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Newsagency opportunities

Photo background remover tip

Remove BG www.remove.bg is the best tool I have ever used to quickly and easily remove backgrounds from photos.

Before:

After:

And, with a black background:

From the 3 images above you can see the value of a quick tweak of an image, especially if you plan to use it online.

From the taking of the photo through to the final image, it took less than a minute.

We’ve been using this in the newsXpress community for ages along with other graphic design and adjustment tools for better images. remove BG is a must-have in the toolkit. It’s 100% free.

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newsagency marketing

Leveraging the Better Homes and Gardens opportunity

It’s terrific when there is a feature in a magazine of products you have in-store. This is the case with the latest Better Homes and Gardens magazine.

We have the magazine open and placed with the products it showcases, products we usually carry.

What a treat!

And, yes, this is a display in a newsagency. It is placed at thew front of the store so passers-by can see it and, hopefully, enter as a result.

Homewares is one of the best performing categories in newsagencies right now, delivering good year on year growth, good stock turns and good margins. Plus we have access plenty of suppliers in this space.

Footnote: while the publisher may want a display that’s all about their magazine, this display we have created does more for magazine and homewares sales, and that is what matters to us as the retailer.

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Newsagency opportunities

Having fun with Valentine’s Day in the newsagency

Where there is the traditional approach to Valentine’s Day in the newsagency of celebrating love, there is also the opportunity of having fun. The Valentine’s Day cards from the dog and from the cat cards are one example of this opportunity – these cards offer retailers an opportunity to subtly poke fun at the day, for us to not take ourselves too seriously.

Big retailers, of course, are all in, at one high-volume level, with front of store displays and, primarily, focussed on cliche items like chocolates, cheap plush sold at a premium price, flowers and cards. By playing with the quirky and at the fringe, I think we have an opportunity to stand out.

That’s what we are doing. Through some social media posts and in other ways, we are pitching an alternative, fun Valentine’s Day. Okay, we offer the traditional cards and are pitching them – but even there we are trying to be less commercial and more 2022 in the pitch. We really don’t want to get lost or unnoticed in the big retailer Valentine’s Day noise as that’s a cacophony that local retailers are less likely to win from.

I like the dog and cat card because they are niche and quirky, because they give us permission for some fun. So, that’s what’s we have been doing already on socials and in-store.

The more we play outside what is expected the more we are likely to be remembered. This is vital for our local retail businesses … and, seasons like Valentine’s Day provide is the perfect platform on which to speak to outpoints of difference, without being too obvious.

For the more traditional, but still nuanced, pitch, here;’s what we have at the counter at one of our stores.

I say nuanced because of the card selection chosen for the counter.

And, here’s what we have for Valentines Day inside the shop door. This is in a shop serving primarily retirees.

That’s not it though. We are pitching Valentine’s Day in three different locations in-store, to make the most of the opportunities its and knowing that shoppers will pass a pitch twice before noticing it the third time.

Valentine’s Day offers a unique opportunity in 2022 to pitch something to distract from the messy and challenging Covid situation and the heightened poison of this being an election year in Australia. It’s a distraction, a welcome distraction. The dog and cat card are, to me, a perfect example of welcome distraction that we can play with.

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Greeting Cards

The power of a podcast

There’s a niche product we sell that ticks over, usually selling somewhere around 10 units a week through the year and delivering $17,000 a year in revenue.

It had been out of stock so when we could order again we went hard, and just as well. On Monday the product featured in a podcast episode. This week we have sold over 100 units.

While the experience has changed our view of the product and what is possible with it, the bigger story for us is that usually a third of our sales for this product come from in-store. This week, 100% have come from online with a third of those customers also purchasing something else.

Being online is key in business today. Being easily found online is even better.

On the street, people will browse based on what they see. we configure our businesses to leverage this.

Online, most purchases are intended, sought out, based on what people want. Data confirm this.

We were lucky that the podcast referenced the product, that we had stock, that we had a website and that we came up in search results. 

Any newsagent can do this.

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newsagency of the future

Crosswords the powerhouse magazine segment in Aussie newsagencies

Looking deeper at the November 2021 sales data compared to 2019 for the newsagency businesses in the benchmark mix I wrote about last week … crosswords is a powerhouse segment in newsagencies.

While sales of women’s weeklies (New Idea, Woman’s Day etc) is far greater, crosswords account for, on average, 8.5% of all magazines sold. This is significant with most of these sales being for titles that are only in newsagencies.

Crossword shoppers are loyal, more likely to return to you if they know you stock the niche titles in which they are interested.

Crossword shoppers are more valuable. Our of all the magazine shoppers, they are more likely to buy cards, a high margin category and more likely to buy jigsaws, another good margin category.

Crossword shoppers respond to loyalty offers. Whether it’s an amount off based on purchase value or a future benefit from today’s purchases, they engage with loyalty programs and therefore are stickier to the business.

