Congratulations to Darling Park Newsagency in Sydney on their 1000th parcel pick up through the Parcel Point service. Parcel Point people are appropriately thrilled with the news. What’s god about this service is the traffic it generates. It’s not leeching of existing newsagency traffic.
The manager of one of my newsagencies regularly reviews titles available from IPS, the fairfax owned magazine distributor. On finding a title that fills a need it’s ordered with the quantity we want. The control IPS gives us is useful in growing range and sales. The latest example of this approach working for us is Pure Bride, a wedding magazine with a focus on Tasmania. Why would you want a Tasmanian wedding magazine in a Victorian newsagency? because people come to us looking for wedding magazines about locations out of state and because this magazine is different, fresh.
I like the control IPS provides us.
We’ve worked the Bauer floor display unit promoting a selection of Father’s Day magazine titles and their competition in with our Father’s Day cards.
While this placement at the front of the newsagency on the lease line will not meet billboard display visual merchandising requirements for the people Bauer send in-store to police us, it will drive sales and that is more important to us.
The latest magazine sales audit results show a decline for print and an increase for digital. AdAge has a good report including:
“Today’s report is basically a continuation of what we’ve seen over the last few years,” said Neal Lulofs, exec VP at the Alliance for Audited Media. “Digital circulation, which is a small segment overall, is growing quite rapidly. Clearly, people are buying and reading magazines on those tablets. At the same time, declining newsstand sales has been fairly consistent.”
Gigaom has published a summary of analysis of the purchase of The Washington Post by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. It’s well worth a read for the diversity of opinions reflected.
One interesting result from the survey on the weekend of newsagents about sales reps was the strong desire for an online alternative to in-store rep visits.
In other results, 49.1% of respondents say reps are not so important, and 9.4% say reps are not important at all. 31.1% say reps waste their time. 44.3% want to see more reps but in new product areas: gifts, plush and toys.
I created the survey because of the considerable cost of sales reps to supplier businesses and that this cost is unique to the independent retail channel. Suppliers to our larger competitors tend to not have this cost and this can result in our competitors getting better prices than us. I think we need to move to a situation with fewer reps and part of a cost saving exercise for suppliers and a margin improving exercise for newsagents.
Click here for a copy of the survey results.
Our sales of That’s Life Puzzler On The Go are growing very well thanks to this placement with our weekly magazines, next to That’s Life itself. It’s terrific that a simple move taking a few seconds can generate good sales growth off already good base sales. I’d urge others to try this placement for themselves.
I love this clever use of a spare spinner by a team member in one of my stores. The CAUTION sign at the stop of the spinner is a perfect cap for the stand.
Partworks continue to drive good traffic and sales in each of my newsagencies. We leverage this with front of store displays on the lease line – displays timed to work in with TV campaigns.
The payoff from partworks is worth the frustration. Partworks account for 10% of our magazine sales at the moment. The retention rate for at least the first four or five issues is good, justifying time and space.
We’re promoting the AWW Cool Knitting title from Bauer with placement in three locations including this floor display unit near the counter. We received 2o copies in a frustrating scale out. I’d prefer to see sales based replenishment used for this. A check of our sales of knitting magazines would have shown that 8 copies would have been a fairer allocation. My plan is to give it two weeks to deliver reasonable results before I start to pull back on retail space allocation.
A company associated with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is to acquire The Washington Post. This move just announced has shocked many. It’s certainly a game changer. Bezos is a smart guy. His vision has driven extraordinary change in book publishing. His WaPo move is certain to trigger change elsewhere around newspapers.
Read what Jeff Bezos wrote about the acquisition. This passage is especially interesting to me:
The Internet is transforming almost every element of the news business: shortening news cycles, eroding long-reliable revenue sources, and enabling new kinds of competition, some of which bear little or no news-gathering costs. There is no map, and charting a path ahead will not be easy. We will need to invent, which means we will need to experiment. Our touchstone will be readers, understanding what they care about – government, local leaders, restaurant openings, scout troops, businesses, charities, governors, sports – and working backwards from there. I’m excited and optimistic about the opportunity for invention.
Twitter is ablaze with tweets about this move and questioning how Bezos will behave as a newspaper proprietor. I doubt Bezos will see himself as this. I suspect he will see himself has having just purchased access to a great content gathering network that will reach beyond the dead tree model that has made so much of the history of The Washington Post.
Whether Bezos will be a good proprietor is consideration for another day. Today, I’m thinking more about the bold move by someone who is expert at digital and physical distribution buying a a newspaper.
