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

Month: May 2008

Newsagents and the Bill Express contract

While the ANZ and other Bill Express creditors and stakeholders are, I suspect, working through the weekend on a restructure for the business, Newsagents are looking at how they can get out of their Bill Express contract and the associated lease for the equipment Bill Express installed in newsagencies.

When newsagents signed on for Bill Express, they signed up to pay $495 a month for four years to get access to equipment worth around $3,000. This was a nice earner for the company – having newsagents provide working capital for their under-capitalised business.

While the two agreements newsagents are with separate entities and cover separate functions, I would have thought that newsagents could have them considered as one since one relies on the other and they are with related parties. If this is the case, the contract (the two agreements) could be challenged, in my view, on several fronts:

  • Outage. The level of network outage over the last two months has been unacceptable. Not being even able to process eftpos means customers go elsewhere and impedes our ability to drive revenue and fund lease/rental payments on the equipment (which is not working).
  • Product unavailability. Optus has often been out of stock over the last six weeks. With Optus being the top selling mobile recharge brand, newsagents not having stock disadvantages their businesses. The lack of performance of Bill Express on this ought to, of itself, be grounds for challenging both agreements.
  • No customer service. Bill Express / Dialtime help desk people are never available and do not return phone calls. This lack of support means individual newsagent outages are prolonged and these limit our ability to achieve revenue necessary to service the rental/lease agreement.
  • Ad screen failure. My Mi_Systems ad screen and many others are not working and the company does not respond to requests to get them active. The outage of this screen is denying me a revenue opportunity and therefore impedes our ability to service the rental/lease agreement.
  • No marketing. In February, when announcing the removal of the subsidy, Bill Express committed to using around 30% of what they should have paid for bill payment commission to better market the service on behalf of the network. I have seen no such activity. This makes me a creditor of Bill Express along with thousands of newsagents.

Given the near collapse of the company and its services over the last six weeks I suggest that Bill Express is incapable of performing under the terms of the Bill Express / Dialtime agreement and that this failure is grounds for terminating the TBS equipment leasing agreement.

But I am no lawyer. These are issues lawyers ought to be considered by lawyers along with other matters relating to how 3,500+ newsagents got into this mess in the first place.

0 likes
Bill Express

Cross promoting with magazines

pball_mags.JPGSo much of today and the next six days is about the Powerball $50 million jackpot.  Today we have extended our promotion of the jackpot deep into the newsagency including across magazines.  Our encroaching on magazine space is compensated by a refreshed magazine display at our main lottery counter and leading to this.  While we are offering the up-sell, it is equally important to have the shop do this for us – in the magazine department and elsewhere.  The jackpot value is rare so it makes sense to seek out new customers.

0 likes
Lotteries

Cool double sided wrap

doubwrap.JPGI love this double sided wrapping paper we have found. In the sample in the photo, one side has the larger hearts and the other side smaller. We have twelve designs to start.  They compliment our folded wrap, rolls, bags and boxes. The challenge with sheeted wrap is where to display while protecting the product.

0 likes
Wrapping paper

Bookmarks work for magazines

just_in_may.JPGThe Just In bookmarks we are using from newsXpress are working at drawing customer attention to titles just in. We find them especially useful for the low volume titles which can arrive on different days each month. While it’s a small activity on which to focus attention and invest in collateral, it is things like these bookmarks which separate a magazine specialist from others – arrogant as that may sound.

My view is that we make our own success in many things we do. This is why an investment in the bookmarks and other local in-store activities around several of our categories is a worthwhile investment. We are backing ourselves, creating IP and not relying on suppliers to do this work for us.

0 likes
magazines

The shopping trolley challenge

troller_aisle.JPGShopping trolleys are a problem for newsagencies and other retail businesses. Their drivers too often care less about the damage they do to fixtures and products when they bump around the shop.

Trolleys often block aisles and make the shopping experience of others less enjoyable.

One way to manage the problem is to make our shops less trolley friendly. While this would cause some customer backlash, many others would be happy. Banning trolleys would give us back more control over the shopping experience.

On some Saturdays we have have upwards of six trolleys in the shop being pushed around and getting in the way. Two in one aisle disables that aisle for everyone else in the shop. This must impact sales. So, maybe it is time to build a newsagency which does not accommodate shopping trolleys.