Crossword shoppers dwell. Dwell time increases shopper visit value in a well laid-out shop.

Crossword shoppers stick together. They talk, share their love of the puzzle and this word of mouth can help you find more shoppers.

The performance of crossword titles is better than most other magazine segments. This also makes it valuable.

While the paltry margin from crosswords is frustrating, it’s a product segment we can leverage and from which we can drive value by being engaged retailers and following the opportunities revealed in data.

I recommend having crosswords in two places within magazines, their traditional home and in a column next to weeklies. I’d also post about crosswords on social media as different titles speak to different co-horts of value: large print, cryptic and word circle are good examples of these. Talk about them as a good gift for young and old.

One of the best things you could try is a crossword lover club that meets up at your newsagency. I suspect they’d love this to meet fellow puzzlers and to be seen, it shows that you as a specialist retailer see their interest and respect it.

Crosswords are valuable in the newsagency. Take a look at your range and consider working with the distributor to expand it. Growth in crosswords will deliver growth elsewhere in the business.

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crosswords

Strong November retail sales in small business newsagencies

I am grateful to the 56 newsagents who quickly shared their November 2021 vs. November 2019 sales results so I could compare and see how the channel appears to be faring this year. the dataset is a mix of businesses, city and country, in marketing groups and not. All bar two were not in major capital city shopping centres.

I compared 2021 with 2019 so as to check-in with pre-Covid trading and now, with relatively open retail settings.

After comparing data from all 56 businesses here are the averages for business performance measurement points and categories, comparing 2021 with 2019:

  • Revenue: Up 27%.
  • Sales count: Down 6%.
  • Basket value: Up 43%.
  • Items per basket: Up 10%.
  • Average item value: Up 38%.
  • Greeting card revenue: Up 24%.
  • Magazines unit sales: Down 15%.
  • Toy revenue: Up 45%.
  • Gift revenue: Up 30%.
  • Stationery revenue: Up 9%.

There are other categories but I’m not reporting them here as the dataset is small. For example, jewellery. I have data for five businesses and the growth is excellent, but the numbers are too small. Similar niche categories are: jigsaws,  calendars, baby, homewares and garden … all delivering excellent results.

Several businesses reported no revenue growth and several others with extraordinary growth.

It is in the average item value and items per basket where we see the value for a business in that the value compounds. Now, if you can get more shoppers returning, that compounds further.

Of particular interest is the ratio of gift revenue to cards. The goal here now is $3 to $1. Some were at $.5 to $1 and others at $10 to $1. The gap in performance is considerable. Any newsagency business can sustain excellent gift revenue. I have seen this in small towns of around 1,000 people in the area through to capital city businesses. When it comes to gift revenue, population size is not the mot important factor, your range choices and in-store engagement are.

Overall, this benchmark is showing excellent results – good growth not only in revenue but good growth in overall business GP%. This is vital as selling higher GP% items sets the business to be able to sustain a revenue decline without profit decline.

The newsagency channel is healthy. The average newsagency is reporting a revenue surge and a GP surge. Newsagents have every right to be happy. Well done to everyone involved.

…

I own and run three newsagencies. Over the years I have had three others. I own newsXpress, the newsagency marketing group.

Footnote: I usually do newsagency sales benchmark studies comparing 3 and 6 month periods. 1 month is too small to call a tree on. However, it does provide an insight that can be useful not only in terms of performance but also in terms of transition, and that is evident in the data from this benchmark. More newsagents are evolving outside the lanes traditional to newsagency businesses.

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Newsagency benchmark

Hiring for my newsagency software company help desk

My newsagency software company, Tower Systems, is hiring for a new POS software help desk role in Melbourne. If you know of someone with good tech knowledge and customer service experience in retail, they could be ideal for this role. Knowledge on the Tower software would be helpful, but not essential. While the company has recently recruited for new roles interstate, this role is Melbourne based, working out of our Hawthorn head office.

If you know anyone who could be interested, please have them email me: mark@towersystems.com.au.

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Newsagency opportunities

Updated advice for new newsagents

Six years ago I published advice for new newsagents covering a range of areas of newsagency management. Here is my revised advice for new newsagents:

There is plenty to learn for the new newsagent and plenty an old hand can forget. I am often asked about important day to day operational tasks in running a newsagency so I started putting together a list. It’s an evolving work in progress, something I am happy to share with anyone – not as a definitive list of what you need to be on top of in running your newsagency business but something at least you can check against.

But, before we get into the list, let’s consider the biggest challenge / opportunity. What type of newsagency do you want to run? A retail business or an agency. A retail business is value focussed – value from sales volume, product Martin and shopper visit efficiency. An agency is about making a clip from each transaction ‘owned’ by another party like newspapers, magazines, lotteries. A retail focussed business will be more valuable over the long term while the agency business can appear easier to run.

