Australian Newsagency Blog

A good way to promote your newsagency is to offer something of value to another business to giveaway. Using Microsoft Word it is easy to create coupons tailored to your business. These could offer a free gift with a purchase, a discount off, say a magazine, a two for one deal or some […]

[Read more →]

I have see the TV commercial for the Classic Australian Movie Collection partwork series which is to launch July 16.  Like other partwork TV commercial, it is designed to drive traffic exclusively for the newsagent channel.  The first five movies are: The May From Snowy River, Gallipoli, Sunday Too Far Away, Rabbit Proof Fence and […]

[Read more →]

Newspapers generate a tremendous amount of traffic for newsagents. The photo, taken yesterday at Forest Hill, shows how we try and leverage add-on sales from this traffic. We have more items around papers than usual because all other display spaces are being used. Usually, we would have only two stands next to […]

[Read more →]

Il Globo, Neos Kosmos and Sing Tao Daily are part of an important category for newsagents. Foreign language titles bring in loyal customers who visit daily or at least several times each week. By intelligently promoting around these titles, and respecting the opportunity their loyalty brings, we are able to make the newspaper […]

[Read more →]

We have co-located the Tax Packs in our newsagency, in the body of the shop and at the front of the shop next to our Financial Year diaries. We are treating them as a magazine in the way to promote the Tax Packs - even though they are free and we are paid next […]

[Read more →]

SCX Global, newsXpress and Tower Systems are thrilled to launch four Visa Prepaid card products through our eziPass platform. CANVAS, VCARD, Just4 and Secure Cash Xpress provide newsagents with competitive products for several demographics. Commission on each card sale is between 30% and 40%. Commission on reload is five times the commission for BOPO.
The […]

[Read more →]

Borders is to discount magazines in its stores with a buy one get another at 50% off deal during Magazine Week in the UK.  I am not sure how I would react to that given that more than half magazine sales in most newsagencies are two or more magazines.  If it is genuine incremental sales […]

[Read more →]

I was doing some tidying up yesterday and came across a copy of Marketing your Newsagency, a book I wote for D W Thorpe publishing in 1994. Thorpe published the Australian Newsagent & Stationer, the journal of record for newsagents through the 1980s and 1990s.
While not usually drawn to nostalgia, I did spend an […]

[Read more →]

Here are some sales and marketing tips newsagents could consider in the lead up to the end of the financial year on June 30:

End of Financial Year Sale. Nothing too special or complex in this idea. Get together items which are slow movers, bring them to the front of the shop on […]

[Read more →]

Waterstones, the High Street UK bookshop chain, has launched an initiative to encourage budding writers who want their short stories published. Given the breadth of product catgeories covered by newsagencies, we could launch similar competitions for people to:

Design greeting cards.
Write for a magazine.
Invent new stationery items.
Design new gift wrap.
Write Australia’s best letter.
Find the best […]

[Read more →]

Congratulations to Doug and Tracey Otter of Williamstown Newsagency for winning retail Newsagent of the Year and to Melbourne Central Newsagency for winning Distribution Newsagent of the Year at the ANF Convention dinner tonight.

[Read more →]

With a Coles Online grocery delivery at the office this morning we received this catalogue for Pharmacy Direct, the online pharmacy business purchased by Coles a while back. Maybe Coles is finally leveraging the online pharmacy business through their broader business. The catalogue is a reminder to local pharmacists that the supermarket giant is […]

[Read more →]

This booklet from Coles promotes Mother’s Day activities and items they sell to support these. It’s good passive marketing. Coles produces one for each season - sometimes two seasons with the booklet flipped around when the new season kicks in (as they did at Easter). We try for something similar with our newsletter but […]

[Read more →]

More than 40 US and Canadian comic book publishers have got together to support Free Comic Book Day 2008 by offering free samples at participating comic book stores. This is a brilliant idea! Comic sales are down and there is no better way to attract new interest than a national campaign based around […]

[Read more →]

Check out the WebUrbanist site for some excellent examples of art created from post-it notes.  I especially like the ideas which invite participation from passers-by like in the photo below.  This is something which could work on our window.

The site is a great resource of ideas for newsagencies wanting to make a statement in the […]

[Read more →]

The LIFE BEGINS AT $40 MILLION banner we have across our entrance is certainly attracting new customers into our newsagency for tickets in the $40 million jackpot. In addition to this we have posters at our counter and elsewhere as well as some enticing syndicate products. We back this at the counter with […]

[Read more →]

Show Mummy the Money is the kind of independent magazine I had in mind when I wrote my blog post about helping independent magazines a week back. We received the new title yesterday - but no support material. The website for the magazine is packed with information. This could have easily been […]

[Read more →]

My software company, Tower Systems, yesterday announced exclusive partnership with Kachingo, a new in-store marketing initiative for newsagents.  You can read more about this here.  I expect that newsagents will hear plenty about Kachingo in the next few months.  It provides a genuinely new marketing opportunity for newsagents and their suppliers.

[Read more →]

I have written a brief paper to help newsagents engage in free marketing opportunities using point of sale software. While I have written this from the perspective of Tower Systems software, some of the facilities used for this free marketing will be available in other systems.
Newsagents have tremendous opportunities to promote what they want, […]

[Read more →]

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, […]

[Read more →]

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 […]

[Read more →]

We have run two separate successful over the counter marketing campaigns for the Australian Women’s Weekly over the last two weekends.
We increased sales the first weekend by 32 copies and the second weekend by 19 copies - tabove our usual sales for equivalent weekends in the sales cycle.
The campaign was run at each counter sales […]

[Read more →]

Newsagents wanting to drive magazine sales ought to try this idea. We have been using it for a few months now and it works every time.
We have allocated space at the counter, between our two busiest serving stations, to promote magazines being sold a free gift we consider worthy of premium space promotion.
The space […]

[Read more →]

Simon and the team at Frankston donned their hats, strung up some four leaf clover and dressed the store to recognise St Patricks Day today.  The photo does not do their efforts justice.  The gold hats are the talking point and make for a happy retail space and that’s what the day is about - […]

[Read more →]

Today is the last day of the current newsXpress Hot Ink promotion we are running. It’s also the last day of the TV campaign. This promotion and the print and TV advertising has been a tremendous success, driving new customers and bringing back regulars. It’s put individual stores as well as the […]

[Read more →]