The Geelong Advertiser had a report about the potential impact of the carbon tax on retail tenancy costs. Landlord have been good at passing on all additional costs for decades. Related: I note that there are reports today that Myer will pull out of centres where it does not get better rent deals.
I have been fortunate in recent years to be able to negotiate rent abatement in under performing centres, 33% in one case.
Venues have been confirmed for the Newsagency of the Future workshops which start in ten days. Anyone is welcome to attend. The event is free. But bookings are essential. Click here for the booking form.
It has been a thrill to participate in the Retail Week Conference 2012 in London over the last couple of days. More than 1,000 retailers participated, large and small. This on top of the Retail Business and Technology Expo earlier in the week – a separate event.
Both events are better informing my presentations for the upcoming Newsagency of the Future workshop series.
Most of the retail challenges and opportunities discussed in many of the sessions are not dissimilar to challenges and opportunities we face in Australia. Some of the solutions discussed are fresh.
What was most interesting was the discussion about the future of the High Street. This has been a hot topic in the UK for years and while there has not been much progress that they are at least discussing the migration from the High Street to the out of town centre puts them ahead of Australia.
The topics covered which are borderless include: challenged retail business turnaround strategies, omni-channel retail, High Street reinvention, being smart with technology, economic challenges, technology led disruption, employee engagement and big versus small retailers.
With the growth in sales of digital photography titles we regularly refresh the layout of this section of our magazine department, ensuring that titles we want to promote are presented with the full cover on display. The range is small enough and the space allocation good enough for us to give all titles fair time in the full cover spotlight.
Each week we review this section to ensure it is fresh and to place titles next to each other in a way which we think will drive the purchase of more than one title in a shopping trip.
The result we are seeing is good sales growth.
The May issue of FHM will be the last reports Mumbrella. This not unexpected (due to declining sales) move further thins the men’s shelves.
Maybe we are in an era of more cerebral contact given the challenges for titles with sexy content compared to the success of titles with smart content. I suspect this is the case across all magazines. readers want value in the form of smart content. I think this is a reason for the success of Frankie for example and will probably be the reason for success of Smith Journal as it extends its journey.
Vale FHM, it’s the end of an era.
I have been able to visit a number of Ryman the Stationery stores in London. While each is different in size, they are all similar – the typical footprint I have seen in London is small, the aisles narrow and the range of stationery considerable.
They offer known brand stationery and their own brand. Given the Ryman retail footprint their own brand would carry considerable respect from consumers I suspect. Certainly their house branded products look like good quality – not like some of the cheap and nasty house brands back in Australia.
What really strikes me about the Ryman stores is what they fit into a smaller footprint. I was in one store of no more than fifty square metres. I be they had more than twice the stationery than a large newsagency allocating twice the amount of space.
In each of the Ryman businesses you get the feeling that they know stationery. They must, of course, as it is their bread and butter – get this wrong and they fail.
Maybe this is why newsagents are challenged with stationery … it is not our bread and butter. We don’t know the category as we should. We need to fix this if we are to grow stationery sales.
I have some thoughts on this and will share these at the Newsagency of the Future workshops in a couple of weeks.
Over the last few days I have been able to visit more than thirty independent newsagency businesses in and around London. I saw this sign in only one. No one was browsing the magazine range – this is probably more to do with the time of day than the sign. To be fair, there was limited space and even one person browsing would certainly disrupt customer access. That said, this barrier to browsing is not a point of difference I’d want.
One of the points of difference we newsagents offer is easy shopper access to magazine range. Browsing is key to this. If we push back against browsing there is no doubt it will hurt sales.
Beyond browsing, the diversity between newsagency businesses I have seen is considerable. It’s been three years since I last looked at newsagencies in London and my feeling is that there are better businesses today.
Sure there are convenience store type operations which dabble in a range of categories. However, I have seen more newsagencies focused on one or two core product categories and owning these as their point of difference.
More than half of the newsagencies I visited looked good and presented well on the high street.
Like in Australia however, the overall differences between these businesses with a common shingle is considerable.
There are plenty of bulk magazine deals – where publishers put 2, 3 and even 4 current issues of weeklies together in a bag and offer these for a lower price – in London.
While I am sure that publishers engaged in the practice will disagree, retailers I have spoken with here say that they don’t notice a sales lift. One retailer said was quite frustrated because he is certain his revenue is down as a result.
Regulars here would know that I am not a fan of the deals as I think they educate shoppers to not pay full price.
I’d prefer people to purchase a title for the content rather than the discount off cover price. Okay, use price rarely to reconnect with shoppers who have stopped buying but not too often and this is what educated people.
