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

Month: May 2008

Bill Express suspends for two weeks

Bill Express requested the ASX suspend their shares for a further two weeks this morning. What is not clear from the announcement is the status of Optus mobile phone recharge on the Bill Express / Dialtime network. The status is complicated by some newsagents reporting that they cannot access Bill Express / Dialtime through their in-store terminals.

Like many newsagents, in my stores we have contingency plans in place and have purchased Optus prepaid cards for sale to customers. Â This product along with what we can access online from our eziPass platform helps us maintain satisfaction for most customers.

The challenges faced by newsagents through this uncertainty are not dissimilar to those being faced by Bill Express and OnQ shareholders as the their recently appointed corporate adviser investigates the complex related party structure inside the businesses. In each case, the value of what we have is outside our control and is changing rapidly under our feet.

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Bill Express

Meeting with newsagents

Tower Systems is hosting a  national series of face to face (free) newsagent user meetings starting this. We will demonstrate new features in the latest update of lour software, provide free training and answer technical questions.  Bookings are made by email: bookings@towersystems.com.au.

  • Hobart – Thursday, May 8 – 10am
  • Launceston – Friday, May 9 – 10am
  • Canberra – Monday, May 12 – 2pm
  • Melbourne – Tuesday, May 13 – 10am
  • Geelong – Tuesday, May 13 – 2pm
  • Adelaide – Wednesday, May 14 – 10am
  • Albury – Thursday, May 15 – 10am
  • Wollongong – Tuesday, May 20 – 10am
  • Sydney (Camperdown) – Tuesday, May 20 – 2pm
  • Penrith – Wednesday, May 21 – 2pm
  • Newcastle – Thursday, May 22 – 10am
  • Gold Coast – Tuesday, May 27 – 10am
  • Brisbane – Tuesday, May 27 – 2pm
  • Sunshine Coast – Wednesday, May 28 – 10am
  • Cairns – Thursday, May 29 – 10am
  • Darwin – Tuesday, June 3 – 10am
  • Perth – Wednesday, June 4 – 10am

These events are available free to all of our users as well as those contemplating using our software. Several of us will be at each meeting covering management, technical and sales.

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About us

Refreshing weekly magazines

weeklies_0508.JPGWe have adjusted our display of weekly and top selling women’s magazines at Forest Hill.

The column of crossword titles next to Australian Women’s Weekly has been lifted and put into two rows across five titles.  Replacing the crossword column is a selection of women’s health titles such as Women’s Health and Good Health.  Above Notebook we have allocated three pockets to environment related titles – currently these display G and Real Simple.

We refresh the crossword and health titles weekly based on new product arrivals.  The overall approach will be re-jigged again within two months.

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magazines

Think Big magazine and space

think_big.JPGThink Big is a magazine about leadership. I like it, a lot. What I don’t like is its physical size – it’s wider than most magazines and encroaches on titles placed next to it – as the photo shows.

This is a small but important point. For decades newsagents used to fan magazine out, almost on top of each other – because of lack of space. Now, we have allocated more space to enable us to display the full width of a cover. This is the best practice approach. Think Big makes that harder, they are stealing some of the next magazine’s space.

While they could argue that they are not the only wider-than-usual title, it’s them I am writing about here. They could also say the magazine is designed for display outside regular magazine racking, few newsagents can afford that.

My message for publishers is – understand the limitations of retail space allocation and design product which leverages this to your advantage without taking space from others.

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magazines

Passive marketing in retail

mday_mag.JPGThis 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 it’s not the same since consumers shop a newsagency differently to a supermarket – we have not created the same checkout opportunity.

Newsagents did have something like this years ago – Nmag – it was well products but the content was too dominated by magazine related content and offering focus across other categories we sell.

Newsagencies have many connections with seasons and there is where a seasonal promotional publication like this would work. Take Mother’s Day – cards, magazines, gifts, even lottery products.

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newsagency marketing

All quiet on the future of journalism

The MEAA hosted a conference in Sydney on Thursday on The Future of Journalism. Crikey published a review as well as a report on a meeting with respected UK media commentator Roy Greenslade. Greenslade himself has blogged about the conference – be sure to read this as well as the comments.  But that’s about it. Nothing from what I can see in the mainstream press here in Australia.

In the UK and US, the conversation about the future of journalism is public and in the pages of newspapers and on mainstream media websites. Here, it appears to be the topic of which we do not speak, certainly not in the mainstream press.

From an Australian newsagency perspective, the future of journalism is important as there is cross-over in challenges facing journalism and newsagencies. I was hoping to read more about the take of journalists on the future of their craft and see how that applies to our channel.

