Click here to read what Gil Fuchsberg, President of Skiff said at a conference in the US a couple of days ago about their work with Samsung on the electronic device reading expeience. Skiff is a Hearst incubated business. They are certainly on a mission to connect with mobile customers through a range of devices.
We are promoting the Australian Women’s Weekly at the front of the newsagency with a bold display. The Obama cover is sure to draw plenty of attention. The issue itself looks excellent. That said, I would have gone with just that and not the free cookbook as I think they are overdone as free gifts – but more on that another time.
To make the most this on-sale week for AWW we also have it in a full waterfall in its usual position and in a pocket with our newspapers. We know that is our newsagency AWW is a good impulse purchase product. We will know by the weekend if this space allocation is working for us.
We are promoting Girlfriend magazine at the counter (from yesterday) thanks to the skincare treatment pack included with this issue. I expect this to sell well to parents. This is why we have it at the counter. We also have a good display in the usual place for Girlfriend with teen magazines. We expect to run this co-location at the counter until Monday.
OzLotto has jackpotted to $30 million at just the right time and we will see an excellent traffic and sales lift as a result. The real pay-off comes Sunday through Tuesday when people claim prizes from this Saturday’s $20 superdraw. Getting them to reinvest in a $30 million prize will work well. We are promoting the $30 million with plenty of house syndicates, easy upsell offers at each counter and other in-store promotions. We are also promoting other products to leverage greater efficiency from the increased lottery traffic.
This jackpot is an excellent opportunity. Secretly, I’d be happy to see it run for a few weeks more.
Earlier this week we launched a refreshed website for Inkfast, the online printer ink and toner business we started out the back of our newsagency four years ago. We created Inkfast to capture printer ink and toner sales which we could not get in our newsagency, especially business and government sales.
Inkfast has performed well, attracting business across the country from single cartridge orders delivered to homes through to orders from government departments worth thousands of dollars.
I think that newsagents wanting to chase online business need to do so away from the shingle of a newsagency. Whether we like it or not, the term newsagency has many preconceived opinions and biases around price, range and competitiveness attached to it. People buying ink and toner online are looking for something different be it price, range, speed of delivery or delivery to the door convenience.
The online world is different and offering newsagency products and services online under a newsagency name will do little more than serve the existing newsagency customer base. Sure, it is a feel good to be online but does it really drive incremental traffic. I see little value in slicing existing traffic and reducing shop visits.
Going online is all about finding new customers who live and shop online and are unlikely to walk through your front door. This is best achieved by running the online business separately from the bricks and mortar business.
If you research online businesses you see that strong brands have a value proposition different to what you see in the bricks and mortar world. The Inkfast value proposition is speed, it’s there in the name. This is backed by our support for brand name product at highly competitive prices. Through Inkfast we have connected with customers we could never have reached from our newsagency.
We have placed the new look Australian Traveller in among our women’s weeklies titles, in the column of food magazine we have there. The stunning new look and gourmet themed cover (100 greatest Australian gourmet experiences) make it look right at home in this premium location, with delicious and other food titles. We also have some copies in its usual place in our travel section.
The publisher of Australia Traveller tells me that since women make more travel decisions than men, placement of the title with women’s magazines makes sense. The travel department is usually tucked away in a corner somewhere, making achieving sales even more challenging for Australian Traveller and other travel titles.
Co-locating this issue will help us learn more about the best location for this title in our own newsagency.
The publisher of Totally Speedway magazine has added a putaway request form in his new magazine. This came about thanks to good discussions with his local newsagent and on the backdrop of posts and comments at this blog about the treatment of newsagents by Speedway Racing News.
I am heartened to see another publisher take initiative to support the Australian newsagency channel. Small independent magazines like Totally Speedway and their publishers are important to newsagents and we are important to them. There are many ways we can work more closely together – a putaway request form is a good next step.
If you have customers interested in speedway racing, consider carrying Totally Speedway.
Innovative retailer mag nation is running a brilliant promotion, Undies Monday. Yes, you can walk into any mag nation store in your underwear and they will give you for FREE any magazine, book or stationery item you choose – up to $50 in value. Click on the image, if you dare, to see that customers are embracing the opportunity. Talk about having fun in retail! Gaslight Records (now closed) in Melbourne became famous for their nude day promotion.
There is no connection between Prevention magazine and horse racing titles. It just so happens that our horse racing titles face our greeting card department.
Realising the importance of promoting impulse opportunities as shoppers move through the store and knowing the demographic of our card shoppers, we have placed Prevention magazine facing the card department. This is the only magazine offer between the card department and the counter.
