We’re promoting the latest issue of Men’s Health magazine with this aisle end display in our men’s magazine area. We’ll promote it for a week here and then feature it in-location. Men’s Health is the top selling magazine in the men’s health / fitness / sports section so giving it premium space makes commercial sense.
Several newsagents have sent me the Preferred Agent Terms and Conditions for Hubbed for comment. It appears to be their contract. In each case they asked me to look at the contract because of concerns about what happened years ago with the ANF endorsed and promoted Bill Express.
While I have business questions about the Hubbed offer are questions I have about the contract:
While I am no expert, it seems to me that newsagents signing up for Hubbed will need to seek written permission to continue to offer Touch or ePay products as well as to offer Parcel Point or N Parcel. I would also be concerned about the future business opportunities that Hubbed may deny me from taking on given the tight no compete obligations in the contract.
More complete assessment of the Hubbed offer can only be undertaken in-conjunction with reading the finance agreement which I have not seen nor have newsagents I have spoken with.
It is not my intention to attack Hubbed. Rather, I have sought to document the concerns I would have with the Preferred Agent Terms and Conditions for Hubbed if they were presented to me for consideration. I’d like to think the ANF has read the contract with the same intent as me.
Hubbed may have answers that satisfy newsagents on these and other points. As with any contract newsagents are presented to sign, read it all carefully and ask questions about anything which concerns you or you do not understand. Get the answers in writing.
We have added a small riser to the That’s Life Puzzler on the Go display unit so we could add a second title. Puzzler on the Go is working well in this second location with That’s Life so it’s natural we’d want to try the same for a second of the That’s Life puzzle titles.
Our crossword sales are up 5% year on year – showing we can grow magazine sales by managing the category.
Respected Australian TV anchor Dr. Armin Wolf has written for Forbes about when the last German newspaper will cease printing. 2034 is the date Wolf focuses on as it’s the date journalism professor Klaus Meier predicted a while back.
The article is interesting because it’s not doom and gloom. No, it’s a look at news itself and how it finds platforms relevant to its purpose.
Newspapers were not invented to be printed on paper. For about 200 years, they were just a particularly efficient way to distribute written “up to date”-information. If there are new technical possibilities that do the same better, they will prevail. Stone tablets vanished because new media emerged that could store information more efficiently. The same will happen to printed daily news.
Pacific Magazines has responded to the 14.4% decline in sales of Famous with a cut in the cover price from $4.20 to $3.95.
They are supporting the new price point with counter display units in newsagencies. I’m using this in each of my stores this week to promote the price drop and to chase impulse purchases.
Being above $4.00 was always going to be a challenge in a market where a weekly magazine is more of a discretionary purchase today than a few years ago. The newsagency sales data I see shows that weekly magazines are the items most often purchased with a discount voucher or a free magazine voucher.
Australia Post is rolling out these bill payment (and other services) kiosks in a move that cements their position as the bill payment network. The kiosks handle payment by cash, credit card and debit card. They do this without needing to go to the counter.
This kiosk roll out further dilutes the already small bill payment opportunity in newsagencies.
Despite not selling out since March and with an average sell through of under 50%, someone or some broken system or process within Bauer has decided we need more stock of their discounted magazine packs. It makes me wonder if Bauer has an allocations problem.
Click on the image and see the sales history for yourself.
Our supply should have been reduced, not increased. My preference is that I not get these discount packs at all as they send the wrong message. Shoppers have opportunities for discounts through a more whole of business approach. This serves my needs more than the Bauer enforced discount pack over which I have no control and in fact have to find another pocket to display.
But if I have to take this stuff then get the allocation right please!
Some in Bauer will complain that I am complaining unfairly. The data speaks for itself.
We are promoting the new Marvel Fact Files partwork with this aisle end display where we are using one of the Marvel cardboard cut-outs we sell in-store. This is a perfect combination of products from two suppliers working well together.
We’re seeing good sales, like we do of most partworks we receive. So far this month partworks have accounted for more than 20% of all magazine unit sales for us.
The GNS Market Fair in Melbourne this weekend was among the best organised I have seen and I’ve been at every one since GNS started them. There was a good mix of product and services suppliers, the floorplan was good and the GNS stand itself was the hero stand it needs to be.
Attendance was softer than suppliers needed to justify the expense. I think the various gift fairs as well as newsagency marketing group conferences with their own trade shows attached pull focus from the GNS fair that we the only fair for newsagents for so many years.
I talked with a few people about a national trade show on one weekend tied in with other events to encourage participation. I think this idea could work with the support of the marketing groups.
