Month: November 2025

>Here are four must-do things on hiring and retaining good staff for for your retail business:

1. Make your business look and feel appealing.
2. Provide opportunities for development.
3. Pay above the standard, as the standard wage as set by regulators is average.
4. Be open.

Talk to anyone in business and they will tell you that hiring and retaining employees is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, challenges they face.

Retail is finding it tougher because working in retail is tough. Besides the obvious of being on your feet all day and how working in retail is seen by many, dealing with difficult customers is challenging. Abuse of staff in retail is common, and no matter how much support we provide in a shop, there are customers who are itching to take their anger out on someone.

There are ways we can make working in retail more appealing so as to attract and retain good people. Here are some of my thoughts on this:

• Hire people who want to work with you and help the business thrive. People working to make money will focus only on that. You need to try to find people looking beyond this week’s pay cheque. You need people who want to build something for themselves long term.
• Give your people power. Let them make decisions about the business and encourage them to be personally invested in the business, which helps develop their skills. The more their future is enhanced working in the business, the more they will love working there and contribute positively. Support them.
• Everyone working in your business is on your team. Nurture them. Train them. Support them. Have their backs. The more they experience this, the more they will do it for you. This support is especially key in retail, where customers may be abusive at the counter.
• Cut the mundane as much as possible. If there are mundane tasks in the business that could be eliminated with better processes, do it. The less mundane the work, the more people enjoy their jobs, and that helps them stay with you.
• Open the books. Sometimes, people look for work elsewhere because they think the business can afford to pay them more. By opening the books, you might be able to show enough for them to respect and appreciate what they are paid. Opening the books also offers the opportunity for them to think and act more like owners and to be more invested in the financial success of the business.
• Offer a pathway. As much as you’re able in your local retail business, offer people working in the business a forward pathway; that is, opportunities for them to personally advance.

This is not a complete list, of course. It’s offered to get you thinking about your situation.

The only topic I have not canvassed is pay. Of course, paying the standard is inadequate, as it’s the bar of minimum wage as regulated for the role, and plenty would say it’s a low bar. What you pay depends on your circumstances and, considering them, how you view your staff. If your staff is adequate, pay the award. If you value them more, pay them more, within your capacity, and consider what else you can offer, such as flexibility to their schedule.

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It’s easy to complain that finding and retaining employees is difficult. It’s hard to take steps to fix the problem/challenge for your business. Complaining achieves nothing. It’s the forward steps, no matter how small, that matter.

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newsXpress is a marketing group that supports small local independent retailers to thrive. Find out more at help@newsxpress.com.au.

For any small business retailer, the shop fit-out is one of the most significant capital expenditures you’ll face. It’s expensive, and the hard truth is that a reasonable return on that investment is rarely achieved in the world of local small business.

We often fall into the “monument” trap. We’ve seen many small business owners commission a shop fit they are immensely proud of: a beautiful, polished monument to themselves, one that simply doesn’t deliver the necessary financial return to the business.

We are reminded of a franchise business in our channel where they pushed a new franchisee into a $250K+ shopfit that did nothing for sales and was not paid off before the business closed. What a waste.

We must remember a fundamental misalignment of incentives: A shopfitter wants to profit from their work on the project. The retailer needs to profit from the space over many years. Their needs are not aligned.

We often think a shopfitter’s recommendations would be quite different if they were paid a commission on sales generated by the new fit-out over the next several years.

A Case for Frugality and Longevity

Years ago, I opened a shop in a major shopping centre. The lease required a substantial, expensive fit-out update five years in, at the renewal period.

We had that shop for 13 years and only closed it because the centre was being redeveloped. In all that time, the shop fit was never updated.

Not once.

Despite protests from the landlord, my sales continued to grow as the product mix evolved. This strong performance made it difficult for them to demand I incur what was clearly an unnecessary expense. The $250,000 we’d spent on that initial shop fit delivered 13 years of returns, far exceeding the five years I had originally expected.

The lesson is clear: A dynamic product mix and good sales will always trump a static, “perfect” fit-out.

How to Be Frugal and Build Character

Our advice is to be aggressively frugal with your shop fit.

Use readily accessible, free, or low-cost everyday items wherever possible. Only invest in purpose-built, custom fittings when there is absolutely no other option.

The benefits go far beyond cost savings. Regular furnishing items, “found objects,” and repurposed pieces bring a unique character to a shop. They reinforce your local connection and subtly show customers that you care about sustainability and the environment.

Instead of custom-milled shelving, consider these ideas:

• An old dining table in a fashion business, with chairs holding jackets and shirts “served” on plates, with a dress as the centrepiece.
• Old, rusted farming equipment used as a rustic display for locally made gifts.
• An old cast-iron bath filled to the brim with bath bombs, soaps, and lotions.
• A classic old school desk (complete with lift-up lid) for displaying stationery.
• Wooden chairs dotted around the shop, each hosting a small stack of books or a family of plush bears.
• A decades-old wooden workbench used to display modern, high-tech tools, creating a powerful contrast.
• A rack of old school lockers used as a quirky bookshelf.
• An old tool shed workbench repurposed to display gifts for men.

Warmth Wins Over Polish

While shoppers may occasionally comment positively on a beautiful, expensive shop fit, they are highly unlikely to purchase more because of it. The main exception is in high-end, luxury fashion, where customers are buying into an image built on overpriced brands.

For the rest of us, our product is the hero.

Be frugal. Create your retail space with items that, in and of themselves, add warmth, history, and character to your shop. That’s a return on investment you can’t get from a catalogue.

There was a time when you could walk down the main street and know exactly what was inside each shop. A chemist sold medicine, a jeweller sold rings, and a bookshop sold books.

Back in the day, they all did what you’d expect of the business name, and not much else.

Those days are gone. Today, the borders between retail channels are not just blurred—they’ve been completely erased.

The New Reality: Blurred Lines Mean New Opportunities

Think about your own shopping habits. The most successful modern retailers have already adapted:

• Chemists can also be high-end gift shops, lottery outlets, or jewellers.
• Garden centres might have the best coffee in town and an awesome range of homewares.
• Pet shops can be your go-to for calendars and greeting cards.
• Newsagents are thriving by selling homewares, books, coffee, and more.

Sell What You Can, Not Just What You “Should”

Retailers today need to see their businesses through a flexible lens, not one bound by the history of their “business type.”

I’ve seen this work time and again:

• A fishing bait and tackle business that successfully sells fiction books.
• A toy shop that brings in new shoppers with a curated line of adult fashion.
• A music instrument store that built a local following by selling locally-made soaps.

The lesson is simple: Sell what you can sell.

How to Test New Products in Your Retail Store: A 3-Step Guide to Smart Experimentation

This doesn’t mean you should abandon your core business. It means you should dedicate a small, managed part of your budget to finding new opportunities.

My advice is to become a smart experimenter.

1. Experiment: Always have a small pot of cash you can afford to invest in one new product category. This is your “test fund.”
2. Measure: Bring in the product. Track the results. Did it sell? Who bought it? Did it bring new shoppers into the store?
3. Adjust: Let the data—not your assumptions—guide your next decision. If it works, expand. If it fails, learn the lesson, clear the stock, and try a different experiment.

Your Final Takeaway: Find Your Own Boundaries

Your customers know more about what they might buy from you than you do. Give them the opportunity by offering products outside of what they (and you) might expect.

How far can you stray from your “type” of business? As far as what works.

Keep stepping further away while not ignoring the all-vital core of your business. My advice is to not be restricted by what you think your business is.

The key is to expand your product range in retail in a way that works for you.. You’ll likely find they are much wider than you ever imagined.