I am seeing excellent newsagency charity boxed Christmas card sales already this year with sales significantly up on 2023.
For one of my newsagency businesses they are up 20%, off a strong number from 2023.
This growth has been driven, I think, by a few factors:
An expansion of range. We have 50% more designs than last year. We source our cards from five different suppliers.
The ability to capture sales online – 90% of online sales are to people nowhere near the business.
A focus on charities first. Customers can buy by charity and many are. Boxed Christmas cards used to be arranged by design theme: religious, Australian, humour etc. Our charities first approach is paying off. Smart card publishers provide details on card packaging and the cards about the charity being supported, offering another engagement point for customers.
A secondary focus on Australian designs. Smart card publishers promote the Australian artist connection on their external product packaging.
Going out early. The money we have stock it is out and being pitched.
Marketing to previous customers. We know who they are and reach out to them to let them know what’s new and in.
Tactical in-store placement so that every shopper passes the cards as they enter and leave the shop.
Charity boxed Christmas cards are a good fit for any newsagency business as the charities are local and this fits with the localness of the typical newsagency business.
On the topic of online sales, on Melbourne Cup day one of my shops that was closed for the whole day did over $500 in sales of charity boxed Christmas cards. That’s a good result given nothing was spent on marketing to achieve this. The key to the online success is the SEO work I have done to drive ranking for this website.
Charity boxed Christmas cards are an excellent opportunity for our channel. I think anyone not embracing them should consider doing so. They are an easy win, and they are a terrific opportunity to do good, I especially like this connection.
For a financial reference, for many years in my various newsagencies, sales of charity boxed Christmas cards have been 3 and, often, more times the dollar value of sales of single Christmas cards.
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My newsXpress newsagency marketing group has, for many years, provided guidance and help to its members to maximise the charity boxed Christmas cards opportunity. Some of what I have covered above is based on that advice.
Retailers, small business retailers especially, can get stuck on what to do about a free shipping trigger point for their website and the actual shipping charges they apply.
We have see it slow the process of getting their new website live.
After looking at many websites across a range of product categories I have some advice that I hope is helpful. I made this video yesterday:
For the free shipping trigger, if you are not sure where to start, start with $100. Experience with the website will soon guide you as to where you might adjust this. Adjusting the free shipping trigger is easy. Where you land really depends on your own business.
What you charge for shipping, when you do charge, needs to be simple and understandable. Too often we see retailers over complicate this. If you are not sure where to start, choose a number: $10, $12, $15, any number, and start there. Once the website is live, shopper engagement will guide you on where to land.
Every online business has shipping costs. Be careful to not be sidetracked by big competitors that pitch free shipping. Sure, there are shoppers who chase free shipping. There are more shoppers who appreciate reliability, personal service, care with packaging and, most important, of all, immediate availability of stock.
The advice in this video is part of a series of short videos Tower Systems is creating for retailers having websites built by the company and connected to its POS software. The advice in this video is not Tower specific.
The goal of the video is to share information that helps you make an informed decision faster, to overcome a common hurdle on the path to getting live with your website.
Deciding on the right free shipping trigger for your website involves several factors:
Shipping Costs: Calculate your average shipping costs to determine a sustainable threshold for your business. The trigger should cover these costs and ideally contribute to your profit margin.
Customer Behaviour: Analyse your customer data to understand their average order value. Set a trigger that incentivises customers to exceed this value.
Competitor Analysis: Research your competitors’ shipping policies. You could choose to offer a competitive or more attractive free shipping offer.
Profit Margin: Ensure the free shipping trigger doesn’t significantly impact your overall profitability. Consider the potential increase in sales versus the cost of free shipping.
If shipping costs are slowing you going live with your website, make a decision, any decision, and monitor shopper behaviour, adjust as you learn.
Newsagencies in decline as demand for online content outstrips print media.
It’s a headline from an ABC news story a few months ago, a story published online, on radio and on TV. I wrote about it here at the time.
The story, reporting on the closure of Mansfield Newsagency in Victoria, failed to adequately report on the state of Australian newsagencies. So called experts failed to present accurate current information about the health of local newsagency businesses.
While there have been newsagency closures, the numbers are not huge, not as big as we see in retail channels.
The ABC News story is another in a series of reports by the ABC and other mainstream media outlets in Australia to properly report on the state of Australian newsagencies. While there are businesses struggling, there are more thriving, growing.
Let’s all work at pushing back on the cliché narrative about our channel.
Rather than complain about the failures of news media and some others to adequately represent our channel, here are steps I think we can all take in our newsagency businesses.
On social media, engage with content that is different to what people expect from a newsagency. That means posting less about magazines and lottery products and more about unique gifts, clothing, books and toys you may sell.
In your social media posts, talk about what you love, and why. Write your gratefulness for local Aussie products you have been able to find for your business. Appreciate local community groups you can support thanks to the support of your customers.
In your front window pitch products people do not expect to see in their local newsagency. Your front window display has one job: to get people to notice it. Hopefully, they stop and look, and then step inside. Your window display must crash assumptions. It must be bold.
At your counter pitch products people do not associate with a newsagency counter. This means no chewing gum, everyday candy or similar. Have products people don’t associate with you. However, the need to be products easily purchased on impulse.
From the front door and for the first 3 metres inside the shop pitch products people do not expect to see in a newsagency. And, change how it is displayed weekly. You want people saying things like this is nothing like a newsagency or every time I come here it’s changed. These types of comments tell you that you are getting things right.