0 likes
retail

Promoting the $50 million jackpot

pball50.JPGWe have papered right around the counter, up the walls and across the top to promote the $50 million Powerball jackpot.  We have also papered multiple places in the shop with the posters we made yesterday to promote the jackpot.  We have our team also offering the up-sell and several other strategies in play to make sure that we achieve our sales targets.  We have set two sales targets with team rewards at each point.  We are still building what we will do next week in the last couple of days of the jackpot.

0 likes
Lotteries

Easier mobile recharge for newsagents

Thanks to further discussions with the folks at St.George Bank, we have navigated a way for newsagents to more easily access Optus and Vodafone recharge product. eziPass newsagents who sign for the St.George Bank deal can install a terminal to process Eftpos and credit card transactions as well as dispense Optus and Vodafone recharge. Everything else can be sold through eziPass. If we are fortunate enough to able to bring Optus and Vodafone to the eziPass platform in the future and you then wish to move to an integrated Eftpos solution (where Eftpos is processed through your computer) St.George will swap out the first terminal for an integrated unit without additional cost.

0 likes
phone recharge

School days journal

school_days.JPGThis school days journal is a product we have at our Sophie Randall business which should work equally well in newsagencies.  It’s a folder with all sorts of sections for recording information about the school experience.  This is the kind of gift item which suits newsagencies.

0 likes
Gifts

Good Food and Wine Show

foodwine.JPGWe are promoting food and wine related titles in our category based magazine feature this week. It makes sense because it is the Good Food and Wine Show in Melbourne this weekend.

Connecting with local events like this shows we’re connected with the community – beyond our shop. It provides a framework of relevance to the broad range of titles we carry.

Being situated next to a lottery counter and newspaper unit helps drive good impulse purchases. These moves, driving impulse purchases from honey pot products like lotteries and newspapers, are vitally important to us if we are to build a deeper basket.

0 likes
magazines

Girlfriend magazine at the counter

gf_jun08.JPGGirlfriend with the free mascara has replaced our Men’s Health display between two register points at the counter. Thanks to extra posters from Pacific Magazines we have been able to create a good impression. The display has been up two days and is already working.

I know newsagents come here looking at photos for ideas – the key with this type of display is to feature magazines with valuable free gifts, to place it next to a busy register and to change the display at least weekly. By choosing the right title with a good gift like Girlfriend this month you ought to see a good kick in sales in a week.

0 likes
magazines

Lottery jackpots!

With Powerball not going off tonight, first division next Thursday will now be worth at least $50 million.  Tattslotto on Saturday is a superdraw worth $19 million, Tuesday’s OzLotto game has jackpotted to $10 million and Wednesday’s Tattslotto has jackpotted to $2.175 million.  This is the best week of jackpots and superdraws I can recall.  Brilliant.

0 likes
Lotteries

Bill Express in the news again

The Age has a good story today about some of the challenges around OnQ and Bill Express. My only comment would be that there could have been more complete coverage of the plight of newsagents.

Newsagents were actively recruited into Bill Express by representatives of the company and through the active endorsement of their association, the ANF. The ANF received a fee for success and pursued this by organising a national roadshow and other activities at which newsagent sign up was sought. This is where newsagents were signed on for the agreements they have today, the agreements costing over $500 a month.

How newsagents were recruited and who provided recruitment services will be key to any legal action by aggrieved newsagents as it is the representations made which will come under close scrutiny. I am aware that the ACCC is asking questions about this. Newsagents and associations with files from 2003 should be able to help the ACCC with their inquiries.

0 likes
Bill Express

Newspapers and the online challenge

The Age on May 23 ran a cartoon by Wiley which showed a chap reading the poster in front of a newsstand

Today in The Times. Print media isn’t dead. Go to our website for the whole story.

I thought it was funny and didn’t think much more about it. Gaye Lebardon writing at the Press Democrat takes a different view – it’s one well worth reading.

0 likes
Media disruption

Newspaper publisher hits small business

Newsagents have been split into two classes by the folks at The Age. Retail newsagents are paid a commission as a percentage of the cover price. Home delivery newsagents, the people who get up in the middle of the night to manage the delivery of newspapers to homes by 6am are no longer paid based on the cover price.

The Age has unilaterally decided to compensate home delivery newsagents based on a fee they decide. While they previously controlled the delivery fee, newsagents could rely on benefiting at least from cover price increases. Now that has been taken away.

