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

Month: March 2012

Do not early return Riptide magazine

The latest issue of surfing magazine Riptide goes on sale on April 4 and it is certain to sell out.

This issue of Riptide magazine also has a newsagent put away form, encouraging shoppers to request that you put each issue of the magazine away for them. This is a terrific initiative and support for newsagents from Morrison Media.

I urge newsagents to not early return this title.

Click here to read from the publisher why it will sell out – here’s a brief summary:

We promote our interactive store locator (listing their closest newsagent) and have marketed the issue with previews and launches around Australia.

We’ve got a tight supply on this issue, ensuring that those who sell RIPTIDE receive additional stock (but not oversupply) and those who consistently early return stock do not.

Morrison Media has worked hard on ensuring that the supply to newsagents are justified by sales, but also maximising and growing sales and revenue in EVERY STORE!

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magazines

Promoting My Kitchen Rules

Check out the display created by Renee the manager at my Watergardens newsagency to promote the My Kitchen Rules 2 cookbook which came out yesterday.

I love this display. It’s bold and appealing and can’t be missed by people as they walk past the shop.

Renee is undertaking a professional visual merchandising course. She is creating some wonderful, and valuable, displays in-store

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magazines

Just Be magazine 50% margin opportunity

Magazine distributor IPS has acquired fashion and beauty magazine Just Be for distribution and are offering the first issue at 50% commission. The usual commission for the title is 27%.  The on-sale of this issue is today so contact IPS if you want stock.

Rachel McAdams, the cover feature, has been enjoying some good success and should help draw interest to the title as long as the full cover is on show.

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magazines

Newsagency of the Future workshops start today in Perth

My Newsagency of the Future workshop series starts today in Perth. Based on current bookings, over the course of seven cities I will get to meet with hundreds of newsagents, spillers and potential newsagents, sharing insights and ideas and discussing structural change and commercial opportunities.

Drawing on information cleaned from recent retail business conferences in Las Vegas, London and New York, the workshops provide an opportunity for to think about and consider the future in the context of changes occurring today.

Attendance is free and bookings can still be made. You can book by faxing in a booking form or registering through the online booking facility on the Tower Systems website.

Here is a list of venues for the workshops. All session start at 11am.

  • Perth. March 26. Country Comfort Inter City, 249-263 Great Eastern Highway, Perth
  • Sydney. March 27. Bonnie Doon Golf Club, Banks Ave, Pagewood
  • Canberra. March 28. Rydges Capital Hill Canberra, Cnr National Cct. & Canberra Ave, Canberra
  • Adelaide. March 29. Rydges South Park Adelaide, 1 South Terrace, Adelaide
  • Brisbane. March 30. Brisbane Riverview Hotel, Cnr Kingsford Smith Dve & Hunt St, Hamilton
  • Hobart. April 2. Mercure Hotel Hobart, 156 Bathurst St, Hobart
  • Melbourne. April 3. Amora Hotel Riverwalk, 659 Bridge Rd, Richmond
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Newsagency management

The Garden Guru promotes newsagents on Twitter

It was good to see the publisher of The Garden Guru magazine, out last week, using Twitter to promote traffic to newsagents. While they only have 365 followers, that’s 365 people told to buy the magazine from their local newsagency business. Publishers please take note, tap into your social media community to promote our channel – we promote your title and offer free browsing so how about returning the favour.

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newsagency marketing

Finding ways to feature magazines

With weekly magazines accounting for 25% of our magazine sales, we are always looking for ways to leverage the excellent traffic they attract by promoting other titles with them and nearby.  We have recently been using a simple acrylic stand next to and above the weeklies to promote titles which we cannot fit in the stand next to the weeklies. Over the weekend we were promoting Weight Watchers magazine. You can see it in the photo.

We choose the titles we place here, above the weeklies, carefully. We want titles which are a natural fit and which have a track record of being purchased in our newsagency on impulse – we know this from other campaigns.

We have another of these acrylic stands in use above our crossword section which is at the other end of this aisle.

We count the number of copies we put into each of the displays so that we can track the success or otherwise of the title being promoted in this location. This is vital so that we build a data set of what works and what does not work.

Newsagencies are the best magazine destinations in Australia. We all should leverage this and pursue the best possible sales efficiency from magazine shoppers. This means obsessing abut the category and changing how we display, promote and leverage magazines.

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magazines

Using competitions to promote magazine value

We love supplier competitions and embrace every opportunity possible to engage with these. We especially love it when suppliers provide collateral with which to promote a competition. Pacific Magazines have done this with the kitchen appliance package being given away in a competition promoting the latest issue of Home Beautiful magazine. In addition to collateral promoting the offer in-location,we have a small flyer for the counter with which to promote to shoppers who fit the target purchaser of the title. Each time we can pitch a valuable giveaway which is not on offer at most other magazine retailers is an opportunity to show off the bonus value of shopping with us.

