A blog on issues affecting Australia's newsagents, media and small business generally. More ...

retail

Branding the newsagency

The next step of our work with our new newsagency in Frankston is to switch from the current Newspower branding. For the last three and a half weeks, we have been making changes inside the business in advance of our coming out under the newsXpress brand. As with any cultural and operational change, it has to come from the inside out.

The most significant change has been to focus the offering of the business. Many newsagents are lured into thinking that to compete they have to sell cheap stationery and gifts. While the margin be great, the poor quality, in my view, gives off the wrong message. So, over three weeks we have repositioned this business and while the job is not done, we are ready to put on a new face – hopefully before Christmas. Here’s an incomplete design of the plans:

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The planned recapping is the first of several physical changes to the business. It is a challenge because we need to get this done while continuing to trade and in a way which will work with a more significant re-fit internally early in 2008. The changes planned for next year are a raised ceiling – of plaster and not the traditional tiled type.

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newsagency marketing

Watergardens update

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newsXpress Watergardens has been open almost two months and as with any new business plenty has changed in a short period of time. We are developing some valuable learnings from the new business, especially in the gifts, ink, magazine and stationery areas.

What has been most interesting is watching the development of our team as none (other than Ben Kay, Manager) had newsagency experience. While they have learnt the processes unique to our channel, we have learnt more from their diverse retail backgrounds. It is the breadth of retail experience which is helping us play outside the traditional newsagency parameters through unique displays and constant (daily) change.

We are also fascinated by the different dynamic in a newsagency which does not have lottery, bill payment or home delivery services. There is no doubt that not having these alters the retail dynamic: customers are less rushed, average spend higher and, we thing, browse time longer. There are no queues and no sense of rushing. We’re not sure if we like not having lottery products and the like, only time will tell.

One goal which is showing signs of working for us is what we would call margin balance. We are not as reliant as a traditional newsagency on higher volume lower margin products. I’ll save discussing details of what we are doing for another time.

If you are planning to visit the store and see what we’re experimenting with, please make direct contact with Ben.

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newsagency marketing

A brilliant idea

wheels_dump.JPGMaybe I have been living under a mushroom but I was surprised to see the clip on wheels for seasonal card company units at the Frankston newsagency I bought three weeks ago. They are brilliant and make moving these promotional units around the shop – and opening and closing much easier. Try and we might, we cannot find where they are made – we want to order plenty more.

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retail

Pushing 2008 planners

planner.JPGWe are trying a different approach with planners this year.

Whereas in the past we treated these difficult to display planners as second class citizens ahead of a more prominent diary story, this year we have put the planners centre stage on the dance floor. They are rewarding the attention with excellent sales.

Planners are not big at Forest Hill yet this prime position is driving sales better than previous years. It goes to reinforce the importance of location.

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Calendars

Sim card self serve

sim.JPGAt Macau airport yesterday – mobile phone sim cards for sale through this vending machine. Put in your payment and out comes the card, ready to use.

Who needs retailers?

This unit reminded me of the instant scratch lottery tickets I saw in supermarkets in the US being sold from vending machines as a means of using your loose change.

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retail

C-store competition in Hong Kong

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Now this is competition. The picture says it all. On one corner of a back street in Central Hong Kong is a Circle K store and on the opposite corner, of a very narrow street, is a 7-Eleven. The product mix is the same as is their store size. The only differences are the brand and what each stands for and the customer service.

This in-your-face competition is what newsagents are yet to grasp. If another brand opens up a newsagency next to an existing newsagency they would be called all sorts of names. This would happen because of our protected past. Competition, direct newsagent against newsagent competition is something we are yet to deal with.

What I am talking about is different to my comments about Australia Post government owned stores – they use a government protected monopoly brand to take business from us for the profit of the government. No, what I saw today was free market unprotected competition. The only monopoly in play is the brand.

What the photo says to me is that the brand is the thing. In the world of Australian newsagencies, the current brands are: Newspower, newsXpress, Nextra (and its subsets), Supanews, Lucky Charm and the generic Newsagency – but we all have a bit of that.

Circle K and 7_Eleven are not tied to a category, they are not relying on any business other than their branded stores to build consumer perception. This is what we have to do.