The key to each of these steps is you offering in your newsagency business products people do not usually associate with a newsagency. That means buying from suppliers who do not traditionally supply newsagencies or go to the trade shows you might typically attend.
Playing outside what is expected for your type of business is key to you pushing back against the narrative of mainstream media that: Newsagencies in decline as demand for online content outstrips print media.
The decline in print media, which is between 10% and 12% a year currently, has nothing to do with newsagency closures in my opinion.
Some newsagency shops close because the lease is at an end and the owner has plans for elsewhere. Most close, however, because the newsagency is not relevant to today, which brings us back to product. The products you offer in your shop are the best way you can state your purpose, show your difference, ensure your relevance locally, and online.
It’s hard work, every day. As retailers who own and run our own businesses, we choose this. Our future is ours to make, and in doing so we need to take every opportunity to push back against the ill-informed narrative about our channel put about by mainstream media.
Here’s a quick video I did yesterday morning showing why it’s wrong to overthink your website when planning for it. I see too many retailers, including newsagents, overthink their website, wanting everything to be perfect, thinking they know exactly what people will buy.
We created www.hugsandlove.com.au for one of my own shops in suburban Melbourne. It took less than two weeks to go from idea to being live. We’ve spent nothing on marketing and we have quadrupled the product range since launch. We have been deliberately frugal in our investment in the website and lazy in terms of chasing sales – to show others what they could achieve even being time poor.
Also, we did not add any tech skills to the business to make the website happen.
In this video I step you through some of the transactions and explain how seeing these helped us evolve the website. I hope some find it useful.
How you approach creating and running a website for your shop is 100% up to you. This video is my experience for this website and this shop. It’s one of ten websites we have created over the years for my shops. Again, the goal was to mirror something any newsagent could do.
We are at a point in retail where having a website for your business is as essential as having a fax machine was decades ago – every business had one.
As I note in the video, this quick and dirty website of ours for this suburban shop will add $50,000 in retail sales in the first year. I can see that doubling the next year with small effort. $50,000 in sales is close to $25,000 in GP, for no additional labour or retail space overhead. That’s good for business. Double it and you’re at $50,000 hitting the bottom line profit of the business.
These results are coming from shoppers the business cannot easily reach by opening the front door of the shop. Every retailer would be happy for this type of growth on top of what the physical shop is achieving.
I know of newsagents doing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year online. This is the financial opportunity anyone can chase. It starts with your first website and leaning into what it shows you.
Even though it is plenty of months away, products have already started flowing for the celebration of the Year of the Snake.
We have offered Chinese zodiac related products for years. This year, the Year of the Dragon, it has been worth thousands of dollars in revenue.
Several state governments are in on the opportunity, offering birth certificates tailored to the various zodiac characters. I mention this to show that interest is broad from the practical through to high end gifting, like coins valued at $5,000 and more.
Current search engine searches for Year of the Snake in Australia are at 12,000, making it an easy keyword to leverage. That will spike as the year draws closer. The Year of the Dragon searches, for example, peaked at 350,000 a month. Each search is an opportunity for retailers.
I’ve talked about this opportunity with several newsagents who said they did not have customers who would be interested. What I know for sure from online sales is that we don’t know what we don’t know. Chinese zodiac shoppers come in many forms across a broad age range and many social settings. And, people buy for different reasons: for their home, for friends and as an investment – this is certainly the case with high end coins.
I think local newsagencies offer and excellent opportunity for leveraging Chinese zodiac related products and gifts and while the Year of the Snake will not reach the peak interest we have seen in the Year of the Dragon, it is valuable. I think of the opportunity as a season. In my own case, that season passes easter and Father’s Day in commercial value to the business.
There are plenty of fringe seasonal opportunities like this with which we can engage to attract new shoppers to our businesses. It’s vital as new traffic is truly the lifeblood of our future in retail. If you are not attracting new shoppers you are not nurturing the value of your business given declines in core product categories.
If you are not sure about Chinese zodiac products, do some research. There is plenty of evidence of excellent product availability and ways you can promote these in the context of your newsagency business today.
Here are 6 things to do to rank higher with Google and other search engines:
Include brand in product names as that’s what people tend to search for.
Arrange products by brand, with the brand name in the collection URL.
Use blog posts to promote brands and branded products. Write these yourself. Try and not use AI generated content – search engines preference human created content.
Use keywords relevant to your business in the content on your website, keywords people are searching for.
Ask your suppliers to link to your website.
Optimise meta title and meta descriptions to accurately describe content.
Here’s how you can optimise meta titles and descriptions in Shopify:
Go to the product you want to edit in your Shopify admin.
Click “Edit” to open the product editor.
Scroll down to the “SEO” section.
Replace the default title with a concise and informative title that includes your target keyword.
Write a compelling description that accurately summarises your product.
Click the “Save” button to apply your updates.
Additional tips:
Incorporate target keywords naturally into your meta title and description.
Aim for a meta title around 50-60 characters and a meta description of 150-160 characters.
Use strong action verbs and a clear call to action.
Each week add new blog posts. Each post should be about a single product or a single brand. Talk about what you love about it. Be personal. Use a friendly and engaging tone. Write more than 350 words, ideally above 500 words. Refer back to your physical shop in the post. Use the product name or keyword or phrase you are targeting at least five times in the post – use it naturally though.
If you are not sure what keywords to target, ask someone. I provide this advice, based on data evidence, free to Tower and newsXpress customers. The data I source is through a platform I pay US$300 a month to access. It’s up to date for Australian keyword searches.
Keyword targeting in your content is key to the content driving your website higher in search engine results.
