We are promoting the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine at the counter. We have Bob Dylan fans who would not venture down to the music maagazine section but who might just treat themselves to a impulse purchase – hence this counter placement. We deliberately have it next to one of our EFTPOS terminals so that shoppers can;t miss the opportunity.
newsXpress has announced the first ever year-long commitment by a newsagency marketing group to television advertising. More than 4,000 commercials will run in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth exclusively promoting newsXpress newsagencies. Click here for more details at the newsXpress blog.
At newsagency industry events and in meetings when questioned by newsagents and newsagent representatives, newspaper publisher representatives say that the iPad and similar devices represent a new channel through which they can drive incremental business. They say that print is here to stay and that this is why they need newsagents as their distribution partners.
I can understand why publishers say this. The last thing they want is a revolt in the low cost and reliable distribution channel run by newsagents. They need this channel for at least some years yet, maybe longer for who really knows how the mobile device and sexy newspaper app marketplace will play out. We are in a game without knowing how far in, certainly not far enough to predict where it will turn.
What is frustrating is the disconnect which appears sometimes between what newspaper publishers say and what they do.
Imagine how newsagents felt yesterday when they say the wraparound covering The Sunday Age lauding the arrival of the iPad App for The Age. I am guessing The Sun Herald from Fairfax in Sydney ran a similar promotion.
The pitch was simple.
The iPad edition brings Melbourne’s best journalism to your fingertips. Doesn’t the print edition do that too?
The Age on the iPad is RICHER, DEEPER, MORE INFORMED. Yes, I can see that. Is the implication to the print reader – migrate?
Then there is this: Combining the convenience of digital with the in-depth features and analysis of print, the Age iPad App offers a reading experience that’s second to none. Ok, better than print but built using the print writers I have come to trust. The message remains – migrate.
I was left wondering how long the headline of Enjoy the best of both worlds will apply.
The approach being taken by Fairfax makes sense. They need to leverage their regular print to drive traffic of the iPad App. They need to do this and risk losing print readers. It makes sense. Except that they have continually told newsagents that it is business as usual, digital platforms will not affect print and yes please continue to invest in your distribution businesses.
Life is not that simple for newspaper publishers. None us know where this will end up. Given this, publishers ought to stop telling newsagents that it will be business as usual. They ought to let their investment in digital platforms and their promotion of these on the pages of their print product speak for itself.
Based on calls and emails I have received, newsagents are angry at what to them appears to be a sacrifice of the print product in favour of print with the wraparound for The Sunday Age yesterday. News Limited is not much better.
Newsagents need to look carefully at their businesses and consider thoroughly every investment. Now is the time to carefully and thoughtfully diversify, to bring on new traffic generating categories and to connect with your local community in a new and long-term focused way.
There are excellent opportunities for newsagents – restrictions from some of our suppliers notwithstanding.
I am not concerned or surprised about moves like the Fairfax iPad Apps. I am concerned, however, that many newsagents do not see the changes happening around them.
Folio has reported that Us newsstand magazine sales (revenue not units) are down 6% for the first quarter of 2011 based on data gathered by MagNet. This is no indicator for Australia because of the significant difference between channels (retail and subscription) between the two countries. Nevertheless, the numbers are worth knowing – especially the categories which grew and those which declined:
Celebrity titles, however, dropped 8.5 percent in share of market, per MagNet. Gainers include Food/Wine (3 percent), Home (8 percent) and Home/Garden (3 percent).
The same categories are performing in a similar way here.
We are promoting the new ACP cookbook – Cooking with Diabetics – in several locations including on an impulse purchase stand at the entrance to the aisle with food magazines.
We are taking the same approach with this title which worked so well for the Little Squares and Slices cookbook … we quickly sold out of our initial allocation.
Where many newsagents leave the ACP cookbooks in their usual location, we hunt customers down with a campaign of perpetual movement of co-location displays while retaining a strong permanent position next to food magazines.
I was thrilled to be among 120 attendees at the The Tasmanian Newsagent Industry Awards for Excellence 2011 last night at Wrest Point in Hobart. Besides the recognition for nominees and winners for the Awards, the night itself was a hoot. This was a room full of people who genuinely enjoyed each others company.