You drive business value by playing at the boundaries of the business, broadening what you sell, the price points you can achieve and the new faces you can attract. I think it is vital for new newsagents to invest time and capital in this – broadening the appeal, and value, of the business, as that is what will play best when it comes time to sell.

Now, to the updates list of every day work in a newsagency:

  1. MAGAZINES.
    1. Arrive invoices through XchangeIT – no other way.
    2. Only sell magazines by scanning. Never use department keys.
    3. Do not label all magazines. Do not label weeklies or high volume monthlies.
    4. When returning magazines, scan out returns. Do this at least weekly.
    5. Do not early return magazines the day they arrive unless you have been sent too many. Often newsagent who early return deny the opportunity of sales.
    6. Early return at least twice a month – based on what is NOT selling.
    7. If you have sub agents – only supply them through the sub agent facilities in your newsagency software.
    8. Check your magazine account as soon as it comes in to ensure you have received all credits.
    9. Pay your magazine bills on time without fail – avoid being cut off for weeks without magazines.
    10. You control where magazines are placed, it is your shop. Do not be told by publisher reps where magazines should go.
    11. You do not have to put posters in the window. I recommend against this.
    12. You do not have to do big magazine displays – it is your choice. I see no evidence of it increasing sales.
    13. I recommend against letting magazine companies set up display unless you think they will help drive sales.
  1. NEWSPAPERS.
    1. You control where newspapers are placed, it is your shop.
    2. If you are regularly undersupplied, complain to the publisher as well as the supplying newsagent (if you do not have a direct account).
    3. Scan all newspapers you sell.
    4. Scan all newspaper returns – accurate data will be your friend in the event of a dispute
    5. You do not have to put out newspaper posters or place newspapers in a certain position unless you have signed a contract with a publisher agreeing to this.
    6. Manage your exposure to promotions where you sell stock for a tiny margin.
  1. CARDS.
    1. Put out your own cards. Learn what you stock. Take ownership of this most important product category.
    2. Ideally, do your own card order. It’s your money being spent. Don’t leave this to someone else to do.
    3. Agree on an ordering process with your card co. account manager.
    4. Immediately report any over or under supply.
    5. Trust your data ahead of your gut and ahead of sell-in reports from suppliers.
    6. Pay on time or risk being cut off.
    7. Discount seasonal stock at the end of the season for a couple of days to pick up stragglers and make an extra few $$$.
  1. STAFF.
    1. Ensure everyone has a list of things to do each day.
    2. Have a documented position description against which your employees are measured.
    3. Have a written roster every week.
    4. Have a structured process for handling annual and sick leave.
    5. Use payroll software for record keeping.
    6. Pay always on time and preferably by electronic transfer.
    7. Pay super on time. Do not start someone working for you unless they have provided a super account number with their tax file number.
    8. Change your roster regularly for casuals.
  1. STOCK  AND SUPPLIERS.
    1. Only see supplier reps who have made an appointment.
    2. If a supplier rep tells you something will be a success, ask for the evidence.
    3. Use your computer system to guide ordering of stock – order based on sales.
    4. Order to a budget.
    5. Scan everything you sell.
    6. Scan out personal use stock.
    7. Set your own mark-up policy for items that are not pre priced.
    8. It is easier to discount than increase prices.
    9. Do not pay for an external stock taker – do it yourself through the year.
    10. Check high theft risk items like weekly or fortnightly.
    11. Arrive and price stock on the shop floor, and not the back room. You’ll sell more this way.
  1. SHOP LEASE.
    1. Pay on time otherwise you could be locked out.
    2. Do not agree to a new lease unless you have read the entire document and are prepared to agree to it in its entirety.
    3. Conduct discussions with your landlord in writing to maintain a paper trail.
  1. GST.
    1. Complete your BAS on time and make any necessary payment – to reduce the opportunity for you being audited.
  1. FINANCE AND OTHER MATTERS.
    1. If you borrowed to get into your business, start paying this off from the first week, make progress everyweek. This avoids you having a challenge when you come to sell the business.
    2. Pay yourself a wage or at least accrue this in the accounts.
    3. Integrate with accounting software like Xero – keep bookkeeper costs down.
    4. Ensure workcover (workers comp.) cover is up to date and maintained.
    5. Ensure you have appropriate council permits for what you sell – i.e. food.
    6. Have a structured banking process that ensures that cash is tracked at all steps and at all time.
    7. Take a data backup every day. The best approach is an automated cloud backup – ask your software company.
    8. Bank every day and bank the takings for each day separately to make reconciliation easier.
    9. Use your software to manage the end of shift process to drive consistency and accuracy.

As I said at the start, this list is evolving with time. I hope it is useful to new newsagents and would be newsagents, to understand some of the day to day tasks you cannot afford to get wrong.

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Newsagency challenges

Chasing value in the newsagency

Value matters in any retail business, and and retailers have more control over value than they often think they have.

