The Australian Women’s Health Diary TV campaign is paying off. I saw one customer buy the diary on the weekend because of it. She came in to buy a magazine, saw the diary at the counter and mentioned the TV ad. While allocating counter space is a challenge, The Australian Women’s Health Diary is an excellent product to have at the counter right now because of this current TV campaign.
One innovative newsagent in Queensland has reinvented their newspaper display to promote other products – magazines currently as the photo shows. Previously, this entire space was a newspaper story. This move is a slap in the face for Queensland Newspapers which appears to take a less flexible view to product placement than their News Limited counterparts in the southern states. Anchoring a product to a fixed location is bad for business. Smart newspaper publishers work with newsagents on more flexible and changeable displays.
Carrying a big bear does wonders for your social status I found on the weekend. I had to carry Basil, a large Gund bear, from our Sophie Randall Forest Hill store first to our newsagency and they in to our Melbourne Central store. People talked to me. Some asked where I bought it, another said someone was lucky and another said they hoped it was going to a good home. One older lady walked alongside me a kind of snuggled the bear, saying nothing. Even driving into the city several people tooted and waved at the bear riding next to me. The amount of attention was surprising.
Reflecting on this attention I was reminded that retail is about theatre and connecting with aspirations. The bear meant something to them, they changed when they saw it.
I am sure I could have led people to a Sophie store with Basil or a larger bear clinging to me – like a walking billboard.
A challenge in our newsagencies is that they do not change much week to week. Sure there are new magazines in every couple of days and new newspapers every day and we have seasons like Christmas to spice things up but our stores do not really change.
My weekend experience has me wondering what “Basil” I can find for my newsagencies to get more people noticing us and existing customers taking more notice of us. The answer lies in us doing the unexpected and making the experience enjoyable.
ASDA in the
Adapt or perish, that is the message from Rupert Murdoch to newspaper publishers around the world in his third Boyer Lecture to be broadcast today on ABC Radio National. The Herald Sun published an edited transcript yesterday. Here are a some quotes from the lecture which I found interesting:
I like the look and feel of newspapers as much as anyone. But our real business isn;t printing on dead trees. It’s giving our readers great journalism and great judgment.
In short we are moving from news papers to news brands.
The challenges are real. There will probably never be a paperless office, but young people are starting paperless homes.
The newspaper, or a very close electronic cousin, will always be around. It may not be thrown on your front doorstep the way it is today. But the thud it makes as it lands will continue to echo around society and the world.
Read the except in the paper yesterday or the full lecture which will be online after today’s broadcast.
The debate about the future of newspapers aside, Rupert Murdoch’s lecture is about change and the need to embrace this.
From a newsagent perspective, this means embracing change through every part of our business – leveraging our key assets to our advantage, taking control over parts of our business which we do not control today, developing shop fits for our needs and not the needs of builders or suppliers, pursuing new traffic generators, pursuing better margin product, refusing to engage in out of date practices and creating retail experiences which are ground breaking .
Most of all, for newsagents embracing change is about becoming entrepreneurial.
The sales value of the display for Better Homes and Gardens at the counter today was immediate. A customer came to the counter with the newspaper, saw the magazine and purchased it as well. BHG is that kind of title, easy to sell to people who come in to purcahse something else, especially at the weekend. Better Homes and Gardens gets this premium space at the counter this weekend thanks to the free sheet of wrapping paper inside the magazine as they offer each Christmas.
Borders in New zeal and and Australia has published a catalogue listing some books at above their recommended retail. The same catalogue offers that they will match any price which is better than theirs. Borders would have known that their above recommended retail prices are higher than just about every other book retailer. This is cynical marketing which presents as being a good offer when it is not. They must expect some people to fall for this. The Age has more details on what Borders has done.
Legislation banning the use of plastic bags was passed in South Australia on Thursday. The Government has a good website with all the details. This makes it easier for retailers to deal with this complex issue. Acting on a law is far easier than a voluntary situation. We have tried a couple of times to charge for bags or eliminate them altogether and each time our customers complained – they like plastic bags, especially for newspapers.
The image is the planned shopfront for our Frankston newsagency. We have been working with designers, the landlord and other stakeholders for months to find a fit which is flexible and fits the various requirements we face. What started as a partial fit has become a complete refit. Nothing from the existing newsagency will be retained. Where we have spent the most time have been in obsessing about flexibility. We consider it vital that the shop be able to be easily reconfigured as the needs of the business change.
On the front left of the shop will be our card and gift offer. To the right from the counter back will be magazines and next to that will be stationery. Across the entrance we will feature categories and products we wish to push.
Now all we need is final building approval before we can lock in dates.
Click here for a preview copy of the lottery sales and marketing advice I have developed. I was looking onlin for simple free advice on how to boost lottery sales and could not find any. While some of my ideas are not new, that they are packaged (with some new ideas) in one place makes it easy for a lottery retailer to select what they think will work for them.
Promoting lottery products is important given the impulse nature of the purchase for many customers. The completed advice sheet will be loaded at the Tower Systems website when completed next week.
Ensure that any lottery marketing you plan meets with the regulations under which you sell these products.
We are promoting Christmas magazines at the front of our shop in addition to the usual place you find these titles. We have gone for a range from the high volume through to the special interest. many of these titles are ideal impulse purchases so having them in a high traffic area makes sense – to see this range a customer would have to scan our three magazine aisles and few would do this. While supermarkets and convenience outlets may have some of these titles, non matches the range of a newsagency. However, that message does not get out unless we display that we do have the range.
A newsagent shared their data for Bargain Shoppers Guide to Melbourne with me today. This title a sales history of selling 25%. The supply quantity this year has not been lowered to reflect the 70% failure rate. With an on sale period of seven months, this title, if left on the shelf, is nothing short of a disaster financially for the newsagent. While the newsagent can early return the gross oversupply to the distributor (NDD) they will have to wait for their cash to be returns.
