A blog on issues affecting Australia's newsagents, media and small business generally. More ...

Month: January 2012

Better Homes and Gardens powers on

Thankfully we have been able to get extra stock of Better Homes and Gardens magazine. This will help us reach our full sales potential. This latest issue is selling very well – we are into double digit growth territory.

We continue to support the magazine with this in-location display. Sales are worth it even up to the last week of the on-sale. This is a title which works for us right through the month.

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magazines

Great fun product for school holidays

We are now on our third order of the Pumpinator product, a water balloon device. It comes with the pump and balloons. We have had this on sale at full price, and excellent margin, since just before Christmas and have found it to be one of the easiest items in the newsagency to sell.

What I like about the Pumpinator and our front of store display is that it attracts shoppers with kids who then browse the shop and often purchase one or two other items. We are using it to pull traffic for driving magazine and greeting card sales.

We always look at products we place at the shop for what they can deliver throughout the business. We choose products which appeal to the demographics we know we can serve well deeper in-store.

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retail

Check your supply of Maxim magazine

The publishers and distributors of Maxim magazine need to look at the sell through rate for the title. In one of my newsagencies we are achieving a sell through of just under 30%, making the title loss making for us. While supply has been reduced, the reduction is not enough to enable us to cover our costs.

The scale out of Maxim for us ought to be trimmed by 50% based on our sales data. This is what a publisher and distributor caring about the health of the retail channel would do. I should not have to ask. It should be automatic and based on the accurate sales data which is provided. Instead, I am oversupplied and carry the cost of this.

Newsagents should check their supply of Maxim and see if they are being oversupplied as I am.

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magazine distribution

Promoting Wheels magazine

We have been promoting the latest Wheels magazine which this display which effectively wraps the main sales counter.

the display makes a bold impression, especially to shoppers walking past the business as well as to shoppers as they approach the sales counter.

On this issue of Wheels, I like the cover. It is a nice departure for the title and stands out of shelf in among other car titles … very nice visual cut through.

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magazines

Promoting car magazine at the counter

We are running a pretty simple placement promoting of a range of car and motorbike magazines at one of our sales counters.  We are tracking the quantity of each title to see what is working from this location. Three magazines in two days so far. I’m happy with that given that some or all of these will be incremental business.

I see plenty of newsagencies where the weeklies are located in these front of shop locations. I am not a fan of that. In this particular newsagency we have our weeklies located at the half way point in the shop and sales continue to grow. So far this month, comparing to January 2011, sales are up 14%.

But back to the car magazines. I chose to place them at the counter as they reflect a category which is usually only browsed y destination browsers or shoppers. I wanted to get this subset of our range in front of more shoppers so that they are aware of what we carry. Hence the placement at the counter for this week.

We are regularly looking at our counter and what we have placed in front of shoppers who are making a purchase. We like to make changes at least weekly, to keep our offer fresh and to drive sales.

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magazines

Very cool Back to School offer

I’m thrilled with the Maped Back to School range. It’s a mix of stationery ideal for the start of the school year but packaged in a more appealing way than traditional Back to School items.

What I especially like is that we are an authorised stockist for the Maped brand. This gives us better pricing as well as advertising support – making us competitive with the other authorised stockists Officeworks and Woolworths.

Regulars here would know that I prefer to stock brands rather than generic unbranded or meaningless brand products. The advertising support for the Maped brand is vital to not only its success but also my success and an authorised stockist.

We have the Maped range at the front of the newsagency, facing into the shopping all. It is selling very well and drawing good traffic.  Our plan is to maintain and even expand the range as an all year round range.

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Stationery

The Moshi monster opportunity in newsagencies

We are promoting the new Moshi Monster cards – which provide access to the online Moshi Monster world – along with two magazines which feature Moshi Monster related content. I’d encourage other newsagents to do this as it is a terrific win win win opportunity. Not only are there two magazines appealing to lovers of the popular Moshi Monsters but there is also the currency for accessing content. Get people knowing you sell this and they will come back for more. This is vital … connecting our customer with repeat, or habit, based business.