Today, I want to address value in retail in the context of product value.

The value of a product depends on the gross profit for that product, what you sell it for less what you paid for it. The real value of a product is the gross profit less the labour, and retail space costs for the product. The value of a product over a year is these things times the quantity of the product sold.

If you sell a gift for $250 with a GP% of 50%, you make $125.00. That’s the same as the GP you would make from around 380 newspapers, 85 magazines or 100 or so lottery tickets.

The challenge is to have the right higher price point items that sell at good volume to deliver more bankable margin dollars than you will make from lower margin legacy products.

This is where an engaged marketing group like my newsXpress helps its members grow profit, and through this cultivate greater value for their businesses, and from that flows enjoyment.

Can anyone sell items worth $250 or more? In my experience, yes!

But, value is about more than the ticket price of an item. Other factors include:

  • Buy price.
  • Stock turn.
  • Shrinkage.
  • Differentiation.

Too often, retailers focus only on the buy price, thinking that buying better is what matters. It’s only part of it. You can’t bank a percentage. You can only bank gross profit dollars. hence, the importance of turn.

So, buying at the right price is important as is the right product that will turn quickly, ideally, faster than items it replaces on the shop floor – thereby driving more value from that allocated space in your shop.

I see plenty of retailers restricting what they can achieve in their business by deciding what won’t work, without even trying it. I’ll try just abut anything and let my customers tell me if it works or not. Now, of course, there are some constraints on that approach – space, capital and relevance to the overall business. But, I will certainly try products outside what is immediately assumed to be relevant.

That approach of trying things, in pursuit of growing value, has revealed plenty of opportunities I’d not have considered under the more traditional paradigm of retail. business management.

This is one of the benefits of Covid, we have permission to be more experimental in what we sell, how we sell, when we sell and where we sell. Embracing those opportunities, in pursuit of driving business value, will land rewards.

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Newsagency management

The shop early for Christmas message has cut through

Looking at Christmas related sales for a range of newsagencies and some other retailers and it is obvious that the news stories about supply chain challenges have cut through.

Across all Christmas related categories, sales are up compared to the same time in 2019. Yes, I compare with 2019 for a more authentic comparison since 2020 was Covid impacted.

Christmas single cards and Christmas boxed cards are a good indicator for our channel and both are doing very well, which is not good news for suppliers yet to deliver Christmas singles.

Gifts and toys, too, are performing very well, calendars, too. Toy shops I have spoken with say that October for them has been like the first couple of weeks of December for an average year – extraordinary sales.

The approach of shoppers appears to be if it could work as a gift, buy it now because who knows what the situation will be like next week.

Smart retailers are embracing the opportunity with easily shopped, practical placement or products people will want to give adjacent to cards, bags and wrap.

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Newsagency opportunities

CoComelon attracting new customers to the newsagency

A brand achieving YouTube video plays in the billions is sure worth considering. CoComelon is one such brand. This Bath Song video has been viewed 4.5 billion times.

In Australia, CoComelon is searched close to as many times as people search for Lego. yet, it is a brand that you will not commonly see in a newsagency.

The majors have CoComelon, as you may expect.

In my work with newsXpress I started research CoComelon, understanding what else people were searching for, understanding the shopper in the context of what we offer in our stores today. That research revealed a niche opportunity allied to another category segment doing well for us. CoComelon offered an opportunity to expand reach and to be seen by shoppers not currently seeing the business.

Now, with the brand well established in-store, it is kicking goals, attracting new shoppers as well as driving impulse purchases from existing shoppers.

But, my point today is not abut CoComelon as such. Rather, it is about using data to help uncover new shopper traffic opportunities. This is where expansion, growth, get their footing. Playing with new brands and new segments within categories is vital to our retail business journey.

From a small in-store stock weight, we have been able to deliver consistently good results already.

There is this product and allied product and then there are cards and gift packaging. It’s the whole opportunity value we are looking at and chasing when considering a marquee brand like CoComelon. This is where the data research plays a role for it is in here that we can see what the CoComelon shopper is looking for, what they are buying.

Back in the day a supplier would say, hey you should stock this, and often we would. Today, I am seeing better value from researching, chasing suppliers, often new suppliers, and discussing where the brand / range fits within the business strategy. Because this is all about being strategic from planning to buying to floor placement to social media narratives. This is where our small business nimbleness can play a role in driving success.

I use a range of commercial tools to assist the analysis. Having multiple sources helps facilitate accurate data and accurate data fuels better decisions.

I look not only for volume but also longevity, so that the pay back period for investment will fit something more useful than a fad product.

This is what newsagency management looks like today, researching, looking for new traffic opportunities, chasing data down rabbit holes and backing the evidence in the data. It is exciting in that for every ten or so we investigate, we are lucky if one is worth pursuing.

