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

Month: July 2012

Is Australia Post’s hookup with an online retailer a ‘kick in the guts’?

The Fairfax media yesterday ran a report on Australia Post teaming up with international shopping service Tarazz, saying it would be a kick in the guts for local retailers.

Tarazz reportedly offers around 250,000 items from overseas retailers including Walmart. The tie up with Australia Post is a bold move as it is likely to take business from local fashion retailers according to the report.

Several newsagents contacted me yesterday to alert me to the Australia Post move – given my disappointment that the policy makers (politicians) in Australia for the last fifteen years or so have let Australia Post creep way beyond the remit covered in the act under which it operates. Some were surprised that I’m not angry about what Australia Post is doing.

Unless I am missing something, this is a move leveraging the Australia Post delivery infrastructure. It’s what they are there for – more so than taking over the counter retail sales from small family run businesses as they do when they use their government owned corporate stores to specifically target businesses like newsagencies.

Okay, so they are facilitating an international retailer taking retail sales from other retailers and, yes, maybe politicians should have concern about that and the jobs that could be lost and businesses closed. But it’s not as direct a hit against retailers as Australia Post itself doing what it does to newsagents and other family run businesses.

Given that Australia Post is government owned, it has a higher obligation to Australians, a greater importance around social responsibility. Retailers affected could say this is not a socially responsible move. I best postal workers would disagree.

When it comes to small business, politicians on both sides don’t care. Oh, sure, they will say plenty – but they rarely do anything. They don’t see votes in actually supporting small business.  I wonder if my view on the Australia Post / Tarazz tie up reflects this cynicism.

I am posting this here for others to comment.  What do you think about this move by Australia Post? If you are against it, what are you going to do about it as that’s what it comes down to. Enough voters complaining about something can lead to policy change.

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Australia Post

Best practice use of ACP stand

I was asked by a new newsagent last week for advice on how to use the ACP basket builder stand and took this photo of how we were using it in one of my newsagencies.

I figured I’d post it here and run through how we use the stand.

The photo shows our traditional use. It’s from last week.  This is how we allocate space when we are not featuring a title or a category. On those times, the title or category own the stand.

In the photo you can see we have AWW and the puzzle book next to each other.  We are using Good Health and the Pregnancy title as the beacon titles. They are working, pregnancy one especially. The placement of the two Shop titles next to each other is deliberate.

The last four pockets can be anything as they are the least shopped no matter what we put in there.  That said, we make conscious choices on what we put in them – we do this by placing tiles next to each other that are more likely to work well together.

Taking care about what you put in a stand like this can generate extra sales and that’s what we all want eh?

I urge newsagents to check all magazine supplier stands and ensure that they are promoting titles from the supplier of the stand in the stand.

This stand from ACP and all magazine publisher stands are about making money for us. If they don’t then what’s the point!  It’s up to us how successful the stands are – by what we put in them and where we locate them.

We take this very seriously.

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magazines

Hiding the magazine gift

The latest issue of Country Home Ideas comes with a terrific bookmark as a gift. It’s a good gift, well selected for the typical purchaser of this title.

The problem is that most shoppers will not see the bookmark as it sits at the bottom of the bag and will be covered by magazines in front and traditional magazine fixturing.

While the promotion at the top of the bag is good, will it get people looking? The bookmark is better quality than I expected. hence my concern about people actually looking at it.

We are addressing the challenge by placing the title at the front of our counter section – making the bookmark easily seen.

I am not sure what the publisher could have done this time around for putting the bookmark higher where it could be more easily seen would have meant covering the masthead.  So … I don’t have an answer. I guess my goal here is to point the issue out to newsagents, to encourage them to promote the title so the gift can be seen.

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magazines

Promoting the new branding of New Idea

We are promoting the new branding of New Idea magazine with this terrific floor unit toward the front of the newsagents, a full column display mid store and the new branding collateral supporting the title in its usual location.

