The Fed is exploring a tiered membership model that would introduce free or heavily discounted additional services, according to national president Muntazir Dipoti.
In an interview with Better Retailing covering the Fed’s plans for 2024, the owner of Todmorden News Centre in West Yorkshire celebrated achieving growth in its total membership “for the first time in a very long time”, but said more work was needed to keep the trend going.
Dipoti said improving the Fed’s member offering to go beyond deals and into more free services was a major focus for the year ahead. He revealed: “I’ve got staff tasked to arrange meetings with RAC, Halfords, Sky and BT. If we can include AA or RAC basic cover in the membership, and then Halfords’ motoring club, which includes a free MOT, and 10% or above discount on other goods and services, members would be saving significant sums of money.
“With Sky and BT, we’re seeing if our contacts there could offer business contracts or phone contracts.” Other services being explored include phone and life insurance.
He added: “If that means increasing our membership fee, our members would have a choice to stay at £5.95 or include the extra services, but you may as well pay £8.95 or £9.95 and get these services. Possibly, it’s a tiered membership offer, but it all needs to be approved. We’ve not done the nitty-gritty, but I believe very strongly it will help us recruit members.”
The national president said the Fed’s exclusive offer for PayPoint’s Park Christmas Savings was key to the recent membership growth. The agreement saw Fed members being given access to become Park Savings partners, earning commission on customers signed up and deposits registered under the saving scheme.
PayPoint claims the offer is worth £1,000 in annual profit per store. “It goes to show when we have good offers to back up that member-ship, it does work,” he commented.
After a tough start to the ’20s with a pandemic, energy price rises and the cost-of-living crisis, Dipoti is forecasting another tough year for many stores in 2024. He explained: “One of the biggest challenges will be tobacco and vaping. We strongly feel the government has not considered their planned age increase properly. Many stores have still not recovered from the energy crisis and a lot have survived due to vapes, where the profit margins are a lot higher, so it’s worrying to see what will happen with regulation on these products. It will put more pressure on retailers, but I feel if stores can ride out the next two or three years, we’ll start to see the other side.”
In more positive news, the Fed is expecting Home News Delivery month to return in 2024 for a second year, with more powerful promotions delivering a stronger sales boost for stores. Dipoti said: “Publishers are looking to do something similar next year. In 2023, it was launched in three or four months. This year, we’ll have more time, so it will be even better.
“Last year, a lot of publishers, because they didn’t know early enough, their promotions could have been more effective. Looking back on 2023, Dipoti said the Fed’s awards were a key highlight. “They were going to be our last awards, but our suppliers asked us to reconsider. In 2024, the conference and awards will be jointly done in Birmingham, and that’s partly based on their feedback.”
Another key moment of 2023 was higher public and political focus on retail crime. “We’ve been fighting for a number of years, but this year it really feels like we’re being listened to. Between the team, we’ve covered all the TV, radio and newspapers. That was very successful.”
Finally, the national president highlighted the recent Fed restructure, which he said will give staff “stability and opportunities”, and give the Fed greater “credibility” in the eyes of suppliers and other partners.
Asked where retailers should look for opportunities in 2024, Dipoti said a new generation of tech-savy independent shop owners is emerging, and they are “taking it to the next level and making retail more exciting”.
He urged all shop owners to make new year’s resolutions of getting out and visiting more shops in order to learn from them. “Whenever you’re in a new town, walk into some new shops, see what you can learn and where you think they could improve, too,” he advised.
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