So, check out the two titles and where you have your Moshi Monsters cards from Incomm – available through Touch Networks and supported by most newsagency Point of Sale software platforms.

This is what we should be doing – looking at opportunities to connect products and brands arose multiple categories, driving basket depth and improving margin dollars per sale.

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magazines

The optimism connection

Maybe this shows how much we obsess about magazines. On the other hand, maybe it shows we take the magazine opportunity seriously. Check out the cover story on Time magazine and Psychology Today magazine.

Both cover stories relate to optimism.

Thanks to the observation skills of one of our team members it was a thrill to notice that both titles had been placed together. This is a smart move as it is possible they would appeal to the same shopper. If they don’t no harm done as both titles could exist comfortably next to each other regardless of cover story in my view.

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magazines

Great magazine support for Australia Day

I love the support for Australia Day from That’s Life from Pacific Magazines and Take 5 from ACP Magazines. These two titles have a good track record fro supporting a range of seasons through the year. I like that as it can help drive impulse purchases.

We make sure that we put titles with a seasonal promotion or connection, like the current issues of Take 5 and That’s Life, in prime positioning with the full cover on show so that their support can be seen – too often in traditional magazine filtering seasonal connections can be lost.

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magazines

Sunday marketing tip for newsagents: break free from the pack

The product mix in the majority of newsagencies is the same as any other newsagency. To a shopper, the product mix in a newsagency can also be found in a supermarket and variety store.

Newsagents often reinforce this sameness by not breaking free visually.  Looking from the front of the shop in the message is often one of variety with no point of difference or no local branding standing out.

We face a similar challenge to the eateries in New York.  There are hundreds, of diners and eateries on the streets of Manhattan. By diner I mean a walk-in venue where you can get a simple meal to go or have a quick bite sitting in. There is usually not a big difference in fare,l the menu in each is often quite broad but the same.  Each diner needs to find a way to cut through so that they attract some the considerable foot traffic on the streets.

Check out Fluffy’s Cafe Bakery.  Click on the image for a full-size version. How they stand out is through bold branding of their own and making choice easy.  Their pitch is that for any meal you want you can choose one of their sit items or create tour own. From outside the store a passer-by get’s this pitch from four points – each supports the other. If you’re in a hurry, choice is vey easy. If you are fussy, getting exactly what you want is easy.

Inside Fluffy’s the experience matches the pitch. They make it about choice, easy choice.  I have been into plenty of diners in New York over many trips and Fluffy’s is a place to remember because it breaks free from the average.  They do this with a bold street presence backed on a good and consistent message in-store.

This is what each newsagency needs: to stand out, to reflect a point of difference and to live the point of difference. Newsagencies which don’t do this will suffer from the increased competition we are seeing from the supermarkets and others.

So, what do we do? From the front of our businesses in we stand for something, something we own, a point of difference which is ours and ours alone. This is a big challenge for out type of business. It’s a challenge we must meet.

Fluffy’s shows that the customer comes first.  They make we want to come back again.  The challenge for us is whether we reflect a message as strong and simple as that to people who walk past our newsagency and to customers who shop with us.

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marketing tip

Newsagents, what is your labour to hourly sales cost?

I know of a couple of newsagents who are keen to see a discussion in the channel about the ratio of labour costs per hour to sales per hour.  The figure for sales should be product sales plus agency commission.

With labour being usually the second highest business cost, after lease costs, it is appropriate that we share information in an effort to drive efficiency within the newsagency channel.

I was talking with a couple of newsagents yesterday about this and we compared rostered hours for the same one day from a couple of weeks back.  The difference across the three similar-sized newsagencies five and a half hours or around $120.00. The cheapest business had cleverly managed the roster while the most expensive had not touched the roster in ages.

Play the $120 a day difference across the year and the more expensive business, in terms of rostered hours, faces $31,200 in additional costs just for the weekdays. That’s $100,000 in sales at least.

For ease of comparison, calculate it back at wages per $1,000 in sales. Include your time in the calculation too.