Too often, I think we look at display opportunities from the one direction. Once you analyse traffic in a newsagency you can see many display opportunities, in multiple directions – like this place next to our racing titles.
Next time, we will be more careful in selecting a newspaper stand – to make sure that it provides display flexibility regardless of how it is positioned.
My software company Tower Systems is hosting three opportunities for newsagents to learn more about our software and provide feedback over the next week:
These sessions will feature Jonathan Tay, our Software Development Manager, speaking about our latest software update. These sessions are part of a twenty city tour updating the Tower community of 1,650+ newsagents on the latest release of the software and innovation for newsagents. To book for these free sessions click here.
We are promoting New Idea next to our main newspaper display today since the cover story on Trishna and Krishna the formerly conjoined twins will be popular with our customers. The twins have dominated news stories and talkback radio since their separation four months ago. We also have the magazine available from our two busiest counters as well as its usual location with weekly magazines. We will pull this back on Wednesday morning to just two locations for the title.
In 2004 the MPA (Magazine Publishers of Australia) published a recommended layout of magazines for newsagents. Considerable work was done by the MPA to develop this and the supporting collateral including a booklet and DVD. It was a terrific resource for newsagents wanting to follow a more consistent approach to magazine layout.
The MPA layout was not set in stone but rather pitched as a starting point from which newsagents could evolve as they gathered their own data on ideal adjacencies in their business.
While the recommended layout is still available (if you hunt for it), little or no work has been done since 2004. This is disappointing since data available now goes way beyond what was available in 2004.
We know far more today about what sells with what, what response to promotion at impulse purchase positions versus the more traditional power end display.
I can see tremendous value applying what we have learnt over the last five years to the MPA layout plan and coming up with a more useful document for today’s marketplace.
While a marketing group or two and some individual newsagents manage magazine layout, the broader channel misses out on a useful resource which could drive better sales outcomes.
If newsagents are to continue to be a valuable channel for magazine publishers, they, the publishers, ought to fund a refresh of the MPA work. I, and I am sure others, would be happy to work on such a project. I’d also be happy to share the considerable basket data I have which would provide helpful information on what magazines are bought with other products as well as other magazines.
The key, however, with a recommended magazine layout would be a commitment from magazine distributors to behave on supply.
With half of all magazines sold through the newsagency channel, publishers (large and small), distributors and newsagents need to work together to make our magazine offer more efficient and competitive.
I am concerned about the growth in magazine sales in the convenience channel. Their sales of top 100 titles will hurt the rest our magazine sales since we potentially face an overall fall in traffic. We can counter this with a more consistent and professional offer.
Editor & Publisher published an update Friday on News Corp’s progress toward fulfilling the goal of being carbon neutral by the end of this year. With many shoppers concerned about the environment, the information could be useful for newsagents and fit with a broader environmental strategy.
We are set to sell out of Better Homes and Gardens this month even after ordering additional stock in the first few days of the on-sale. While it will screw with our supply and sales data from the distributor, we want to see how many copies we can sell with the tactics we are using for this issue.
While the free DVD on the cover has been a key driver for our success and that many other newsagents, we have leveraged the opportunity as much as possible.
As part of our process of arriving magazines into the business on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday, we look for promotion opportunities based on the cover for it is this which is key to the impuulse decision to purchase from the high traffic locations we use.
We have expanded our AFL cards counter display to include the new range of cards which arrived on Friday. While the select range has been selling well, it is this new range which our regulars love and which attracts new traffic thanks to good word of mouth.
We have grown sales by more than 10% each year for the last three years through an excellent counter display. Newsagents who have only one or two packs at the counter should try a bigger display. We found that switching to this has worked very well for us.
We have people buying just the AFL cards but the majority are adding cards to other purchases and thereby building sales efficiency.
The Herald Sun ran a story on Bill Express yesterday on page 87. This adds to the excellent coverage in The Age over over recent months. Yesterday’s story focused on the evidence of Julian Little and the treatment of a loan provided ot him by the company and paid out by the company.
My understanding is that it is rare for an examination of the details we are seeing of the Bill Express mess to take place.
While we won’t get to the bottom of the tactics used to get newsagents to sign up for what now appears to have been a ponzi-type scheme or those close to newsagents who may have made money from this, it is comforting to see the Directors of the company and some associated with them under scrutiny.
I am curious about how much newsagents spend marketing their retail businesses outside their four walls on: advertising (newspaper, TV, outdoor), direct mail (catalogues), sponsorships (sporting and community groups) and in other promotions designed to promote the business outside the business.