Often at award events the room empties not long after the formalities end. Not last night. People were talking and having fun long after the night was over. Like I said, it was a hoot, a terrific night. The ANF ought to be proud for putting on such a good night. It was good to be among Tasmanian newsagents and suppliers enjoying socialising together.
The winners are: Distribution Newsagent of the Year: Beach Newsagency, Retail Newsagent of the Year: Longford Newsagency. New Technologies Award: The Mall Newsagency Devonport. Employee of the Year: Heather Tew of New Town Newsagency. Promotion of the Year: Longford Newsagency. Industry Representative of the Year: Tim Sloan of Tattersall’s. Best Performing Western Union Location Award: Glenorchy Central Newsagency.
Nick Sherry, the Minister for Small Business delivered a short speech calling for us to embrace change and to prepare for more business moving online. he also mixed with plenty of newsagents.
I was there representing my software company, Tower Systems, a Platinum sponsor.
More copies of the current issue of frankie magazine are available from Gordon and Gotch. I’d urge newsagents who have sold out to request more stock. We have for one of my stores. With two more weeks of the on-sale we are bound to sell more copies of the current issue. The publisher has made sure that previous sell outs are be avoided by allocating more floor stock at the warehouse – for newsagent reorders. remember, this magazine achieved a 35% increase in sales in the December audit.
We have been running a Toy Sale at the front of the newsagency for the last week. It has done a terrific job attracting shoppers in from the mall … generating good sales from the sale and from other departments – cards, magazines and stationery.
We don’t have a shop window as such – these displays we create facing into the mall are our window. We obsess about creating displays designed to pull in people who are walking past the shop. We go for displays which position us outside the mainstream newsagency display because we don’t want people shopping with us with their expectations of what a newsagency would offer.
Click here to see the display which has been running alongside the Toy Sale display.
As for the Toy Sale itself. We purchased well known brand toys at excellent prices. Our margin is healthy even though we are selling the toys at below their usual retail price. The display is a mixture of amazing deal prices and higher. We are following the pricing approach of the majors.
Notice the placement in relation to cards. People can pick up a gift and a card in less time than it would take to shop in a major … and they can see that the pricing is competitive.
The masthead of The Age newspaper today is again, unfortunately, partially covered by a post-it note type ad. This advertisement for Skinny Cow and Woolworths is more important to Fairfax than promoting their exclusive investigation about Patriots & Traitors.
The newspaper has invested in fresh and original content and then takes money to cover the promotion of this on page one.
Sometime in the future, marketing experts will look at this type of behaviour and its role in the newspaper brand.
Related – I am told that The Sydney Morning Herald today has a folded corner as part of a promotion and that this is confusing shoppers – they are looking for an undamaged copy.
Newsagents are more likely than other businesses to review employee hours to keep wages within budget in response to the wage rise announced by Fair Work Australia yesterday..
The Fair Work Australia decision assumes that businesses have the levers with which to respond to increased costs.
Newsagents do not.
Think about it:
I do not begrudge employees fair pay for their labour. However, such increases must come within a framework which enables the employer to respond in a proactive way.
Yesterday’s decision reinforces the need for newsagents to evolve their businesses so that they have more control over their businesses. This means more products selected by newsagents, products for which they can set their own sale price.
I do think that some newsagents will respond to the wage decision by cutting hours from the roster. No one wins from that but I can understand the necessity of it.
Check out this simple video I shot of how we are currently using our LCD customer displays at sales points at one of my newsagencies. While we are transacting a sale half the display shows the sale and the other half a different ad message.
M4H02105 from mark fletcher on Vimeo.
We run different campaigns through this sales counter advertising medium. Each focuses on a single product category. I like using this space to promote phone recharge as it is something so easily sold at the sales counter.
While the margin on telco recharge is slim, any purchase on impulse in addition to the destination purchase is valuable.
Issue two of any part series is a moment of truth for the future of the series. This is true for the Hello Kitty partwork. We are displaying it in the same location from where part one sold out in our newsagency.
I think the two mugs which come with part two will help drive sales, they will certainly appeal to Hello Kitty collectors and fans – hence our placement at the counter. It;s not as if many shoppers will visit looking for this product.
There are significant changes occurring in partwork supply in Australia this year. UK publishers are more engaged directly locally. I am not sure yet whether this is a good or a bad thing for newsagents and their position in the partworks supply chain.