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Media disruption

Mother’s Day card innovation

simson_mday.JPGIt’s is good to see card companies innovating with Mother’s Day. Not only are we seeing greater variety in captions (and therefore more card giving opportunities) but also in design. The card in the photo is from Simson and is certainly not your traditional Mother’s Day card – this on is all about shopping and fun. One customer point it out on the weekend, saying it was good to see a card which reflected some of the best times she had with her mother.

Seasons like Mother’s Day give newsagents an opportunity to extend our card range, and restate our place as the go to retail network for cards inn Australia. Research from card companies and others tells us that Australian consumers trust newsagents for major card giving occasions – this is why we cannot be half-assed about opportunities like Mother’s Day.

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Greeting Cards

View from the kitchen

view.JPGI was in the kitchen at our newsXpress Forest Hill store yesterday for the first time in a while and admired the view through the window. Looking down on the water … mmm, very inviting. For a second or two I thought it was real. Behind the stuck on photo of the beach and curtains in the same old concrete wall we’ve had for years. Oh well, it’s good to dream.

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About us

Media interest in Bill Express

The media interest in the difficulties of Bill Express is growing. I did three interviews yesterday with journalists writing pieces about the history of the network and the impact of the current situation on newsagents. This follows the Herald Sun and News Ltd interviews earlier in the week. I am finding journalists confused about how newsagents became involved with Bill Express and why we agreed to lease the equipment for $495 a month. There is also confusion in their minds about ePay, eziPass and even, for one chap, Ezipin.

The journalists are more interested in writing about the future of the public company than the impact on the newsagency channel and this is disappointing. Right now we have 3,500 outlets unable to sell Optus recharge vouchers. That is a huge story in my view – along with the story about the impact on country towns and in other locations where the newsagency is the go to place for recharge. This is one reason I am not so sure that Optus will stay off the Bill Express / Dialtime platform forever.

The other aspect of the interest from journalists which is interesting is about bill payment. Well, their lack of interest actually. They see it as yesterday’s news. I asked one journo and she said what’s the deal – I pay all my bills online.

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Bill Express

USB sticks as collectibles

hero_usb.JPGThe photo shows a small super-hero like figure I picked up at the trade show in Hong Kong earlier this week. At shows like this you are given many trinkets, pens, rulers and characters like this one.  But he’s different – remove his head and you see that he’s a USB stick.

The company behind this product makes personalised USB sticks as corporate giveaways.  They also make collectibles, especially around sporting teams.

So, we see USB sticks as a business tool.  They see USB sticks as fashion and fun.  This difference can be applied to many products in our newsagencies – we often treat and merchandise stationery as a chore when we cold treat and merchandise the department from a fashion and or fun perspective.  It would change the mindset of our customers just as this action hero changed how I look at USB sticks.

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Newsagency challenges

Great Mother’s Day poster

mother.JPGI saw this Mother’s Day poster in the window of a gift shop I passed in Hong Kong earlier this week. I like the simplicity, it works well against the visually noisy background of a gift shop. The blue backing on which it has been placed helps frame the poster – without it I would have missed it.

This Mother’s Day poster would work well in a newsagency – with so much colour in our shops, often even the best designed posters get lost. I like that it’s has flowers stuck on – the photo does not do these justice.

I think we get too caught up in making pretty posters for seasons and other promotional times and forget where they will be situated and what they compete with for attention.

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retail

Mum’s Bags from Darrell Lea

We have Darrell Lea’s Mum’s Bags at the front of our newsagency as part of our Mother’s Day offer. While they are visually attractive, they don’t pop as they have in years past. These Darrell Lea gift bags are an important part of the seasonal gift mix for us since the retailers around us play me-too with Cadbury products.

mday_dl.JPG

Excuse the average display on then table – our merchandising unit from Darrell Lea went missing.

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confectionary

Super Food Ideas, recycled

syper_food.JPGI am surprised to see Super-Fast 98 family favourites from the folks behind Super Food Ideas. I say surprised because the Super Food magazine sells for $3.25. The smaller favourites (recycled) recipe publication sells for $4.95. I would have thought that a cheaper version of the favourites publication could have been used to bring people to the brand. Or, better still, a brochure version could be provided to newsagents to give away to attract people to the magazine.

While the folks at News magazines know considerably more about publishing that me, from a retailers perspective I’m left with a confusing message on the shelves.

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magazines

Vacancies at Tower Systems

My software company, Tower Systems, has two vacancies for new roles we have just created in our Melbourne office.  I am posting details here in case you know someone who may be interested.

IT support.  This is a demanding non-traditional Help Desk role.  In say non-traditional because the call variety is considerable.  We are looking for someone with retail experience, preferably experience with our software as well, who wants to get into IT support.

