This is another heavy week for magazine promotions. Madison is the third ACP title we have in a feature location this week. We have it facing shoppers as they leave our two main magazine aisles. This location is on the back of the ACP Basket Builder stand – space with many newsagents leave idle. We will leave Madison in this location until next Monday – unless we shift it to our counter position.
Further to my earlier post about promoting the launch issue of Prevention magazine, we have the counter unit located in among our women’s weeklies titles. This was another right out of the box display – very easy and fast to setup. Publishers should take note of this – the easier they make it for newsagents to promote their titles the more likely they are to be promoted as they want.
We will try and keep this display unit for at least the next three months to help build regular Prevention customers for us.
So far today we have sold five copies of Prevention.
We are promoting Good Health magazine at the entrance to our women’s magazine aisle this week. This stand located at the entrance to the magazine aisle continues to work very well for us. But with Good Health magazine out a week already I am not expecting amazing things from this promotion. However, it would be good to be wrong on this.
We plan to change this display later this week if we are not getting the sales necessary.
The small stand promoting Top Gear magazine near newspapers over the weekend worked with three copies sold off the stand.
We track sales for single title stands. The more successful a title in as a result of such a display the more likely we are to promote it in this way again.
We are promoting Harpers Bazaar magazine at our counter this week thanks to the free notebook and pencil gift provided with every copy. The offer looks stunning when opened out flat – as on the display. We will leave this in place for three days and see how it performs. We also have a double facing display in the usual location for Bazaar in our fashion area.
We are promoting the launch issue of Prevention magazine next to our main newspaper stand as well as with women’s weeklies and in the loctaion where Prevention will usually be located.
We plan a bold front of store display for the weekend to attract passers-by.
The floor stand for the launch issue of Prevention sent out by Pacific Magazines is brilliant. It required no assembly. This is a huge time saver for newsagents. The same with the counter unit. It is the attention to detail on things like stands which can save newsagents valuable time and feel better about in-store promotions.
With $2 million being spent promoting the launch of Prevention, every newsagent ought to have this title in a prime location – to trade off the baack of the massive spend.
This ad appears on page three of the Melbourne Observer newspaper. It encourages readers to fill in a form and hand it to the newsagent requesting that the paper be put away for them each week. It is terrific that the publisher of the Melbourne Observer support newsagents in this way. Kudos to them.
Educating customers about putaways has the potential to increase putaways for other titles. I wish other publishers would follow this example.
Imagine the business we would achieve if magazines actively promoted putaways in this way. Putaways promote regularity to our customers and this is a cornerstone of the newsagency model. I am certain that newsagents would more actively support titles promoting our putaway service.
From a technolopgy perspective, pre-sales are already advised through XChangeIT so tracking for publishers of these pre-sales would be straightforward.
The Melbourne Observer sells well in our newsagency. It appeals mainly to women 50 and older. Customers are very loyal. We place next to our newspaper stand each week.
Our placement of the latest issue of Rolling Stone at the counter resulted in sales of an additional six copies over the weekend. Some of these are likely to be sales of the Rolling Stone which would not have otherwise been achieved. This opportunistic placement of magazines is key to driving incremental sales. Not flashy displays or consumer competitions but placement in a high traffic area where the cover will connect with a reasonable number of shoppers and from where a quick impulse purchase decision can be made.
It is challenging for publishers to make this pitch. We do it in our newsagencies because to look at the covers and have space set aside for this type of promotion. We have made it easy for us.
We approached the management of the Herald Sun Simpsons Sticker campaign the same way we manage other newspapeer part series. Customers can preorder the whole series. We record their details on a sheet. While we could use our point of sale software, it is faster and easier to use a single sheet to take track who has collected which part of the series. We only accept preorders when the entire order is paid up front.
Click on the image on the left to see a larger version of the sheet we use to manage the process. We have been using this approach for two years with success.
The gap between newsagencies is wider than I have ever seen it.
At the top end, our channel has professional looking newsagencies making a clear newsagency pitch around core lines and offering brand name products in a retail environment which competes with any major retailer.
At the bottom end our channel has what can be best described as junk shops, newsagencies dominated by cheap China product in dump bins and on tables spread across the front of the shop to the detriment of core newsagency lines.
Both types of businesses call themselves newsagencies, unfortunately.
The junk shop newsagency is more of an endangered species given the number of other junk shops out in the marketplace. It seems that shopping malls and high streets are cluttered with shops pushing cheap China product.
There are fewer newsagencies focusing on the core and offering strong, logical, shoots off each side of the core. Yet many of these newsagencies are flourishing. It surprises me that more to not take what is clearly a successful path.
While newsagents can run their businesses how they choose, those in the junk shop space, where more than half the floor space is taken up with cheap China product, ought to find a new name so as not to confuse shoppers looking for a newsagency.
The alternative is that the proactive newsagents shift focus away from the newsagency shingle.
Darrell Lea had a truck on the road in Melbourne yesterday ready to respond to calls from retailers in need of more of their Father’s Day Dad’s Bags. One of our locations, new to Darrell Lea just last month had sold out and within a couple of hours of calling we had the stock we needed – in time for the afternoon rush. This is excellent customer service from Darrell Lea.
Through my involvment with newsXpress I am hearing of more newsagency for sale opportunities through landlords looking to get national brand representation in their centres. Right now, I am aware of newsagency locations available in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. Some are greenfield locations and others are existing centres. I’d be happy to point interested parties to the landlords involved. I can be reached on 0418 321 338.
One task on a Friday morning is to select the range of magazines we will promote to passers-by in the mall at the front of our newsagency over the weekend. We take care in selecting either one title we want to push or a range of titles which will appeal to our weekend shopper. This is our one shot to pitch magazines to people visiting the shopping centre without a plan to visit our newsagency.
