Next Round Of The Anti-Tobacco Strategy Soon To Be AnnouncedDuring today's Prime Minister Questions Mr Brown announced that there will be a new Tobacco Strategy Policy coming in to effect in 2009. I think that this will include all the things that were in the consultaion document that the government published earlier this year and the date for implimentation will be October One 2009. We will see:A ban on open display of tobacco in shops.A ban on packets of 10 cigarettes.The introduction of plain packets.Harsher penalties for bad retailers.And this will lead to:Greater security risks for retailers.Fewer legitimate retailers.Higher risk to health from counterfit product.High cost of change for retailers.And on and on and on.There has been much lobbying and the Tories seem to support small...

The Sandwich Range Is All ImportantThere is no getting away from the fact that the current financial hurricane is blowing into every corner of the British economy. Our customers, our suppliers and ourselves can not escape its effect.We have been here before, the down turn of the early 1990's hurt, but we did not have EPoS then. We now have lots of data and are keeping a close eye on how the various categories are preforming. One trigger for concern is when suppliers change any of the daily product ranges as Kerry did with sandwiches in September. Out went Scoff and in came Heinz. That should have improved sales as Heinz is a well known household name, but the financial huricane landed soon after and sales started to fall off.Kevin their rep and I just thought that it was a result of the...

Sorry for the (probably much-needed) break in postings. Basically, what happened is I won the lottery, and have spent the last week sailing around the world, meeting with bank relationship managers, buying lots of expensive shiny cars even though I can’t drive before finally settling down to an evening of imbibing drugs off the oiled bodies of my newly-purchased harem. This, obviously, is lies. I ate pizza and drank vodka oranges, and in the time between when I was at work got shouted at and berated by people for, well, doing my fucking job. Here’s a fun thing I see often. If there is a policy in place which requires some form of ID or something to take money out of your account, this is a good thing if there’s some twat trying to rob you of your cash, but a bad thing if...

Just AnnouncedPensioners and other recievers of benefits WILL beable to use their local Post Office as the place to collect their cash from.This has just been announced by James Purcell, Works and Pension Secretary. The BBC report:'Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell said the Post Office would retain its £1bn benefits contract which faced competition from a private firm. He told MPs post offices were "at the heart of the community" and he would do "nothing to put the network at risk".This is great news as it has been a big worry for Sub Postmasters and their communities up and down the country. For more than two years the most repeated question I have been asked is'Is our Post office safe?'I can now say with out a doubt that it is. Now we need the various arms of government to...

Customers Talk To Us I spend much of my day talking to people that come into our store. Whether it is at the counter or on the shop floor it is an important part of how we run our business. I have had two conversations with customers this morning that stood out and they were the personal revelations that one can only get by long term acquaintance. One of the conversations was on the customer's experience in the British Army of the 1950's and of his time spent in the jungles of Malaya during 'The Emergency'. I was aware of the Malayan campaign that happened during my childhood and the fact that it was a 'personal' sort of war, but my customer gave me a significantly different insight. He gave me a brief insight into the training to understand the jungle environment, the task of being on...

POCA2 Announcement On Friday?It would seem from the reports appearing in the UK press that we will hear who has won the government Benefits payment contract on Friday. There is the expectation, due to the long delay, that Post Office Ltd will not get the contract that runs from 2011. This will clearly have a devastating effect on the future of the network that will hurt the profitability of the business long term. With the reduction in branch viability that will follow this decision we can expect thousands of branches to shut in an unmanaged manner. So PayPoint retailerswhich upto now have delivered a bill payment service that is about taking money in to their stores will have to learn how to pay money out, safely. taking money in and keeping it safe is relatively simple as the cash can...

Government May Decide SoonRecently there has been renewed press interest in who may win the government contract to operate the replacement for the Post Office Card Account. The Daily Telegraph reports:'As many as 3,000 marginally-profitable post offices are under threat if the Government strips the Royal Mail of the £150million a year Post Office Card Account contract after 2010. The card account is seen as a lifeline for many branches as it pays out benefits and pensions to four million people and cannot be used in other banks or shops. On financial grounds, a firm called PayPoint is favourite to win the contract because it is thought to have bid millions of pounds less than Post Office Limited, part of Royal Mail Group.' I had a conversation with one of the local PayPoint agents about...

