The Geelong Advertiser is rightly crowing about excellent sales in the lead up to last night’s AFL finals game. As happened last year at this time, the whole of Geelong is behind the team. Newsagents are a key part of that thanks to the efforts of the Advertiser. This is a good example of newsagent and publisher working the local connection to its fullest. It is something more of us could do around local sporting teams and through working with local publishers.
The Worcester News in the UK has a story about magazine wholesalers and distributors getting together to provide a range of services and assistance to help newsagents increase magazine sales. While only a trial at this stage, this does sound like a good initiative:
Steven Jones, COMAG retail development manager, said: “We will be focusing on 10 stores in Worcestershire and Herefordshire, giving them additional tools and an enhanced service package.
“This will include new racking, promotional material, gifts to give away with magazines, a category advice and field support.
“The aim of the trial is to support independent news-agents and help them to grow their sales of magazines against the declining market trend.
“Part of the trial will be advertising the retailer and their extensive magazine range to the community. We want to encourage consumers to visit these stores, which can supply any magazine through their local wholesale network.
I like the idea of advertising in local newspapers promoting the range of magazines in local newsagencies.
I was disappointed to hear yesterday that Scott Lorson has been retrenched from his CEO role at ACP Magazines. I have met Scott a couple of times. In his time at the helm, ACP delivered several excellent launched including Good Food and Top Gear. However, change is inevitable. ACP is a big company with many capable people. The challenge for newsagents is that we need senior executives to understand our diverse small business channel – working with us is different to working with the mass merchants.
On Friday last week Tower Systems details of the Spring User Meeting Tour:
How to take advantage of tough economic times using Tower Systems’ software
As the title suggests, this Tower Systems User Meeting / training opportunity will focus on helping you find ways to turn tough economic times into success for your business.
We will provide training in software functions and reports you can use right away to improve the outlook for your business.
We will also answer all of your questions on any topic related to our software. This is your session designed to help you learn more about your software. Here are the dates:
We have tried to accommodate dates and time based newsagent preferences. In order to fit the locations in we have had to use some less ideal days like Wednesdays. We have a smaller format version of these sessions which we will be delivering through our free online program in October.
Any newsagent is welcome. Book by emailing your details to bookings@towersystems.com.au.
Better Homes and Gardens launches on radio this weekend in a tie-in show which supports the magazine. It will be on the Mix FM network in all state capital cities except Perth. The two-hour program, which will provide advice on topics such as gardening, DIY and pets, will be hosted by Johanna Griggs and Fast Ed from the show. This is a good opportunity to promote the brand and reinforces why we need Better Homes and Gardens on the counter for weekend sales. It is what we do and it results in excellent sales.
I don’t mind competing with Dick Smith, JB Hi Fi, Harvey Norman, Officeworks or Big W in the ink and toner category. I do mind competing with Australia Post government owned stores. They are trading off a brand which is respected only because of its government ownership and protection. When they advertise great prices, consumers are likely to believe them. Comparing our prices to these so called great prices from Australia Post, we beat them. But we cannot beat their brand awareness.
This latest campaign by Australia Post is another example of their abuse of the protection their Government ownership affords them.
I have been chasing information from our Tattersalls business manager for weeks about how we will be using the scratch ticket bays. The response is that the company will make an announcement soon. A follow up request for information told be it would be “this week”. That was more than a week ago.
It is frustrating to have prime real estate idle at the counter. Tattersalls forbids using the scratch ticket bay for anything other than their products and all the provide at the moment are posters promoting products which have prime promotional space elsewhere in the shop.
Matthew Schwartz from ScribeMedia.org conducts an interesting interview with Ken Doctor (formerly of Knight Ridder Digital as vp/content services, vp/strategy and vp/editorial) on the future of newspapers. Doctor talks about how newspapers can migrate from print to digital around. It is an interesting interview because the topic is discussed without the emotion and doom and gloom so often a hallmark of such discussions.
All of our magazine promotional spaces were allocated at our Frankston newsagency but the team wanted to give support to Madison with the free eye liner. As good retailers, they shuffled products and created a new display space at the counter, near the entrance to the shop. Another reason for giving Madison prominence this week is the media coverage from the finale of the TV show Project Runway. This new promotional location is near one of our two busiest registers – we are looking forward to how it works.
We are promoting magazine branded diaries as an impulse item at the counter in the slim spinner shown in the photo. In the past we have promoted these in our regular diary section. The idea behind the counter pitch is that customers buying the related magazines are more likely to buy a sister diary on impulse. We are contemplating an offer around a diary / magazine pack but are yet to work our the process and in-store pitch. Also, we are likely to wait until we have more magazine branded diaries in-store to appeal to a broader demographic.
Last month we moved our ACP Magazines promotional stand to be next to our newspapers. We then created a display for Belle magazine on the back of the stand – all but one copy sold off the stand. Buoyed with that success, our team at Frankston has created a display for House & Garden for the back of the ACP promotional stand – there are two pockets from which customers can purchase the magazine off the stand – it is important that displays work for us, that purchase is easy.
The photo below shows how we use our top selling weekly magazines to drive sales of other categories. By reclaiming the top rows of the waterfall we are able to drive sales of parenting, house & garden, food, health and garden titles – all growing categories.