GNS applied a margin to all retail products sold at the fair. I expect some suppliers to lobby GNS about this as it’s not what you see at other trade shows. For example, a supplier at the gift fair which attracts 20,000+ retailers pays for the space and furniture with no surcharge on turnover.
Newsagents attend these fairs for a deal and not a penalty.
Newsagency businesses are local businesses. This is how shoppers see them and how many newsagents see them.
How locally connected is your newsagency? Here are four (fresh I hope) ideas you could consider to show off a local connection. This collection of ideas is all about things you could do that are newsworthy for the local newspaper or local radio station:
While none of these ideas is about you selling product, each does better connect your shop with your local community and that is vital, especially for high-street newsagencies where the traffic you see is what you generate as opposed to larger shopping centre newsagencies which rely on the centre to generate traffic.
We all make our own success.
I visited a newsagency yesterday to purchase a stationery item and when I approached the counter with the item I wanted, around two minutes after I entered the shop, the person sitting on a stool at the counter was startled.
I didn’t see you come in they said. That’s because you were too busy on your phone you lazy sod is what I should have said instead of just smiling. I paid, they gave me change and that was it. I turned back to check as I exited and they were on their phone again. The whole time they did not leave the stool.
The person who served me be would be in their early twenties and earning over $21 an hour to work. In the US this person would be lucky to be on $8 an hour and for this they would most certainly provide a much better experience.
This newsagency is in a busy high-street situation. Shops all around are open. The cafe next door was full. Trade could be good in the newsagency if they engaged with the opportunity on the street.
I don’t know the owner of this business but I’ll make contact to let them know my experience. If only this employee would do what they are paid to do … to work the shop floor, make the shopping experience more enjoyable and tidy the front of the shop so it connects with people on the street.
The employee I encountered is around the age of most people I noticed on the street. They could be more help to the business than sitting on the stool taking money and putting it in a drawer.
A business is a product of its leadership.
I am certain anyone could visit one of my shops at any time and have an experience that’s not as good as I would want. the challenge for us as retailers and leaders is to be clear in what we expect. We also need to hire for success and have a process for addressing shortcomings we hear about.
I love the packaging for this mad Cow Money Box. you can see the product, understand what is and get in on the fun. The packaging helps sell the product in terms of purpose and fun as well as showing it’s each to wrap if being purchases as a gift.
We consider these factors when buying gifts as they are factors our customers tell us they consider and we see for ourselves in terms of how they engage.
We put in these dangle characters a week ago and for four days did not sell one. That’s not unusual as products take time to be found. A space need saw us move them and we sold almost all our stock in two days. The new location worked better for this type of gift. They appealed to people who love Batman and Superman or those who buy gifts for the fans.
With newsagencies being such general stores, my sense is that shoppers will spend less time on a treasure hunt whereas my experience in a specialist gift shop is that shoppers will spend more time on a treasure hunt. This is why gift placement is important for newsagencies and why we need to keep our products on the move. It’s also why brand is important for us.
I’m participating in workshops being run on each day of the GNS Market Fairs. I’ll be sharing the latest newsagency sales benchmark insights and covering how newsagents can grow their businesses – providing some specific tips they can action right away. The seminar schedule for each day of the fair is:
10:00am Retail Leasing – Retail tenancy legislation, what is it and how does it protect newsagents? Michael Cuda – ANF
11:00am How to make your Newsagency worth more using Point of Sale software Mark Fletcher – Tower Systems
12:00pm GNS Alex Stewart – GNS CEO
1:00pm Creative Publishing – Kids Licensed Products learn about the Australian mum and her life and how to unlock the sales potential in your store.
2:00pm Nexus – How to use this marketing tool and why you should use it. Jane McIllhatton – Pacific Magazines
3:00pm Connect – a new set of products & services exclusive for Newsagencies David McLean – HUBBED CEO & Matt Handbury – HUBBED Chairman
The wipe off 5 campaign run with the Herald Sun yesterday which saw a 5 cent discount on the cover price of each copy highlighted the importance of a direct relationship with all retail only newsagents and the publisher.
While some distribution newsagents had communicated about the campaign, others had not – forcing a disconnect for the campaign. In one of my stores the team working only discovered the campaign when seeing the front page of the newspaper. Calling the distribution newsagent did not immediately help as staff did not know about it.
The sooner newspaper publishers communicate regularly and directly with retail newsagents about retail campaigns the better.
As for the campaign itself, good on the Transport Accident Commission for taking this approach. Besides promoting their message it reinforces the newspaper medium as relevant for reaching people.
The latest magazine sales audit results released overnight covering January through June 2013 compared to 2012 show a decline in sales around what I have reported here in the newsagency sales benchmark study.