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Newsagency management

Promoting the Twins issue of National Geographic

We are promoting the Twins issue of National Geographic with this pretty cool and tactical display with newspapers. The issue has hit at the same time as a couple of documentaries about twins – proving some excellent cross promotion.

Rather than just place the magazine in this high traffic location, we ran off some colour copies of the cover to give the simple display greater visual impact. It works a treat, making the display more noticeable from a distance.

Beyond chasing sales, the display shows us as being relevant to a current surge in interest in twins. It also pitches us differently to other magazine retailers nearby as this display can only be found in our store. I think that newsagents need to do more of this … creating displays unique to their business.

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magazines

Loving Friday magazines

Yesterday afternoon I noticed three shoppers in a row purchase Who and or OK! plus two other magazines.  One customer specifically said she had the weekend free and so was treating herself. She actually bought Who, OK!, Famous and New Idea. But it was Who and OK! which brought her in-store yesterday.

I am glad these two weeklies go on sale on a Friday and I hope that does not change. They are nice traffic generators and often can drive purchases of other magazines through careful placement. We always place them carefully, at the front of our women’s weeklies magazine displays. Always either next to each other or one in front of the other as this is essential to driving sales.

Some publishers like their titles to be separated. I think this can do more damage than good.

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Small business retailers largely forgotten by major IT companies

While there have been many insightful and commercially valuable takeaways from at tenting the National Retail Federation Conference and Expo in New York this week the one negative is that on the massive (three huge halls) Expo floor most companies don’t care about small business.

I had registered as a retailer and this was reflected on my name badge. Unless I had a national network of hundreds of stores I was not that interesting to them yet more than 90% of the membership of the NRF is small business.  Odd that.

If I switched and talked with my newsagency software company hat on then they were interested and keen to see how their piece of the IT pie could fit with what we do.

It has been a fascinating three day conference and a valuable five days in New York.  I have made some good business connections on the IT as well as newsagency fronts despite my frustrations with the trade show. Outside of the conference I have got to see some pretty cool retail innovation and engage in a couple of worthwhile business meetings with companies here.

Over the next few days I will think about the best way to share some of the key insights.  My newsagency software company is hosting a national user meeting tour starting in ten days so that might be a starting point. There are takeaways from the conference and the broader New York and Las Vegas retail experience which I think can inform newsagent decisions about the future.

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Uncategorized

QR codes in wide use in the US

QR codes are everywhere in New York: on posters, products and advertisements. Plus in newspapers. The photo shows the use of QR codes by USA Today to add value to the reader experience.  Not only do they have QR codes for each section of the newspaper, when they have additional content for a story you can link to this via the QR code.  Clever.

For those not sure what a QR code is, click here for the Wikipedia entry.

We saw a burst of QR code activity in Australia and since then use of the technology has faded … not sure why.

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Uncategorized

Promoting Shop Til You Drop

We are promoting the latest issue of Shop Til You Drop magazine with this display facing shoppers as they leave our magazine department and head to the counter.

We also have Shop Til You Drop in prime positioning in the usual location with fashion titles.  It will be interesting to see if the under $100 feature of the issue drives sales. You’d think so given the current consumer mindset of focusing on value. That said, I think that the creative team could have handled the under $100 feature better on the marketing collateral.

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magazines

Newsagents: check the early returns settings in your software

2012 is barely underway and there are already reports of newsagents early returning magazines to such a level that they leave less stock in-store than the average sales achieved over the last three of four issues.

This is dumb. It results in newsagents losing sales and is certain to push these customers away from the store.

Way to kill a business!

I’d encourage all newsagents who do early returns and use the software to guide this process to speak with their respective software supplier to ensues that reasonable settings are used which to not cut the newsagency out of certain revenue.

These sales will end up elsewhere, possibly outside the newsagency channel.

I understand why newsagents early return, because of either oversupply or a perception of oversupply. Don’t let the bad behaviour of one publisher and their distributor cause you to cut yourself out of business from the product of another publisher.