Newspaper home delivery is on the move with more newsagents selling, merging or walking away from their newspaper distribution territories. While I do not have accurate data, there is no doubt, based on newsagents I have directly spoken with, that movement around distribution businesses has picked up pace this year.
I suspect that the surge in movement is due to new contracts from News and Fairfax which are expected to further challenge the model, a model which the publishers themselves created and which they have controlled since its inception.
It is interesting seeing more corporate distribution businesses emerge through this period of disruption and consolidation. There appears to be more activity in Victoria in this area than any other state from what I can tell.
While the challenge for newspaper distribution businesses remains, the larger businesses do have more opportunities for leveraging scale to their advantage. They can achieve this by reducing management and other overheads.
That said, the newspaper home delivery model is a problem which needs attention.
A model where you cannot set your sell price, cannot reasonably control your costs, cannot leverage ‘your’ customer base for other revenue and have to lower margins when your supplier discounts their product is a difficult model in which to grow outside of acquisition and this has its own costs.
We are promoting the latest issue of Gourmet Traveller magazine with this simple in-location display in our food section. It is the only food title on display like this so it is easily noticed as you enter the aisle with food titles.
I know I keep going on about food but it is a category which is enjoying a long run in the sun … excellent sales fro many different titles. We expanded our range thanks to help from Gotch in this space and these new fringe titles are also selling well. We made a decision that food would be one of the categories we drive to show off range and it is working a treat for us.
We are promoting the latest issue of Vogue magazine with this aisle end display. While not a high volume seller for us, Vogue does position us well in the fashion space – hence the commitment to this feature display. The display will be up for a week before being replaced.
Sometimes, displays are not so much about the volume of magazines we will sell but more about showing off the type of titles we sell, outside the top 50 or so titles we carry. The free gift with this issue of Vogue adds nice value to the display.
The administrator for REDgroup Retail has announced today that the remaining Borders stores in Australia will close by the end of July. This will bring to an end the Borders presence in Australia, leave a hole in another nine shopping centres and present more opportunities for newsagents in the book space.
The closure of Borders will cause ripples across book retailing. It will make publishers and other suppliers more wary. It will also reinforce a subtle message about books in print.
The latest Australia Post catalogue is promoting the OfficeMax brand prominently next to the Australia Post brand.
Taxpayer dollars have paid to get the recognition achieved for Australia Post. We have protected Australia Post with a monopoly over postal services and many products. Under this monopoly they have become lazy … this is what comes with protection.
Successive governments have protected Australia Post and facilitated the expansion of the commercial services it operates outside of core postal services.
All of this taxpayer funded support is being used to boost the profile of OfficeMax and to help the government owned Australia Post retail outlets, 850 or so of them, to take business from small business newsagents.
Newsagents continue to be shafted by government owned Australia Post retail outlets. Thanks politicians from all sides for your support. Not.
We are promoting the latest issue of Australian Photography magazine with this in-locations display near the entrance of our men’s and hobbies magazine aisle. This is our first time giving this title such a focus … we’re hoping it will respond well with sales. It is a good title with which to say – hey our photography magazines are here.
This is what beacon branding is about, using well known and easily understood magazine mastheads to signpost where categories and segments are located.
The cover of Donna Hay magazine is stunning and I am sure that showing off the full cover will help drive sales. With so many new issues out yesterday and on Monday, we are challenged for space so we have Donna Hay sharing this display with the earlier released Delicious magazine. While this may frustrate publishers, it was either do this or one title loses out. Our thinking is that both titles appeal to a very similar shopper – we’d like those shoppers to purchase both titles.
With food continuing as the hottest magazine category, we aim to have a food display up all the time in my newsagencies.
We are promoting the latest issue of Good Health magazine with this display at the front of the newsagency, acing into the mall as well as a display in with our women’s health related titles … the kind of engagement you would have seen from many proactive newsagents yesterday. It’s an excellent giveaway – nicely related to the title and ideal for driving incremental business for the title.
I was in a supermarket and a transit newsagency yesterday and they were doing nothing special with this title. It was lik the free socks were of no interest to them. Newsagents, this is our opportunity to show off the newsagency difference. Show publishers that thee other channels do nothing special.
So much for the story selling the newspaper. Today’s Australian Financial Review covers the face of the new chief executive for Fortescue Metals and part of the lead story about the economy with a post-it note type ad from the Bank of Cyprus.