We sold plenty of copies of the magazine off the stand in the photo yesterday.  It is easily seen from the front of the store – we selected the location for this reason, hoping to tap into recognition of the TVC.

I love the stand provided by Pacific Magazines.  It’s innovative, easy to setup and easy to relocate. Yes, I know not everyone got one. I’d note, again, that the stand is just part of how we are promoting the new brand.

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magazines

Tapping into Olympic fever

ACP Magazines and newsXpress are running an exclusive GO GREEN AND GOLD promotion for the next four weeks with four entertainment systems on offer as prizes (valued at over $17,000).

The photo shows one of three locations in-store promoting the competition.  We are promoting different titles in different locations.  In the photo we are promoting the men’s titles associated with the competition – in the men’s area of the business.

This floorspace we have in our men’s area is special to me. It’s a place we get to feature titles with less competing for attention around them. It’s like we can talk directly with our male customers.

While not an official Olympic promotion, the GO GREEN AND GOLD theme is timed to leverage national pride. The campaign runs for four weeks and will use a number of external activities to drive traffic in addition to in-store displays to drive basket depth.

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magazines

Disrespectful shopping centre tenants

Access to the magazine storage units we have in one of our shopping centre locations is regularly blocked by pallets and other ietms stored in front of them by the fruit and vegetable outlet in the centre – as shown in the photo.

despite complaints to the fruit people and landlord, the problem continues.

Their blocking of access to our space causes grief with getting merchantable magazines as the delivery driver is not left with many options.

Tenants in shopping centres need to respect each other. We’re certainly not feeling the love from the fruit shop in this shopping centre.

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Ugh!

Great article on the power of Coles and Woolworths in Australia

Newsagents should check out Adele Ferguson’s excellent article in the Fairfax press yesterday (and online) about the ever expanding power of Coles and Woolworths.

While I am sure many newsagents and small business operators feel concerned, even helpless, about the even expanding grab they are making for sales in Australia, we have some politicians and regulators looking at the power of these too. We can support them by reminding them of the damage these massive businesses do in taking business from small businesses.

Check out my post from a few days ago on an ignored risk Coles and Woolworths pose to newsagents.

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Newsagency challenges

Ancol trade day kicks off the newsagents trade show season

The Ancol trade day yesterday in Adelaide yesterday was a good kick off for the a crazy busy trade show season for newsagency suppliers. The fair was a good size and a decent number of newsagents came through.

What I really like is that the Ancol trade day is a one day event from 11am to 5pm. Yeah, it’s short but newsagents respect that. I’d rather meet more newsagents in a shorter time than have a whole weekend taken up seeing close to the same number of newsagents.

The mood of newsagents was upbeat … plenty of positive stories. It was great to meet some new owners as well as newsagents from regional areas who don’t often get into Adelaide for industry events.

yesterday was special because Newspower launched gift cards for Newspower members. I funded these for South Australian Newspower members through by newsagency software company.

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Newsagency management

Featuring Shaft magazine

We are featuring the latest issue of Shaft magazine in the floor stand in the middle of our men’s magazines corner.

This move is part of our education process about the title as it’s not something our customers visit expecting to find in our suburban shopping centre newsagency.

We will give it a week in the location before we return it to the regular location.

4 likes
magazines

Loving impulse gift lines in the newsagency

These dog grenades – they squeak when the dog bites them – have been one of the hits of our impulse gift range. Selling through plenty of them in three weeks along with a bunch of other products goes to show what newsagents can sell to shoppers who visit to make another purchase. I am sure they did not visit us thinking I’ll buy a dog grenade today.

The other hit has been the banana you squeeze. It serves no purpose I can see. Mose people who pick it up and squeeze purchase it. Very nice.

Adding items priced at a few dollars and with a margin of more than 50% to any other purchase is wonderful. The trick as I see it is to do this without giving your shop over to these items. No, I don;t want to become one of those outlets wholly focused on fads and novelty lines. There is a time and place for these – school holidays and leading to Christmas.

