On stands and in common spaces there are plenty of good examples of low cost displays and merchandising at the Gift fair in Melbourne.
This use of pallets for creating a noticeboard and display table could work in many businesses.
Gone are the days of spending more than we should on refitting shops. Instead, it is fashionable to repurpose old furniture and other items for retail display.
Every card shop I have seen in the UK this trip has cards in the window. Our channel accounts for 35% of all greeting cards sold in Australia yet we rarely promote cards in our windows. We are lazy. We are missing an opportunity here.
I wonder what we could do for sales with creative window displays featuring cards.
The photo shows one window from a gift shop in Harrogate in North Yorkshire. They claim it is the biggest card and gift shop in the area. Despite being well known for their range of cards, here they are using valuable window space to promote cards. I think we should do more of this in our businesses.
Check out the placement of The Monthly and Harvard Business Review in a newsagency I visited last week.
While the display looked okay, there was nothing wrong with it, I thought it could be more successful, especially for The Monthly, the title I expect they will sell many more copies of each issue. Given the cost of magazine pockets, maximising return is vital.
So I switched the titles.
Here is the result of the switch. You get the full effect of the cover art of The Monthly, you get context for the story tease: Of clowns and treasurers…
I think this simple single pocket switch will result in a better return for the business with more copies of The Monthly sold but without denying sales of Harvard Business Review.
It is important we do more than put magazines out. Our magazine department is s reflection on us. Placement of titles is our curation of the range. It can be a valuable point of difference for us.
The change in consumer engagement with magazines ought to drive changes in our engagement with the category. More thoughtful placement is one such important change I recommend.
I love the aisle end display I saw at a Coles supermarket in Brisbane a few days ago. The impact is strong, unmissable. I love the single product focus on each aisle end. While I am sure Cadbury is paying for the space, the idea is one newsagents could consider.
Click on the image for a larger version.
Further to my post about the eye catching sale being run at EB Games at Knox, check out the equally eye catching sale I saw at their Queen Street Auckland store yesterday. The two photos speak to the terrific consistency of execution by EB Games outlets.
This is the way to leverage your retail brand.
For a couple of years now I have been seeing specialist retail businesses in the US and elsewhere using more fixtures in-store that are every day furniture items. In many situations these fixtures themselves are for sale in the businesses.
This trend of using every furniture for fixtures challenges the traditional model of purpose built retail fixtures. It brings a warmth to our business too that makes the retail space more appealing.
In businesses our size this trend is something we can leverage to offer an experiential point of different to larger corporate businesses where offering genuine home-style warmth is a challenge.
If you are considering changes to futures in your newsagency I urge you to research this trend of the use of everyday furniture and items for storing and displaying products in your shop.
I know of newsagents who have been playing in this space for over a year and their businesses are looking different, fresh, as a result.
The photo I have included with this post shows a shelf unit we sell in one of my newsagencies and on the shelves we have a plush selection we also sell. As they say: everything is for sale!
I love this simple yet effective use of a tree brand for featuring greeting cards in a shop I visited this week. They have slices slots into the branch and placed cards in those slots. This is a terrific way you can display cards off location, to attract impulse purchases – since there will be people in the shop for other items who could purchase cards if you disrupt their shop visit with cards presented differently.
Sometimes the best visual merchandising ideas are the simplest.
Click on the image for a much larger version. Email me if you would like photos from other angles.
Walking through the city the other day I stopped to look inside this shop with a bike and fresh produce parked at the front door. I stopped because a bike like this with produce was out of place in the middle of a busy city. Inside was a coffee shop. The bike and fresh produce offered an indication of the type of business this is – where fresh matters. The bike also offered a visual cue about the business, attracting a certain type of person.
Looking back at the photo, it reminds me that sometimes we can attract people to our shops not by displaying what we sell but by displaying items that appeal to those we would like to attract.
What makes this display of small plush items noticeable and effective compared to average is the impression of motion achieved by one of the cute little characters pushing out of the display. Whether intentional or not, this character reaching out is what got me stopping for a look. Without it the display would have looked flat, two dimensional.
