We are promoting Take 5 magazine in its usual place as well as next to our main newspaper stand as shown in the photo. While the dump bin display is not as professional looking as we would like, it was the best way we could display volume given the free pack of mentos gum bagged with the magazine. Our placement and easy access display will hopefully drive incremental business.
Okay, question… I am running a keeping it fresh campaign with the staff in my two stores. This week, I suggested to one of my staff members that the That’s Life and Take 5 should be put up on a wednesday afternoon. The staff member then replied that she couldn’t see the point in replacing a Women’s day poster with a poster for a magazine that we sell heaps of and only costs $2.95 … so what does everyone think about this?
B, look at your magazine sales decay report and see how many woman’s day and new idea you sell from wednesday on. If you are like other newsagencies you will sell between 60% and 80% on Monday and Tuesday. So taking their collateral down and replacing with T5 and TL collateral Wednesday morning would be good for your business.
It’s routine here, even in our pipsqueak shop, to swap displays around for every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday issue of the main weeklies.
Not so much about keeping things fresh, as ensuring customers know that there are other days than Mondays for worthwhile mags.
The staff member may not see the point of promoting a cheaper item, but I don’t see the point of flogging the one thing when all it takes is changing a poster and swapping pockets, for an item that, as Mark says, isn’t such a hot thing come Wednesday.
Thanks guys. I was just wondering if it was me being pedantic or whether there was a method to my maddness!!
I removed Take 5 from the bag and plan to sell the Mentos gum for $1.50 to $2.00 each thankyou Take 5, this is a healthy profit margin.
your kidding right????
Be careful Mark, they are free for a reason. Check the expire date.
What about checking the ethics?
Why would any supplier want to supply his store?
I’ve seen businesses doing a lot worse then onselling freebies like a bank that increases profits by 40% and then cries poor and wants to increase customer costs and rates. It’s not something I would do but I do not know how bad the situation is for this shop, you cannot pay your home repayments using ethics or your electricity bills.
Expiry date : 27/8/2010 here.
no freebies here for take 5.
i don’t care what the useby date is, it is a freebie for the customer. How can we gain the respect or gain a better working relationship with distributors or publishers when this type of thing happens.
Luke.
I am not comparing with other peoples lack of ethics if you want to go ahead. I leave it to thers to judge.It appered to be a smart arse comment not fitting or in general with this industries standards. Pinching a few cents is hardly a relief for hardship. Get above it!
If it is true about removing the gum and selling it then it’s dumb – for the store and for the channel. The revenue from the gum will not fix a business problem.
Luke,
On a more serious and genuine note if you do have financial problems there is some really good help out there if required
You are the one that brought up the ethics question in comment 8, and you can go fishing for business somewhere else thank you.
We have hit on a winner here and are sitting comfortable if not racking it in. We have been in the game a long time and will continue to be long after others have sold up and sit on the side lines.
Luke
You are being rude and presumptuous. I am not fishing for business unlike this blog. I am merely commenting on a blog. A reasonable one at that If you have a problem then I am sure you will solve it. It’s how you look at things, you wrote it. Stick to your ethics they have stood the test of time you say- is that the only credential?.
Graeme this blog is not used to “fish” for business as you allege. Don’t draw me into your discussion with Luke.
i new i shouldn’t have went fishing today now i missed the big conversation on chewing gum
I have not looked at this blog since I left my comment two days ago and can’t believe what has come of it. For the record my Newsagency is very succesful and has been for the past 21 years. I don’t believe my customers have missed anything here, I have sold through 85% of my Take 5 stock in two days, I did so by heavily promoting the That’s Life promotion and tactically placed the two titles together. I also regularly run my own promotions with better offers than cheap chewing gum, targeted totally at the wrong customer demographic. What I did is not what is wrong with the industry, problems stem much further up than this. When Magazine and Newspaper, Publishers / Distributors want to work with Newsagents, I would be happy listen, unfortunately i do not forsee that they will try to do so any time soon. I am certain that many do not agree with what I did but that was my choice in my business, I run a succesful business like thousands of other newsagents accross the country, each of whom I’m sure have thier own good ideas about how to run thier business succesfully.
MC,
What you and many other newsagents don’t seem to see is that distributors and publishers in particular won’t work with newsagents, in part, because of the unprofessional manner in which many operate and present themselves.
I honestly don’t care about the ethics of the matter; its the sheer stupid business decisions that many newsagents make thinking that they are somehow improving their profitability that irritates the rest of us. Whether we like it or not it these actions reflect on the channel (especially in the eyes of suppliers).
I would encourage publishers to cut off retailers from receiving any freebies when they blatantly abuse them. Your investment in free gifts for your readers should not be wasted and it is hypocritical for a newsagent to cry poor when they know many publishers are doing it just as tough.
Distributors have no need to work with us , we have no option but to buy from them and now there is only 2 distibutors we have even less options . do you really think them wrapping up a free gift is them wortking with us . To me them working with us would be sorting out this BS system they call a supply model and stop the over supply instantly , they have all the technology in the world to do so . As far as the freebies yeah bring them on i would never knock them back but please don’t say that is the distibutor working with newsagents
Any free gift with a magazine is a promotion created and paid for by the publisher, not the distributor.
Sometimes, the roles of publishers and distributors get confused by newsagents.
While I accept that ACP and Network are the same company, internally they do not really operate that way.
I have not commented on my ethic at all, I’ll leave that for you.
If you reread comment 9 then you would see that I stated that this is something I would NOT do, my ethics are work hard and focus on my own business. As for freebies we give these to charities or small clubs to use for fates/door prizes once the mag is off sale. You may want to use a bigger bait next time.