Based on our most recent experience I am confident that we can sell between $1,500 and $2,000 of products brought in just for a school holiday season. Yes, I know – we are in a large shopping mall and this gives us plenty of traffic. Only in terms of volume.

There are many opportunities in newsagencies for what we broadly consider to be gifts. The items we featured in this range is not what most newsagents would call gifts, certainly not a permanent gift department.

We purchased the items for a specific reason and it worked for us.  This is what we have to do as out businesses transition – leverage existing traffic into new lines. We need to do this for the sales and to show our customers that we are not a traditional newsagency … we can satisfy a broader range of their needs.

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Gifts

Sunday marketing tip: master the Facebook small business opportunity

While plenty of newsagents are on Facebook, not enough use the platform well.  It’s a good tool for connecting with shoppers and prospective shoppers as well as researching products.

While I am no Facebook expert, here are some tips which could be useful to newsagents:

  1. Make someone responsible for your Facebook posts. Ensure they understand the platform and your goal for using it. If you don’t have a goal don’t use it.
  2. Post regularly – at least three times a week.
  3. Be aware of when your Facebook friends are likely to be online and post at this time.
  4. Make sure the content is genuinely useful to your community and remember that individuals are usually on Facebook for social reasons.
  5. Promote Facebook-only offers – these need to have a social connection (see 4 above).
  6. Have a goal for each of your posts.
  7. Promote likes to your customers in your newsletter and in store.
  8. Like pages of magazines and other products you sell – to learn from them.
  9. Interact with suppliers and magazines you like – in a meaningful way.

Facebook is a business platform. That it is a publicly traded company should prove this to anyone who doubts this. To use it as a business tool you need a plan.

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marketing

Great Facebook support for newsagents from Performance Garage

Performance garage magazine is using its Facebook page to promote newsagents as the go to retailers for the magazine.

This is terrific support for newsagents and another example why each of us should become more engaged with Facebook – connecting with suppliers who support us.

My takeaway from checking out the Performance Garage page is a better understanding of their target market. This helps with placement and promotion in-store.

In fact,  the Facebook pages of all magazines I check out are a great help … we can learn plenty from them.  And we can broaden our reach by engaging with the Facebook pages.

4 likes
magazines

New Idea campaign starts tomorrow

Pacific Magazines are launching a new campaign for New Idea magazine tomorrow. It’s a significant campaign involving in-store activity as well as a TV campaign which starts today. We have allocated space to make the most of the opportunity – so we get max sales from the campaign. There is a significant collateral pack being provided to newsagents.

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newsagency marketing

Promoting Melbourne Home Design & Living

We are promoting the latest issue of Melbourne Home Design & Living with a placement of the magazine above its placement in the magazine aisle. It’s the only title we are promoting this way – making it noticeable to everyone entering the aisle.

This title sells well for us. We will highlight it in a couple of locations over the next few weeks.

I’d note that the placement also draws attention to home and living titles in the magazine aisle – it’s a different approach to beacon branding.

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magazines

School supplies opportunity for newsagents with Wooldridges collapse

Newsagents could leverage the collapse of Wooldridges educational products supplier to grab a larger share of the educational suppliers market.

While there is no doubt that online competition played a role in the Wooldridges collapse, newsagents can play the local support card more effectively than a business hundreds if not thousands of miles away from the school community. They can better connect with school communities, offer more effective local delivery and more acutely tune their services to specific local needs.

The challenge is to make the local connection more valuable than mere dollars.

Newsagents should research what Wooldridges may have been doing in their area and develop a plan to leverage the opportunity to their advantage.  Check out the Wooldridges website.

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Newsagency opportunities

School holidays range a hit

We have sold close to $1,500 worth of products from our school holiday funky gifts range.  While some items were purchases alone, most were part of a basket with other items, driving sales efficiency in a nice way.

We obsess about data, not only what’s selling and what’s not selling but how products interact – what is purchase with what and when.

Anytime we bring in new items we measure performance until we see a pattern we can trust and rely on in our business planning.