Bringing a sense of motion to a display, by disrupting the look, can drive shopper engagement and that is the best step to driving purchases.
The photo is from a Disney store I visited in the US in April.
I like the single purpose floor display unit supplied to retailers for holding and promoting the 2015 swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated magazine. This stand has lower profile than the floor stands we see in Australia. Italy has a terrific shelf at the bottom for holding bulk stock – this stabilises the stand and provides excellent storage space … very clever.
This week I will publish five deliberately provocative suggestions on aspects of retail newsagency management and operation. My goal is to challenge newsagents and their suppliers to break free from the past and engage in more present day retail
Suggestion #1: remove all magazine posters.
Magazine sales have been declining between 5% and 9% year on year for at least the last five years. You cannot deny the data. The trend is down and unless publishers start publishing content to drive sustained increased interest, the trend will continue. My view is that the key reason for decline is content and not the medium itself.
Why put up posters for a declining category? Why spend the time and give over your front window and other locations promoting products which are suffering from declining interest.
I think if all newsagents did not put up any magazine posters for three months sales in your newsagency would not fall. I say this based on my own experience.
I suspect one reason we are encouraged, bribed and pushed to put up magazine posters is drive awareness of the mastheads and not necessarily to drive purchases in our businesses. None of our competitors give away promotional space and staff labour time like we do to promote magazines.
Imagine the new uses you could make of the open windows, aisle ends, columns and other places you fill with magazine posters.
I don’t use magazine posters and have not for five years. My magazine sales are growing. I think other newsagents could have a similar experience.
So, my provocative suggestion today is to not put up magazine posters. Instead, use that space for something more useful to your business. Use the space to differentiate your business, to promote products and services which are unique for you in your area. Use the space to attract shoppers who may not usually walk through your front door.
Sure, it’s tough to have to work out what to put in a window or what to promote on an aisle end but since you pay for this space surely you want to get maximum value from it?! Magazine posters for a slowing category are not good use of the space, especially since the display is not promoting something even remotely unique to your business.
This action of not putting up posters could be the beginning of a revolution in your newsagency, the start of you looking at your business differently.
My own experience is that the posters are not necessary. If we all found this publishers save money on printing and on merchandisers (for the newsagencies that are visited by merchandisers).
Are you up for this revolutionary suggestion?
While I am publishing the suggestions I am not necessarily advocating them for all newsagents. I see this blog as playing a role in challenging how we look and manage our businesses and from that encourage newsagents to think carefully about decisions they make.
Stack em high watch em fly is what retailers are encouraged to do to drive sales. For many product categories in newsagencies today it is true – a full display works best, much better than a half-full display which can hamper sales.
I encourage newsagents to maintain full magazine displays as I think they work better than half full displays. It is worth the time investment to shuffle placement or to compact placement so a display looks full. A full display will deliver a better result for you than a less than full display. A full display shows your business as alive.
I was in a newsagency recently where they had 30% more magazine space than they needed so they spaced out titles as they had nothing to sue the space for. After some shuffling we introduced other products to the magazine fixtures and compressed magazines so the part of the display for them looked full. The result is a more visually compelling magazine offer.
I encourage newsagents to look at their magazine displays and adjust where necessary to make them look full, appealing and like they will satisfy shoppers. I think full displays pay a role in good magazine results in my store.
I love this simple yet effective display of plush I saw on the Wild Republic stand at the Gift fair in Sydney recently. It makes a broad range of products accessible to adults and kids. At the front of a newsagency, this display would attract new shoppers, younger shoppers and those who shop for young people. A display like this would get people looking at your business differently.
The display itself would be easy to replicate as it is made of a series of boxes. I love it.
We decide who steps foot through the front door of our shops by the pitch in our front window. A windor promoting low margin product will attract low margin shoppers. A window promoting lottery products will attract lottery shoppers. The window promoting higher margin homewares will attract a shower for homewares.