I feel for the editorial people who worked on both news items. The ad placement shows that ad dollars trump editorial in the hierarchy of the publisher of the AFR.
Here is the text of a follow up letter I have sent to my local member of parliament on the EFTPOS issue. I am sharing it here to give newsagents an idea of how they might respond to the letters from some parliamentarians which look like they have been written by the same person.
EFTPOS FEES AND EPAL
Thank you for responding to my correspondence.
Bruce Mansfield, CEO of Eftpos Payments Australia Limited (EPAL) has done a wonderful job fighting off queries from politicians seeking answers on behalf of their constituents.
While EPAL has nothing new to say, it has done so inn such a way as to spin that the new fee regime is an opportunity for retailers.
It is more spin designed to deflect attention from the role being played by his board which is controlled by the major banks, Coles and Woolworths.
The facts which Mansfield ignores are:
- The 12 million Visa and MasterCard debit cards are dual cards i.e. also EFTPOS cards. They can be used in both networks depending on the cardholder pushing credit or check/savings.
- The EFTPOS network has become more expensive i.e. 1.2B Transaction by 11 cents, 800M by 6 cents. I am flabbergasted by the claim of “net impact zero”.
- The retailers can negotiate with acquirers challenging the acquiring margin, but how are they negotiating with issuers challenging the interchange fee? That is the one that was raised.
- The acquirer and retailers have to carry the bulk of the investment to save EFTPOS from the Bankcard demise. Why do they get charged?
Bruce Mansfield serves the issuing banks and major retailers sitting on his board to levy an ”EFTPOS tax”. It is a fee that banks now get to continue to issue EFTPOS functionality on their debit card.
Unjustifiable and untimely. His best position, if he had the survival of EFTPOS at heart and if he could decide, would be to maintain the cost advantage of EFTPOS versus scheme debit cards.
I hope that you and your colleagues support small business and help us to gain attention for this issue at the highest possible level.
If nothing is done, small and independent retailers will soon face higher EFTPOS fees than Coles and Woolworths. This would be unfair. It would also make a mockery of competition and small business policy.
EPAL should not be controlled by the banks or major retailers. It is like putting an alcoholic in charge of the bar. Of course the banks and retailers in control of EPAL will make decisions which suite them.
Retailers like family run newsagencies need your help, your voice challenging this new EFTPOS Tax. We need you to fight for us.
Don’t let go of this issue newsagents. Keep engaging with your local politicians. Otherwise you could be complaining about higher EFTPOS in the future knowing that you did not act today.
Coles has been running a discount on car magazines from ACP in its current catalogue in Melbourne. There on page 29 of the catalogue is the offer: shoppers can choose any two of Street machine, Wheels, TopGear Australia or Motor. It’s a good deal.
I can see that the deal is designed to drive sales of car magazines in Coles locations. I expect that ACP is funding the discount one way or another, but I could be wrong on that.
Maybe I am wrong but it feels to me that discounting, like in the Coles catalogue and the double packs, is on the increase. This will only serve to educate shoppers to expect to NOT pay full price for magazines. I don’t see that working for retailers unless there is sufficient incremental business or margin protection from suppliers.
Now some reading this might counter with the observation that the Magazine Club Card I have run since 2004 is the same thing. It is not. It is based on customers buying more magazines than they would usually purchase in a specified period – in my case it is 8 weeks. The reward for their loyalty is a discount, a free magazine.
Sure, the Coles offer is about getting people to purchase two titles. I feel that the barrier to getting the reward is too low.
Newsagents will need to find ways to compete with deals like this as I suspect that they will become more prevalent.
We have been promoting the latest issue of Burke’s Backyard at at the entrance to our garden / food and home magazine aisle. I love the work of our team in selecting colours to tie in with those on the cover of the title – nice as we lead into winter … bringing colour to the shop.
In addition to having Burke’s Backyard stock on the display, we have stock in the usual location for the title.
This display will remain up for a week after which we will probably migrate to an in-location display or possible a coupler display depending of space demands.
We are promoting Complete Wedding magazine at the counter with this simple impulse display. This is not the usual type of magazine one would expect to see at a newsagency counter for impulse purchase.
I am pleased to see the team giving the magazine a go and expect sales to continue to surprise us about what we can sell on impulse at the counter. Notice the Only $9.95! pitch across the front of the display – designed to attract attention.