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Newsagency management

10 things you could do in your newsagency business to make it more valuable when you choose to sell

Here are 10 things newsagents could do in their businesses to make them more valuable when it comes time to sell. based on my years of experience working with newsagents and, yes, owning newsagency businesses, most items on this list will be ignored most of the time.

  • Declutter. An appealing looking business is easier to sell. On the shop floor, at the counter, in the back room – declutter and make the business more appealing to you, prospective buyers and customers.
  • Deal with old stock. Old stock is worthless to you and anyone being the business. Keeping it is a waste of space, time and cash. This work starts with you knowing what is old stock. Note: a business doing this for the first time will usually find that a third of their current stock is performing well below what is average for the business.
  • Review unprofitable activity. Look carefully at each category of product or service you offer. Get to an accurate understanding of the value of each. Consider quitting those that are under performing.
  • Trim the roster. Labour costs around 11% of revenue. Every dollar saved is a dollar that benefits the P&L. Yes, this likely means more hours for you. It all depends what you want out of the business.
  • Price for margin. While plenty of retailers pressure suppliers for lower prices, too few actively consider what they could sell some items for, missing the opportunity for a better margin. Where you can, price for a better margin.
  • Document. Write up your processes, systems you follow and more. Document this and make the business easier to run and appear easier to run. The documenting process itself is likely to lead to efficiency opportunities uncovered. The resulting documentation will make the business more appealing.
  • Clean up online. Review your Facebook, Google and other listings. Make sure they are current for if they are not it reflects poorly on the business.
  • Reduce debt. I see too many retail businesses where debt is used with an expectation that it will be dealt with when the business is sold. Clean it up now as much as you are able. The less interest you pay the more money the business makes.
  • Review opening hours. Often in business data I see opening hours opportunities – either for longer hours or shorter hours. be guided by your business data.
  • Balance sheet clean up. While selling a retail business will often not include selling the company structure, the tidiness of your balance sheet may not be ideal for that time you do come to sell. It’s better you discover this and work on it prior to needing to.

This list could be considerably longer. My goal is to encourage newsagents top consider what they can do in their businesses today to make them more valuable when they do choose to sell.

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buying a newsagency

Early Father’s Day 2021 sales success for small business newsagents

Looking at comprehensive Father’s Day card sales data for a number of newsagencies reveals some terrific results. I am not sharing this as channel-wide results. Rather, the results are the results for the five businesses.

Here is data for the 5 retailers up to the weekend just gone:

These results are excellent.

The factors for success include going out early with product and offering range from more than one supplier.

Now, looking at the results more deeply, this next table shows sales by segment.  Included is the number of stores that participated in that segment because  it shows some segments that are punching about their weight.  Eg Husband, Pa.

Not shown above, for privacy reasons, but in the data provided is evidence of opportunity for at least two retailers where they have bought some captions from a supplier but not others. Looking at their performance compared to retailers with a broader range of captions and we can see missed opportunity.

As part of the performance analysis, we looked at the difference it makes having the niche cards in the mix. In every store that carried niche diversity shows they add about 35% to 40% of Father’s Day card sales.

But we are not sharing this to drive Father’s Day for you as that season is all but over for 2021. Rather, we are sharing this because achieving growth in card sales is possible. We can help. Our data analysis / data insights approach is key to excellent card sales growth in participating newsXpress businesses.

Too often, newsagents put out a seasonal range, keep the display tidy, and take it down at the end of the season with the next time of engagement being either agreeing to the order for next year or receiving the stock for next year. I think this is a mistake, a missed commercial opportunity.

Diving deep into your own business performance data, even for a modest season like Father’s Day, can reveal opportunities that you can leverage for sales success. That is what some of the retailers in the small dataset above have done. And to be clear, the success noted above only documents card performance. Once you add in related gift performance you can see terrific financial value from this deeper data engagement.

The work I am outlining here, the data collection and analysis work, is part of the newsXpress intellectual property around greeting card sales performance and management for success. What I have shared here is a peak into a much bigger offering from newsXpress that is helping retailers significantly grow card sales.

Greeting cards are the best margin product in a newsagency. They respond to engagement. That is, it is easy to grow their sales. Card customers are sticky, they return if they like the range and experience. You can bank on the results from engagement with cards.

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Greeting Cards

Videos of 4 free workshops this week for local small business retailers on how to take your business online

Monday through Thursday this week I hosted four free workshops covering a range of topics related to creating POS software connected Shopify sites and how to drive traffic to them. The goal was to share insights and offer free advice and training for retailers looking to grow online sales.

All up, the four sessions covered close to six hours.

Here are videos of the workshops for anyone interested. If you are considering a website for your business, buyer beware. There are plenty of shonky business people in the web development space. My hope is that the four workshops share information that you find useful in navigating a path to growing your online sales.

This last session is all about writing good blog posts and how they play a key role in driving traffic.