Yes, this is all hard work. Do it if you want to rank higher. A website is a forever hungry beast.
Two significant coin releases yesterday from the Royal Australian Mint provided a terrific traffic boost for newsagents with stock. Both the silver proof and decorative Festive Florals coins sold quickly, and well.
What’s beneficial about coin shoppers is that they typically purchase other items during the visit – around 70% of the time they do from our data. This makes coins an efficient product for us to stock.
This second coin, the silver proof, is another example of price not being a barrier. It sold out first with little concern opver the 4135.00 price tag.
Key to leveraging the customer visit is related products that will appeal to this shopper, that the shopper can include a coin collector, a Christmas seasonal buyer, a general collector or anyone buying for any of these. Irt takes a it to understand the various shopper personas. Once you do understand, you can make good coin. (Sorry about that!).
Five years ago newsagents (except for Post Offices) would not have had access to mint coins. Now, four mints supply products to the channel, delivering millions of dollars in revenue and more than this in terms of value of new shopper traffic.
Coins are a valuable opportunity and that value will grow into 2025 and beyond.
You’d have to be living under a rock to not be aware of challenging economic conditions being reported on daily. We are seeing the daily reporting play out in retail with people being more careful on what they spend. The number of people emailing and dropping in resumes to retailers has spiked over the last month. We receive resumes here at the office daily, way more than in years.
It’s a challenging economy. FYI, here is some of our advice I have shared with retailers:
The current economic conditions are not normal. You cannot trade as if they are normal.
Where possible, pitch Australian made. This lands well everyday, and especially in times of higher unemployment.
Show value through a loyalty offer with cash off the next purchase. Cash is better understood than points, and big business competitors can’t compete.
Stock what you know sells for you. Typically, your top 25 sellers are out of stock 20% of the time.
Make the in-store experience happy and welcoming.
Quit dead stock. If it’s not sold in 6 months, why is it on your shelves?
Expand the appeal of your business with products you’ve never stocked before and pitch them outside your business.
Reset the front 3 metres of your shop weekly. Give the shop a fresh feel.
Ensure every hour of labour cost on your roster delivers value.
Ask a supplier pitching a new product these questions:
Who is the customer?
How can I reach them?
How valuable are they to me over a year?
How many Google searches are there in Australia every month for this product?
When they search, what is the search text?
I mention this because suppliers, too, need to adjust their businesses to reflect the economic conditions.
On top of what you read and feel about the economy, retailers have just had to absorb a 3.75% wage increase and a .5% superannuation contribution increase. Add to this a minimum 5% annual increase in rent and a 33% increase in insurance and you can get a sense of the stress some will be under.
Suppliers can help by:
Ensuring stockists are listed on your website.
Linking to stockist websites from your website. Backlinks this are valuable.
Promoting your stockists regularly on social media.
Ensuring every contact has commercial value to the retailer.
Anything suppliers can do to help newsagents and other retailers make their businesses more valuable is appreciated.
The alternative to the action for retailers and suppliers noted here is to do nothing, to treat things as business as usual. That’s not a smart move in my opinion. Whether our businesses are experiencing challenges or not, there is enough noise out there to indicate action is needed.
The latest issue of Channel magazIne published by ALNA includes a four-page spread on Transforming Your Newsagency. I am grateful to ALNA for publishing my article. Click here for a copy of the article. I urge newsagents to read it as the article contains advice anyone can act on today without spending any money.
newsXpress is hosting a national conference next month and has set aside spaces for non newsXpress members to participate at no cost.
Here is the announcement I shared with newsXpress members:
newsXpressNationalConference. Melbourne, September 8, 9 & 10.
In the newsXpressmember community, I see a powerful force: a community of passionate small business owners. We may run different shops, cater to different customers, but we share a common ground – the drive to succeed, to build, and to serve our communities.
The world throws challenges our way, from economic shifts to ever-changing consumer trends. But here’s the secret weapon of small businesses: we are not alone. This conference is about the power of “Together We Can.”
We can share best practices, learn from each other’s triumphs (and maybe even a few stumbles!), and build a network of support that strengthens us all.
So, let’s use this conference to connect, collaborate, and unlock the incredible potential we have together. Together, we can navigate any challenge, seize every opportunity, and create a thriving future for our businesses and our communities.
Monday is a full business day, focussed on sharing insights on newsagency retail transformation and how to execute this on a limited budget.
We will look to 2025 and beyond and consider ways we can make our businesses more resilient and valuable.
We’ll talk through how we can better support each other.
And, we will consider how to navigate challenges faced baby legacy products.
This is a conference for retail newsagents, designed to offer support and encouragement, to help us all find an enjoyable path to the future.
Thants to supplier support and support from newsXpress itself, participation is free.
If you are interested, please email help@newsxpress.com.au.
At the we conference, we anticipate we will launch an exclusive for newsXpress members range of limited-edition products with a significant partner already delivering terrific traffic and sales for newsXpress members.
Here what to expect at the conference:
Networking. You’ll get to meet fellow newsXpress members. This is thebiggest value members tell us about conferences. Catching up with others in a relaxed environment. Sharing, learning, nurturing.
It’s a no pressure event.
You can provide feedback we use to shape what the group does and offers.
You will be presented actionable opportunities.
Have a laugh.
Challenged. Not openly, not in public. Listening to the sessions though some of what you currently do may be challenges, and that’s good because change is vital.
Energised. We’re sure you will come away with an action plan.
If you’re an introvert and are concerned that you’ll find it uncomfortable. Hang out with me, we can talk one on one, privately. There will be plenty of us introverts at theconference.
