Eugene Diamond
Diamonds Newsagents, Ballymena, County Antrim
“Toys are usually where we get a high margin. We can get a good turnover of them as well if we get the right trends or get some kind of novelty toy in stock. Five years ago, for example, it was fidget spinners, and we had a really good year with them.
“This past summer, we were selling bucket hats and it was surprising just how well they did. They caught the eye as well. A wholesaler friend of mine ????inds these sorts of things for me and gives me the heads up and helps me source them.
“Vapes are another big winner. We got into them quite early and they’ve been a big market for shops like mine. People are crucifying them at the moment with underage sales, but I just keep a book of the people we refuse to sell them to.
“Another good margin driver is bottled water, although it’s not as good as it used to be.”
Atul Sodha
Londis Peverills, Uxbridge, west London
“We have been thinking a lot about our margins and categories and trying to see what can work better. You are not going to get high margins in every category – breakfast cereal, for example – so you have to think about where you are buying your stock from and if you can get a better deal from somewhere else.
“One category where it is really hard is alcohol because of the government’s duty increase. It’s hard to understand where the cost of the product is down to the deal you are getting with your supplier or wholesaler and where it is down to the duty increase.
“To get the best margins, you have to be entrepreneurial and willing to try new lines, even obscure ones. You have to just see what happens. My advice would be to keep listening and always look for what the latest trend is in all your core categories. Talk to your customers and ????ind out what they are looking for. ”
Dilmeet Singh
Londis Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire
“Festive occasions like Halloween and Christmas offer a good opportunity for high margins. Halloween costumes have good margins and so do chocolate boxes at Christmas. We can get 50% margins on chocolate boxes, but we can only really get hold of them at Christmas. There’s not much demand for them the rest of the year.
“In the summer, we look at ice cream and bottled water for margins. If you order in pallets of them, you can get that better bulk discount, which also helps.
“We introduced a toy section next to the magazines recently and it’s doing far better than we thought it would. We’re sourcing them from household cash and carries, and we can get 50% margins at least on them as well. We keep changing things around with the toys and every time we sell out of something, we bring in something different instead.”
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