This weekend’s selection reflects the care we have taken in crafting our pitch. We have used beacon branding principles – showing the feature titles by allocating two pockets each. Better Homes & Gardens, Good Health, Women’s Health, Real Living and Money are among the ten titles which get this higher profile treatment. You see in the photo that we have titles grouped by segment: garden, health, food, living and money/property.
We are using the last row to display the third title in each segment we cover.
Almost all titles are well known. This is important as the eyeball time the stand will get is very limited.
This display took us between around ten minutes to create, not because of the quality of the display but because of the time taken to consider what we wanted covered in the range. This weekend, we wanted to include titles in the range which could be considered as part of a Father’s Day gift.
The display was created first thing yesterday (Friday) morning and will be taken down Monday morning. It truly is a weekend-only display.
Our Father’s Day book sale continues to drive excellent sales thanks to a great range of books and simple yet effective free marketing collateral promoting this range. From a small stock commitment we are achieving sales of between $300 and $500 a day. The sales in recent days show the popularity of books as a gift for dad.
In addition to an excellent range, the A5 four page flyers drive good traffic.
This is an example of chasing better margin business for the newsagency. We make more than double the margin on these books than we make on magazines and newspapers yet we rely the traffic of newspapers and magazines to drive book sales.
Father’s Day is clearly a great time to run this size of book sale. I know of newsagents who are going much harder than us with outposts – and achieving excellent results.
A book sale at Father’s Day is now part of our annual marketing plan. It’s a guaranteed win and we have book retailers in our centre so it is not as if we have no competition.
The keys as we see them are: the right supplier, a great range, keen prices and a plan to get in, be bold and a clear plan on when to get out.
We have placed Time magazine with newspapers this week to bring the Ted Kennedy coverage to the infrequent Time consumer. We are bound to sell several copies from this location which we would otherwise not have sold. It pays to check the covers of magazines for opportunities like this.
I like the collateral provided by Intralot promoting instant scratch tickets for Father’s Day – especially their pitch with the brand of greeting card we carry. This makes it easy for us to pitch scratchie gift packs with our cards. It is not often you see a supplier from one category complimenting a supplier from another category.
We are promoting the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine as part of our Father’s Day magazine moves around our newsagency. The John Lennon feature makes this a collectors issue and an ideal Father’s Day gift for a Generation X dad. We have this display located at the busiest point of our counter – targeting maximum impulse purchase. It’s ideal timing from ACP to have the John Lennon feature out now.
We are promoting the latest issue of Top Gear magazine near our newspaper stand in the lead up to Father’s Day. This placement is part of a range of moves with magazines to pitch for Father’s Day business around our newsagency. The newspaper location has worked well for sales of Top Gear for us in the past. We will leave this display up until Monday at least.
Sony is calling their latest e-reader device the Daily Edition, connecting it with the newspaper reading habit. A story in the New York Times asks can it whar fish?
The Wall Street Journal this morning published a report about the prospects of the mass market for these e-readers and noting that it is about price.
These readers and other devices will evolve and evolve until we have an iPod like device for delivering access to what was print material. It happened with music and when it the whole game changed. It will happen with print.
What will newsagents sell the 2010 Australian Nurse Diary for? $11.95 which is the RRP or $15.00 which is the retail price for the copies supplied through Network Servcies? Network has invoiced me at 71% more than the cost price from my direct supplier. The margin on the Network price is 36% and the margin on direct supply 53%.
Network runs a much improved magazine distribution model. Their handling of fringe opportunities such as diaries and calendars needs work if newsagents are to be seen as competitive by consumers.
If I relied on the Network supply of the Nurse Diary I’d be seen as expensive compared to other retailers. Newsagents are already considered as expensive by consumers. We need to push back on this and source products on terms which permit us to be seen a competitive. The push model of magazine distribution for non magazine products does not help us be more competitive.
We need to make our own success.
We are promoting marie claire magazine at the front of the newsagency this week to leverage the free bag which comes with the title. We’re short of space right now so finding this location for what is a good offer was a challenge. We have this display near our busiest lottery counter. It will be up for at least three or four days – longer depending on demands on space.
Check out FLYP. As they claim, it is more than a magazine. It offers magazine like content in a fresh from combining video, audio, animation and interactivity. Stories will cover just about anything including politics, music and science. Two issues a week. Purely digital.
We had a good August for magazines compared to last year, especially for womens weeklies – unit sales declined just 23 copies off a considerable base. Given the volatility in sales of the weeklies this past year, a decline of 23 units for the month on a year-on-year comparison is good. Gifts, books, stationery and ink also recorded solid growth. The surprise of the month is the 262 calendars we sold – all at full price (yep, no discounting here) and all with an excellent margin.
While best practice around the world is the open competition for the postal service and retail post offices being dominated by, well, postal services, successive governments in Australia have allowed and even encouraged the 100% government owned and protected Australia Post to compete more with private enterprise.
Yesterday’s news that Australia Post is to sell insurance is more evidence of selective interpretation of what is permissible under the Act which governs Australia Post.
Let me declare my interest. One of my newsagencies is directly opposite a government owned Australia Post shop. Here, the federal government directly competes with me for stationery, greeting card, ink and toner, book, calendar and other sales. Government owned post offices have no role in taking more and more business from private enterprise.
Australia Post benefits from government protection. Their retail outlets get rent deals, special landlord treatment, better buying and cheap access to customers who have nowhere else to go for the right to stand in a line for mediocre service.
I don’t blame the Australia Post executives. They are probably on a nice bonus scheme. This is a policy issue which can only be fixed by politicians. That they refuse to even consider the issue demonstrates their lack of care for small business.