Sales support.  This new role has been created to provide admin assistance to our busy sales team.  Excellent admin and communications skills are essential along with an interest in sales.

Please email me at mark@towersystems.com.au for position descriptions.  We will not post the vacancies at Seek until Monday.

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About us

Newspaper home delivery, a new approach

This post is an edited version of an article I wrote for the latest issue of National Newsagent.

Home delivery is in play in newsagencies across Australia. Some newsagents are selling their distribution runs while others are walking away. For those keen to exit distribution, there are others pursuing acquisition and creating distribution specialists.

While newsagents in South Australia and Western Australia have had the distribution only model for decades, it is a relatively new model in the eastern states. In this emerging model, retail-only newsagents act as the public face of the business for payment of the account and processing over the counter stop and start requests. This is where there have been challenges in managing accounting and other records.

Thanks to work with several distribution newsagents, new technology has emerged to make it easier to process home delivery accounts, stops, starts and other transactions at retail only newsagencies. In the past such processing has been slow, cumbersome and incompatible with existing systems. I know because I have experienced this myself in my own newsagency.

The newer technology delivers better outcomes. This leads to happier customers, happier newsagents and happier publishers and makes consolidation of distribution territories easier – thanks to maintaining an excellent public face for newspaper home delivery customers.

Any number of retail newsagents can act as shop fronts for a warehouse based distribution business and maintain stable access to their retail software. From their counter they can handle stops and starts, process payments, note missed deliveries, add new customers and handle queries. The distribution newsagent can control the level of access for retail newsagent staff using sophisticated security settings.

Above all else, the latest changes improve customer service and that is what matters most.

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newsagent software

Bill Express reporting

I am surprised at some of the reporting on the Bill Express situation. Take today’s Australian Financial Review – nothing other than a rehash of the ASX announcement re the suspension of shares. Given that 3,500 retail outlets have had Optus recharge turned off and others are reporting issues with Telstra recharge I would have thought journalists would be investigating and reporting.

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Bill Express

How to handle a newspaper thief

Rowan Higgon of Pakenham Newsagency passed on this brilliant advice to a newsagent who asked how they should handle the regular theft of a newspaper delivered to a subscriber’s home.

We discuss the situation with the client and they fix it by doing the following:

  1. Keep an old paper and plastic wrap.
  2. Wrap fresh dog poo or similar into the old paper and wrap with plastic.
  3. Set alarm for the delivery of the next days paper (we advise expected arrival)
  4. Swap paper over.
  5. The thief in our case is generally on the way to the train station and unwraps said paper on the train.
  6. Thief is embarrassed and now knows that we know who it is.
  7. Problem solved.

The alternative is the owner waits for the thief and gives him a hose down.

Brilliant advice!

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Newsagency challenges

Finding the sleeper product

card_org.JPGIn every sale or catalogue there is the sleeper product which comes out of nowhere and performs exceptionally well.

The card organisers in the photo are the sleeper products from our recent book sale. For a couple of weeks they sat on display and did not sell. Then, in no time at all, they took off. Not wanting people to miss out, we put them in an even better position and created a small sign and sure enough they sold out.

When you think about it, selling card organisers in a newsagency makes sense. We never tried it until they arrived with the book sale stock – stock we did not select by item. So, having stumbled across the opportunity we’re looking to find more card organisers.

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Gifts

Convenience in Sydney

I was in Sydney yesterday and surprised at the proliferation on convenience stores in the city. They are true to their name – convenient, almost too so.  There seems to be no end to new openings – quite different to other capitals. Given the growth in magazine sales in the convenience channel studying these stores cold be good for newsagents.

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Newsagency challenges

The value of a lottery jackpot

oz_jack.JPGThe graph to the left shows our OzLotto sales week by week from when the jackpot which went off earlier this week commenced up to the latest week(at the top).  It is fascinating to see the growth over the ten weeks.  $20 million is the sweet spot.  I suspect had the prize not gone off this week and the first division reached around $60 million we would have seen another extraordinary sales jump.

Outside of the results shown on the graph is the flow-on benefit elsewhere in the newsagency.  Some department fare better than others – it comes down to what we make of the opportunity.

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Lotteries

Travel magazines and maps go together

travel_mags.JPGFor years we have had our travel magazines at one end of the shop and our maps just about at the other end. It was our new manager at Forest Hill, Jason, who spotted the mistake and brought them together. It was one of those moments when Homer Simpson’s D’oh! is all one can say. We should have done this years ago. It goes to show that for all the blogging in this place we make mistakes – sometimes very obvious mistakes. The impact of the move has been immediate for travel magazines – they are being browsed whereas in the past they were ignored.

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magazines
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