“A typical country town newsagency today should be making less than 10% of their turnover from print media products, 30% of revenue from lottery commission and 60% from gifts, homewares, books, toys and more. That is, 60% of revenue from items delivering 50% and more gross profit.”
Fletcher has long been a critic of the support newsagencies received from publishers over the years. But he notes it should not be the reason for a failing business.
“You can’t blame the decline in print for newsagencies closing. Newsagents make a paltry margin from print products. It’s disrespectful, and embarrassing how little we make. A business closing because of this is a business rooted in the past.
“Smart newsagents started transforming their businesses 20 years ago.”
Fletcher finished with a final blast for ABC News:
“If the folks at ABC News did even basic research about the future of Australian newsagencies they could have provided more accurate reporting on the state of newsagency businesses in Australia.
“Do better ABC News.”
I am thankful to get this support for the channel out there compared to the reported comments by Brendan Tohill from VANA. Sheesh.
Let’s take a moment to look at the performance of print media products in our shops and for our channel.
Newspapers.
Newsagents make between 10% and 12.5% of the cover price. For the Herald Sun Monday to Friday, that’s .375 cents a copy. @ 50 copies a day, that’s $18.75. Considering the weekend cover price and sales, a medium size newsagency, selling 50 copies of the title each day will make under $7,000 a year in gross profit. Labour cost for managing the title over the year in that size business will be at least $4,500 while retail space will cost at least $2,000 without considering a premium for better positioning in-store.
Newspapers remain inefficient products. Around 75% of newspaper purchases are a single newspaper. I know this because of basket analysis for hundreds of newsagencies over many years. No amount of in-store effort has been successful in changing the basket efficiency of newsagencies.
Magazines.
Newsagents make 25% of the cover price. Thanks to cover price suppression of major titles, in real terms we make less today than five years ago.
In an average size newsagency selling $80,000 worth of magazines a year, gross profit is $20,000.00. Labour cost for the year managing magazines is $12,000.00. That can balloon out if there in an increase in missed deliveries. Theft of magazines costs around $2,000 a year, which lands at net $1,500.00. (My understanding is that supermarkets do not cover the cost of magazine theft.) magazine space in this average newsagency costs around $15,000.00. This average newsagency is losing money on magazines.
Magazines are more efficient than newspapers with single product baskets accounting for only 40% of all baskets.
Traffic generators.
For more than five years, print media products have not been valuable traffic generators for newsagents. While for sure that are people buying the daily paper or their weekly magazines, those shoppers are not the valuable shoppers that make money for newsagents. Indeed, thanks to basket analysis and tracking loyalty offer engagement, magazines especially are the impulse purchase if a shopper has bonus loyalty dollars to spend.
Print media suppliers don’t understand.
Our print media suppliers have management practices that are out of date, rooted in the days when our channel was tightly regulated. These poor practices cost us money. They think their products drive valuable traffic for us. They don’t. They think they make good money for us. They don’t.
Print media does matter tho.
What we don’t know is the value of print media customers who, on other visits, purchase other items from our shops. There is anecdotal evidence, but nothing you could rely on in court. The may to make the category work is to tightly manage space and hope that suppliers lift their game and drag their data management processes into 2024.
Why plenty of newsagents are thriving.
Many newsagents have transitioned their businesses to sell high end gifts, sought after collectibles and other products people will drive and hour or two to source. We have newsagents doing well with books and others doing well with coffee. Many newsagents have websites that reach people way beyond their local area. Some, too, with websites that have nothing to do with their newsagency businesses.
The shingle.
While news outlets and suppliers consider us a channel, we’re not a channel and have not been for many years. You can’t go into a newsagency expecting they will have what you want if your expectation is rooted in decades ago.
I don’t think the shingle matters. What matters is what shoppers feel when they enter your businesses. If they step into a shop that nurtures a feeling of comfort and happiness and offers them a treasure hunt retail experience they will tell others, and they will come back. The shingle above the door is irrelevant.
This is what’s interesting abut plenty of newsagents today. They are retailers, not agents, not shopkeepers. This is what the poor reporting of the ABC neglected.
Here, again, are videos I have done with the owners of three newsagencies that are anything but traditional newsagency businesses. Each business is inspiring:
The Aussie newsagency has as bright a future as each newsagency business owner allows.
We have put up The Perth Mint’s 125th Anniversary Australia Sovereign 2024 Gold Proof Five-Coin Set for sale at $10,999.00 We were lucky to get one of the 125 of the sets made. I decided to take on the product as it helps us see what the boundary is of the highest ticket price item we can sell.
We had good success with coins prices at $3,995.00 and moved on to coins priced just over $5,000.00, and they sold. The move to try this new coin makes sense.
I appreciate that this will feel out of reach to plenty here. If you’d told me about this coin set five years ago I’d have said no way could I contemplate this, yet here we are.
Good retailers don’t stand still. They try new things and if they work they lean further into them, to learn and see how far they can go. That’s what’s happening here. It’s what I have seen newsagents do in the gift space taking their business fro $20,000 a year in gifts to over $200,000 a year in gifts in a short period of time.
What we can sell in our newsagency businesses is not restricted as it was decades ago.
The only reason to have a Coke (or similar) fridge in your newsagency is if it is delivering a good return on space, labour and inventory investment. if you have a Coke fridge and don’t know its performance numbers, work them out.
I see too many newsagents hang onto their Coke fridge because customers like the convenience of it. That’s no reason to keep it.
Your Coke fridge must make you more money than you could otherwise make from the space.