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Customer loyalty

The power of the window

We have learnt about the power of the window since we opened our Sophie Randall card and gift shop eight months ago. We change the window display at least every two weeks with significant tweaks every other week. Our range of Gund plush is the most successful product in the window. Sales can triple when we put this on display.

While we have done adult themes for Father’s Day and Mother’s Day, it is windows based around children’s product which works the best. Below is the main window currently on display – we have three window displays in this store and the one below is the biggest:

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You can see from this that we are focused on respected brands – Peter Rabbit, Noddy, Pooh and Gund – and that even though we have a bold window display, we don’t let it become a barrier to seeing into the store. The top of the display is chest height.

The learnings from Sophie for our newsagency continue – in terms of range, display and even margin on some products.

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newsagency marketing

A better way to upsell in retail

part_move.jpgFor around six weeks we have had partworks displayed on our dance floor in an area we use for promotional displays. Yesterday, we compacted the display and moved three titles into the location in the photo in front of one of our lottery counters. While minor in effort, it is moves like this which are important to newsagencies.

Allocating time every morning to move product in the front part of the shop maintains a fresh feel and helps the newsagency itself drive upselling for you. Whether it is this partworks display or something else, it is essential we regularly change our upsell pitch at this entrance – it is this constant change which drives sales and basket efficiency.

I see this work as far more valuable and reliable than asking employees to ask customers if they want fries with their purchase. By making the store itself do the upselling your counter team can focus on being with the customer rather than pushing product onto them.

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newsagency marketing

Newsagent hours

The guy at the coffee shop told me he’d love to work newsagent hours when he found out I owned a newsagency. He went on to tell me about a newsagency down the road from his coffee shop. I checked it out and it was closed at 2pm on a week day. I’ve since checked it out several times during the day over the last two weeks and it was open once.

While it can be challenging for a single operator, everyone trading under the shingle suffers when one fails to provide even basic customer service by being open during the day.

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Newsagency challenges

Browsers in the shop

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I have a relaxed view of browsers in my newsagency. That we welcome people to visit and read to their heart’s desire is part of our appeal. Regulars and first timers are welcome equally. It is especially enjoyable to see dads on a Saturday introducing their children to the tradition. Occasionally, however, browsers cross the line. When that happens we take a firm view.

If they photocopy something from a magazine, we make them buy the magazine or newspaper. If they tear out a page, we make them buy it. If they start to write a recipe or something else from a magazine, we ask them to buy it or leave.

While it is easier to do nothing and thereby avoid confrontation, action is essential – we’re in business after all.

The grey area is the regulars, the customers who come in, read the newspaper – even taking sections apart – and put it back on the rack for sale. They can be a barrier for other shoppers. They also damage product. At the moment, while we don’t stop them, we do work around them and demonstrate that they are in the way. Sometimes it works but mostly it does not. We know we need to tackle this as there are three or four customers who spend nothing and help themselves daily.

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magazines

Free gift voucher software

Warning: this blog post is a shameless plug for Tower Systems.

As a Happy New Financial Year gift my software company is giving all 1,400+ newsagents using its newsagency retail management software our new Gift Voucher software FREE. Using this software, newsagents can create and manage gift vouchers with ease. Our trials show it can be used to increase sales without cost to the business.

The free Gift Voucher software offer is available for two months after which the price will be $795.00. All Tower newsagents need do is email our help desk team and they will send it to you.

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retail

The spinner stays

activity.JPGSpinners are a nightmare in retail. They block sightlines and can make a store look messy. We removed several last year and vowed we would not bring in. All we kept were two sticker spinners – which work a treat. Two months ago we relented and agreed to a trial – for the activity books spinner in the photo. These activity books are performing better in terns of sell through, return of floor space and return on investment than half the magazines we carry.

We have carried activity books in the past but without the success of this range.

We have looked at whether we could locate the range elsewhere and remove the spinner. The challenge is that the spinner itself allows us the ability to move the product. For example, is school holidays we located it near our activity table, during the Tax Time Bonanza! sale, it is near that display … and so on. Watching customers as they browse and buy off the spinner, it is clear that it needs to be in a high traffic area. So, the spinner stays for the moment, for as long as we see a commercially viable return.

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retail
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