The broad smile on the face of some customers when you tell them they have won $25 or $30 is worth the grumpiness of some who have won much more. While many of the big winners I encounter are angry that they have had to share the pool with other winning division 1 tickets, a higher percentage of winners of small prizes are happy with their lot. It’s as if you have given the winnings out of your own pocket. Their happiness is a great feeling.
Our Frankston newsagency has a column in front of the counter. It impedes traffic and is an eyesore. That’s one view. As the photo shows, there is another way to see this column – as something to be embraced and made a hero.
Simon, manager of the store, came up with the idea using the column to to promote our new line of Easter eggs as well as some of our Easter plush. The display has been up for four days and is working well.
While we’d prefer the column was not there, we have been happy have something which we can embrace in a bold way and for commercial value.
We have eggs on all four sides of the column and on a stand in front – not shown in the photo.
ACP magazines does not want newsagents to return magazines early – earlier than they (ACP) want. Their reasoning is that they know from research and data the optimum shelf life of a title.
For weeklies and monthlies this is fine, in with the new and out with the old. It is the one-shots and less frequent titles where newsagents face challenges.
Take the Ultimate Trivia Book under the TV Week banner. It was released on January 7, 2008 and is supposed to stay on sale for fourteen weeks. We have sold three copies between January 7 and today. This title is a dud in my newsagency. I have no choice but to return it early yet I have to jump through time consuming hoops to have the right to do this – even though every day it is on my shelves the title is losing my money sinc I have paid for all stock supplied.
This is where the ACP policy of no early returns is unfair on newsagents. I’d prefer to see one shots paid for based on scanned sales and not up front for all supplied stock as happens today. Right now I am a partner with ACP in the trivia title and I wasn’t even asked. If they won’t let me pay based on scanned sales then they must let me early return.
I should note that I am happy for there to be some rules around early returns, business rules. The current approach is not business-like and this is why it does not attract business-like attention from newsagents.
While ACP is not alone with their view, they enforce it more than others and this enforcement increases costs for newsagents often without revenue to balance the cost.
Given our success last week with Good Taste and the free white board, we are having another go with a fresh display – at the feature title displayed next to our main counter.
Our sales of this issue are currently 400% above average.
While the white board is the reason, it is our obsessive promotion which has made customers aware.
This micro in-store marketing based on specific issues of magazines is the type of obsession we must have as magazine specialists. Newsagents who don’t obsess ought to rethink their shingle.
We have been trying to wean our customers off plastic bags for months – especially newspaper customers. They buy a paper for $1.10 or thereabouts and when we don’t offer a bag, many demand it. In case they want proof of purchase we offer a receipt or a stamp on the newspaper. No, they want the plastic bag.
While we have an environmentally friendly bag, customers won’t pay for it. We happily give it away for sales of $20.00 or more. We have run several other promotions giving our environmental bag away. We have also given away environmental bags from The Age. Most customers don’t re-use these bags as intended – there is no habit around these when it comes to newsagencies.
We have tried paper bags for newspapers but they are too expensive for a newspaper purchase where the margin is very slim.
We have tried saying to customers that we’d rather not provide a plastic bag for a single newspaper purchase. It doesn’t go down well.
While we no longer automatically provide a bag for each sale and plastic bag use has fallen, we still give out too many – customers want plastic bags.
My view is that we need a national strategy, which all retailers can support. National with a local focus – raising money for approved local environmental projects – this brings an educational element to the equation and it makes the bag project local. Any national plastic bag strategy needs to be simple to administer.
The best approach will be for businesses to track bags purchased and used. This would provide an audit mechanism for the funds raised.
This week we start more carefully tracking plastic use in our newsagencies. By understanding the use we hope to better educate ourselves and then our customers. We expect the basket data about bag use to be enlightening.
In the meantime, there is the issue consumer attitude to plastic bags. Based on what I hear across the counter, many prefer plastic.
I was thrilled to receive a comment from Harry Carey Jr, an actor who worked with John Wayne. Carey’s website is a fascinating place to visit for movie buffs, John Wayne fans and, more generally, people interested in westerns. One cannot get much closer to the source of John Wayne stories than Harry Carey Jr.
Partwork publications are for collectors. So are many magazines in our newsagencies. Knowing something extra, to pass on, can help demonstrate a connection with a topic one could only find in a business like ours.
For our John Wayne partwork customers, we now have some information to share and the Harry Carey Jr website to point them to.
Fresh is out of date and it only just came in. This imported title features Chinese New Year dishes. Chinese New Year was a month ago. Regulars will understand, browsers will have another reason to think newsagents have old stock. Years ago this didn’t matter because newsagents had a monopoly on magazines. In today’s more competitive marketplace it’s a problem which needs attention. I want my newsagencies to be thought of as current.