Your Coke fridge must make more than not having it and the associated assumptions that come with it.
People seeing a Coke fridge do make assumptions in my view. I think they will see it and register the business as a convenience business. If you sell higher end gifts, the assumptions flowing from seeing the Coke fridge may not fit what you want for the business. Coke is a banner brand like that. See it in the front of a local independent shop and you do think convenience.
I was in a newsagency a couple of days ago that had a Coke fridge right near their entrance, in prime position. From the front door of their shop I could see four other shops with a Coke fridge. The newsagency having a Coke fridge did not make sense. The owner said they keep it because it works. They could not explain that in terms of financial performance or their profit and loss statement tho.
I bought a newsagency two and a half years ago that had a Coke fridge. The staff said customers would complain if we got rid of it. No one complained. We are surrounded by cafes and take away food outlets with Coke and other drinks. The fridge had no commercial value in our newsagency.
None of this matters. If you’re making a good profit, more than you would otherwise make from the space, stick with it.
If you don’t know your numbers, go work them out, now.
I worked them out for the shop I was in a couple of days ago and the Coke fridge was losing money. It was not paying for the square metre of space it was taking let alone the labour and capital tied up in inventory. This is a beautiful newsagency by the way, one offering excellent gifts. I think by removing the Come fridge they can remove some shopper assumptions and expect more shopper traffic as a result.
Sometimes we find ourselves doing the same thing over an over because no one has stopped in front of us and asked why we do that.
I have nothing against Coke by the way. Some newsagencies, though, do not need to offer the product, they can make better use of the space.
If you have a Coke fridge, please go work out your numbers and let them guide what you do.
yesterday was a terrific day with people keen to get their hands on this new coin released to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the NAIDOC Committee.
The Royal Australian Mint helps by listing is as a stockist and while this can lead to many phone calls, each contact is an opportunity to pitch other coin related product.
I love the coin releases for their new shopper traffic. New shoppers are gold in retail.
We never get enough coins, but we are always happy to get what we get, and we make the most of it.
The Are Media / Coles Despicable Me and Minions promotion prompted me to loom at the licence for opportunities for newsagents. In case you’ve missed it, here’s the Coles in-store pitch:
I checked Google search data using the SEMRush platform to which I subscribe and found that in Australia there are more than 180,000 searches with despicable Me in the search text. For Minions, the number is 472,000. That’s a ton of searches.
While plenty of the searches are for the entertainment products, plenty are for toys, games and books, a categories easy for our channel.
If you have Despicable Me and / or Minions product, my advice is to talk about it on social media and pitch it at the front of the shop or at the counter. You have nothing to lose and plenty to gain. It’s worth thin king about the various shoppers for these licences. While we at first think of them as kids products, there are plenty of adults who like the licences and collect products related to them.
I am aware of at least six suppliers with Despicable Me and Minions licences products I’d carry in the collectibles / gifting spaces.
While some newsagents may wish they had this Coles promotion, we can trade off the raised profile for these licences by being tactical.
Visual merchandising is about display products in a way that attracts people to them, top look, touch and feel. Ultimately, it is about displaying products so you sell more.
Anyone can do visual merchandising.
Here is our advice.
Start with a clean space, a flat surface, in a good location.
The best display looks like a pyramid.
Your hero product is at the top of the pyramid.
If the display is for a season or some other sign-post event, the poster should be placed with the display so shoppers can see it without having to look for it.
Flowing from the hero product down to the base of the display are other products. But not so many that you can’t see what you want people to see.
The display is balanced, even.
A display of gifts always includes cards.
If the display is promoting homewares the pyramid approach is not needed. Instead, go for something that looks more natural, like in the home.
Use coloured paper to highlight certain products. But don’t go for a rainbow.
From a colour perspective, a good display has no more than two core colours as the focus.
A display can look untidy and that is okay in some circumstances. For example, a box of Beanie Boos exploding from a box .
Mistakes are okay.
Oh, and don’t treat this as an engineering challenge. Keep it simple and fun! :
Take your time, have fun.
Remember, the alternative is no display at all.
A note to others who may be around when someone is doing their first display – we all did our first display once … be gentle.
Now, here are some more notes about displays:
In my opinion, the best displays have a narrative relevant to the business, a story or purpose. This is code for saying I am not a fan of single product or single supplier displays. suppliers love these, of course, as they are a billboard for them. What suits them will likely not suit you.
A good display is a collection of items from multiple suppliers, categories and segments that make sense together, from which a shopper could choose several for a gift, or for themselves. Choosing the items for the display us you curating the display, making editorial choices to tell the story you want to sell.
Don’t leave the display up for long. My advice is one week, two at the absolute maximum. Having a length of time for which a display will be live helps you allocate appropriate time for the creation of the display. if you are not sure how long to spend on it, set yourself and hour tops. Get it done within that time.
Once you’ve done a display, if you are new to this, ask for opinions. Learn. Each display will be an improvement on the last.
Whole the opinions of others can be nice, what matters from any display is the sales it achieves for you. be sure to track this as that data will inform your next choices.
The advice I share is something anyone can do. You don’t need a retail specialist. You don’t need advice from a supplier. You don’t have to rely on a mentor. You don’t need to use one of the overpriced business advisors governments often pitch to small business retailers.
Spend an hour on this and I am sure you will discover things you will wan t to change in your business. It’s advice I have been pitching to newsagents for 15+ years. It works.
ANALYSE GROSS PROFIT CONTRIBUTION BY FLOORSPACE ALLOCATION.