We decide who shops with us and their likely spend based on our front window.
I can’t make that statement often enough to newsagents. Retailers get it as it’s retail 101.
The photo shows the front window from last week at one of my newsagencies. In this display we are pitching good margin funky product to the homewares and gift shopper. It’s part of a cycle of regularly refreshed window displays we are using to attract new shoppers to the business, shoppers who are looking for higher margin gift and homewares lines. It’s working.
This window display is an example of us making conscious choices as to who we want to attract. As I have noted previously, is easier to convert this higher margin shopper to purchase what else we carry than to use traditional newsagency lines to convert to purchasing these items.
If we repurpose a floor display unit or a spinner – to hold stock other than that for the brand for which it was originally supplied – we place collateral specific to the new product placed on the stand.
In the photo we have a stand provided for a range of one-shot plush which is now being used for completely different product.
To respect the original brand on the stand and the brand of the ne product, we placed colour strips for the new brand on the shelves over the art of the original brand. This strengthens the impact of the stand and makes it look fit for its new purpose.
There is nothing worse than a stand dressed with original branding promoting an unrelated product now on the stand.
Repurposing floor display units is about much more than putting new stock from another supplier on an old stand.
I’d note that if the stand is supplied on the basis that the initial supplier’s product is always on the stand we respect that.
Plenty of the stands at the Gift Fair in Sydney over the weekend presented visual merchandising ideas with picking up – like this display from Wild Republic. Their simple use of boxes and layers shows off their products in an appealing and shopable way. One of the best ways encourage team members to create different looking displays is to photograph what you like and share it with them. This is where a private staff Facebook page can be useful.
The window of the Haigh’s store on George Street in Sydney is based around a Top 10 music theme but the Top ten are their top ten products. The execution is excellent – quite eye catching.
The window is effective as it gets people who might otherwise not look at a window display promoting chocolate looking at their window.
The detail is what makes it works – the Top 10 poster looks authentic from what we would see in music magazines years ago. The nostalgia theme is averaged with their use of vinyl records as labels for the chocolate products. Brilliant.
The window has me thinking about what we could promote if a similarly usual, less obvious and eye catching way.
If you sell paper shredders in your newsagency here’s a great way to get attention. I saw it at a trade show yesterday. They had a range pf shredders on display and in front of each type is a see-through cylinder of paper shredded – so you can see the type of shred.
This simple placement of a see-through cylinder with shredded paper in it brings the display to life and gives me more reason to consider purchase.
Thoughtful visual merchandising of stationery and office items works.
If you don’t see shredders, why not – they are an easy sell in this security obsessed world.
I rate this Top Model floor display unit from TAG as the BEST floor display unit of 2014.
This stand is strong and well-branded and presents the products well. Better still, it works at driving sales.
We see many floor display units that do not serve our businesses well. This stand is so good we have a second coming to strengthen pour pitch for this very successful young girl brand.
On Pitt Street Mall in Sydney is an amazing Lego Christmas display, standing tall and drawing families tas it lights up and Christmas music plays.
This is an inspiring pitch for the Lego brand. I saw kids loving the music and lights and adults in awe of the construction using Lego bricks.
The display reinforces the strength of the Lego brand and the value of a big display in attracting people.
Click on the image to see the bricks.
This Kinder Surprise display at the front of the Woolworths supermarket on George Street in Sydney is terrific. There is no missing the Kinder Surprise branding as you enter of leave the store through the main entrance. Kinder Surprise owns the space. From the detail on the floor units to the large posters, this is a consistent and clear message.
While I expect there supplier would have paid for the space and had professional merchandisers create the display, the photo offers us inspiration for our local newsagencies, inspiration to give over key traffic space to a single brand that will interest our shoppers.
While many newsagents do excellent displays, they are often done on a small scale and end up fighting for attention in a visually busy shop. The approach in the photo shows the value of giving space reserved for multiple displays over to a single brand.
Click on the image for a larger version.