Following on from my previous post, the photo shows exactly what I am talking about. Home Beautiful came in today with an Ideas Folder as a giveaway.Rather than display it in the usual place (it wouldn’t fit anyway), we created a small display at the counter – where we promote titles with a giveaway.
Based on recent experience, this display will be more successful than if we created a larger display on a power end yet it is the power end magazine publishers tend to measure newsagents by. It’s the type of small display I’ve been writing about recently – being smarter rather than louder.
To be fair, I note that Pacific Magazines – publishers of Home Beautiful – are not so demanding as to where their titles are promoted.
Since ACP took a half share in OK! magazine we’ve seen considerably more promotional activity around this title. However, you can get too much of a good thing – OK! is the ACP feature magazine again this week meaning it’s supposed to go in a high traffic space. In many newsagencies there is only one such space. Too much of OK! and customers won’t notice. I’d rather see other titles pushed in the feature space and smarter promotional opportunities used of OK! like a counter strategy, a co-location strategy or even a free sample offer. Just increasing the cycle of promotions is not enough – we have seen from our own activity that sometimes smaller displays in unique locations in-store can work better than the best display ever in the usual high traffic location.
The Tattersalls kiosk right outside my newsagency in Frankston is closed today – Labor day in Victoria. Most of the rest of the Bayside Shopping Centre is open. The mall is busy with holiday shoppers.
The Tattersalls kiosk being closed gives our shoppers who want a lottery ticket a reason to try the Tattersalls outlet up at Supanews – our competitor at the other end of the centre. Why the operators of the kiosk would want to give a competitor a free kick the day before a jackpot OzLotto draw is beyond me.
If you’re in a shopping centre you cop that it’s a 7 day a week business. You can’t do an Australia Post and work public service hours. This is retail! We need to be open days like today.
The owner of the Tattersalls kiosk will say that they can’t afford the wages or that it’s not fair on them to work such hours. Either excuse would be wrong in my view. In today’s market a retail business in a centre can’t afford to not open if the rest of the centre is open. Being closed demonstrates a lack of care for customers and for the surrounding businesses. Maybe it’s time they got out of the game.
DOS software died close to ten years ago. At least that is when most software companies moved onto Windows based software. Newsagent suppliers moved on too and from the late 1990s Windows based software was the industry standard. Any newsagent who hae purchased DOS software since has wasted money.
This matters to me today because scrambling continues in one software company to try and maintain relevance for its DOS software product. This newsagency software package is what has been holding newsagents back for years, it’s one of the reasons suppliers have not made the IT advances with newsagents they want. While user numbers are small, around 500, it is enough for suppliers to not want to rock the boat.
Someone should take this DOS software out the back and kill it.
DIS is dead and the sooner newsagents realise that the better for all newsagents.
In the meantime, if you have DOS software in your newsagency, replace it with one of the systems which does meet industry standards.
We are benefiting from integrating Eftpos with each register. Customers like that they don’t have to move to enter a PIN. Team members like that they can provide better service. I expect that we will see an increase in basket size as a result. It makes sense – the more convenient the payment options the less people, think about what they will spend. For business customers, using a business credit or debit card, this is even more true.
Ziff Davis, once the darling of technology magazine publishers, last week filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US, citing a decline in print advertising revenue as one of the reasons. MediaPost has the story. PaidContent rightly points to debt as the issue. On top of the considerable challenge of disruption, today’s media companies have to deal with the cost of debt. This was less of a problem with older media company structure, before the era of private equity.
I was disappointed to receive advice from the ANZ, a bank which has done well out of its relationship with Bill Express in newsagencies, announcing a change in merchant terms and conditions. They have removed the $500 break fee if the merchant agreement is broken within two years and replaced with a break fee of $250 regardless of when you break. Given that many agreements entered into when Bill Express guided people to an ANZ merchant relationship would be more than two years, it’s another fee newsagents need to navigate.
I am curious that the ANZ would send out this announcement following the announcement a couple of weeks ago to Bill Express newsagents taking away the marketing subsidy which, for many, was the difference between losing money or breaking even on the service.
It’s as if the ANZ has heard opf the newsagent anger, anticipated a mass exodus and sought to place a barrier in front of newsagents considering quitting Bill Express and the ANZ merchant arrangements. Why else announce what is effectively a new break fee right now?
It’s free book time again for magazine publishers. We have two titles on the shelves with free novels: Eve and Woman & Home.
