Red ink washes US newspaper ad revenue
This graph, published in the Wall Street Journal, documents a horror story for US newspaper publishers. This shows that the rate of decline in newspaper advertising revenue has accelerated since the beginning of the year. The ad decline reflects sales decline.
We know from basket data that over 70% of newspapers sold in newsagencies are sold alone. We also know that newspapers are the key habit based traffic generator for newsagencies. When the US trend hits here – even allowing for locaol conditions such as the US real-estate slump – it will hit newsagents hard. This is why working on your newsagency of the future is crucial.
Be sure to read Emily Steet’s excellent report at the WSJ for details.
Pacific magazines has a good promotion running this week supporting Famous and New Idea with the free Bueno chocolate. The chocolate promotion provides an opportunity to push New Idea sales and pull Famous along too.
I felt special to receive this Fortune Privilege Card – until I realised the card itself gave me nothing. It is a bit of froth to make me feel special enough to sign up for 68% off the cover price of purchasing Fortune at a newsagency.
These are four of the hip hop / urban music titles we carry. At any point in time we have as many as eight. We usually receive one or two copies of each title. Sales are no more than one and often none. We request that titles are stopped and, eventually, they come back.
We were fortunate enough to take delivery of another five boxes of AFL Footy Cards late last week and we are almost out again. Had supply not restricted for the footy cards this year we could have easily sold three times what we have been supplied. While we understand that the nature of the cards requires that they are rationed, it is difficult to have to tell young kids that we are out of stock.
Newsagents are excited by the promotional opportunities of 
This is our first crack at strengthening our offering around our copying service. The copier is hidden behind the magazine displays. While not ideal, this is better than leaving the copier technology open with no up sell pitch around it. We are still working on the design of fixturing which would surround the copier make for a more professional presentation and display appropriate accompanying product.
We decided to give 
You know your marketing is working when a customers walk in clutching a flyer you have distributed and they ask for a specific item listed. You feel especially chuffed when the item they want is something you would not usually carry. This has happened several times during our Tax Time Savings promotion over the last month.
Every week now I am seeing evidence that blogging here about poor scale our by NDD is achieving a better outcome for my newsagency that dealing with them through regular communication channels. Titles such as this school selection book are being supplied in numbers which reflect the sell through rate of previous issues – as it should be.