A blog on issues affecting Australia's newsagents, media and small business generally. More ...

Month: June 2014

Sell locally-sourced products and prove your pitch to the local community

theatre showIf we are to promote a shop local pitch to our local communities we need to source locally made and locally connected products. This week I will draw attention to several local suppliers newsagents could consider. Stocking products from these and similarly local suppliers adds credibility to our shop local pitch. To me, local products are products made and / or designed in Australia. If my newsagency was in a country area my focus would be more on products sourced even closer to home.

Just Kiddin is a Melbourne based company run by a talented designer who sells her own designs in the form of tents and other products for kids. Their tents are terrific: easy to display (hang them from the ceiling), well packaged and of high quality. While major retailers have cheaper products, the Just Kiddin tents are seen by shoppers as far superior. In one of my newsagencies we have sold more than 60 tents in the last year – that’s close to $6,000 worth. They are a good fit with newsagents who sell toys, cards for kids and kids magazines – yep, just about anyone.

I first found the products at the Home and Giving Fair in Melbourne. The business owner and product designer was on the stand offering excellent insights into the products.

Just Kiddin has been a newsXpress preferred supplier for quite some time. They will sell to others.

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Ethics

Promotion drives sales of address books

Our address book sales are up from $61.95 for the first three weeks of June 2013 to $340.22 in the first three weeks of June 2014. This 449% increase in address book revenue has been driven by a small in-store promotion of our address book range – proving the value of promoting smaller profit offerings from the stationery department.

The promoting cost us little in the way of time and space yet the return was excellent. Our main focus was to let shoppers know we had a range. There was no big aisle-end display. There was also no special price offer.

Newsagents can increase stationery sales by focussing on pitching sought-after products in a way that encourages convenience shopping.

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Stationery

Best practice display of kids magazines

magsholidayskidsSmall format kids magazines like K-Zone, D-Mag and Total Girl need to be displays with the fill magazine on show. This is especially true at school holidays time when we have more kids in our newsagencies. The gifts bagged with the magazines are more easily seen if the titles are on full cover display and not placed in the usual magazine fixtures in many newsagencies.

I urge newsagents to check today how they have these kids titles displayed.

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magazines

Sunday newsagency marketing tip: how to make the most of school holidays

holidaysSchool holidays present an excellent opportunity for all retailers including newsagents. They bring out shoppers we might not often see and shoppers who are usually open to purchasing items they might not consider outside school holiday times.

School holidays present us with excellent commercial opportunities regardless of our newsagency location and situation.

Here are my suggestions for engaging with this recurring season:

  1. Treat school holidays as a season. Plan ahead with a clear focus in mind. Range a specific mix of products. Dress the shop for the opportunity.
  2. Change the entire front of your newsagency. With different and / or more people in the mall and on the street during school holidays than at other times this is your opportunity to get them noticing your business. Do this with a different looking shop front. All the products at the front of my newsagency are targeting kids as we are in a shopping centre and more shoppers in school holidays have kids with them than at most other times of the year.
  3. Range stock for the season. I love the idea of products that can be demonstrated – kinetic sand, bouncing balls, plush to hug, slime to throw and other equally interactive items to be demonstrated on the shop floor.
  4. Pitch an offer. Use the extra traffic as an opportunity to promote your value proposition. Promote deals in dump bins showing your offers as competitive against the majors in stationery, toy and gift categories.
  5. Engage your customers. School holidays are an excellent time for competitions or in store workshops.
  6. Engage your schools. Co-ordinate in advance with a local school an activity kids can do in the school holidays that connects with the curriculum. This can encourage the school to promote your business.
  7. Promote magazines. Magazines offer an excellent holiday pastime. Put together a display of school holiday fun and engagement from your magazine department. Get people looking at titles they might otherwise ignore during the year.
  8. Run a stationery sale. School holidays for some is about re-stocking supplies. It could be an ideal time to offer a deal on stationery.
  9. Have fun. Kids are on a break. They want to relax and enjoy themselves. Shopping is part of that. Help them have fun.

School holidays are not about dealing with more kids or being a child minding centre while parents browse magazines or even shop elsewhere. They are an opportunity to increase sales – by being proactive with the season.