While I understand the need for a premium to drive sales from time to time, there has to be a better way which does not obstruct browsing. Oh, and does not restrict our we display the product. Where possible we are displaying magazines with free books next.
I’d expect The Monthly to sell well this month thanks to its Kerry Packer related cover story on the fate of The Bulletin magazine.
The cover itself is stunning and stands out on the shelves. We have placed the title at our newspaper stand since it attracts more traffic than the usual area where would display The Monthly.
I’d love to hear from anyone who recognises this chap. The video footage shows that he left without paying for a boxed pen. I’d like to get in touch, show him the video footage and see how he would like to settle the account.
Every time this happens we learn some more about how people who steal from retail businesses operate.
I received a call late last yesterday from a newsagent who is handing his newspaper home home delivery run back on Monday. He asked for a fuel subsidy (for the fourth time) and was knocked back. It was essential to him breaking even on his 300 deliveries a day – this run has some challenges. Anyway, he’s giving it back and concentrating on retail. He tried to sell it but no one was interested.
This is an issue newsagents and publishers need to get together and discuss. There are ways to fix this.
Victorian newsagents are facing a choice: do they pursue a relationship with Intralot or not? Those with Tattersalls lottery products have space and some operational challenges to navigate. Newsagents without lotteries have the issue of fear of becoming a slave to a different retail dynamic to consider.
I think we (newsagents) sometimes overthink these things and end up missing out on opportunities. Maybe I am naive but as I see it pursuing a relationship with Intralot is important. They will want to make a splash when they go live. Being part of the network they promote when they make that splash will be good for business. Being part of something new could be the refresh some newsagents to look to the future – we spend a lot of time on past related issues.
At the very least, a decision about Intralot is about change. Embracing it has to be what we do. Others are around us and to the impact of our businesses so we need to play the change game ourselves. Intralot is an opportunity too good to pass. But, then again, maybe I am being naive.
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Small business newsagents are blocked by newspaper publishers from passing the cost of fuel. Where is the fairness in that?
eziPass, the phone recharge alternative for newsagents has passed 300 locations.Â
We have been involved in three sales based replenishment trials in the magazine category on behalf of newsagents through Tower Systems over the last four years. Two of these trials also involved our newsagency. While I cannot comment on the specifics of the trials for confidentiality reasons, I can say that the process is more certain now than ever before.
Newsagents are able to rely on not selling out of high volume titles based on a supply model which is driven by the sales cycle in the newsagency. This is very exciting for newsagents since it provides them with a supply model along the lines of what works for supermarkets and other key competitors in the magazine category. Properly implemented, SBR will help newsagents cut costs out of their business – that’s what the latest trial is showing according to newsagents I have spoken with.
While I am not privy to roll out information, I’d expect more newsagents to be part of the sales based replenishment model later this year as this approach to magazine supply moves from trial to implementation.
The key to SBR is accurate sales data. Newsagents without current version Windows based software will not benefit from SBR and that will make their businesses less competitive.
Tower Newsagents have led the field in the many trials. (Yeah, I know, it sounds arrogant – we and our newsagent partners have every right to be when it comes to good data management.) We’ve helped publishers hone SBR over the last three years and made it easy for the others will start participating soon.
SBR will be important for newsagents to embrace when it is more widely released as it makes us more competitive. Newsagents who are not ready or do not provide sales data will potentially hold the whole channel back. So, this is call to action – if you don’t comply with todays IT standards for newsagents, sort it out. The whole channel is relying every participant being up to scratch.
Last year I complained here about Mont Marte, the art supplies company in Queensland – I wrote about how how getting stock was a challenge and that they were competing with us through their own retail store which appeared to not have stock challenges. We closed that relationship and sat out of art for a few months. We’re thrilled with a relationship with Canson. We have just completed installing their range in Frankston. The photo shows part of the art suppliers and a small portion of the cardboard display. It’s been in less than a week and has already lifted the back corner of the shop in terms of sales and how we relate to it.
In Frankston we have a strong plush offer capping the card aisle with our Easter card offer. Sprinkled in with the plush is an easter themed children’s book distributed by Gotch yesterday. The photo below shows this display.
Behind where the photo was taken is a bold Easter egg display. So, for us, Easter is cards, eggs, plush and books. I like the fact that we are able to work across a variety of categories.
Newsagents are wondering what to make of the response from Bill Express yesterday to queries from the ASX in the light of the decision by them to reduce their financial commitment to and support of newsagents. On a related matter, some I have spoken with who have advised Bill Express of their decision to exit the relationship say they are having difficulty actually moving this forward. The extraction process seems broken at the Bill Express end.