Australian Newsagency Blog

Watching the share price tumble of Bill Express has become a popular sport among newsagents. Today’s 28.5% drop in their share price have been cause for considerably commentary.
It didn’t need to be this way. Had Bill Express treated newsagents differently they could have relied on their key retail network for support rather than […]

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We’re using our new feature space at the counter to promote Burke’s Backyard magazine. The free seed offer this month is compelling and, we feel, is ideal for an impulse purchase at the counter.
While the publisher would probably prefer a power end display, I know that this smaller display at the counter will result […]

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Check our the stuck-on ad by Emirates over the masthead on The Age today:

Despite my poor photo, the visual impact of the ad by Emirates is obvious.

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The Newspaper Association of America has reported the biggest fall in ad revenue for US newspapers in 50 years. See the Editor & Publisher report for details then go to Jeff Jarvis’ BuzzMachine blog for his view and the view of his broad cross-section commenters.
While we feel a long way from the slide in […]

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We have more magazines about specific English football clubs in stock than we have for AFL clubs. Hotspur, the official magazine of the Tottenham Hotspur Football Club is just one of a range of titles. Even though we sell only one or two copies, they are highly browsed. I’ve watched the browsing […]

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A couple of days after our Ink promotion ended our book sale started. Like the ink promotion, the book sale was promoted through flyers delivered to homes around our shopping centre - for all three of our newsagencies. Daily revenue from the book sale is between $400.00 and $750.00. This is […]

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We have carried Christina Re invitation and paper craft products in our newsagency for more than four years. Sales have been up and down over. The fall came when the supplier put the range into another store in the centre - they closed a year or so later.
It’s a fashion business this invitation […]

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Placing the Underbelly book at the counter of our three newsagencies was a success, we sold out. This was on my mind this morning since my post here about us selling Underbelly is the fourth most viewed post on this blog in the last two months. The top three, in order, are: Customers […]

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Tribune Media Services in the US has announced the launch Opinionated, a weekly political magazine available only on the Amazon Kindle e-book.  Think about what this does for the supply chain - TMS publishes and immediately the issue is availaboe through Amazon for Kindle reader owners.  No print production costs, no distributor, no freight company, […]

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The High Court decision this week about Betfair is expected to further open the gambling space. Newsagents already have a connection with Betfair having been offered the opportunity to undertake over the counter ID checks for people wanting to open Betfair accounts.
Newsagents have long relied on the traffic generated by lottery and instant […]

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Alan Mutter has a good blog post about the latest campaign by the Newspaper Association of America to promote newspapers in the US.
The creative people behind our local newspaper campaign, being run by The Newspaper Works are taking a similar obscure approach to promoting the newspapers here.
I want to see newspapers promoted as relevant and […]

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We’re enjoying success by pitching Crayola art and craft products next to the range from Canson.
Beyond the solid visual message we’re attracting good sales to justify the commitment.
While Crayola is a children’s story, it plays well next to the more grown-up art products.
Laying out 230 square metres of retail space is challenge and it’s […]

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Darrell Lea came up with some nice looking packaging for their Easter egg product. The design was let down by poor adhesive - many boxes popped open, exposing chocolate and making some product unsaleable. Darrell Lea sent out double sided tape to fix the problem but to use this retailers had to put their […]

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BRW this week has a two page article abut newsagents and life ten years after deregulation. It’s a good piece by Jane Lindhe as it appropriately covers the challenges of the channel - Australia Post, supplier control and the dilution of soft gambling traffic.
While I am conflicted since I was interviewed for the story, […]

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Mike Wang, publisher of Informed Investors, a Chinese language business magazine, found this blog and pitched his magazine to me. He wanted to get it into more outlets.
We have had the title for close to a year, it’s selling between 5 and 8 copies an issue. We have it on the shelf near […]

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The Geelong Advertiser has joined the ranks of newspapers allowing news on the front page of the newspaper to be covered up by a stuck on ad.  Even if it is for a promotion connected with the beloved Geelong Football Club, it damages the newspaper.

I know publishers do this for the ad revenue.   This is […]

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The US National Stationery Show in the US, the big trade show of the year for stationery retailers, in May this year will feature a paper crafting (scrapbooking etc) seminar track, Gifts and Tablewares magazine reports.
“The paper crafting seminar track is designed to educate and inspire a broad cross-section of attendees, from veteran scrapbook retailers […]

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Newspapers must adapt or die - another newspaper executive is saying this publicly.  This time it’s David Montgomery, former head of the UK Mirror Group speaking to a House of Lords select committee.

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Management at the Adelaide Advertiser, the SA arm of News Ltd, is playing favourite with newsagent software companies.  They are pushing one locally developed software system.  Even though Tower Systems (the company I own) has 120 newsagent users, Advertiser Newspapers refuses to include us in discussions on IT changes they want in their relationship with […]

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The Classic Carry On Film Collection is the latest part publication in newsagencies. It’s a good series for the baby boomers - I recall many a cold afternoon spent watching these hilarious films.
We’re promoting the Carry On series right at the front of the shop. We’re setting up a DVD so people get a […]

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I was asked yesterday about my connection was with News To Business, the service spruiked by Brendan Geyer. I have no connection. I have never used News To Business and have no plans to use them.
The person asking me assumed there was connection because News To Business comes up of you do a Google […]

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It’s in the long tail of magazines, the special (fringe) interest titles where we are seeing consistent growth. Magazines about railways, model railways, remote control, woodworking, airplanes, model planes, military history, family history and so on.
While the top selling titles account for volume, sales are more prone to fluctuation based on cover or […]

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Bill Express shares fell another 2 cents yesterday, closing at 9.5 cents. This is 46% lower than they traded eight weeks ago. There are 1 million shares for sale up to 13 cents. The majority of the buyers are looking to pay 5 cents or less.

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My software company is interested in hearing from anyone with experience with the POS Solutions software who is looking for a career in software support. While POS users are migrating at a faster rate than ever before (six in three days so far this week), we’d like to be able to help newsagents who […]

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Maybe I missed this but it seems to me that more petrol outlets sell greeting cards now.
I have been in three petrol outlets this week and each had a corporate image stand with the range on display near the counter, next to the newspaper stand. The range was focused on top selling captions people […]

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