Tired, Sad And Shut Australian blogger Mark Fletcher posted this about the closure of another independent newsagent in Inverness. The Press and Journal say:'A fourth Inverness newsagents has closed within the space of three months, it emerged yesterday. And businesses leaders warned the situation would only get worse in the current economic climate because new regulations for retailers are set to be introduced. Kingsmills General Store, on Kingsmills Road, closed its doors on Wednesday, and has not reopened since. The same day, the store’s operator, Keith Orrock, was sequestrated – the Scottish term for bankruptcy – at a civil hearing at Inverness Sheriff Court.'Yes the business climate is hard and government have been attacking small independent newsagent over the past decade as...

What Will Be Left?The Post Office Network Change programme is grinding on to it conclussion with just a handful of areas left to resolve.The Herald reports:'The Post Office remained defiant last night after being criticised over 24 closures in Scotland. The branches to shut are in Edinburgh, the Lothians and the south, with the closures starting next month. Two post offices in the capital, at Calder Crossway and Elm Row, have been saved, but the Post Office wants to shut a further branch in the city's Oxgangs and will begin a consultation on that plan next month.'The vast majority of Post Office branches that have been targetted for closure under the Network Change Programme have been or are going to close as the government have dictated.The next concern for the network of Post Office...

On Returning To Business With my wife I returned to our business earlier today, but I have had to check that our name is still over the door as owning it still as I was convinced that I had made it clear that we only take those foreign newspapers that our customer actually order. We only take and sell three, Gazette de la Sport, Iternational Herald tribune five days a week and USA Today three times per week. So why has the supply chain added Irish Times back on to our...

They Have Done It Again! Smiths News have stopped our British Football Week again, fortunately for us the night staff at their depot that supplies us sent one in any case.Good for Malcolm and Adrian, shame on the peolpe at...

Not Something The Blohm & Voss Would Have AcceptedYesterday we recieved a damaged copy of Build the Bismarck. It was poorly packed in the tote box and bent across a corner. Unfortunately the metal pressing part of the model was also bent.Not a major problem if a replacement can be supplies , quickly. When we last had a problem it took weeks for Smiths not to supply the missing part and we only got part 38 when I phone the distributor. This time I am being a little more forceful and demanding the Smiths get their finger out and get the relacement to you soon.What concerns me is having an upset customer who returns the entire 83 part collection and demands a refund.We will...

Fresh & Easy is reported this morning as having taken £76 million from its first store opening last October to 23rd August this year with an attributory looss of £60. Tesco say in their interim statement:'The early progress of Fresh & Easy, just nine months after the first store opened, is very encouraging. Customer response to our combination of fresh, wholesome food at very competitive prices in neighbourhood locations has been extremely positive. With the number of stores now at almost 90 and growing rapidly, feedback from new as well as regular shoppers continues to surpass our expectations. Sales densities are building well, with the average running at $11 per square foot per week, which is already substantially higher than the US supermarket industry average. Our best...

Trying Something DifferentAt the begining of September we hosted our first work experience school student for a week. It turned into an interesting experience for us as well as the student.Monday was induction including Health and Safety expectations for the week as well as an outline of how we planned to fill his 5 days. We produced a bare store plan for him showing the layout of the fixtures and fittings and got him to go around and fill in where the different product groups were so that if asked he would have a basic knowledge of the store.We then went in to till training and how the law applies to what and how we deal with customers including Alcohol and Tobacco. After some back room instruction on the workings of our till interface we set him 'loose' on the customers. He quickly...

Trying Something DifferentAt the begining of September we hosted our first work experience school student for a week. It turned into an interesting experience for us as well as the student.Monday was induction including Health and Safety expectations for the week as well as an outline of how we planned to fill his 5 days. We produced a bare store plan for him showing the layout of the fixtures and fittings and got him to go around and fill in where the different product groups were so that if asked he would have a basic knowledge of the store.We then went in to till training and how the law applies to what and how we deal with customers including Alcohol and Tobacco. After some back room instruction on the workings of our till interface we set him 'loose' on the customers. He quickly...

Closing Soon Hastings Old Town Post Office was one of the 2500 targetted to close, but as the BBC reported things got a bit difficult with a judicial review of the closure decision. The solution a different kind of Post Office with a different cost structure. A Post Office Essentials.Postagelabelsuk.com recently blogged on the set up of the new office stating that it will soon be having a Post and Go machine installed as Brian the blogger says, an enigma.I recently heard that the Old Town branch is about to close has two serving positions and the new Essential PO, which is in a C-Store only has room and kit for a single service postion. Therefore an automated Post and Go machine will deal with the expected up kick in business that is likely to happen soon.No enigma really Brian, just a...