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magazine distribution

Checking out Google Wallet

I have see Google Wallet in action in a store here in New York and got to speak with people who are expert in implementing this new digital payment and loyalty platform.  The logo on the lower right corner of the screen in the photo is the Google Wallet logo which comes up in Walgreens stores, an early adopter of the platform.

While still in its absolute infancy in the US, the people behind and those involved with Google Wallet expect it to grow significantly in use.

Our banking system in Australia will be a barrier to the introduction of Google Wallet I expect, just as they have been a barrier to other innovation and competition.

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retail

Promoting Total Girl magazine for school holidays

We are promoting the latest issue of Total Girl magazine, from Pacific Magazines, at the sales counter this week. Since it is still school holidays our team figured that this is a good location from which to drive impulse purchases.  I agree with them … this positioning is a smart move this week. I’d expect parents and grandparents looking after kids in the target audience to be easily guided to purchase the title.

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magazines

The e-book opportunity for small nimble publishers

Check out the blog post by Source Books about their extraordinary growth in 2011. It is terrific that they are so public with their numbers ands that they explain the place of e-books in the world of book sales. Check out their other bog posts and you zoo get a feel for how they are making the most of the e-book opportunity without some of the anchors weighing down larger publishers pursuing this still relatively new channel.

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Book retailing

An interesting take on pharmacy type products

Click on the image to see the detail of the packaging of the products in the middle of the photo which I took in a convenience type store in New York yesterday. What’s Wrong? is the brand. Each package focusses on one thing which could be wrong and contains items to help.  It’s pretty clever to start with a simple question and to clearly identify each product to focus on a separate issue or problem.

The problem for the retailer is that sales are not great according to them, for the prime location they have in-store. They say that shoppers like the more traditional products because they are packaged how everyone packages items. Swimming against the tide can be challenging, time consuming and a failure.

Only time will tell if the innovation of the What’s wrong? product line will work commercially.  Personally, I like the idea.

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retail

Technology innovation enhancing the retail experience

It is fascinating seeing innovation in other channels of retail. Take fashion, a big think at the National Retail Federation Expo here in New York this year is the virtual change room where a shopper can try on multiple items without leaving the store.

The lady in the photo is standing barely a metre from me and is wearing slacks and a top yet the image on the screen shows her wearing one of the dresses in the catalogue available from the demonstration store. Okay so the image on the screen does not look ideal. In the real world and with proper setup it would look much better.

The pitch from vendors of these facilities is that shoppers can try on more items without the time and inconvenience of lengthy trips to the change room. While some will want the change room experience of really trying items on, others will appreciate the time saving.

Major department stores like Macys are embracing this and other technology to reshape the fashion buying experience … and this technology is really only in its infancy. Indeed, Macys has made some excellent technology-driven moves, well beyond what I would expect from a large retailer.

I use this example to illustrate how much retail is changing and to highlight the need for us to change to remain relevant to shoppers who want this innovation. While there are shoppers who will not want change, I think that the momentum for change is and will continue to be such that we need to embrace change opportunities.

Soon, in store we will be able to walk past fashion displays and on a screen we will be able to see ourselves in the items on show almost without stopping.

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retail

Promoting the latest Women’s Health magazine

We are promoting the latest issue of Women’s Health magazine with this aisle end display in the health, fitness and sports section of our newsagency as well as with excellent placement with our women’s magazines.

I am not sure how I feel about the soft tones of the poster. It could be that I’ve become used to collateral which is bright and this approach by Pacific Magazines is what will work best for the health title. We’ll know soon enough.

Poster concerns aside, Women’s Health is a terrific titles delivering nice growth for us.

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magazines

Promoting Cleo magazine and a free dress

We are promoting the latest issue of Cleo magazine and the free dress packed with the magazine with this aisle end display facing the dance floor.

While I think that the offer of a dress is good, I think that shoppers will struggle to believe that the dress stuffed into a package with the magazine is actually worth $129 – but then again I am not a dress shopper.

The team back at the shop has made good use of the excellent range of collateral provided for promoting this issue of Cleo. We also have the magazine in excellent positioning in our fashion section.

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magazines