Newsagents who rely on print newspapers as a key traffic or profit generator need to understand that the world has changed. There is no upside in the future of print as a medium for news, analysis and local context yes, but not news.
Newsagents concerned about falling sales for Australian Women’s Weekly cookbook sales may want to check out OZSALE, a member based online discount site. On the site yesterday were plenty of AWW cookbooks including some titles currently in newsagencies for a much higher price.
While I am sure those managing the newsagency channel within Bauer will have an explanation on how this can happen (it was handled by the book division, stock was purchased form a retailer who went broke etc), it will not resolve the fact that it makes us look expensive.
If Bauer is supplying OZSALE they need to stop or they need to supply to us so we can be competitive.
The three Melbourne gift and homewares trade shows this weekend revealed a new slew of importers, some with fresh products but too many with more of the same.
The barrier to entry for a new importer is low. There are many factories in China and elsewhere happy to create copy-cat products to feed these new importers.
Trade shows like these make it easy for a small importer to put on a good show and present an image of scale and strength. While that’s good for them, it may not be good for retailers keen to source products they can reorder.
When taking on a new supplier, buyer beware.
With our diary sales up 10% year on year in the twelve months to June 30 (off a good base), we are pushing hard to at least repeat that growth this financial year.
We have this display capping the entrance to the aisle with newspapers adjacent to our main stationery aisle. This is the same location that worked well for us for financial year diaries. The range will expand over the next few weeks. This Last Diary Co. range always works well to kick off the season.
Please indicate what you think about newsagency sales reps by clicking this link. I’ll publish the results later this week.
The front cover of The Daily Telegraph today shows why Rupert Murdoch and the company he controls, News Limited, is campaigning aggressively against the National Broadband Network.
The NBN opens a new channel of access to content, a new channel of influence, a channel that would compete with Murdoch’s newspapers. The NBN challenges his position of extraordinary influence.
The cover of The Daily Telegraph newspaper today shows how News Limited uses its influence. Instead of news on the front page we have a shrill piece telling us how to vote.
A completed NBN roll out reduces the influence of front covers like on The Daily Telegraph newspaper today. This would be good for democracy in Australia.
It would be a mistake to read this blog post as supporting Kevin Rudd. This post is about how a news organisation controlling 70% of Australia’s newspapers is using its position of influence to drive the election result it wants. I’d prefer to see news on the front page of my newspapers.
We sold out of the December 2012 issue of Puzzler 125 Crosswords was. network responded by increasing us from 7 copies to 8. While they have their reasons, the sales data does not support it as I am happy to sell out of a magazine late in the on-sale – note that publishers please! However, that is not the reason for this blog post. No, on the back of no sell outs since the December 2012 issue, Network Services has increased my supply of Puzzler 125 Crosswords to 9 copies.
Okay it is only one copy more you might say, big deal. The sales data indicates that supply should have gone the other way – back to 7 copies. That’s if network Services was providing the professional magazine distribution services it claims to provide.
No wonder more newsagents are cutting magazine space as a way of taking more control over magazine supply.
I was talking to a journalist last week who is contemplating writing about the magazine retail channels in Australia. He was surprised to hear now newsagents are treated differently to our competitors and that we have no control over the titles we receive and the volume of each title we receive and that our competitors do have this control. He asked how can that be? Welcome to the unjust and unfair magazine distribution model that is structured to make newsagents less economically viable that other retail channels. It’s holding us back and will ultimately account for many newsagents exiting magazines.
Bauer owns Network Services. Bauer management participates in discussions with other publishers on the future of our channel. They say they care about the newsagency channel yet our oversupply continues. The best move Bauer can make to support a healthy and profitable newsagency channel would be to get to the heard of the Network Services supply model that sees my supply of of Puzzler 125 Crosswords increase by one copy on the back of no supporting sales data. Stop this oversupply creep and you will instantly improve the financial health of newsagency businesses and stop some newsagents looking at how to retreat from magazines.
Bauer is in a better position than any other magazine publisher in Australia to address this. For years, under ACP ownership, they ignored the opportunity. If they do not provide newsagents with the same magazine supply controls afforded to our competitors soon more newsagents will leave the category.
This is a serious issue, one for which there is excellent data supporting the need for urgent attention and supporting my position that gross oversupply of magazines occurs harming newsagency businesses, making us less competitive. Every publisher who wants a strong newsagency channel will call for action on this. If you are a publisher – what are you doing about it?
Click on the image to see the supply and return data for yourself.
Here’s what retail newsagents need from magazine distributors Network Services and Gordon & Gotch to enable us to compete with supermarkets, petrol and convenience:
There are other things I could put on the list, as I have done before, but I wanted to keep this simple. This list of four items is easy for you. Technology could make steps 2 and 3 easy for us and you.