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marketing

Sunday newsagency management tip: stand up for yourself

Every day I hear stories from newsagents about them being told what to do in their business by people outside their business. They are usually being told to do something they do not agree with, do not want to do or will not improve the financial return they achieve from their business.

Landlords, suppliers, advisors and employees often tell newsagents what to do in their businesses.

Historically, newsagents have been servants to publishers, as agents. Publishers were often brutal in enforcing their rules and demands. That continued as agents for lottery organisations (in most states but not all) with some representatives being brutal today in pushing newsagents to do what they want. In the magazine space, too, there are some supplier representatives who demand things of newsagents without a thought for the commercial value for newsagents.

It’s 2014 people.

Unless you have a contract that explicitly stipulates that you must do what supplier X demands, only accede to their demands if you agree and if you think it will put your business in a better petition.

Own your decisions.

There is no value in doing something you don’t agree with only because you are pressured. There is no commercial benefit from doing something, it failing and you complaining about it later.

It’s your business and your money at risk.

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Management tip

Your Knitting & Crochet Collection title sells out

bhgknittingThankfully, we are getting more stock of the Better Homes and Gardens branded Your Knitting & Crochet Collection Monday as we sold out Saturday. A couple walking past the newsagency on their away out of the centre noticed the poster and went in and picked up a copy. I saw this happen myself … it was another reminder of the value of a good poster out the front of the newsagency for an in-demand product driving a purchase. The customer left with an offer to entice them back.

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magazines

Double standards from Bauer on approving direct supply?

The Bauer requirement to prove a minimum sales volume in order to get a direct account does not appear to apply to all with one new account reportedly being approved by Bauer in a town already served with plenty of newsagents and in a small centre that has a challenged retail business track record. The history of the centre alone would highlight reasons for caution.

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magazine distribution

Great to see a small business fight the supermarket duopoly

10502467_810489645635731_8037353110881261883_nCheck out the photo of a sign in front of a local butcher a friend posted on Facebook yesterday. I love the direct and feisty words of this butcher who is making a plea for locals to support their small business and not the big supermarket.

With tougher competition from the supermarket dopily newsagents could engage in a campaign like this – educating shoppers about how Coles and Woolworths are taking business from us and highlighting what shoppers could miss if they ultimately win and see more small business newsagents and other local businesses closed.

We can’t stand by and do nothing. Like this butcher, we need to educate our customers with passion.

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Newsagency challenges

Coles out of date with magazines

colesoldawwThe issue of Australian Women’s Weekly on display in my local Coles supermarket is the old issue.  other they did not get their stock or they have not yet put out the new issue. Either way it presents an opportunity for the nearby newsagent. If it was me I’d be happy about this. Wins like this are rare.

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magazines

Too many copies of restored Cars

magsrestoredcarsOur supply of Retsored Cars Australia was increased without any justification in the sales data. While I like this Aussie magazine and want to support them, the publisher needs to ensure newsagents do not face an increase in supply without any justification in the sales data. Ugh!

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Magazine oversupply

News Corp deal makes Coles look cheap and newsagencies look expensive

appalling-insideoutNews Corp’s Inside Out magazine is on sale at Coles for $6.00, $2.20 less than the price in newsagencies and other retail outlets.

How is it that this News Corp. title can be sold to shoppers at Coles for less than newsagents pay for it?

Why would newsagents not early return all Inside Out stock right away in protest at this deal?

One of my newsagencies is directly in front of Coles. This deal makes us look expensive. It plays into the Coles advertising that they are driving prices down.

I’d love to know if there is a deeper deal between News Corp. and Coles that could see other deals that make newsagencies look expensive to what Coles offers.

Once you consider this Inside Out deal and last week’s Woman’s Day deal, supermarkets certainly have newsagents in their sights and some suppliers appear willing to play with them. We need to remind these suppliers that we are a strong national channel.

Other newsagent suppliers note: resist pressure from Coles to join them on the race to lower margin business. The more shoppers you turn away from newsagents the more you rely on the likes of Coles and think for a moment what that world looks like to you.

Note: I moved this post from yesterday to today to keep the issue in the spotlight.

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Ethics

Relegating The Age to a lower shelf

fairfaxcutbackWe have moved The Age down from our main newspaper shelf on weekdays given the low sales volume. Sales are not paying for the space.

