The GNS Market Fair in Melbourne has been terrific today. Plenty of newsagents came through the new venue at the exhibition centre (hall 10). When I checked the numbers were in line with last year. Suppliers have mounted professional displays with excellent offers. Newsagents I spoke with enjoyed the show and did some good business.
If you are a Victorian newsagent I’d encourage you to get along. Tomorrow’s hours at 8am through 4pm.
I feel like an idiot. For years I have helped newsagents deal with employee and customer theft. I have spoken at regional newsagent meetings about this, I have helped police gather and understand evidence in several states, I have sworn affidavits as an expert witness, I have helped insurance companies verify claims. I have even published guidelines for newsagents on how to cut the cost of theft.
If only I had followed my own advice.
On Monday this week we discovered an employee theft situation at one of the stores with which I am involved. We discovered it when hunting down a discrepancy from Sunday’s numbers. Our Point of Sale software Audit Log provided excellent evidence indicating criminal behaviour. Our linked camera system provided the visual proof we needed.
The rest of Monday and Tuesday were spent researching how long this had been going on for. We were shocked – and this is when I began to feel like an idiot. The evidence indicated that upwards of $20,000 had been stolen.
Following discussions with the police and our insurance company I approached the person involved. Within two hours we were paid $12,000 as settlement of the matter.
While we may have got more by pursuing it through the police, the costs to us would have been considerably higher, it would have taken longer to get paid and there would have been a knock-on impact on our insurance policy. There was also a risk that we would get far less.
Having worked with police previously, I knew there would be a challenge on what they would consider admissible evidence. The recent camera footage and companion data from the computer system is good. While this establishes a pattern of behaviour, it is a challenge to get a court to accept that this was going on months or years before to determine the quantum of the theft.
The best way to cut the cost of employee theft is to:
I am embarrassed that this happened in one of my businesses. Hopefully, I have learned a lesson. There is no doubt that I am less trusting now.
Anyone who wants to know how the theft was done is welcome to call me on 0418 321 338 or email me at mark@towersystems.com.au for details. I have a document with practcial suggestions on how to determine whether employee theft is a problem in your business.
Newsagency employees reading this post who are stealing from their employer, resign because you will ultimately be caught.
Footnote: before anyone says that they have a computer system which blocks many types of employee theft, ours does too. My view is that is someone is desperate to steal from you they will avoid the technology and find another way. By not erecting all of the barriers I could have in this business, it was easier for me to gather evidence and, ultimately, fix the problem.
I am happy to talk to any newsagent about what happened and how we discovered it. The more we share this information the better.
We have a small footprint display of the Lipsmacker product at the counter. It’s offering a product young girls will like and with an excellent margin. I have the product in three of my stores – I want to see how far I can go in terms of pricing so we are trying three prices. As the photo shows, at my Forest Hill store we have it next to the popular Better Homes and Gardens counter promotion.
We have the latest issue of MasterChef magazine on display at our newspaper stand as well as with weeklies and in the food section. The tactical placement next to the newspaper stand works best for us, especially in the first two weeks.
While MasterChef magazine has established regular customers, being in a shopping centre we see plenty of impulse business.
We are chasing extra stock expecting this issue to be hot.
Our newsXpress Forest Hill store is set for some changes early in the new year. With major construction being undertaken on level 3 of the centre, directly above us, the landlord has asked us to move to a kiosk temporarily during the construction phase. This coincides with the end of our current lease. The landlord has offered us a new lease for a permanent location to kick in once the construction is over.
The original plan of the landlord, three weeks ago, was that the construction would start immediately and impact our tenancy next week. That all changed last week when their construction plans were delayed. Plans may change again – we have told the landlord that we will try and work in with any changes which occur.
We have been at Forest Hill for more than fourteen years and have been moved by the landlord three times.
Why have I mentioned this now? Because nextra is trying to undermine us by putting a different spin on the story in the members area of their website.
In addition to some excellent stationery deals from suppliers, my software company, Tower Systems, will be showing how newsagents are already using the iPad to help in running their businesses at the GNS Market Fair in Melbourne this weekend. See you there…
It is interesting to see what a newsagency customer has to say about magazine back issues in a bag at the Caravaners Forum:
Went to a News Agent this morning to pick up a caravan magazine, the large format one and the one which I do not subscribe, despite it being my favourite.