We are grateful to the retailer who participated.

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Newsagency management

Advice for small business retailers on making their own Covid support package

I am tired of the news reports about businesses doing it tough through Covid and calls for government support. I get that asking someone else to give you cash feels like an easy answer, but it’s not the answer.

Covid has been with us long enough for us to be able to deal better with it and the associated challenges ourselves, long enough for us to have our own plan. It will be here long into the future, too. We knew a pandemic was coming, just like we know that extraordinary disruption from climate change is coming, hell, it’s already here for too many.

Here is what we know, and have known for well over a year.

How people shop, when people shop and where people shop has changed fundamentally. Online has grown and continues to grow. People shop more with purpose now. There is less browsing. More people work from home permanently. What interests people has changed. People think more about the future now. People are less physically connected now, and more connected as a result. Australian made is more interesting to shoppers now. Shopping local counts for more than it used to. Tech barriers from before have been overcome: think QR codes, click and collect and the number of people shopping online for the first time.

These are some of the changes Covid has brought our way and in each of these is opportunity. While some business owners ask governments for cash to deal with today, it’s tomorrow that will really challenge as what Covid has kicked off and pushed forward will not u-turn.

We need to make our own Covid support package as it is this package that will be more useful to us in the future.

  • Expand sources of revenue. Carry products and services that attract people who have not shopped with you before. Expanding your shopper reach insulates your business.
  • Smooth the peaks. Look at your key business data points: sales by product category, sales by supplier, sales by staff member. Look at the peaks in these and if they are considerably higher than average, lift others so you are less reliant on the peaks.
  • Expand your sales points. Having only the in-store sales counter as a sale point is a risk. Make sure you are online through your own website, on eBay and on social media so people can purchase where they want. Selling to people you will never see is key.
  • Nurture loyalty. Run an easily understood loyalty program that differentiates your business.
  • Chase efficiency. Efficient shopper visits have more items in the basket. Develop a strategy for driving this. It starts with understanding your current position.
  • Entrench in the community. Supporting the community groups that support you is good for business. Doing this in a consistent and mutually understood way delivers benefits that can insulate the business when rocky roads present.
  • Be frugal. Covid has taught us the value of having money in the bank. The trimmed roster, reduced inventory in the back room, lower overheads, early settlement discount taken … they all free cash that can be banked for when you will need it.
  • Reduce debt. Every additional dollar you pay off business debt is a saving greater than the dollar itself.
  • Look for the pivot. Keep asking yourself what if this or what if that. Think about pivot opportunities in those situations. Always have a pivot move or two and, if it makes sense, pivot early, ahead of the need.
  • And, have your shop reflect how people shop now: make it easier, safer, serving quick shopping, packaging bundles, offer browsing without touching.

By being actively engaged in these and allied areas in your business you can create your own insulation against the challenges of Covid or similar. These suggestions and others they trigger make up  your own made Covid support package.

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Management tip

The opportunity to grow newsagency card sales in this pandemic impacted economy

Here is a video of a meeting last week between newsXpress and Henderson Greetings card experts in which the data-driven process that is at the core of excellent card sales growth is outlined.

The data-driven process outlined is newsXpress intellectual property. It leverages data collected and curated buy the Tower software, layers over this in-store evidence and then brings to life card company data.

The result is excellent year on year card sales revenue growth.

I hope the video encourages newsagents to actively engage with cards, to take control in pursuit of revenue growth.

And, yes, there is a subtle newsXpress marketing pitch here. newsXpress brings excellent experience to this, in rural, regional and high street suburban newsagencies. To find out more: help@newsxpress.com.au.

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Greeting Cards

SPECIAL EVENT: Growing card sales in the middle of a pandemic. Wednesday August 4 @ 2pm.

Join me this Wednesday as I talk with card data and sales experts from newsXpress, Henderson and Waterlyn about how newsagents have grown card sales during the pandemic, in some cases adding tens of thousands of dollars to their business profitability.

See newsagency data evidence of the growth and details of the steps involved.

Cards are the most gross profit valuable product in any newsagency. Manage them for success and your P&L will be rewarded, and your business will be worth more.

Let’s talk about how you can do this. Wednesday, August 4 @ 2pm. Here is the link:

https://zoom.us/j/91712938524?pwd=ZVRjQ3kzSHpRQ280bFR5Qzl0RllOUT09
Meeting ID: 917 1293 8524 Passcode: 367015

Anyone is welcome. Join us for practical advice you can use in your newsagency business. Discover intellectual property you can bank on.

If you have any questions, email help@newsxpress.com.au.

Footnote: I am a director of newsXpress.

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Newsagency management

Covid lockdown To-Do list for newsagents and other local small business retailers

Here in Melbourne we are in our fifth Covid lockdown. As well as owning POS software company and working with local small business retailers every day, I also own three retail businesses and several online businesses.