We have filled the space with popular magazine titles that we think will interest newspaper shoppers. The magazine mix will change over time based on what we think will work best from here. It’s all about return on shelf space.

On Saturdays The Age will be back on the top shelf due to higher sales and the physical size of the issue.

From time to time we will give The Age  time in the sun just as we support any lower volume title.

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Newspapers

Moving AWW cover of Turia Pitt covered

awwcoverjul2014The impact of the moving cover shot on The Australian Women’s Weekly featuring ultra marathon runner Turia Pitt is diluted with the placement of a free Chocolate cookbook covering almost half the cover.

The stuck on chocolate cookbook plus the Priceline catalogue on the back page make this a messy issue to display when customers browse the magazine and shove it back into the shelves, damaging the stuck-on attachments.

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magazines

Network overloads PlayStation Australia magazine

magsplatstWe can’t work out why Network Services would increase our supply of PlayStation Australia when we have not been selling out. There is nothing in this issue to justify the increase. All we can put it down to is that Network has spare stock they need to send out in order to charge the publisher distribution fees. Network wouldn’t do this to Coles.

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Magazine oversupply

Cigarette management a key factor in newsagency employee theft

How cigarette stock is managed in a newsagency provides an excellent indication of the employee theft risk. If a business does not track all movements of cigarette stock it is more likely to be victim of employee theft.

I choose cigarettes because tracking all stock movements is easy and because cigarettes are often stolen by employees if they think sock movements are not being tracked.

Do you track all cigarette stock movement? If not, why not? Tracking it shows your employees that you are serious about an accurate stock count. It also helps you order more accurately and thereby not over stock. It also quickly identifies any discrepancy in stock on hand.

I have seen businesses where there was no tracking of cigarette movement, stock was stolen and plenty of cash was stolen because the criminal employee know that management of the business was weak.

My experience of uncovering and tracking employee theft in newsagencies and assisting police and prosecutors is that a business introducing and maintaining tight control on cigarette stock movement will reduce the incidence of employee theft.

Why newsagents would not do this is beyond me.

6 likes
Newsagency management

Where it goes newsagency profit flyer updated

whereitgoesI have updated the flyer I published here last year that was designed to help advise newsagent employees where the profit made in the business goes. The updates improve clarity of the message.  Click here to download the document in Microsoft Word format. Feel free to change it as appropriate to your needs.

By informing employees of where all revenue received by the business goes we are trusting them and hopefully encouraging more valuable engagement in the running of the business.

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Newsagency management

American shopping malls a dying breed

BqkQoj6IYAAKHuyMore and more reports are coming out of the US about shopping malls that are closing and being abandoned. What’s interesting is that it’s mall based shopping that is challenged and not shopping itself. The New Yorker has an interesting report quoting Rick Caruso, CEO of the company with malls delivering best-practice per square metre sales. Caruso malls are outdoors and more about the LA lifestyle experience.

This trend is one we need to watch and assess whether it is unique to the US or something we are likely to see in Australia because right now, we’re seeing more malls being built than close – leading some to say we are over served with retail space.

There was a time when being in a newsagency in a shopping mall was the preferred outlet. Today, that preferred location is more likely to be a high street situation in an area with a strong sense of community.

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retail

The world cup of beer

worldcupbeerIn a supermarket a few days ago I saw this World Cup themed display promoting beer. Whereas other retailers had displays of soccer balls and players, this retailers was focussed on the competition through products they sell. Very clever.

The display is also interesting because it adheres to the basics of good visual merchandising: pyramid in shape and telling a story.

While newsagencies don’t have the product range for this type of World Cup promotion, I am sure with some thought we could have done more to connect with this international event than just sell magazines, stickers and cards.

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visual merchandising

The unexpected gets noticed in retail

plantsIn a large book and clothing shop a couple of days ago I noticed a structural column in the middle of the shop that would otherwise be an eyesore was host to a beautiful garden with live plants shoppers were encouraged to touch.

Here, deep in the shopping mall and in the middle of a large busy shop, they had turned a challenge into an opportunity for left-field shopper engagement. Kids and adults stopped and touched the plants. Most smiled.

Using a structural column for this is unexpected. I found it made more interested in what else they were doing in the shop – kind of if they are smart enough to do this they must be doing some other cool things.

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visual merchandising