Australian Newsagency Blog

I was in Perth yesterday for the GNS Market Fair.  It was a good trade show for the newsagency channel. While not as big as those already this year in Melbourne and Sydney, the Perth fair was busy with business … plenty of business in fact. I was surprised at the range of […]

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The second day of the GNS Market Fair in Melbourne today was excellent.  Busy.  Plenty of newsagents through.  My feeling is that it was busier than last year.
Congratulations to GNS for such a good fair.
I split time between the Tower Systems stand and the newsXpress stand.  Both did well, coming away with new business and […]

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A couple of newsagents contacted me last week about a “Yellow Pages” scam.  They con you into thinking they are from the real Yellow Pages and that you owe money.  It soon escalates and some business people feel enough pressure to send payment to make it go away.  The scan is usually operated by people […]

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Newsagents need to be on their guard in Melbourne at the moment.  There is someone using credit card numbers to buy mobile phone recharge and to load prepaid debit cards.
They are very smooth and can have employees believing that what they are doing is legitimate.  Here are some tips to protect your business.

Only allow credit […]

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I am preparing to undertake a newsagent retail sales benchmark study comparing sales for April - June 2010 against April - June 2009.
Tower Newsagents can participate by sending a Monthly Sales Comparison report: tick the box to exclude home deliveries, and tick the box for a category breakdown. Set your first date range (on […]

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We are promoting the latest issue of Time magazine, with the World Cup cover story, with newspapers for a few days.  While only simple, I am hoping that the tactical placement with newspapers will be effective since Time sales are not all that good for us.  Our World Cup magazine sales are going off so […]

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I am often asked by people looking at buying a newsagency why they should given the issues and challenges discussed here and elsewhere.
In my view, a newsagency represents a good investment and offers good opportunities, plenty of upside - despite some challenges presented by out of date practices.  The value in theupside is why I […]

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Reading the comments at my recent post on flat retail sales got me thinking about practical ways newsagents could turnaround their retail businesses. I have put together a few ideas below which are a mix of basic business advice and out there crazy ideas. They are offered as thought starters.
If your newsagency sales […]

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A question I am often asked by newsagents is how to find new prospective employees.  Here are some tips which I have found helpful over the years.  Some are obvious and others, I hope, are new to you:

Put a sign in the window.  Explain the position, the hours and what you are looking for.  Be […]

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Sitting on a plane yesterday morning flying from Melbourne to Newcastle I enjoyed watching how people nearby interacted with magazines. It was like I was in the magazine fan zone of the plane, magazines were the entertainment medium of choice.
To my left was a lady devouring Madison. I say devouring because she was […]

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Despite the recent increases in newspaper home delivery fees, I have heard from newsagents contemplating giving up their newspaper distribution runs. In a couple of cases I have looked at this week, the new fees still do not get the run to a break-even point.
I have advised several newsagents recently consider not giving […]

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I was fortunate to be at the NANA Newsagent of the Year awards last night in Sydney. It was a terrific evening with good newsagents and employees being recognised for their tremendous service to our channel. Plenty of suppliers were also represented and recognition was given to them for their support of the […]

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Whenever we receive a supplier reward we share it with the team.  The latest kitty to share is four dozen bottles of wine, some beer and some movie passes.  We don’t make alcohol available to any employees under 18.  Those 18 or older get to choose their own bottles of wine - we line it […]

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We achieved excellent numbers across the various stores I am connected with yesterday for Valentine’s Day related product.  While cards were at the core of the success, gifts and chocolates performed very well too.
In each situation, sales were ahead of last year.  Curiously, the two locations which performed the best are loacted in areas of […]

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The latest newsagent sales benchmark study reports a 7% unit sales decline for magazines and a 4% unit sales decline for newspapers in Australian newsagencies in January 2010.
Comparing unit sales for these and other key newsagent categories, the newsagency channel’s only sales benchmark study analyses sales for January 2010 compared to 2009 on a same […]

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I have had an opportunity this weekend to assess the impact of our decision to cease offering the Western Union service in August 2009.  We did 405 Western Union transactions in 2008 and 198 in the seven months for which we offered the service in 2009.
We are benefiting from easier management of sales counter resources, […]

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We pulled our ad on Seek for new employees after seven days.  We received a total of 358 applications - more than any ad we have run in the past.  This tells me that in Victoria at least there is an enormous pool of people looking for work in retail.  The calibre of applicants was […]

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Further to my post two days ago, we have now received 198 applications via Seek from 623 people who have viewed the ad.  This is just in two days. We have received another 25 or so direct.  We’re now turning the ad off because we have a shortlist of 20 candidates for five positions.  Having […]

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In four hours yesterday our online ad for staff for a new newsagency I am involved with generated 73 applications.  What particularly interested me was that 17 of the applicants have current newsagency experience.  This is a higher proprtion that I usually see.  The pool includes some candidates with excellent resumes.  We should find the […]

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We achieved good sales in November with sales up in key traffic departments as well as in key good margin departments.  The numbers are even better when you consider that some departments had a high base - calendars, diaries, cards and ink.  Here is a summary of performance* across my own newsagencies:

Books.  Up 11%.
Calendars.  Up […]

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I am undertaking a newsagent retail sales benchmark study comparing sales for September-October 2009 against September-October 2008.
Tower Newsagents can participate by sending a Monthly Sales Comparison report: tick the box to exclude home deliveries, and tick the box for a category breakdown. Set your first date range (on the left) to September 1, 2009 […]

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September has been an interesting month for newsagents.  I have seen stores with excellent growth and others with dreadful figures.  From what I see, it continues the patchy economic condidions we find ourselves in.
In our own case, we had a good month overall: books - down 17% (due to differences in sales cycles over the […]

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It is AFL Grand Final day in Melbourne.  This means a very busy morning to noon and a deaf rest of the day.  It also means plenty of footy banter in the morning and anti footy banter in the afternoon.  It’s an interesting day given the difference between morning and afternoon trade.  Kind of fun […]

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Tower Systems is running free online training for newsagents next week to help build industry skill levels and to encourage newsagents to gain more from their computer systems.  The four free workshops are:

XChangeIT Compliance Sept. 29 11:00.  This session is an online version off the face to face session which we ran in […]

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Our ad looking for someo to join our newsXpress Forest Hill stores has been live at Seek for fifteen hours and we already have twenty applicants.  This is more than we usually see and, I guess, a sign of the times. The applicants range from school leavers through to someone with an MBA.   Yep, an […]

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