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

Day: December 17, 2012

Surprised to see Fairfax get out of TradeMe

Fairfax has announced announced today their exit from the NZ TradeMe online classifieds business.

This is a a disappointing yet somewhat understandable move from Fairfax. Disappointing in that it makes sense for them to own a strong classifieds business. Understandable because they need the balance sheet benefits to flow from the sale.

If I was a Fairfax shareholder I’d have preferred them to retain interest in the TradeMe business and to use this as a beachhead for digital expansion. Digtal is the future for Fairfax – they have said as much.

Newspaper publishers need to work hard at growing non print revenue – as do newsagents. If I had a strong online business I would not be selling at this time.

The sale is another move in a very busy year of moves by Australian newspaper publishers throughout all their operations.

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Media disruption

Trusting shoppers on theft pays off

Four weeks on, the display on the lease line with three large Beanie Ball plush items and our interactive dog has experienced NO theft. Despite being far away from the counter and quite easy to steal from, our property has been respected.

We’re surprised … we expected to lose one or two and were prepared to take the risk.

I am glad we did not give into fear of theft and not display these items in this best location.  Had we given into fear of theft we might not have achieved sales of close to $3,000 of these two items alone.

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theft

Free training newsagents on magazine returns

In a meeting with Western Australian home delivery newsagents last week I realised that many of them were not using XchangeIT for managing magazines – returns were done manually. So, the team at my newsagency software company created a training video. While the video uses my software for the example, the content is useful for any newsagent not currently scanning returns:

The more newsagents using XchangeIT the greater the pressure on magazine distributors to use the benefits facilitated through the service.

Tower has close to 40 videos like this for newsagents and their staff to view to learn how to use the software.

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magazines

Promoting InStyle magazine

We are promoting the latest issue of InStyle magazine with the full cover on show – making the most of Jennifer Lopez touring in Australia right now. This issue gives us an excellent opportunity to introduce InStyle magazine to new readers. We can do this better than any other retail channel.

We have this issue of InStyle with weeklies as well as the usual location. More eyeballs – more sales.

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magazines
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