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

Month: August 2013

Bad news for James Bond DB5 partwork customers as publisher runs out of magazine

Check out the letter provided by the publisher for part 65 of the loved James Bond DB5 partwork collection. The publisher says they have run out of magazines! Seriously! The publisher has run out of magazines.

When I heard this I thought it was a joke, a good joke to play on a dedicated partwork collector. What a hilarious joke on the fans obsessed with this car!

But then I realised it wasn’t a joke. The publisher really has run out of magazines. Instead of the magazine they provide a letter pointing customers to a page on their website. Does Australia not have printers? Does this buisness not engage in planning? Surely they would have known some weeks in advance in which time they could have printed something? They had enough time to print a letter, in colour.

Some avid collectors will not want to continue with the series. I expect some will ask for their money back – and there is a precedent for this. I understand that the distributor has already been asked the question abut this.

There will be newsagents who will say this is another reason to NOT offer partworks. It will be hard to disagree with them. This mess over issue 65 of the James Bond DB5 will generate considerable challenges for newsagents.  Someone somewhere is responsible. It’s disappointing that the Australian importer did not have the courage to print a name and phone number on their letter. This shows they do not accept responsibility.

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magazine distribution

News Limited expands reach of free mX newspaper

Mediaweek yesterday reported on the expansion of the reach of the mX free daily newspaper:

Commuter brand mX has expanded its distribution in Sydney with the publication now available in Parramatta’s central business district.

Each day from Monday to Friday, 5,000 copies of mX are now distributed in the area.

Publisher of mX Fiona Mellor said that consumer and advertiser demand had driven the expansion: “We are following the urban sprawl. Our strategy is to be a commuter’s friend in CBD areas, engaging young professionals each day. It was critical for us to expand to Parramatta as Sydney’s second largest CBD to reach this active and captive audience.

“In addition to our recently launched mX app, we are making mX’s cheeky, irreverent and mostly uplifting writing style accessible to more Australians,” Mellor said.

This follows an expansion to Caulfield in Melbourne and Toowong in Brisbane earlier this year.

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Media disruption

Newspaper era over – Barack Obama

In an interview distributed through Amazon, Barack Obama declares the newspaper era over The Hill reports. The AFR also has the story.  Here is some of what Obama is quoted as saying:

“You see that in every profession. You see that in journalism. It used to be there were local newspapers everywhere.

“If you wanted to be a journalist, you could really make a good living working for your hometown paper.

“Now you have a few newspapers that make a profit because they’re national brands, and journalists having to scramble to piece together a living, in some cases as freelancers and without the same benefits that they had in a regular job for a paper.”

“What’s true in journalism is true in manufacturing and is true in retail,” Mr Obama said.

“What we have to recognise is that those old times aren’t coming back.”

That’s right, the old times are not coming back. The future for all disrupted businesses is to to adopt to today’s reality and to create tomorrow’s opportunity.

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Newsagency challenges

Gift opportunity in Melbourne this weekend

Melbourne will be the city to be in for the next week with several related trade shows on covering gifts, homewares and related products. While the main show in town is the Gift Fair (the biggest of its type in Australia), the Home and Giving Fair is a place where you tend to see innovative products beyond the usual for the gift space.  The Life Instyle event is also interesting in terms of innovative products.

I know of newsagents who will be in Melbourne for five days to get around these events. Some will be there to be inspired and others will be there to buy up stock for the next six months or so. Some come with an amount to spend while others will buy on impulse.

The average spend I hear newsagents planning on spending is between $10,000 and $20,000. I mention this to provide context for newsagents who have never been to a gift fair before.

In 2008 I wrote here about the importance of gift fairs for newsagents and some at the time criticised that. History has shown that these gift fairs have become more important than any other trade event for newsagents.

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Gifts

All Books For Less in administration

T.B. CLARK BOOK BARGAINS PTY LTD, the company operating the All Books For Less retail group, has gone into external administration. Some stores are closed and some have already been taken over by other operators.  This will be good news for newsagents located near All Books For Less outlets.

Stand alone book retailing is tough. There is an opportunity for books in newsagencies.

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Book retailing

News promoting digital subscriptions

While News Limited is promoting print and digital packaged subscriptions, it feels like the real focus is the digital product since this has a considerably lower fulfilment cost for them. I’m guessing these ads are running in other News capital city titles around the country.

Encouraging migration from print to digital is what I’d be doing if I was News.

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Media disruption
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