Here in London, magazines are at check out counters in department stores. While the photo is from a Marks & Spencer department store, I have seen this in several different stores.
I am not sure if the move is a reflection on the more traditional magazine retail offering here. I would doubt that as there are plenty of newsagency type outlets around from the national brand, WH Smith, to the smaller independent businesses.
What is interesting about what I saw today at Marks & Spencer is the mix of titles … it’s diverse: GQ, Men’s Health, Top Gear, Wired and Vanity Fair. Not a traditional mix I’d expect in a menswear section where I took the photo. That said, I’d expect that the title selection is based on the shoppers who most commonly present at the counter.
My question for Australian newsagents is: how would you feel if magazines were sold like this at checkout counters in Australian department stores?
A follow up question: what are you doing about this in your newsagency today?
Elias Farogiannis, the publisher of Greek Beat magazine has contacted me offering distribution of the title free to newsagents who would like to sell it – cover price $2.95.
Greek Beat is new. It’s in English and Greek and targets readers between 18 and 60. Newsagents would know from the newspapers they sell whether they are in the right location to support a Greek magazine.
Here is the pitch from the publisher:
The layout is modern and unique covering different topics that include: Entertainment, Fashion, Travel, Recipes, Lifestyle, Beauty and Sport, which makes it a magazine suited for all ages.
Newsagents can simply order to stock the magazine by sending an email to distribution@greekbeat.com.au including their contact details and delivery address for the magazines.
Greek Beat will be FREE for 2 months for newsagents to trial the magazine.
This looks like a good opportunity for newsagents to find a market for the new title with little risk. It’s a cool way for a publisher to launch a title.
If you have a Twitter account, log on and search for Herald Sun paywall … see what the Twitterverse is saying about the move by News to put Herald Sun content behind a paywall.
Once you dismiss some of the fringe comments, there are enough other comments to suggest the move may have unintended consequences.
If the paywall is like that for The Times in London then it will certainly be frustrating and possible cost the publisher traction for good stories. Whereas with a print product a consumer can drift in and out of engagement by purchasing the odd copy, with the paywall for The Times this is not possible.
At The Times today there is a story I am interested in, but not interested enough to pay a £2 subscription to access. So I purchased the print edition. This is not entirely satisfactory as I’d now like to share the story and can’t do that easily with the print edition. It’s The Times story I’d like to share, not the version I can find from other publications.
News misses out with this scenario as do their advertisers. Their paywall effectively blocks recommendations from readers who used to share links. This stops a good story which they have exclusively from taking off virally. While this will not so much be an issue with the Herald Sun, it must be an issue with The Times here in the UK and The Australian back home.
Now, from a retailers perspective this could be good as people who can’t access something may well head to a newsagency to purchase a newspaper. Time will tell.
One way newsagents can find out more information about a any product we sell is to follow it on Facebook. Smith Journal is a terrific case in point. Their Facebook page has excellent information about the magazine. Cadbury has a page dedicated to one of the Easter treats. Beanie Kids has a terrific Facebook presence. There are plenty of other examples.
While we don’t have time to keep track of the social media campaigns relating to everything we sell, we could connect with the products of particular interest to us. I’m sure that proactive newsagents will soon seek out more products to get the information edge which could help drive sales … especially once they have used the information they accessed to get a sale.
While it is good to see the Herald Sun digital pass offers all include a home delivery component, except one, I am disappointed that they continue to let down their loyal over the counter customers. We newsagents see the same people day in day out purchasing the same newspaper. Publishers ignore these people and instead chase the far more expensive home delivery route.
They are fools for missing these loyal retail customers.
As I noted yesterday, I don’t see any content at the herald Sun website or through the App which I would be prepared to pay for. I don’t want to pay to be told what to think.
I will pay for genuinely independent and professional journalism.
There are some frustrating former newsagents in our marketplace. People ready to tell others what to do and how to do it, trading off having been newsagents previously.
Some of these former newsagents who are quick with advice do not have relevant experience on some of the situations on which they provide advice. Some failed when they ran their own newsagency and while this should not preclude them providing advice, it would be helpful for them to disclose this.
My advice to newsagents who are offered advice from anyone including former newsagents is to test their qualifications for providing the specific advice. Ask tough questions, make sure that you can trust their expertise in the field in which they are giving advice.
Sometimes, the best advice will come from an expert in the field of need.
We have the new ACP cookbook, Women’s Weekly Masterclass, located in our permanent ACP cookbook section as well as in with our food titles.
We will maintain and front position full face pocket for Women’s Weekly Masterclass for at least the first two weeks in this second location.