I have always used 2% of revenue as a guide to marketing spend. By revenue I mean commission from lotteries, transport tickets, electronic voucher and agency lines plus sales for everything else – newspapers, magazines, stationery, books, calendars, diaries, ink etc.
Two newsagents I was talking with this week did not have a budget so we worked out the number. In calendar 2009 they spent under half of one percent of revenue on marketing. They were shocked when I suggested they quadruple this. They felt that being a newsagent should bring people in and that newsagent suppliers should do more to advertise newsagency businesses.
While I can understand the view that newsagents suppliers should promote the channel from a historical perspective, it is not appropriate today. Most of what we carry is in so many other retail channels that it is not appropriate to expect a supplier to promote us.
We need to market our businesses to bring people to us. This is best done in our local communities. All of what we spend in my newsagencies is designed to get people living and working near us to visit for seasonal, category and sale opportunities we promote.
We use a mix of direct mail, email and print advertising consistently throughout the year. This investment does bring in new customers. It also guides existing customers to spend more. The investment pays off.
While it is expensive to find a new customer, this is vital given the competition from other channels attracting shoppers to what we sell.
So, what do you spend as a percentage of revenue?
We are promoting That’s Life Reader Recipes at our main counter this weekend. It’s a good looking title at a keen price. I expect it to sell very well for us. It takes over the prime impulse purchase space from 70 Family Meals. This did very well for us in two days, so much so that we are chasing extra stock.
The key with these titles connected with major brands is to promote them hard as soon as they are published as the decay curve is sharp. With That’s Life Reader Recipes for example I’d expect to achieve most sales in the first two weeks. We will leave the display up until Monday and then reassess.
As the display shows, we created our own very basic marketing collateral by copying the cover. It works in this location.
We received Netball magazine yesterday for the first time. As happens with Network Services, we were not asked if we wanted this title or whether we had the space. The title (new for us) arrived without any collateral so we put it on the shelf and hope that someone notices it. This in itself is a challenge because it is the only title of its type and we only received two copies.
In placing the title, I wondered, do we put it in the sports (mainly men’s) area or in with women’s health titles? We went with sports. I may give it a counter push next week because it strikes me as a title people will purchase if they know we have it.
I’d prefer magazine distributors to ask before they send me new titles. I’d also prefer them arrive on our shelves with coillateral tactics which are designed to help them find customers. Just getting shelf space in a newsagency does not achieve this. that said, we permit our national network to be used this way.
The barrier to entry for magazines reaching our cahnnel is too low.
As for the Netball title itself, it looks pretty good. The challenge is finding those with this narrow interest.
VIVmag is a lifestyle magazine which is currently only published in a digital format. The publishers, like others recently, hae put together videos to show how they may embrace the Apple iPad as a delivery channel for their content. While not showing off much detail of how the reading experience would work, it demonstrates the power of video content.
VIV Mag Motion Cover – iPad Demo from Alexx Henry on Vimeo.
What is interesting is that magzzines and newspapers will change how they gather and produce content. Sending a still photographer out to capture images for a store will change with video being used more and more. This is one area where content on the iPad will differ to the print version.
There is no reason why a channel like the newsagency channel cannot use this video footage to enhance the shopper experience.
Years after ATMs started appearing in newsagencies, Customers Limited announced to the ASX today a deal with the ANF. It’s an odd move for an industry association.
We are running our traditional Easter Book Sale. I say traditional because this is now our fifth year. We know from book experts that Easter is one of the top three seasons for book sales.
We have two large table on the dance floor with books displayed and grouped by special interest. Hero books like the Curtis Stone cookbook for $14.95 are to the front or the Gordon Ramsay books.. As the photo shows, we raise the books to show the whole cover. This part of the display faces customers as they leave our counter. We have a different display facing customers as they enter the business.
We have the Easter books in a separate display with our Easter offer of egg, gifts and cards.
We give over so much premium floor space to the book sale because of the margin in each item and the sales efficiency – they do sell well on impulse, you only have to watch customer behaviour.
Books are a terrific impulse purchase opportunity. We also use them to find new customers – we have four page brochures going to homes around our centre this weekend. These exclusively promote our business. We also get good book business from word of mouth since we have become known for these sales.
Books also fit well with magazines, we find that they appeal to similar customers. We can promote one category near the other and drive incremental business.
The book sale is a newsXpress initiative.
Fpr those wanting an update on the Bill Express investigation in the Supreme Court, click here for the report on yesterday’s proceedings. It’s all about Julian Little, the Bill Express Director who drove the relationship between the ANF, newsagents and Bill Express.