Overall magazine sales are down around 8%. Car magazine sales are down on average well into double digits, girl magazines, Dolly and Girlfriend and both down more than 12%.
The Australian Woman’s Weekly has achieved what I’d call a good result, down 1.4%. In this market I expect Bauer would be happy.
Better Homes and Gardens has also achieved a good result with no change. Pacific would be happy with that.
As I wrote earlier today, frankie is the shining light with growth of more than 10%. This is interesting since frankie plays close to the Dolly and Girlfriend space.
In the weekly space, the results are not great but not a disaster considering the overall market situation: Woman’s Day down 4.2%, New Idea down 4.4%, Take 5 down 8.9%, That’s Life down 12.2%, Famous down 14.4%, NW down 6.9%,OK! Down 7% and Who down 8.9%.
I would like to see data comparing titles performance in the various retail channels and even comparing individual businesses in the newsagency channel. I’d like to see if there is migration of the magazine shopper from one channel to another. I’d also like to see how shoppers respond to the different tactics newsagents use in the category.
I have used the magazine club card loyalty program since mid 2004 and for years this helped achieve a better than average result. In February this year I switched, cold turkey, to a unique discount voucher program that front-ended loyalty. My basket data shows that this program has generated considerable incremental magazine sales for us, sales I am certain we would not have achieved.
So, I’d like to see more thorough store level analysis so the channel can understand the success of the various tactical programs being used by newsagents. I’d be happy to share my data, for the good of the channel, to see how what I do stacks up.
From where I sit the evidence is pretty strong that shoppers are over the old points based approach. They prefer a dollar value discount as a reward for above average behavior.
It would be a mistake for newsagents to see the audit numbers and feel encouraged to retreat further from the category.
I am certain we can increase magazine sales by churning shoppers from one retailer or retail channel to us. While it’s hard work, sales are there for the taking.
As we have seen from successful newsagency sales benchmark reports published here, newspaper sales are continuing to decline, presenting traffic-generation and relevance challenges for newsagents. This once staple product category is fading in terms of overall sales and, for our channel, in terms of our own relevance for the product with other retailers offering sometimes a more convenient purchase point option for newspapers.
The latest newspaper sales audit covering April through June 2013 compared to 2012 show a double digit decline for daily newspapers in Australia. The Australian has a full table of results today on page 27. See B&T for details including:
In the metropolitan market it’s a case of more of the same as circulations continue to fall, with Fairfax’s big two The Sydney Morning Herald (-17% M-F) and The Age (-16.2% M-F) posting weighty declines. It doesn’t get any better for Fairfax in the weekend metro division, with the Sun-Herald handed the unfortunate tag of the steepest decline (-20.4%) of the mastheads audited, while theSMH weekend edition (-20.2%) fared little better.
and…
Over at the News Limited stable, who said that they won’t be commenting on the ABC data, there was little to gloat about, with The Daily Telegraph (-11.2% M-F) and Herald Sun (-10.3% M-F) posting double digit declines.
Some newsagents will say the decline is being facilitated by significant cover price increases. While I think the cover price hikes are impacting sales, they are only a more recent factor.
Most of the decline we are seeing is a shift on home when and where people access news and the failure of the print product to offer an alternative appropriate to their slow delivery medium.
In the latest magazine sales audit results frankie reported an increase of 10.75% in sales. This is an excellent result at a time when many other magazine titles areporting declines.
The publisher acknowledges the role of newsagents in this success:
With the Australian reader moving away from glossy and fad mass-consumer titles, frankie is still connecting and experiencing growth throughout its eight-week on-sale period. But this wouldn’t happen without loyal newsagents and retailers pushing and promoting frankie to their customers.
“In a volatile market, and even with tougher trading conditions, newsagents and retailers continue to find frankie worthy of supporting with each issue.” says Circulation Manager Alf Santomingo.
“We’ve also seen a continual reduction in early returns with our allocation policy of reducing supply in outlets which do return copies within the first month. This has resulted in stronger sales efficiencies for each store selling future issues, and allowing more copies to be available to outlets who continue to sell out”.
“It’s humbling to know that against more mainstream and more frequent publications, frankie is worthwhile in connecting with sellers’ communities, as well as their day-to-day trading. We’d like to thank these ‘frankie hubs’ for their continued support.”
Newsagents should support frankie with excellent placement. My own experience is that it sells right through the on-sale. This is NOT a title to early return.
A customer visited two days ago to purchase a solar system chart, a $7.95 sale. A friend with them liked the discount voucher from this purchase and purchased two kids art sets for $21.90. The first customer used the discount voucher from that purchase to buy a Top Model book for $24.95. In all we gave away less than 10% of the total purchase value. For an additional $40.00 in revenue I’m happy with that.
