps in our own social media strategies, so that we compliment their work.

I appreciate that it is challenging to be expert in all products. However, we each have hero products in our businesses around which we can build terrific shopper loyalty and good word of mouth. These are the products for which we need to develop and maintain superior product knowledge.  I see Beanie Kids as such a product.

This is my newsagency marketing / management tip for today … that we need to continue to develop product knowledge of our team members. Understanding the typical shopper and their interests and needs, being able to add value to a sale with knowledge and knowing why your business is the best place to purchase the items can attract people who love a brand name product like beanie Kids come back again and again.

As I write here many times, habit based shoppers are vitally important to any business, especially newsagency businesses.