A useful way to look at new products
Management Today recently provided some advice to entrepreneurs who hoped to get their products into supermarkets; advice which could be useful to local retailers too! Graham Cassie, who sources local and regional foods…
Symbol group Premier hit 2,500 stores
Most customers around the country will know the names of certain symbol groups. The chances are that they will live within walking distance of a Londis, Nisa, Spar, Best-In or Booker Premier store….
In praise of…
It is great to find an independent retailer who appears to be getting business right and today I stumbled across Hatton Garden News in central London. What caught my eye was a well…
Give your shop an espresso
I was reading an interview with Howard Schultz, the man who made Starbucks into a global phenomenon, and he described how he developed his ideas while in Milan. He was captivated by the…
Why a shopper might turn away for good
In early February at the start of our last holiday my wife and I visited a well known high street clothing retailer and I purchased a couple of pairs of trousers. Nothing remarkable in…
Sainsbury’s sales figures reveal a tough time for multiples
In the last quarter Sainsbury’s sales rose by 1.7% year on year, compared to 3.7% in the previous six months. For local shopkeepers in the UK, this is a useful figure to benchmark…
Advertising: what will you do to be heard?
Every week companies use your newsagents business to advertise to potential customers. This may be in the form of loose leaflets or booklets or adverts printed in newspapers or magazines. There are thousands…
Lessons in optimism
As a local retailer you need to back yourself and to have confidence in your offer to shoppers. A recent Financial Times interview with billionaire Laurence Graff, whose parents ran a tobacconist in…
Your greatest gift – imagination
Ranjan Patel used her first speech as president of London’s Newsagents Federation this week to urge independent shopkeepers to use their imagination to win business from shoppers. “We can exploit [our shops] by…
Low prices can be beaten
For corner shopkeepers there are some signs that the major grocers are having a tough time in growing their share of the grocery market. While this does not mean that the pressure on…