This Covid lockdown To-Do list for local small business retailers is practical advice you can action without cost, to make the most of the lockdown opportunity.

Whether your shop is closed or open but with less traffic, now is an ideal time to work on your business.

  • List what’s not sold. Run a report listing all inventory in the business that has not sold at all this year. This list gives you a starting point for action. We did this last week for one customer and identified $15,000 worth of dead stock, stock the owner to that point was not focussed on.
  • Act on what’s not sold. Dead stock is dead weight. If you have long since paid for it, cents in the dollar for it is better than nothing.
  • Look at what’s been selling with what. Often the items in the same basket are not seen by retailers as items you can put together. This list, which you should be able to get from your POS software, can guide shop floor placement changes.
  • Front to back clean. Literally, start at the front of the shop and work your want to the back. Clean every single product. We often find that the act of holding every product leads to decisions about some products, decisions we might otherwise not have made. We have just done this at one of our own Westfield shops and the decisions we made along the way have been liberating.
  • Work on your roster. Look at what usually sells by day of week and by time. Your POS software should be able to help with this. Take time to review your roster to ensure it is set appropriately. Labour is usually the top or second highest cost in a retail business outside of inventory.
  • Reset the front third of the store. Look carefully at that front third of your store. Make bold changes simply by moving things, so that when shoppers return they see things they’ve not noticed before.
  • Prepare social media content that leverages you. Using your phone, film short videos of you or a team member talking about products. Prepare these to load over time on Facebook, Instagram and more. Have fun.
  • If you have a website for the business, write blog posts as they are absolutely the single best thing you can do to attract traffic to the website. A blog post should be single topic, pitch a consistent keyword at least five times and be over 350 words. We have a lot of experience with this and note, again, this is the single most effective online marketing for a website. The only investment is your time – don’t outsource this.
  • Learn something new. Ask your POS software company for the best report in the software to reveal what you are unlikely to know about your business. Run that report. Read it. Make a list of things you could do. Act on it.
  • Be a shopfitter. Shopfitters are expensive. Look at an area of your shop that you want to change that you would usually hire a shoplifter to handle. Think through how you can do it yourself. I know many retailers who have done this and vowed to not use shopfitters for such changes in the future.
  • If you are online, undertake a data driven review of your website. Look at your traffic and the traffic of your competitors. Review your site and theirs. Look for opportunities to attract more shoppers to your site based on the data. Whoever developed your website should be able to collate this data for you.
  • Personally: refresh. If you can take a break from business, even for an hour a day, read fiction, listen to music you love, go for a walk outside. These nourishing things can help reset mood and that could help you discover new opportunities for your business.

My POS software company, Tower Systems, is a local Aussie POS software company serving 3,500+ local small business retailers, many newsagents, with POS software and beautiful Shopify websites. Beyond this, we also offer retail business management advice and help to our customers every day.

Thanks for reading. have an awesome rest of your weekend …

Mark Fletcher | mark@towersystems.com.au.

16 likes
Newsagency management

Christmas in July takes on a new meaning for retailers

With uncertainty about product availability out of China, which has in-part been fuelled by some shrill mainstream media reporting over the last week, going out early with Christmas in retail makes sense.

We have gently pitched Christmas through part of July and its worked a treat in our shops. But, it has been different to other years. This year, we have been at full price, offering range as a service. And, it has been selling.

Covid has people purchasing differently, and not only because of the most recent lockdowns. This is something that we saw from mid last year. Planners will buy early, earlier than usual. Non planners are responding to Covid by bringing forward purchases, too.

Outside of Christmas we see the impact of people nervous about supply for when they want items. In greeting cards and gifts, especially, we see people buying now for later giving. It’s interesting, something were first saw in the early months of covid that that has grown as the impact of the pandemic has continued through the calendar.

These are opportunities for retailers, newsagents especially, as in our channel there is likely to be more stock from last year (and before?) stored somewhere, which people may buy now, because of Covid. Also, there are suppliers with some Christmas stock from .last year that you could have in-store in a few days. These are all opportunities to convert to cash otherwise items that today are not delivering value for the business.

Now, if you have not embraced raced Christmas in July, there is nothing stopping you going out now or next week. These people being out of lack of supply in the future fear will appreciate it.

My advice is have a location in–store designated as early Christmas opportunities. Place the product as a service. Don’t discount. Speak to it several times on social media, let people know you have those who want to shop early covered. And, if anyone asks or complains, explain that it’s in response to requests. This is you providing a customer service.

This should not be a fear driven campaign. rather, it’s focus should be customer service.

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Newsagency management

Crosswords: the one magazine category you can count on

Crossword magazine sales continue to be strong in newsagencies. They grew last year through the early months of Covid and have performed well since.

The keys to success are range of types and titles, grouped location in the magazine department, plenty of full-face displays and customer service.