This advice outlines one of the first assessments I ask to be done when asked to review the performance of any retail business, including a retail newsagency as it provides an understanding of the return being achieved from floor space allocation.
With space usually costing between 11% and 15% of (non agency) revenue in a typical Australian newsagency, it is usually the next highest cost outside of the cost of stock itself. How you use space matters to the financial health of the business.
Spend an hour on what I suggest here and the result should be a different view of the performance of your floor space allocation. This is not advice you will get from your accountant or from reviewing your P&L or computer reports. It is designed to be practically helpful in managing your business, practically useful to those in the business.
here are the simple steps I recommend you follow:
Take a blank sheet of paper, ideally A3, and roughly sketch out the layout of your shop, marking in display units, wall shelving, the counter – everywhere you have product. There is no need to be 100% accurate.
The floor plan layout should also include your back room if you have stock there.
Colour-shade the layout by department and major category. For example, shade all areas with magazines in yellow, all floor space for gifts in blue, stationery green but pens in a different colour etc.
List the departments and categories shaded on the side of the floor plan.
Calculate the percentage of total space taken by each department or category. This does not need to be accurate to two decimal places. List this next to each department you have listed.
Use your computer system to report on gross profit earned by each department and category over the twelve months.
Calculate the percentage of total gross profit contribution earned by each department and category and list this next to the floor space allocated to each department.
Circle in green those performing the best and in red those performing the worst. A best performing department will typically be responsible for a significantly higher percentage of gross profit than percentage of space allocated whereas a worst performing department will be contributing a percentage of overall gross profit considerably lower than the percentage of floor space allocated.
Right away note down action items while the data is fresh in your head.
Have the shortest gap possible between writing down your action plan and taking action.
Once you have the marked-up floor plan with the space percentage and percentage of total gross profit, think about your current floor space allocation.
Are the results what you expected?
What would you change?
What do others in the business think?
The steps suggested do not take into account product size and the average gross profit percentage from each dollar of revenue for a department. For example, ink is a lower margin product than stationery, gifts are a higher margin magazines. Typically, the analysis will highlight challenges with lower margin product.
The objective of the analysis is to provide you with fresh insights you could use when considering floor space change.
You can take the analysis a step further by looking only at one department and analysing performance by all categories in that department.
For example, in one business I saw pens taking 7% of stationery space while they contributed more than 40% of gross profit earned from all stationery. This raised the question of what might happen if more space was allocated to pens?
Every business I have worded with that has done this analysis has made changes as a result. Everyone involved has discovered things they had not expected. That’s the goal, to introduce fresh insights.
My advice here is not overly sophisticated. This is deliberate, so that anyone can do it.
Our channel has many suppliers full of opinions as to what we should do in our businesses. Most of those offering the advice don’t own and run retail businesses themselves. The best advice you can rely on for your business is that which you discover for yourself from performance data for your own business.
If you do the data analysis I have suggested here and have questions, please reach out to me. I’d be happy to look at your results and discuss these with you. You can reach me at mark@towersystems.com.au.
I’d add that the advice here works for any type of retail business, not only newsagencies.
Now for an important footnote: it’s common for local small business retailers to put off work like this. I have seen it happen many times. In some cases I think it is because they think they know best while in other cases there is a fear of what they may discover and then there are some who say they don’t have time. None of these excuses are valid in my book.
Spend an hour and either have your current floorspace allocation validated or come out with a list of changes that pursue better business results. Either is a win.
The advice I have shared here is pare of the newsXpress knowledge base of advice to while all newsXpress members have access.
I shot this video on my iPhone on Wednesday last week. What was once a newsagency has evolved.
I bought my first newsagency in February 1996, to provide practical experience for myself and others in my newsagency software company, Tower Systems. I’ve owned newsagencies ever since. It’s been wonderfully useful, and enjoyable.
Mount Waverley is a small formal high street store in a regular suburban shopping strip. It competes with Chadstone for shoppers, and does well.
This business used to identify as a newsagency. Not any more. Today, it’s a place where people can find hugs and celebrate those they love. What it offers is covered in the website we built for the shop: www.hugsandlove.com.au.
From Squishmallows to Jellycat to ravensberger jigsaws to awesome blind boxes to Nee Doh, this shop is packed with many categories of adorable and fun items people can buy for themselves and for others.
Newsagents are tagged in the TV commercial for Australian Cars The Collection, a new partwork series launching June 10. Newsagents are the exclusive retailers of this title.
I am grateful to have seen part 1 of Australian Cars The Collection. It’s a terrific product. It feels good. We already know how much car lovers like buying magazines. This new series is sure to appeal to to current car lovers, those who appreciate nostalgia, those who love collecting and people collecting for young kids.
Each issue in Australian Cars The Collection comes with an authentic 1:43 scale die-cast metal car model. The series will feature of some of the most iconic Australian cars from the 60’ to the ‘90’s.
My advice to newsagents is to display each issue of Australian Cars The Collection in prime position at the front of the shop, to leverage the considerable spend on the TV commercial, which tags newsagents. If there is room, put it at the counter. I am confident this will be a traffic driver for our channel.
And, yes, I hear the argument about the paltry margin. We have to suck it up while we do everything we can to leverage the traffic boost. If you are tempted to early return the title, my advice is don’t. Get behind it and sell out. The launch of Australian Cars The Collection is an opportunity for us to show what our channel can do. I suspect people will be watching us to see how we handle the opportunity. It’s up to all newsagents receiving the title to not let the channel down.