Warning, You Could Be Putting Your Business At Risk In this weeks Retail Newsagent the excellent Neville Rhodes wrote about the significant dangers associated with the NFRN's campaign of cover price. He covers the benefits of the current contract of supply and the fact that SOR is not a right under any circumstances. Retailers have to follow publishers requirements to retain the privilage.Neville poses answers to the to key elements who a newsagent should consider when planning any pricing amendment to newspapers. That is how will the customers and suppliers/publishers react? He says:'The first question can only be answered by the retailers themselves- they know their customers and should have a good idea how any such surcharge would be recieved. publishers would almost certainly react by...

And Its Yours, Free Less than 2 weeks into our Free Magazine Club Card promotionwe have given away our first magazine, Yours at a retail price of £1.40.Wow.It has given us a real thrill that this promotion has captured its first success so quickly. 11 magazines in 12 days is remarkable. We know the customer well as she uses our store most days.Finding a scheme that rewards this kind of loyalty will work well and give our regular magazine customers another reason to use us. When I handed a new card to a customer yesterday and explained how it works and told her that the free magazine could be worth upto £4, she said that she could have a glossy as she doesn't normally allow herself to buy those.Absolutely wonderful and just the reaction I like.As I have said before seeing our staff...

And Its Yours, Free Less than 2 weeks into our Free Magazine Club Card promotionwe have given away our first magazine, Yours at a retail price of £1.40.Wow.It has given us a real thrill that this promotion has captured its first success so quickly. 11 magazines in 12 days is remarkable. We know the customer well as she uses our store most days.Finding a scheme that rewards this kind of loyalty will work well and give our regular magazine customers another reason to use us. When I handed a new card to a customer yesterday and explained how it works and told her that the free magazine could be worth upto £4, she said that she could have a glossy as she doesn't normally allow herself to buy those.Absolutely wonderful and just the reaction I like.As I have said before seeing our staff...

Good AdviceToday we received our free copy of Retail Express with our newspaper delivery. One of the regular features that I like to read is Nick Shanagher’s Food For Thought as his comments are always on the pulse.Today he reflects on the actions of Asda and Tesco in the light of much higher food inflation and asks:‘Now that the big grocers have started worrying, shouldn’t you be too?’Towards to end of the article he suggests that small retailer work out who their high value customers are and what it is we must do to keep them.Challenging stuff.We do newspaper home delivery so we know the addresses of many of our customers and have been targeting them with our regular flyers for the past 12 years. As we operate our store in a village with a very defined boundary we believe that...

They Are Getting The MessageA week ago we launched our Free Magazine Club Card promotion and it is proving to be a hit with our customers. 1 Staff Interaction with customers It is a promotion that involves all our staff in giving out the cards, explaining the promotion and reminding the magazine purchasers to get their cards stamped. It is great to see just how ease it has all been to kick it off. 2 Customer Loyalty In a conversation I had with one of our long time customers about it when he came to pick a copy of his shop save magazines he also had selected another title from our display. When I stamped his card he said that the promotion would certainly mean that he will be buying more magazine from us rather than WH Smith's as we value his customer. 3 Sales Data As part of our set...

Gen Y?Jarryd Moore has announced an interesting project on his blog, News4newsagent that is looking to improve that attraction of his family’s store to Generation Y. He is not telling any more about how they are going to do this apart from they are going to be using a non e-commerce website.In his response to a comment I made he says:‘The reason we are doing this is because the GenY are not a significant portion of our existing customers. As the majority of our existing customers’ age, newsagencies will need to be relevant to GenY or face becoming extinct. We can't wait until it happens to act - we need to build relationships with them now, we need to make ourselves relevant to them.’His action is about keeping their business relevant to tomorrow’s customers and it will be...

This Londis Has Got Its Post Office BackThe Londis store in Buckhurst Hill is to reopen its Post Office counter after a period of 8 months with out it. The BBC reports that Essex County Council is to invest £1.5 million in to a project that will see 15 communiities regain their Post Offices. The BBC's local government correspondent, John Andrew, said:'The decision followed "long and sometimes tortuous negotiations" between the council and Post Office Limited. Some could reopen as counters in libraries or in community halls.'Praful Chavda, who owns the Londis store owner says:'When we closed a lot of my customers told me how strongly they felt about it and I had a lot of support. It was a great shame we had to close, so when the opportunity came along from Essex County Council to reopen,...