Universal and NDD claim that the ability for newsagents to early return solves any over supply issue. This is a ridiculous argument. The problem of gross oversupply should not occur in the first place. Why send stock you know will never sell? The answer is that by sending them out you get a fee for service. Newsagents do not get a fee for service. This is why they are abused as they are for poor performing titles like Bargain Shoppers Guide to Melbourne in the newsagents I looked at today.
While I am no lawyer, I would expect that continued gross oversupply of Bargain Shoppers Guide to Melbourne represents unconscionable conduct against this newsagency and, most likely, other newsagents.
As I blogged six weeks ago, we received our usual overload at our Forest Hill store. We pushed the magazine in a high traffic area. It failed. We will return more than 50% of stock received. The publisher and newsagent have this data from previous years. This makes a mockery of their arguments to me over the last two weeks.
This is another dud title from Universal Magazines.
We started our online ink and toner business, Inkfast, four years ago. While we have moved the operation to a separate location, it still plays a role with our newsagencies. If someone asks for an item we do not stock, we give them an Inkfast card and invite them to purchase direct. Inkfast delivers to their door. This works well, we see new business coming from this retail promotion regularly.
We are launching a TV commercial on channels Seven and Ten in
We are supporting the ad with the delivery of high quality flyers to homes around three of our locations in the last week of this month.
This is the first advertising we have undertaken for Sophie since we opened at Forest Hill in February last year. With our Toorak store opening two months ago we felt the time was right to step out with our unique and personal offer.
We hope to release details of the Sophie franchise model in then first quarter of next year.
The visual merchandisers funded by magazine publishers can be frustrating sometimes – most often when they do a display promoting a title which is nowhere near the display. Take Notebook – as in the photo. Without proper management these posters could we far away from the title. With proper management they are nearby and more helpful to our goal for our shop.
A good merchandiser works with you and this is what we are finding at our Forest Hill store. There is good dialogue between our magazine and most merchandisers and the result is titles being promoted near to where they are on our shelves. This may seem logical. Check your local newsagency, often it is not done this way.
We have been promoting Dolly at the counter this week. Last week, we did a more traditional power end display for Dolly as part of the Connections promotion. This week, we judged Dolly as having the best value gifts so it got our prime counter position. We feel it is the kind of title mums could buy for their daughters once they see the gifts with the magazine. This is what this space is about – chasing easy impulse sales.
I was fortunate to see Andre Rieu in concert in
Sitting there, immersed deep in the Rieu experience, I found myself thinking about the extent to which he has created an exceptional feel-good event – almost regardless of whether you are fan of his music. This did not feel like a concert. It is hard to describe what it felt like other than great!
You will see that I take a considerable swipe at magazine distributor NDD today along some publishers. They deserve it. They permit titles to be oversupplied and on terms which financially abuse newsagents. NDD can fix this. In fact, they will tell us they have been talking to publishers and to the ANF and that progress is being made. Progress is not being made. NDD has no financial interest in fixing this, no distributor does. Magazine distributors are paid a fee to distribute titles. They get paid regardless. Newsagent, on the other hand, are only paid for what they sell. We provide capital to magazine publishers and we weather the cost of theft.
I like the folks at NDD and I like many of their titles. I just wish they had the balls to act fairly for newsagents. More important, however, I wish newsagents had the balls to act against unfair publisher behaviour. Mat action by us could kill off some of these poor performing magazine titles.
The over supply and long shelf life of the three titles I focus on today is an example of the cancer hurting newsagents. Other suppliers ought to care about this – for the good of the channel.
Renovate & Extend magazine is a good example of an un-viable title from Universal Magazines about which I blogged last week. The five month on-sale is an unreasonable financial and space impost on newsagents. A fairer solution would be that we are paid for stock as it sold. The technology has been able to facilitate this for years. This takes the financial risk and the cost of theft away from us.
In addition to the unfair long shelf life there is the supply model itself. I have received too many copies, considerably more than I sell. The distributors know this. The publisher knows this. Yet they continue to supply.
The proof of their gross overprinting is seen with each issue when they bag it with old stock – the never seem to run out of old stock.
Universal Magazines causes the problem by printing far more than they sell. NDD, their distributor for this title aids and abets this crime against newsagents by permitting poor trading terms and supplying too much stock.
I am early-returning part of what we were supplied yesterday as I should not have to carry the cost of their bad behaviour.
The cash Universal sucks out of our channel with titles like Renovate & Extend reduces the cash we have available for better selling magazines and other product categories.
The latest issue of New Home Trends is the other title which received yesterday which has been provided on unfair terms. We have been sent considerably more than we could be expected to sell, thereby demanding more real-estate than is fair. The seven month on-sale is too long – this is what really suck our cash. If the publisher and distributor want a seven month on sale they need to back themselves and let us pay based on scanned sales. Otherwise they let us pay once they have the returns.
Newsagents will continue to be treated poorly by some publishers and distributors unless we stand up to this appalling behaviour.
We returned every copy of Printing Digital Photos magazine which we received yesterday from NDD. This publication will not sell inn our shop where we are well satisfied with digital photo magazines. A copy or two may be stolen because it is small and convenient to steal but it will not sell. The six month on-sale period is another reason we early-returned the title. This title is an unfair impost on newsagents. It should not have been allowed into our channel, certainly not on the terms NDD has negotiated on our behalf.
The only way to teach the publishers and distributors that we will not be abused this way is if we return titles like this and not pay for them.
Newsagents in NSW and ACT will sympathise with this –
Newsagents are in business. This request from