Crosswords are efficient in that crossword shoppers are more likely to purchase other items – they have a more efficient basket for the business.

Crossword shoppers are more likely to purchase jigsaws, pens and craft products. I say this based on newsagency shopping basket analysis. Plus, crossword shoppers actively encourage others to join them in their passion for crosswords.

My advice to newsagents is to check in with what you are doing re crosswords, look for an opportunity to do more, do better. The response typically will be a boost in sales, which we’d all like. Oh, and by more I mean: a refreshed display, co-location at the counter of some titles, pitching on social media, being active with what is placed next to crosswords and rewarding loyalty as the crossword shopper is likely to be your most loyal magazine shopper.

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crosswords

Taking the trade show experience to small business retailers

I am grateful to have participated in a tour of the new showroom display at ISAlbi a few days ago, getting to see hundreds of new products and find out about stories that can be told through the new ranges.

I took more than 400 photos. The next day, I filmed a one hour Zoom where those of us at the showroom walk-through spoke to what we say, commenting on items and exploring how to bring the opportunities to life in-store.

Once the Zoom video was completed I loaded it to a video platform for newsXpress members, so they could see the products in detail, hear the discussion and access the new products and collateral associated with them to drive sales.

This approach of collecting video and photo assets and packaging them in a form that retailers can access from anywhere and at any time, with appropriate security measures in place, is just one way the world is changing in the retail space, one way we, marketing groups and suppliers, are able to work together to bring new product opportunities to life for retailers.

What’s interesting about what we saw is the new product categories available for retailers as it is through these that we can find new shoppers, the lifeblood of retail. From home decor to art to garden to self care to fun to environmentally aware, the ranges are broad enough for a retailer to map out a year of buying, with designated drops, to enable the business to be regularly refreshed all from the one engagement based on what’s in the video.

Plenty of suppliers have found other ways of connecting with their customers and finding new customers. I think the extent of change in this space will challenge trade show businesses into the future.

When I was in the Albi showroom, I saw account managers hosting FaceTime visits with retailers, showing product through their phone camera.

Now, from a newsXpress perspective, it shares with newsXpress members the video we shot and then offers a shopper service for anyone interested, based on what interests retailers. This is underpinned baby budgeting, floorspace and ranging advice. These and related services play into the changes engaged retailers are leveraging. Covid kicked the changes off. Now, plenty of changes have stuck, because people have realised they work better.

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Newsagency management

Growing gift packaging revenue in newsagencies

Gift packaging – bags, wrap, tissue, accessories – is often a neglected category in a retail newsagency business.

Outside of our newsagency channel, a card and gift retailer can see 20% of their total card / gift packaging revenue come from gift packaging. In our channel, the number is usually somewhere between 5% and 10%.

Gift packaging has been a focus in one of my shops over the last six months. It was accounting for 3.7% of revenue within cards/gift packaging. Looking at our most recent data this morning, it is contributing 6.2% of total gift packaging revenue. This growth is even better considering the overall card/gift packaging revenue growth of 36% being achieved.

Thinking of gift packaging more broadly, here are gift packaging revenue contribution percentages by segment a key supplier in this space shared with me as a benchmark:

  • Bags: 37%.
  • Rolls: 30%.
  • Tissue: 11%.
  • Folded wrap: 11%.
  • Accessories: 7%.
  • Wrap flat (sheets): 4%.

I share this because one way we are growing our packaging revenue is by looking at sales for each segment carefully.

The tissue segment contributing 11% of overall gift packaging revenue has surprised some I have discussed these percentages with. They felt it was too high. Considering the innovation in the tissue space and seeing this product in my own shops, I see the 11% as a useful benchmark, and one I want to pass.

While, for sure, growth in gift packaging revenue relies on having access to products your customers want. Your engagement is key, it is the starting point for change. Your engagement will drive supplier engagement. As I am seeing in so many cases now, excellent growth is there for the taking.

Check out your year on year gift packaging results. Compare your segment revenue contribution to the benchmarks shared here. You may discover an opportunity to manage for success.

Data is the key here, good data. Good data is key to good business decisions. Your data is far more useful and relevant than supplier sell-in data. While there is a place for supplier data and insights, when it comes to your shop and decisions on range, captions and placement, your data will matter the most.

My advice to all newsagents is – take ownership of the card / gift packaging area of the business. It will reward your attention with revenue growth, good margin revenue growth.

6 likes
Greeting Cards

Time for an EOFY sale

The next few weeks provide an excellent opportunity to bring out everything you want to quit to the front of the store under the banner of EOFY SALE.

Let it go as the song says, quit the stock with prices that will see that achieved in days, not weeks.

EOFY is the one time when copying big retailers makes sense. You can ride the noise of their ad campaigns re EOFY.

Keep it simple: no pretty displays, this is all about a price offer, front of store, to attract people who are walking past.

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Newsagency opportunities
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