We are consistent in our placement – health with health, garden with garden etc. We know from our top-ups that these titles sell from here.
We call this our honey pot strategy because we are driving sales of less popular titles by placing them around our most popular titles.
This newsagent putaway card inserted with every copy of Part 1 of Real Life Bugs is proof that publishers listen. This coupon, promoting newsagent putaway of the partwork, has been included as a result of representations by me and, I am sure, other newsagents to partworks publishers. If they wanted to only pay lip-service to our request, the coupon would have been cheap and nasty. Instead, we have an attractive coupon, in keeping with the style of the partwork.
Smart newsagents are leveraging this coupon and providing customers with putaway sign up forms when they purchase part 1.
I had a lengthy conversation with a regional manager for a bank yesterday on behalf of a newsagent who was having trouble getting the bank to refund money they had deducted from the newsagent’s account without authority.
I understand why the bank takes they view they do – they are skeptical of a customer who says that a long standing direct debit is wrong. This is easier than them having to fully research the situation. The problem with the Bill Express direct debits is that newsagents signed them for one business and the payments now in dispute have been taken out by another business.
I expect that yesterday’s conversation will lead to the newsagent receiving over $1,000 back from their bank.
The ANF Board is placing more emphasis on commercial skills than Association skills in its pursuit of a new CEO. The advertisement published yesterday by Hays Recruitment makes it clear the organisation is looking for new revenue streams.
The Board ought to have surveyed newsagents as to what they are looking for in an industry association. I suspect that newsagents would rate association services more highly than commercial services. This is where the ANF has caused grief for itself over the last eight years. I suspect it is a key reason many newsagents have quit the association.
My view is that the ANF ought to shrink considerably and focus on national policy as this is the one area not covered by current state associations.
I suspect that the legal team advising the NSW newsagent instigated Class Action on the Bill Express matter might have a view on the ANF involvement in commercial matters.
Rosh Hashanah is an important celebration in the Jewish calendar. It is important to us because we have another opportunity to demonstrate that we are the greeting card specialists. We have a good range of Rosh Hashanah cards in our newsagencies for this reason – we cannot be a specialist and ignore seasons such as this. Knowing what we stand for in cards frames all of our decisions. More newsagents should support minor seasons since our major competitors will ignore them including Rosh Hashanah.
You know that new technology has made it when it reaches the shelves of a mass merchant such as Target. Target stores in the United States started selling the Sony Reader on the weekend. You can see it at their website. The reader cuts out key parts of the traditional book supply chain.
The TV commercial newsXpress is running to promote its ink and toner offer is working well. Beyond the buzz in the newsagency channel, consumers are reacting to the ad. It pitched our newsagency and others under the banner as go to places for ink and toner at competitive prices.
It’s great to have a newsagent brand on TV and it is even better to be actively competing with the majors! The Hot Ink campaign shows that we are competitive and this feeling rubs off to other departments when ink customers are in-store.For those new here, I am a Director of newsXpress.
The folks at Good magazine and Starbucks have got together to provide a single sheet single topic sampler promoting Good to Starbucks customers. The single sheet sampler, called Good Sheet, will run for 11 weeks.
I like the idea of sampling magazines, especially monthlies. I’d certainly engage with any publisher wishing to test such an approach to building their reach.
We are promoting In Style at the counter at Forest Hill this week. I know I complained here a week ago about about tote bag overload. The bag with In Style is substantial and claimed to be valued at $49.95 – it is considerably better quality than the usual magazine giveaway tote bag.
In Style is a popular title for us so we figured the giveaway supported by a counter display would help lead to easy quick sales. This counter position works better than power end displays for some titles – it is all about the offer.
The move by Emirates to move to a paperless plane is interesting – they are replacing printed material (magazines, menus etc) with digital content to save fuel. I think we will encounter more conversations about the environmental impact of printed material in the coming years from the cost of distribution to the waste once we are done with the product. The news coverage of the move by Emirates shows there is considerable interest.
Steven Denham has launched a Magazine Club Card in his newsagency at West Chiltington, West Sussex in the UK. This card is modeled on the card we launched four years ago. I am excited to see how it travels in the UK marketplace. Our original plan was to run the card for six months and then rest it. Resulting sales have seen us maintain the card for four years. It is a pleasure to introduce the card to a customer for the first time see the appreciation. This is what brings them back to us and not to the supermarket for magazines. I hope the card is a great commercial success in the UK.
Tattersalls is running a radio ad campaign in Melbourne for tomorrow night’s $15 million OzLotto jackpot. The tag at the end encourages listeners to buy online at lotto.com.au.
Jane Schulze writing at The Australian explains the extent to which the fall in classified revenue for Fairfax newspapers contributed to the recent decision by the company to cut 550 jobs. The recent research by Goldman Sachs JB Were to which Schulze refers offers more evidence of why newsagents need to look at the revenue balance of their businesses. While newspapers will be important for years to come, their level of importance will change, as Fairfax is experiencing already.
We love British magazines at our Forest Hill store. This time of year it is a challenge to find space for the Summer issues, special editions catering to summer reading in the UK. Here are four popular titles currently requiring an extra pocket of space.
We have found the space because the sales will be there. It just means care when placing stock out – management level decisions are necessary.