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magazines

Sunday marketing tip: you don’t sell anything at the counter

Okay, that’s not quite true, I am sure that you do sell some products at the counter. By sell, I mean have a customer choose, at that moment, to purchase the item. In most situations, however, in a newsagency the customer comes to the counter with the items already selected.  If we are lucky they will ask us a question and we can leave our command post and venture onto the shop floor and help them and maybe sell them something.

As newsagents have taken on more counter based services over the decades, we have moved the selling, what little of it is done, in our businesses from the shop floor to the counter.  I first worked in a newsagency when I was in High school too many years ago.  My recollection is that we had people on the shop floor serving customers helping them. This was what the more experienced people did. The school kids were left to take payment once we were trained. Now, the counter is the area where the most senior skills appear to be in many newsagencies.

If you agree that selling is what we do when we help, guide and encourage a shopper to make a purchase from us then this is where you need to focus more attention in your business … on the shop floor. This is where your best people at dealing with customers should be.

This is the tip – to look at where you sell in your newsagency and to adjust resource allocation in pursuit of more sales.

  1. Track your employees and learn who delivers the best return by hour worked.
  2. Consider a financial reward for the employees you charge with selling, genuinely selling.
  3. Be careful in allocating your resources, focus on the busiest times of the day.
  4. Make sure that your people have excellent product knowledge with which to add value.
  5. Drive this personal shop floor experience as a point of difference for your business. Shoppers will pay more if the shopping experience is more satisfying.

It all begins with understanding where you sell … it’s not at the sales counter.

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marketing tip

Tapping into One Direction interest

Newsagents chasing the teen and tween girl market should check out the latest issue of Girlfriend magazine from Pacific Magazines. It has a free poster of UK boy band One Direction. I found this out by checking out the Facebook page for Girlfriend magazine. This is a nice bonus on top of the excellent One Direction promoting in this week’s TV Week from ACP Magazines.

Also at the Girlfriend Facebook page is news of a One Direction one shot coming out on April 4 from Pacific Magazines. Go to the Facebook page if you are not sure about the passion of One Direction fans for content about the group.

All excellent opportunities for attracting young girl shoppers and those who buy for them.

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magazines

What is it with governments and big business?

I was disappointed to read that the government has this week extended the rebate to TV networks, reportedly adding $275 million to the aid they will receive over three years. Seriously!

The power of the TV networks is amazing in being able to tap into such river of gold. What does a small business have to do to get in on this government funded gravy train?

The TV networks get a bag of cash yet small businesses like newsagents,dealing with consolidation and structural change, receive nothing.

I’m not suggesting small business newsagents and other independent retailers need a hand out. No, I would prefer to see good public policy supporting nurturing small business success, policy delivered without politicians thinking about what might be in such a move for them. I suspect this is a bit much to ask given the politicians, on all sides, we have.

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Social responsibility

Tapping into the Facebook marketplace

We have created a new display behind the counter to promote a range of Facebook related products: Like and Dislike rubber stamps, coffee and tea mugs and fridge magnets.  Combined, the products tell a story.

I love the collateral created by the team to promote the display – it actually looks better in person than my average photo here. It’s quite stunning form the other side of the counter.  The display is in the line of sight of shoppers when they take to one of our counter staff.

I love that we are displaying something completely different yet reasonable connected with what people could expect to purchase in a newsagency.  There are plenty of what I’d call, transition products like this available to us.

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Gifts

It’s Comedy Festival season in Melbourne

The Melbourne International Comedy Festival will be big news in Melbourne from now until the end of April so the feature of the latest issue of Time Out is, well, timely. We have placed it with newspapers as we know it sells well from this high-traffic location. Plus Time Out is challenging to place elsewhere as there are not similar titles in-store. I expect the Comedy Festival related cover to drive early sales with this.

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magazines

Leveraging swimming interest

While I would have liked to receive The Complete Guide to Swimming last week to tap into the interest around the olympic trials, we are giving it a good run at the front of sports titles.

We have a gym nearby so there is a fitness aware market shopping with us.  We plan to give it a crack at the counter for a few days to see if that generates interest.

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magazines

Harness Racing Weekly data issue

It appears that IPS has not rolled over the addendas of Harness Racing Weekly to reflect the new year. The current issues addenda as printed on the paper is 21 however the electronic invoice the store received (info from the file below) has the addenda of 73 (52 issues from last year+21 that is printed on this issue). Other titles on the same invoice appear to be correct. Through Tower Systems, my newsagency software company, I have escalated the matter with IPS.

UPDATE (10:18) IPS has advised that this has now been resolved.

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magazine distribution

Cuts to newspaper supply

Both Fairfax and News are engaged in trimming supply of newspapers to newsagents in Victoria from what I am told. The cuts are about reducing wastage. The challenge in some situations can be the knock-on effect for retail only newsagents who rely on a nearby competitor newsagent for supply. In this situation, the retail only newsagent can be cut by more than the cut in supply established by the publisher.