This is our plan for new ACP cookbooks – co0locating with food titles. Occasionally, we will do a placement with newspapers, but mainly we go with a second position in food. This is in addition to a three pocket waterfall in the ACP cookbook section. We choose the place in food which works best with the title – as is shown by the photo.
I think it is important that newsagents have a consistent approach to new ACP cookbook titles and that everyone on your team knows what the consistent approach is.
Newsagents get these titles some weeks before supermarkets. This is our opportunity to get sales without other outlets competing. We need to leverage these early weeks.
We have been promoting a selection of greeting cards of Mothering Sunday, the UK Mother’s Day, in the lead up to the big day – which is this Sunday.
We have had the range on show at the counter as we figured that shoppers would ask if they were looking for the range and to provide an opportunity for people to be encouraged to purchase on impulse.
These minor seasons are good as they allow us to promote a point of difference over major retailers.
The second issue of the very popular Smith Journal is out today. I URGE newsagents to NOT early return this. Newsagents who carried the title did very well last year. For more info see my blog post from Saturday.
My experience with Smith Journal is that it sells through the on sale period, even to the last week. It is not like many other titles where the majority of the sales are won in the week.
The other important pint is that Smith Journal attracts a younger male shopper, a valuable younger male shopper. Like Frankie magazine except a guy rather than girl.
We are running another ink sale and as always happens we are welcoming new customers as a result of our letterbox marketing.
It is terrific finding new shoppers as a result of external marketing, especially customers for a product which is purchased wither regularity – like ink.
We have a cheap ink refill shop two metres from the front of our newsagency so it’s a pretty competitive situation. While they focus on refills we are 100% focused on brands and proudly promote this … brand name ink and toner at competitive prices.
We have been offering ink in my newsagencies since mid 2005. It is now the single most important category of ‘stationery’ we sell. It is important because the purchase is habit based and because it offers us a way of showing that we are competitive on price – while maintaining margin.
The latest issue of Mindfood has a good cover, this time featuring the wonderful (yes I am a fan) Nigella Lawson. We have co-located this issue of Mindfood with our food titles. Hopefully, Nigella fans looking for a food magazine will pick Mindfood up.
This approach of using a good cover subject to facilitate an off-lcoation display has worked well for us. A sale is a sale.
The Saturday Age with a Witchery ad covering part of the masthead. They appear to be using a different adhesive which does not tear the newspaper when to remove the ad. The trouble is that the ads don;t stick as well and more fall onto the shop floor as a result. Yeah, I don;t like these stuck on ads. They damage the brand and trash the streets.
We have just become a premier stockist of the Beanie Kid range in one of my newsagencies and are loving the new traffic being drawn to the business. We are seeing shoppers of all ages being drawn to the excellent selection of collectibles.
This is our first time in the collectible space beyond artworks. It is a whole new world. Beanie Kids collectors are tremendously valuable and smart shoppers. We have found that we need better than usual product knowledge to serve their needs and to help convert infrequent Beanie Kids shoppers into regular shoppers.
This is where Skansen Brands is helping, with good products knowledge with which we can be better prepared to attract good business. Their website is a wealth of information and on the phone their people have terrific knowledge. Understanding their engagement with social media also helps in our own social media strategies, so that we compliment their work.
I appreciate that it is challenging to be expert in all products. However, we each have hero products in our businesses around which we can build terrific shopper loyalty and good word of mouth. These are the products for which we need to develop and maintain superior product knowledge. I see Beanie Kids as such a product.
This is my newsagency marketing / management tip for today … that we need to continue to develop product knowledge of our team members. Understanding the typical shopper and their interests and needs, being able to add value to a sale with knowledge and knowing why your business is the best place to purchase the items can attract people who love a brand name product like beanie Kids come back again and again.
As I write here many times, habit based shoppers are vitally important to any business, especially newsagency businesses.
We are promoting the Pacific Magazines $10,000 cash give away this weekend and at the same title promoting the latest issue of Better Homes and Gardens at the front of the newsagency.
The impulse unit is facing into the mall – everyone entering from the entrance near our newsagency sees this.
While the unit is designed to support the multiple titles in the $10,000 promotion, I have chosen to promote only Better Homes and Gardens through the weekend. Monday it switches back to the weeklies. Given when we sell the title I am confident this is a good move.
I am disappointed that the arrival of F1 Racing magazine in store is late to fully capitalise on the Formula One opportunity in Melbourne in the lead up to the race event. Anyone purchasing one issue of this magazine is likely to choose this issue. I would prefer to have had it seven days earlier. That said we have it at the front of the motoring section, with the full cover on show.