There is no doubt that without the discount voucher the purchase value would have been $7.95 for the solar system chart.
These shoppers would not benefit from a traditional old style points-based VIP card.
I like the new merchandise units from Darrell Lea, they’re modern, space efficient and visually attractive … a good advance on the old-school units from the previous owners of the brand. While there are frustrations with how the brand is being handled, I’m happy to endorse the good moves being made for retailers.
Magazines distributors and XchangeIT need to look at barriers put in place by some that block access to electronic invoices. Another newsagent recently was blocked from accessing electronic invoices because they decided they did not want to continue with software support coverage for their newsagency software. They did not want to pay the close to $3,000 a year fee.
When the date came at which their support coverage lapsed their software, for which they had paid many thousands of dollars, denied them access to the invoiced provided through XchangeIT. The harm to their business was considerable. They say they were not warned when they purchased the software that the annual support fee was mandatory. They say they were not told that they would be locked out of such a business-critical function.
Even though their current software meets current XchangeIT standards, they either pay what they consider to be an excessive fee to their software supplier – around $3,000 – or they live with not getting electronic invoices or they switch software to one of the newsagency software programs that do not lock you out if you don’t pay software support.
XchangeIT wants to ensure that newsagents have software that meets their standard. I understand and agree with this. To have a software company, not XchangeIT, block access to business-critical data when the software continues to meet XchangeIT standards is appalling. The magazine distributors and XchangeIT need to address this issue.
In the meantime, newsagents need to be aware before they purchase newsagency software. Ask these questions before you buy software:
While there are other questions newsagents should ask before they purchase any newsagency software, these two questions go to the heart of this issue – the blocking of a newsagent accessing an important function for any newsagency business.
In helping a mid-size unbranded newsagency business recently I put together an educational flyer outlining where each dollar goes that they receive from customers. I created this to show that each dollar does not belong to the newsagent, that the wad of cash counted at the end of a shift is not their money.
This business had recently experienced an employee theft situation which had cost tens of thousands of dollars. The person committing the crime told the police that the newsagent could afford it they make loads. While I’ve heard this ignorant excuse many times when investigating theft in newsagencies, the newsagent affected was shocked.
The goal of the educational flyer is to show employees where the money in this business goes and to illustrate the point that the owner ends up with less than three cents in the dollar out of which they take payment for their time and service their loans.
I firmly believe that the more information we share about our businesses the greater the opportunity for our employees to make better business decisions with and for us.
Anyone questioning the percentages in the flyer can be shown invoices from the landlord or supplier invoices. Being prepared to prove the percentages claimed is important. To those who would say it’s none of their business I’d say it is their business. If you get them thinking more about the business, more connected with the numbers of the business they are more likely to support the business.
Jack Stack many years ago lead a turnaround of a reengineering business in the United States. His story is told in his book The Great Game of Business. It outlines the principles of open book management. The core principle driving their turnaround success was sharing business data and educating all who wanted so they could understand the data. What Jack led has become a movement – The Great Game of Business. The principles apply to businesses of all sizes including newsagencies. I’m fortunate to have met Jack a couple of times including for several days last year at a small conference for small business owners.
I mention this to show that the idea of sharing business information with employees is not new and that it is backed by research as to how it can positively impact a business. My flyer idea is a small start in this direction. It goes nowhere near as far as Jack Stack would suggest but it shares way more than many newsagents do today. It’s a start, a necessary start in taking your employees by the hand and showing what happens to each dollar they put in your cash drawers.
I’d be happy to share the original file with anyone who would like to customise it to their situation. Please email me at: mark@towersystems.com.au. It is vitally important that the percentages you present are yours.
I am often asked by newsagents if they can sell prepaid Visa cards. Touch Networks offers access to Just4 Visa Gift Card in $50 and $100 through its relationship with Blackhawk. Newsagents have access to Blackhawk products through Touch regardless of the computer system they use.
There are reports of fake bank notes being passed in Melbourne over the last few days. Be careful! Click here to download the counterfeit note detection guide.
I’ve heard several stories in the last few days about accountants giving what appears to be bad advice re newsagencies. Too often I see newsagents rely on their accountants to guide them on basic business decisions that don’t need accountant input. Here are the four stories (without names) to illustrate my point.
Some accountants handing newsagency business records don’t understand the businesses and therefore fail to provide the advice the business needs. This can get in the way of newsagents making good business decisions.
For what it’s worth, I think newsagents should back themselves more. They’re the ones in the business. They should have the business skills and knowledge to make decisions too often I see pushed onto accountants who are not in the business and who often do not understand the business.