Good Ideas Are InternationalThis morning we launched our 'Free Magazine Club' promotion in time to have it fully functioning for Magazine Weekwhich runs from 29th September to 5th October. We have borrowed the idea from Mark Fletcher after seeing it on his Australian Newsagency Blog.The mechanic is simple, we hand a card to any customer that buys a magazine that does not offer one for stamping and tell them about our unique offer. I have to say that Mark has been remarkably helpful as we have worked through the issues of setting the promotion up. I think this will work on several levels, not least promoting our magazine offer. It also works as a loyalty card that should bring our magazine customers back to us more regularly and then be exposed to our whole shop offer. It should work on...

Sandwiches, Our Best PerformerRecently I had a conversation with Guy Campos, Editor of Retail Newsagent. One of the areas we discussed was the current consultaion on the display of tobacco. He suggested that surely tobacco was a low margin category to which I responded that it depended how one measures profit.For sure, on a straight gross margin tobacco is one of the lowest categories in our portfolio, well below 10%, but if you look at it on a return on capital employed it is a different view. Clearly the lower stock holding categories that deliver a higher stock turn do just this.For us tobacco is one of these product areas as we benefit from 3 times a week delivery from Londis. Our average stockholding represents under one and a half weeks sales. I believe that we must take this...

Got The KeysSo Tesco opens the doors on their new 25,000 square feet store outside Cullompton today. STORE Manager Catherine Chattwood was only given the keys a few days ago so she and her team will have work hard to meet the deadline of today to bring the store to life. I wish them success.Over the weekend there have been a few less positive stories come my way about Tesco:The Watford Observer reports that the company is planning to open one of their Express stores in Croxley Green and the local retailers are not happy. The Spar manager says:'We have collected 750 signatures from residents who oppose the plans. Shops will close down and staff will have to be released if this goes ahead.'You can bet if the Tesco Express opens most of the people who signed will use the new store unless...

Today we are doing something new, for the first time we are providing one of our local secondary school boys the oportunity to see our store from the inside. Although I was involved more than 20 years ago with work experience things have changed. The visit from a lady from the County Council Education Department ensured that I new that. She had a form that we need to complete about our store and how we deal with the various regulations that impact employment of staff. Insurance, Health and Safety Policy, Fire Risk Assessment and others, quite a little audit. She also wanted a brief understanding of the programme we would offer the boy and told me that he would need to be supervised at all times.So this morning after an induction we gave him till training and allowed him to work at the...

The Last Area Plan Post Office Ltd have now published the last of 47 area plans. It is finally the turn of Herefordshire, Worcestershire and the West Midlands, they say:'Post Office Limited is proposing to retain a total of 320 Post Office® branches across the region, but to close 56 existing branches, as well as establish 13 outreach service points, which would use innovative ways to continue to provide Post Office services in some areas where the existing branch is proposed for closure.'So 2500 Post office branches have been identified and well over half of these have been closed already. Around 60 have been reprieved where local communities have proved that the Network Change process has not concidered all the facts.I think, though, that POL should be congratulated for the way that...

Half A Billion This YearTesco have announced that they are increasing their sales of 'local' produce with an expectation that they will be selling ONE BILLION pounds worth by 2011. It sounds wonderful, but what does the claim mean?There are several questions that come to mind about this not least, what do they mean by LOCAL? For us it means at best the product is grown or produced with in our village or parish and at the very worst within the county.Our most successful local product is a local wine and we can see the vineyard from our store, next come locally grown tomatoes that are grown within half a mile of our front door. Our Sussex bread supplier is 5 miles away. We used to have a Sussex milk supplier, but they sold out to Dairy Crest. We have other Sussex based suppliers, but I...

We Can't Trade Without ItRetailing has found all sorts of ways of using technology. From Electronic Point of Sale to CCTV it all has its uses, but should all come with its own warning sticker. Today we have experienced both the good and the bad that IT can deliver.A customer came to the Post office this morning saying that he had left the counter yesterday afternoon after paying for Euro's without taking them. He said that there was a queue and he was with his wife and although he had paid for his currency he did not remember being given it. A difficult issue to resolve amicably.Thankfully we have CCTV cameras that cover the entire store so I was able to look at the recording, see what happened, print a screen shoot for the customer and show him the footage. He was mistified, but later...