Odd NW supply
One of my stores received a close to ten times the supply of NW that we’d usually receive while another received less than half their usual sales rate leaving me wondering if the allocations staff changes at Bauer are to blame.
Oversupply of AWW royal baby one-shot
We have been grossly oversupplied with the AWW royal baby one-shot out today. Not just in my newsagencies but in several I spoke with – too much stock based on any reasonable assessment of what sells in these businesses including sales of AWW itself.
The title is also late to market with other royal baby one shots how and grabbing sales for weeks now.
Newsagents are also frustrated at the last day of the month issue.
Despite gross oversupply, we are giving this title support with display at the entrance to our magazine department. We’re giving it until Thursday. If we see no uptake by then we’re sending everything back.
Bauer should give us the ability to set our own supply rather than lumbering us with 40 or more copies that will never sell.
Taking a closer look at the Australia Post bill-payment parcel-post kiosks
Newsagents looking at getting into bill payment or parcel sending should visit an Australia Post corporate store and use one of their next-generation self-serve kiosks. They are easy to use – even for people who are not comfortable with technology.
These kiosks mirror the experience of kiosks in supermarkets, making them easier to understand and less intimidating. They are very different to the kiosks being proposed to newsagents by Hubbed. Whereas these Australia Post kiosks are completely self-service, the Hubbed kiosk required the customer to engage at the main counter from what I understand.
At an Australia Post kiosk you can scan your bill and complete the payment with cash or a card right there. The same with sending a parcel. No human interaction is required.
It’s clear Australia Post has developed these kiosks to address customer flow, to free their staff of work they don’t need to do whereas the Hubbed offer as it currently sits does not address this.
The kiosks in the photo are near one of my newsagencies. I’ve watched people using them several times now. Based on what I have seen at the kiosks and the reduced line for the main counter in this Australia Post outlet I’d say the kiosks are a game changer.
Click on the image for a larger version.
Coles in Hawthorn shows local businesses how to connect with the local community
The Coles supermarket in Glenferrie Road in Hawthorn has for weeks of the AFL finals shown a local connection better than many small businesses on the strip. In addition to this window with the team’s colours, through the store and at the other entrance they were supporting the local team. This national retailer trumped many local retailers in promoting a local connection. Good on them.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: educate your customers
Products in a typical newsagency offer excellent customer education opportunities. Leverage these by running an in-store education event with a local expert and get better known as the go to retailer for these items.
Consider an education day or evening on these topics:
- Knitting.
- Quilting.
- Papercraft.
- Balloon displays.
- Dog or cat care.
- Fine dining in your home.
- Spring garden tips.
- Better handwriting.
- Choosing perfect words for your cards.
- Hair styling tips.
- How to make your wedding memorable in a good way.
- The best travel destinations.
- Learn how to di Sudoku and make your brain healthier.
- Understanding tattoo art.
This list is just a start. I have suggested topics for which you could enlist support from a local business to help run and promote your training. I am sure that appropriate suppliers could connect with you on this project too.
The right education event promoted well enough in advance should introduce your business to new customers. It should also broaden your network of business contacts.
I’d suggest you plan the education sessions in advance and consider one a quarter in the first year. Maybe host two in a day. One in the afternoon and one in the evening. At least give people timing options. Keep the session brief and if space is an issue hand out tickets. Have giveaways and handouts. Make it worth the while of those who attend.
Every newsagency could offer educational events.
Sunday newsagency management tip: take control of your magazines
Magazine supply is regarded by newsagents in Australia as the single most important issue to resolve yet many newsagents to not use the tools at their disposal to take on the challenge.
Good newsagency software offers magazine management reports covering:
- Magazine Sell Through Rates.
- Supplier Performance Comparison.
- Magazine Cash-Flow Performance.
- Non-Performing Titles.
- MPA Magazine Performance Tracking.
These reports and others arm newsagents with evidence of magazine oversupply and undersupply yet newsagents rarely reach for the reports when they complain about magazine supply. Instead, they rely on a cash-flow challenge indicating the problem or they rely on the work they see on the mornings of processing magazines into the business.
By not relying on magazine oversupply and undersupply evidence newsagents are not resourced to put their case and this, I think, is one reason nothing has been done about the treatment of newsagents in relation to magazine supply for decades.
Ignorance among newsagents and associations facilitates magazine oversupply and undersupply.
No association or newsagent has used reliable data to make the case in an appropriate forum to my knowledge. Why? Because they are ignorant or they think it’s too hard or both.
Any newsagent running good newsagency software can, in next to no time, document the fairness of supply of magazines to their business. This documentation could be invaluable in making a case to an appropriate forum through which real change could be required of any offending magazine distributor.
Taking action on magazine supply begins with newsagents using accurate data from their business. Individual newsagents and the channel more widely must treat this as a management issue if they want it resolved.
Calendars a good use of magazine fixtures
I’m helping a newsagency reconfigure their floor space and until they can get a mini-shop fit done they have been using old magazine fixtures to sell calendars. Calendar sales for September are more than double what they achieved for September in 2012. This works even better if you can locate calendars near the appropriate category of magazines for the calendar subject.