Our competitors have these benefits already. That newsagents do not makes us less competitive and less profitable.
Please indicate what you think about newsagency sales reps by clicking this link. I’ll publish the results later this week.
You have a marketing plan for your newsagency right? A marketing plan laying out activity by week and month for up to a year out. A marketing plan listing the flyers you’ll distribute, the ads you’ll run in the local newspaper, the local events you’ll participate in, the community groups you’ll sponsor and the major seasonal displays you’ll run in-store. A marketing plan targeting the goals you have for your business.
Every newsagent, every retailer, need to plan the marketing of their business well in advance like this, reaching outside their business to attract new shoppers.
What if your marketing plan is not working? What if your new ideas are not bringing in new shoppers? What then?
You need a marketing fallback plan, the one thing you know you can do to promote your business that will always work. It may be old and boring but it works. You need to know what your fallback plan is and you need to engage this if your new ideas are not kicking in for you. It could be an ad that’s worked in the local paper before or a stock take sale out of season or a VIP shopper event or an A-Frame sign stuck on top of your car. Whatever it is that works best for you in a year this has to be your fallback marketing idea.
It’s important you know what has worked in the past for your business and that you’re not afraid to run it again, when you need to.
Now if you don’t have a marketing plan for your newsagency at all – don’t tell anyone. Sneak off and create one. Every business needs one. It’s the roadmap for you chasing growth. I’m not talking a grand plan here, just something simple that lays out key activities for the next year.
I’d be happy to help anyone with this.
One way to demonstrate how serious you are about reducing the impact of employee theft on your newsagency is to create a theft policy and to publicise this with your team members.
Being open about theft, especially employee theft demonstrates it’s on your mind. While I am no psychologist, his could be enough to stop people who think they can get away with it. Remember, people steal because they think they can get away with it.
My experience is that newsagents tend to not manage to reduce theft. This makes our channel attracting to some. Theft reduction starts with decisions by the owners of the business.
Click here to download a copy of one theft policy I have used in the past.
I’m thrilled one of my team members found these book / magazine bookmarks as they’re ideal for the counter in a newsagency. The DC Comic brands of Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman work for a range of products we have in-store right now – not only magazines but greeting cards, partworks, gifts and cardboard cutouts.
I love that the product manufacturer noted on the display unit that they’re for books and magazines. Very clever.
We have the bookmarks at the counter for the next couple of weeks to introduce them to our customers.
I’ve put together a quest survey for newsagents about in-store sales reps – how you engage with them and their value. You can participate in the survey by clicking this link.
I have put together this survey because of a change by some suppliers in their sales rep strategy. I’ll publish the full results here for newsagents and suppliers to see sometime next week.
The publisher of Inside History magazine has tweeted their 3,231 twitter followers promoting the magazine and newsagents as the go to retailers and provided a link providing details on newsagents carrying the title. This type of support for newsagents is excellent.
Newsagents – check if you’re on the list and if so maybe give the title an extra push in appreciate of this support for you.
It’s great to see Performance Garage magazine promoting newsagents on Facebook and Twitter as the got to retailers for their latest issue.
Publishers so actively supporting us with marketing like this and promoting only in newsagents need to be supported by us. They are putting their money on the line for us and the least we could do it to return the favour with active promotion of the magazine.
Every magazine distributed exclusive through the newsagency channel is an opportunity for us to claw back the position as the magazine experts.
We’re promoting the new range of magbooks just in this week with two placements – this one next to our how to type magazines and a second placement above newspapers. In each case the full cover is on display to sell the title to shoppers. These small format titles don’t work in traditional magazine fixturing.
Magbooks are big in the UK and we’re seeing more of them. They offer us a range point of difference.
The lotto ticket price increase notice sent by Tatts to Golden Casket newsagents in Queensland for display to customers advises that the price increase is due to increased commission to retailers.
It’s not just Golden Casket agents who benefit from then increased commission. Tatts themselves benefit since they charge commission on tickets purchased online.
The Tatts communication should outline the costs of being an agent including the capital costs for the new fit out, training requirements, infrastructure costs, insurance and other costs. The commission increase in Queensland barely costs some of these costs faces by agents. But the Tatts notice does not explain this.
This notice reads as passive aggressive to me.
A supplier in respectful partnership would have created a more thoughtful document, one that did not finger the retailers the way Tatts does. They would have also not pushed interested people online – as the flyer does in two places.
The Tatts notice points shoppers to goldencasket.com for more information. The information is not easy to find.