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Gifts

Nice looking VTAC GUIDE

I like the look of THE VTAC GUIDE 2013. Visually, it’s a nice departure from past guides.  The new look has given the team in one of my newsagencies an opportunity to take a more stylish approach to promoting the title.

Stylish is not word I’d use in considering past VTAC GUIDES. This year is different and it looks good. This is important in retail in that we like to sell products that look good. This one does.

So, we are going out early with the THE VTAC GUIDE 2013 out the front of the shop somewhere people can easily see it and visit the shop as a result. The display in the photo is facing into the mall where passers-by can see.

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visual merchandising

Promoting Melbourne Wedding & Bride

We are promoting the latest issue of Melbourne Wedding & Bride in several places in-store including this aisle end location.  It’s a chunky title presenting newsagents with space challenges. It does not fit in the older style magazine fixtures. we are lucky because we have deeper pockets for titles like this.

We have a plan which will see the title in a few locations over the next month – giving it opportunities to be discovered by shoppers in several locations.

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magazines

Disappointing response on Herald Sun price rise

It’s disappointing to see people complaining on social media about the increase in the cover price of the Herald Sun from $1.10 to $1.20. The cover price has gone up by 20% over something like 13 years. The minimum wage has gone up by way more than that in the same period.  One guy with his own business complained about the ten cent rise this week and said it was different when he put his hourly rate up by more.

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Ugh!

Loyalty software helps newsagents take a bigger picture view

Newsagents who understand the economic value of the different customers they serve are better able to attract more of the customers who are most valuable.

This is loyalty marketing 101.

Sadly, not many newsagents understand the value of their customers.

My newsagency software has had loyalty marketing facilities for more than fifteen years yet too few newsagents use its facilities.  It’s their loss.

Used properly, the loyalty marketing facilities can generate a bottom line increase in a matter of months. By knowing who are your most valuable customers and rewarding them appropriately there is no doubt of a sales increase.

Running a loyalty program is easy. It’s cheap too if you structure it right.

It can be run individually or collectively if you are in a group.

My recommendation to newsagents is to start individually. This provides excellent learnings which can inform future decisions should you decide to go down the group route.

I’ve worked with jewellers, bike retailers, gift shop owners and newsagents in establishing loyalty programs. While there are plenty of queries, I have found that starting is the best way to learn.  You can tweak the program on the run and morph it into what you need once you understand more about how your customer react.

Every business should have a strategy for tracking, managing and rewarding loyalty. Our competitors do. We can to for little or no cost.

It all depends on whether we are professional retailers.

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newsagency marketing

Is Newsweek moving to a digital-only platform?

There was confusion yesterday about whether Newsweek magazine was moving to a digital-only platform.  Digital Trends has a good report on this. It’s a move that makes sense for a news ‘magazine’ since by the time it gets to print the stories are more mature. The size of articles in Newsweek are such that even they lend themselves to digital over print thanks to tablet advances. Moves like this come down to the financial return for the print product and whether the publisher can achieve a better outcome with a digital-only model.

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Media disruption

Perfect reason for promoting GQ magazine

Keith Urban on the cover of GQ magazine this month provides a perfect reason for us to give this title some rare time in the spotlight – in a high traffic location in-store.

Keith Urban was a star on The Voice recently on TV, raising his profile significantly in Australia. This is why the GQ cover is perfect timing – for the magazine and for our sales.

We will support the magazine here and in another high-traffic location when we move it on.

5 likes
magazines

Feeling for newsagents in London during the Olympics

Check out the report of a London newsagent who has been told to remove Olympic themed bunting. The Olympics is not about sport. It’s a massive business taking care of rich corporate mates and rewarding athletes who can suck up to the right people to get the money they need to compete on the very expensive (and irrelevant) world stage.

Yeah, I am not a fan … for the reasons outlined in the story of the attack on the local London newsagent who wants to help his community get into the Olympic spirit.

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Ugh!