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At the Newsagents Federation conference in Birmingham this week, Imperial Tobacco, the UK's market leader, suggested to retailers that they should focus less on cigarette margins, at 6.6 per cent, and more on stockturn, at 183 times a year. Using a simple model, general manager Amal Pramanik, showed that the 50 per cent margin offered by toothbrushes which turned over four times a year, offered a cash return of £200 a year for every £100 invested. Cigarettes, in contrast, would earn a retailer £1,200 for every £100 invested. It is a simple illustration and holds true even when retailers add on investment in assets, such as the space occupied by the product. In order to measure how well you are doing, you need to understand what return you get when you multiply your margin by your stockturn. Mr Pramanik's purpose in reminding retailers of this fact is to head off increasing pressure from retailers for a rise in the margin that they get on cigarettes. However, his reminder ...