Use your newsagency software to offer a putaway service, to lock those early shoppers for this title into buying future issues from you. Good newsagency software makes putaways easy with the result being a personalised label for each cutaway customer. It’s the best approach to managing any partwork series as it provide you with control and the customer with a good experience.
This launch has been almost 2 years in the planning with a company in the UK and a company based in Asia that produces diecast cars for the world market. I know that the folks at Are Direct have used their own sales data to develop the allocation model for the title. This has taken considerable planning.
It’s been a long time since we have seen a partwork launch like this. Many newsagents in the channel today would not have experienced it before. That’s one reason I am writing this post – to share that this is a good opportunity. The TV commercial alone tagging newsagents is an opportunity for us to leverage. It should land people in your shop who are not regulars. This is the opportunity.
We should use our socials to talk about the launch, leverage the front of the store as I have already noted and ensured that everyone in the business is aware of the launch and the broader opportunity for the business.
If you are one of the 1,800+ newsagents using the Tower Systems newsagency software, please click here to access to knowledge base articles on managing cutaways.
newsXpress Mount Waverley is a corporate store, it’s one of our own shops where we experiment with tech and retail. It’s a shop we run on a tight budget.
In this video, Anthony from our newsXpress head office and Mark Fletcher our CEO discuss the transformation of the Mount Waverley business from 2018 to today. We also cover how this business spawned a second business, and online business, that outgrew the shop, and how it’s just launched its second online business – www.hugsandlove.com.au.
While the business identifies as a newsagency, it’s far removed from what Aussies consider to be a newsagency. It’s a gift shop, a haven for collectors and a place to shop for young kids.
This video shows how to go about changing a local high street shop on a small budget and the importance of being flexible to pivot when the world presents opportunities.
I am grateful for the opportunity to take you behind the scenes of one of our corporate stores, to show the value we harvest from being a POS software company that owns and runs retail businesses.
The first 3 metres of your shop from the front windows and door in represent your headline.
If you want to transform your newsagency and have people see your business as changed, change this space, dramatically, completely. Leave nothing as it was.
It’s this first 3 metres people will see and decide the type of shop you have. This is where you get to play against expectations, it is where you have to disrupt. Don’t give them what they expect.
Products, fixtures – they are all up for grabs in terms of the changes you bring.
If your counter is located in this space, it needs the same dramatic attention.
I think the best way to do this is one day when the shops is closed, take everything away from the first 3 metres, remove it so you have a blank slate. Set a rule for yourself that you cannot put back into the space anything that was there. It will be difficult. You’ll have the urge to put oe thing back into the space, then another. Resist this urge.
What you really want from the experience is for customers to tell you there are surprised to see you stock something you always have stocked but that they only notice now because of what you have done in the first 3 metres of the shop.
Here are four principles for making the first 3 metres of your shop work:
Declutter and Create a Visual Feast: As you place new products, keep the entrance free from clutter. Make it visually appealing. Try and not use traditional retail fixtures. Use clean lines, captivating displays, and well-maintained fixtures.
Sensory Experience: Consider incorporating subtle elements that engage other senses. Play upbeat music at the front of the shop – music people will know, showcase beautifully scented products, let people smell your type of business and enjoy it.
Storytelling Through Displays: Don’t just display products, tell a story. Create thematic displays that showcase how your products can be used or benefit the customer. Don’t have too many of an item in a display. Show less quantity but more range of products – to tell that story you want.
Interactive Elements: Make it easy for people to engage with what you sell, to touch and smell. Having products on display in a box of so old school. Take products out. Encourage touching and engaging.
The first 3 metres of the shop is the most valuable retail real estate in the shop if you make good use of it. Be in charge. Set the tone. Make a statement. Keep changing it. Show that yours is a transforming business.
If you know you need / want to transform your newsagency and your business data is not in good shape, there are steps you can take on the shop floor to drive change in the business.
In my experience, businesses often in this situation often have a traditional shop floor layout.
The advice I provide below is all about disrupting what you have as I have found this can help retailers see what they could see. It’s radical and rough, designed to seriously change things up in the business.
It is important to know that whatever you do is forever. Make these moves, watch, learn and adjust. Shops needs to be continuously evolving.
First: the old newspaper and magazine unit
If you have a traditional magazine fixture running down the business of the business with newspapers on the front facing shoppers and they enter the business: take all the stock off and rip it out. Don’t overthink it, rip it out.
This is prime retail space you should be using for products with 50% gross profit and more. Giving this space to products from which you make 25% GP and less is a bad business move.
Rip the whole unit out.
Now, using low cost basic everyday shelving, put your magazines on the back wall of the shop. What ever was in that spot needs to go somewhere else.
Basic strip shelving with brackets that hold the shelves will suffice.
Put your newspapers below, on a bottom flat shelf.
If you’ve ben putting out newspaper or magazine posters, stop. They do not increase sales.
Second: fill the freed up space.
Grab a couple of old tables, or some old wooden boxes. Create display places on the shop floor and on each tell a product category story. Bring products to this part of the shop that people might otherwise not have seen.
If you don’t have tables, look at a local op. shop, in your garage or somewhere like Amart. Spend as little as possible.
Resist using spinners here in this recovered space.
Choose products you are proud to offer.
Be sure to include products you are certain would not work for your customers – it’s important you do this to figure out what you don’t know about your customers.
Be prepared to change the displays within a week if they are not working for you.
Three: watch what happens.
The moves may be a bust. It’s okay if they are, make more changes and keep doing so until you see a good result.
You may see some early success. If you do, lean into that, do more.