It is frustrating to me that publishers will guarantee supply numbers to major supermarkets but not too retail only newsagents who could, in some cases, sell the same volume as the supermarkets.

While I appreciate the need to trim supply to reduce wastage, there are some points in the distribution model where selfish decisions are made which can hurt newspaper sales.

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Newspapers

Easter card sales up 22%

In a year on year comparison our Easter card sales are up 22% so far this year. This is based on looking at sales for the same number of on sale days from the start of the on-sale to now for both years.

We are thrilled with the result and hope it is reflected by sales through to the Easter weekend … which I expect it to be.

There is no doubt that Easter is a growth season. We have experienced double digit year on year growth form some years now – of cards and gifts. Part of the key I think is going out early with the season.

Easter chocolate has been a challenge. For years, in another newsagency, I had Darrell Lea and that always worked well.  Then, for two years in our current location we had Ernest Hillier and it was okay. The switch to cadbury this year is working a treat. While Coles has some of the items we have, we are matching them on price and enjoying a good margin.

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Greeting Cards

Tablets taking over in the US

A Magazine Publishers of America conference in the US earlier this week spent considerable time talking about how tablets are taking over.  AdWeek has a good report on proceedings.

There’s no doubt about it: tablets are taking over. Eleven percent of the total U.S. population used iPads and various other tablet devices last year. By 2014, that percentage is estimated to rise to 27.7 percent—more than one quarter of the total population, or about 89.5 million people.

Magazine publishers simply have to reach out to this wildly expanding audience, said eMarketer senior analyst Paul Verna, the keynote speaker at Tuesday’s MPA Digital: Swipe Conference. He pointed to statistics that showed that with print failing to bring in new revenue, it’s a necessity that brands jump on the digital bandwagon.

The conference also looked at how publishers attract people to their digital offerings. One contributor commented of the strategy of offering something for free and then charging does not work as people don;t want to pay for what was free.

The US magazine market is quite different to Australia with subscriptions counting for a far greater percentage of magazine sales there compared to here in Australia.  US publishers often have a more direct relationship with their customers as a result.

Australian Newsagents have played a key role in providing publishers with a means through which they can showcase titles to shoppers. in our businesses, shoppers can freely browse titles and try before they buy.  US publishers don;t have this opportunity and this is why they are leading the charge to embrace digital platforms in pursuit of a more economical route to market.

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magazine distribution

52% increase in supply of Moshi Monsters magazine

The magazine experts at Gordon and Gotch have increased our supply of the Moshi Monsters magazine by 53% with the latest issue which went on sale yesterday.  We received five copies for two issues and sold out so they increased us to twelve copies and sold out then they cut us to eleven copies and sold our. Next, we received seventeen copies and returned ten copies. Next, with the latest issue we received twenty six copies.

So, I am wondering if there is a special promotion we have missed or some other reason not obvious to us for the supply increase.

Magazine distributors should not be allowed to send such a supply increase without our permission, not in any circumstance. It’s my money, my retail space, my labour. They have no right to take here resources from me on this scale.

Other publishers please take note of this. If you’re a Gotch customers, ask why the increase in supply and ask Gotch what they communicated with us. If I have missed something then I’ll apologise. If there is no reason and no missed communication then Gotch owes me an apology and an immediate credit.

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magazine distribution

How are your sales of Triple J magazine?

We have not sold a single copy of the latest issue of Triple J magazine and it’s been out for almost a month. We have treated the magazine in the usual way … it’s in with our music magazines at eye level, easy to see, easy to browse. Maybe it is the Bon Iver cover story, we just don’t now. I’d be interested to hear whether others are experiencing flat or even no sales of this issue.

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magazines

Promoting Girlfriend magazine and the free Living Doll scarf

We are promoting the latest issue of Girlfriend magazine with this aisle end display – showing off the free Living Doll scarf which comes with this issue.

The scarf is the sort of gift you need to display opened out like this – this is what we do with all magazines which come with a gift bagged in this way.  It makes the gift easier to see and the package easier to browse.

We also have Girlfriend on display in its regular location like this.

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magazines

Wendy Harmer can’t have looked at too many country newsagencies

Writing at the New Matilda website, comedian and media personality Wendy Harmer talks about newsagents:

You only have to live in one of Australia’s regional towns to understand how vital diversity in our media really is.

The offerings at most newsagents — if the town still has one — are paltry. A copy of The Australian; an out-of date metro title like The Age or Daily Telegraph and a weekly local paper are usually what’s on offer.

I am not sure how many regional newsagencies Wendy Harmey has visited or how recently. I suspect not that many. A typical regional newsagency has the current newspaper(s) from the nearest capital city. If may have newspapers from other capitals depending on customer interest. It will also usually have around 1,000 magazine titles on all manner of topics.  That’s some diversity

Harmer’s piece is really a promotional piece for the New Matilda website. Fair enough, they can promote their site how they like. They should not, however, do it by talking down newsagents who play a vital role in delivering local access to a diverse selection of print media products.

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Media disruption
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