VANA, the association representing newsagents, has effectively endorsed the change in compensation arrangements from The Age. They did this by writing to newsagents at the same time as The Age. VANA should have left this issue alone and let The Age muck this up for themselves.

With fuel, labour and other costs rising, it is unconscionable in my view that a rich company like Fairfax, publisher of The Age, stops newsagents from charging a fee which at least covers their costs. This latest move protects the Fairfax subscription base asset and does not help home delivery newsagents achieve fair compensation for what is a world class service.

I am okay because I sold my home delivery run in late 2006. Newsagents trying to sell now will, in my view, get less because of the new fee structure implemented by The Age – they have certainly made home delivery runs less valuable than they were two months ago, something I suspect VANA has not seen yet.

If I were Fairfax I would increase compensation to newsagents because they more they make the happier they will be and the more they will work to increase sales. Treating them as cheap labour will come back and hurt the company in the long run.

0 likes
Newsagency challenges

Happy Tower Systems newsagents

It has been a thrill to catch up with so many Tower Newsagents at the ANF convention these last three days.  They are a happy bunch of people.  This is a common comment from all of the Tower team at the convention – how happy our users are.  Back in the mid 1990s when our customer service was not what it should have been many of our newsagent customers were not happy.  It is the memory of those couple of bad years we caused which drives us on customer service today.

Once consequence of happy newsagent users of our software is the conversations which lead to new opportunities being uncovered.  Happy people share more because they trust you more.  We are returning from the Gold Coast with several excellent suggestions.

0 likes
newsagent software

Everyone loves lottery jackpots

jackpotts.JPGThe Powerball jackpot tonight is generating excellent business for us.  It is a traffic and sales bonanza and we are certainly making the most of the opportunity.  My excitement is somewhat dampened by the news from Manaccom about their online OzLotteries deal with ACP.  Theirs is an interesting play since it is outside the sites built directly by the lottery businesses themselves.  They attract customers we cannot reach from bricks and mortar businesses.  They also provide a convenience offer to current bricks and mortar customers who will want to migrate their purchases online.  This has to make us work harder on customer service – to prove the value of face to face sales of lottery products.

I was interested to see press stories talk about the value this week especially because of the jackpot.

0 likes
Lotteries

Mills & Boon cards

free_willy.JPGWe don’t sell Mills & Boon books in our newsagency but if we did I’d want to have the Mills & Boon range of greeting cards.

They are a nice fun take on the covers of the popular Mills and Boon books. I can see the cards and books being displayed next to each other – almost as a gift package.

0 likes
Greeting Cards

XchangeIT declares DOS dead for newsagents

Finally the magazine distributors have started to get serious about IT compliance in newsagencies through their XchangeIT platform.  Their presentation today made it clear that DOS is dead.  For all their bleating that DOS has a life, POS Solutions has been ignored and their remaining 300 DOS users will have to make alternative arrangements to get access to the technology suite other newsagents will be able to access.  The announcement at the ANF Convention today is long overdue.

Of course, I am pleased because our Tower Systems newsagents community of 1,500+ is well placed. I feel for the 300 or so newsagents using DOS software. It should not be a surprise that DOS is dead because Microsoft an others turned their back on this old old platform more than ten years ago.

0 likes
newsagent software

Trading Post smacks newsagents

Decades of faithful support from newsagents of the Trading Post weekly newspaper has been “rewarded” by the publisher choosing Australia Post as the partner for its expanded online Trading Post auction offering. Traders will need to go to an Australia Post outlet (and stand in a line for too long) to complete a 100 point check to be approved by the Trading Post. This is an insult to newsagents who could have easily provided the 100 point check service and another example of the disregard Trading Post publisher Sensis has for our channel.

0 likes
Australia Post

The elephant in the room

The elephant in the room at the ANF National Convention this week has been the Bill Express issue. Just about every newsagent I meet asks what is likely to happen and whether they will have to pay back the lease they took out on the equipment. Like so much about Bill Express at the moment not much can be discussed publicly. I can’t help but feel that the Convention would have been a good time for newsagents (and only newsagents) to get together and talk about the situation.

0 likes
Bill Express
Trending Articles

Fairfax changes approach to TV Guide, disrespects newsagents

Published on April 20, 2011

What do you think of the Powerball changes?

Published on February 16, 2018

IPS releases new magazine contracts

Published on June 21, 2011