If your business is that traditional that it has an old magazine and newspaper unit running down the middle of the shop, I suspect you will experience good news for that’s what I have seen in every business I have seen try it.
Have fun.
One newsagent I know who made these moves hosted a Saturday afternoon sausage sizzle so people would watch as they used a chain saw to exorcise the old magazine unit from the shop.
The key point of this first move is to disrupt your view of the business. Sure, the shop floor will be disrupted. You need to be disrupted more and that’s why you need to do something radical that you are likely to want to resist. The suggested changes could do more for you personally than the business itself.
If you want to change your retail newsagency business, no matter whether it is a traditional newsagency or one that has already seen some transformation, it starts with being sure of where you are at, it starts with your data.
Knowing where the business is at is the foundation of steps forward. This involves looking at the business from a range of angles.
Up to date profit and loss statement.
A current debtors report and a current creditors report.
A list of all monies owed by the business, both formal and informal.
Stock listing showing total value of stock.
Dead stock listing showing all items for which zero sales have been recorded in six months or more – showing the total value of this stock.
A floor map showing gross profit percentage contribution by product department / category floorspace allocation.
Total rostered hours in a week, including owners regardless of whether they are paid, and a calculation on revenue per hour.
a revenue comparison down to the category level comparing the most recent 6 months with the same 6 months a year earlier.
It’s not enough to say you want to transform your business, you need to understand where you are at and the capacity for change. The above information will provide insights as to immediate opportunities as well as the capacity of the business to fund the cost of change. This list is the starting point of what I ask for from any business I work with on transformation.
In looking through the pool of data from this list, my recommendation is to seek our easy wins that can set up for productive focus next. For example, if there is $10,000 or more in dead stock and all of that stock has long since been paid for, quit it. The freed cash and space will give you a boost. Now, to quit the stock, place it in one location, a clearance location. It could be a table, or two or more. Put it together with the same discount for all. My suggestion is 50%.
While you are quitting dead stock, work through the rest of the data to understand the business performance as it stands today and look at the comparison report for any easy green shoot opportunities you can see allied to current business categories. This could provide you with an easy first step.
As you work through your data, make a list of ideas, action items. It could be that on that list there are some easy wins you’d not seen before or had been ignoring.
Some retailers I have spoken with over the years about business transformation or improvement have been tempted to use their accountant to guide them. I think this is a mistake unless the accountant has current hands-on retail experience in your type of shop. Others have been keen to use a business consultant. Unless they have current retail experience in your area, I’d not engage with them.
My point here is that it’s your business. You are at a point of wanting change, transformation. The next steps are up to you and best done by you so that you own the changes.
This first step starts with gathering the data, cleaning house and getting fit.
All of this work is about getting you match fit for more considerable change, that comes next.
Footnote: I’ve owned newsagencies since 1996. I’ve been a Director of newsXpress since 2005. I started Tower Systems in 1981. While I am no guru, I have had a range of experiences that have helped me see the value of changing our businesses, transforming them beyond the traditional and doing so on a minimal budget. If you are embarking on the transformation and what to talk to someone, I’m here: mark@towersystems.com.au or 0418 321 338.
Looking at sales in your newsagency from January through April 2024 versus 2023 is useful. Knowing your results is more important than the noise from news outlets on retail sales.
While it’s not a full-on benchmark, I’ve seen data for enough businesses to share the following as reasonable results with which to compare your business when looking at sales for the first four months of this year compared to the same period in 2023 for traditionally core categories:
Magazine unit sales: down 8%.
Newspaper unit sales: down 5%.
Stationery sales: up 3%.
Card sales: up 2%.
If your results are outside these, consider what you are doing in the business to change the situation. There could be a good reason your numbers are different. It could also be that the business is challenged in ways you can positively impact.
There are many things we can do in our businesses to drive sales growth. The key is taking action to achieve this. Success won’t seek us out, we have to seek it. Please forgive this cliche … but it is true.
Stationery is having a good moment, growing sales is easy. cards, too, respond to care and attention from you, especially if you are tactical in chasing the impulse purchase.
The big winner is gifts. What we can sell in our shops has changed so much. The price range we can offer has changed too. Gone are the days of newsagents targeting gifts that cost $25.00 or less. I love hearing from newsagents when they have sold their first $300+ item – it opens their mind to expanding their gift offer further.
I own a newsagency on Glenferrie Road Malvern, in Melbourne. For decades it was a traditional newsagency, owned and well run by one family: huge in magazine sales and strong in newspapers, cards and stationery.
Since I bought the business we have engaged in evolving the business while not anting to hard the existing core. It’s working. We are attracting new shoppers and winning new category revenue while maintaining good core sales.
Switching card companies provided a huge boost and continuous evolution of the card mix in the 2+ years. Introducing gifts is working well as is the introduction of sensory products, multi-generational plush as well as homewares.
What we stopped early on that helped too: we got rid of the drinks fridge, the ice-cream fridge, candy at the counter and 20% of the magazine space. Now, in cutting the magazine space, we did not cut any titles – we have maintained excellent magazine sales: $100,000 in January through April 2024. Special interest titles are the biggest segment, accounting for $20,000 in sales in the first four months this year.
All of this has been done on a minimal budget in a step-by-step approach, following opportunities revealed in the data.
Please take a moment and compare your January through April 2024 with 2023. See what’s working and what’s not. If you see in this things that need attention, get to it. If you are not sure what your comparison shows, feel free to reach out. I’d be happy to take a look and comment back to you on a confidential basis. I’m at mark@towersystems.com.au or 0418 321 338.