Unusually it was in plastic & I thought beaut, there is something free inside. The bag says save 28% (from memory). The other mag was some Caravan & Motorhome Trader thing. No interest to me. I’m thinking if I run out of newspaper I can use it to start the fire at home. $9.95? Hang on it is normally only $7.95 so how am I saving 28%?
I will have a look at other News Agents & if I can’t buy it on it’s own at $7.95, I won’t buy it at all.
I am not overly concerned, just that I am not paying an extra $2.00 for landfill.
The forum itself, which I found out about yesterday, will be of terrific interest and help to newsagents with strong sales of caravan, motorhome and camper titles. Forum members love newsagencies because they can get their magazine fix easily from us while on the road.
There is an opportunity here to somehow better connect with caravaners – especially if you see plenty coming through your town.
Amazon has announced a US$139 Kindle e-reader. This will force others to release lower cost readers. This is exactly what happened with music devices – everying racing downhill on price and thereby rapidly expanding the size of the channel and, ultimately, the sales of music downloads. eBOOKNEWSER has more on the Amazon anouncement.
US customers can use the Kindle to read books, newspapers and magazines.
We are promoting the latest issue of Girlfriend with an in-location display. While we can only fit one copy per pocket (ugh!) because of the terrific gift (yea!), we have been able to fit all the remainder of the stock on the flat in front of the display. We will also pump sales with a secondary location offer at the weekend or next week.
Last week I completed the twenty city tour for the Newsagency of the Future workshop s. Today I am in Perth finishing the latest round of newsXpress member meetings. What has struck me, thinking back on the hundreds of newsagents I have spoken with over the last six weeks, is the positive attitude of so many to the future.
While many, across all marketing banners, share concern at tough retail conditions, the conversation turns to the future and steps they are taking or could take to make for themselves a stronger future. This reflects a well-known resilience among newsagents to challenges encountered along the way.
The newsagents I like talking with the most are those who pursue opportunities across a range of categories in their business. This cross-category balance is vitally important to our health.
We have an opportunity today thanks to still good traffic with newspapers, magazines, lotteries and greeting cards. We can use this traffic to build sales in other product categories. Sure there are frustrations with some products in these categories.
So, here is a question for every newsagent: what are you doing today to leverage good traffic for newspapers, magazines and lotteries?
You have to be doing something to try and drive more business from sales in these three key categories.
I have spoken with some newsagents in recent weeks who are energetically driving sales and banking excellent results. They are making lemonade as Forrest Gump would say.
I am coming out of this latest cycle of travelling around the country talking and working with newsagents more upbeat about our future than when I started.
The ANF has sent material to some newsagents to rpomote engagement in the federal election campaign. The ANF is seeking for the Minister for Small Business to be elevated to Cabinet and for the appointment of a Federal Small Business Commissioner. I have previously supported these proposals and happily do so again here.
Click here to see a copy of a flyer the ANF proposes newsagents put on their counter.
We are embracing the ACP magazines Connections Program promotion of Take 5 this week. As the photo shows, we are promoting this on the back of another stand. This is what customers see as they leave our women’s magazine aisle. I’m pretty happy with this display – for something I created myself. The regular stock of Take 5 is in the same aisle on the right hand side just out of shot.
We are having good success with tactical exit displays like this. Too often I see newsagents concentrate only on displays which face customers as they enter the store and head to a high traffic location. Focusing on offers to customers as they leave the high traffic location and head to the counter or leave the store can be just ad commercially valuable to the business.
It says SPECIAL FATHER’S DAY OFFER INSIDE on the latest issue of Outback magazine (out yesterday). I was interested as I am looking for magazines to promote for Father’s Day. I opened the plastic bag and took a look in the magazine. The special Father’s day offer is a free knife with each subscription sold. I am not going to promote this as part of our Father’s Day marketing.
In addition to our front of store display promoting the Australian Women’s Weekly, we also have this in location display inside the entrance of our women’s magazine aisle. We ‘found’ this space by eliminating the column of crossword titles and stripping these above Woman’s Day and New Idea for the next few days.
We are enjoying good success with these in location displays. Besides driving sales, they are easy to create and move. This helps us keep the magazine aisles fresh looking. We are not overdoing them – restructing them to no more than one for each side of the aisle.
We had a few days spare between planned displays on one aisle end and so slipped in this display for Better Homes and Gardens. We are still promoting the title, with great success, and took the opportunity for this display for the next two days. The space is committed from Friday. While we could have chosen another title for this bonus promotion opportunity, we went with Better Homes because it responds well to this effort. It is about sales after all.
We are promoting the latest issue of the Australian Women’s Weekly (out today) with Julia Gillard on the cover – out the front of the store and two other high traffic impulse purchase locations in-store.
I expect strong sales, it’s a good looking cover. The issue has been getting strong radio coverage on talk radio in Melbourne this morning.
Australia Post got a fair bit of news coverage yesterday. Chairman David Mortimer and new CEO Ahmed Fahour Check were widely quoted talking up their retail network and the rest of the business. Having read many of the reports, one is left with no doubt that Australia Post is on the move, hunting down more business.
While the stories talk about electronic business, fixing the queues in their stores and chasing revenue from superannuation business, I have no doubt that they will continue pursue revenue currently the domain of newsagents.
The stories also made it clear that regardless of who wins the federal election, Australia Post will not be privatised.
Over the last ten years, Australia Post’s 860 (or so) corporate stores have pursued Australia’s family owned newsagencies. They have directly targeted our customers by moving deeper into non postal related products of greeting cards, stationery and books. They do this on the back of a government nurtured and protected brand. Their monopoly gives them a lower cost of entry into new areas of business.
Politicians say that Australia Post is a best practice model. I don’t think so. They have no competition for mail. In the EU, best practice is considered genuine competition for mail services. Also in EU countries I have visited, the retail post offices are, well, post offices and not general stores like Australia Post operates today.
I would like to see newsagent representatives target the government ownership of the retail channel. If we sit back as we have for the last ten years it will be only a matter of time before they have more of our product categories.
Check out the story in the Sydney Morning Herald and the story in The Australian.
We have added a follow me on Twitter button on the top of this blog. This is not entirely accurate since I do not post on Twitter all blog posts, not many at all in fact.
I decided to add the link because of something I am doing for the federal election campaign. I am posting a series of questions about small business which I would like to see put to all politicians.
While I have been registered with Twitter since January 2008, I have been sporadic at best with my tweets. It was after the first week of the campaign that I realised that I should do something to get small business questions out there.
The Hallmark Cards free photo frame offer we currently have in-store is working well, driving welcome incremental card business. Customers buying three Hallmark cards get a free frame.
While we are promoting the offer in the card aisle with some terrific Hallmark marketing collateral, we are having more success when we mention it to customers who present to the counter with a Hallmark card in their purchase. It is good to see some ask us to hold the sale while they go back and choose another one or two cards. These are sales we would not have got that day or maybe not at all. It helps that this is a limited time offer.
More stock of the Women’s Weekly Slow Cooker title is now in. We are following the tried and true approach with this title by tactical placement – with weeklies and in a pocket at the counter. Current indications are that there is no slowing of interest in this and other slow cooker titles. Since most are purchased on impulse, it is a valuable extension to the basket. I’d note here my surprise that newsagents have returned the Slow Cooker title without giving it a go.
We are promoting the People’s Friend Summer Cookery Made Easy is three locations in-store to try and tap into the strong interest in food titles. The display in the photo is in a pocket above newspapers. We also have the title in a column of food titles in with our weekly magazines as well as placement in our food category. We will move this around and include a couple of pockets with People’s Friend itself.
OzLotto jackpotting to $20 million tonight is welcome to every newsagent who sells lottery products. We should see a traffic increase – small given it is only $20 million but welcome nevertheless. This extra traffic at the lottery counter will, in plenty of businesses, drive sales elsewhere in-store.
Tomorrow’s Australian Women’s Weekly has Julia Gillard on the cover and a 4,000 word article and an excusive photo shoot reports The Australian.
Newsagents can embrace the opportunityhere. Declare a Julia day. Redheads get a discount. Put staff in red wigs. TNW have these. There are plenty of other marketing ideas around the cover story – brainstorm with your team.
If you do a traditional display expect a traditional outcome. If, on the other hand, you have some fun and engage in a more energetic and personal way with the title, expect a more energetic response from your customers.