Loss of Ticketek affected our magazine sales
As I wrote here in June, we had Ticketek taken off us when Westfield took over our centre – Westfield did a deal years back to take over Ticketek in their centres. Anyway, this past week we have seen a cost of losing Ticketek. Our sales of the AFL Grand Final Record are down by 75% – sicne we’re not selling AFL tickets. The GP loss is in excess of $300.
I’m sure there are other losses from add-on sales, not just the AFL Grand Final Record.
Maximising margin in your newsagency
I have seen several situations recently where newsagents have been able to increase the price of popular products without any adverse effect on the volume sold.
In one case the newsagent increase the price of a range of plush from $7.95 to $9.95, in another they increased their cardboard price from $1.50 to $2.20 and in another they increased the price of a popular counter line from $4.40 to $4.95.
In the newsagency where they increased the selling price of cardboard they have added at least $3,640 to their bottom line in a full year as a result of their price move. No extra work, no lost sales – just extra profit.
My question for newsagents reading this is: what prices could you increase without impacting sales volume? If there are items then do it! The ideal items are those others cannot easily purchase elsewhere.
This is not something to procrastinate about. In fact, the timing right now is ideal with the lower exchange rate and rising labour and rent costs you have justification for increasing prices.
So, what prices could you increase without impacting sales volume?
Attracting shoppers with licenced product at the front of the newsagency
Check out the terrific display created yesterday on the lease line facing into the shopping mall by one of the guys on our team.
While created to promote the licenced – Batman, Spiderman & Superman – money-boxes, I love that the display has been built including greeting cards, magazines and plush covering the same licences. Very smart.
I love the use of coloured paper to visually support the products on show.
This is an excellent display in the ideal location and at the best possible time (school holidays) for this product. The display is good example of how we can attract new traffic to our newsagencies.
If you click on the image you’ll see a bigger version of the photo.
Excellent AFL Grand Final promotion
I was in a newsagency yesterday and saw terrific AFL Grand Final engagement. They had several displays in-store, covering two entrances, with different balloon displays available for purchase.
I like that they had these packages ready to go and that they had them placed near their AFL licenced greeting cards, plush and calendars. Excellent opportunistic retail activity.
Promoting AWW 80th birthday issue
In addition to tactical placement – which is working well – we are promoting the 80th birthday issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly mid way through the store with some of the collateral from Bauer on show. It’s rare for us to promote a magazine in this way as we’re not a fan of what I’d call billboard displays. We’ve made an exception because the 80th birthday is pretty special.
We plan to keep this up for another week.
Taking another look at the Hubbed Connect offer to newsagents
I have been asked to look at another contract offered by Hubbed to a newsagent considering the Connect Lite product. The contract I have seen is version 6. The last one I saw was version 3.
While the ANF, the national newsagent association, should provide independent assessment and commentary on the Hubbed offer, it is unable to do so given its 5% shareholding in the Hubbed business and other apparent commercial ties with Hubbed. VANA and NANA, the Victorian and NSW/ACT state newsagent associations respectively, do not currently recommend Hubbed to their members.
While the latest version of the Hubbed contract addresses some of the questions I have raised, questions do remain:
- Territory. Hubbed has no restrictions on who they can sign to offer the service.
- Separate agreements. There is no one agreement to cover all matters, costs and obligations related to Hubbed. I see this as a considerable problem.
- Equipment. Newsagents must obtain the equipment Hubbed requires from Hubbed unless some other agreement is reached. The Hubbed Contract is provided with a Finance application form for Northern Finance but there is no indication as to the terms of the finance agreement. Newsagents are only given access to the “Final Leasing Agreement” once they return an executed Hubbed Contract. Why are not all agreements completed at the same time and why do they not all run for the same term?
- Financial Services. Newsagents taking on Hubbed are directed to use Moneytech Services to be able to use Hubbed. The Moneytech is a third agreement that is apparently required.
- Sales target. The Contract and associated schedule 1 are less than clear on sales targets.
- Insurance. Newsagents need to take out insurance for parcels and equipment.
- Responsibilities of the agent. Newsagents have to erect signs if required by Hubbed – there does not appear to be an opportunity to negotiate on this. The price you charge is set by Hubbed and you cannot vary it. You have to notify the sale of your business 60 days in advance. You have to give 60 days notice if you plan to move your shop.
- Termination. While Hubbed or the agent can terminate the agreement at 90 days noticeI am told newsagents cannot terminate the equipment finance agreement.
- Financial guarantee. Part of the Hubbed agreement requires newsagents to provide a financial guarantee to the Hubbed Financial Partner.
- POS computer. Newsagents must provide access to a POS capable of connecting to the Hubbed control PC (schedule 1) but there is no explanation in the contract or elsewhere as to what this actually is.
Now I’ll turn to the business case for Connect Lite. The Connect Lite services are listed in the contract (Schedule 3) as gift cards, parcels and bill payment. We have gift cards today and we can access parcels without cost. The only new service here is bill payment and from where I sit I see very little upside in Connect Lite from Hubbed – certainly not enough upside to set aside space in-store, relinquish control over key aspects of my business and commit $7 a day.
Schedule 3 lists parcel services but newsagents can access these today at no cost through the industry owned N Parcel and Parcel Point. Schedule 3 also lists advertising services. I can’t see any value in this for the newsagency business.
The decision faced by newsagents for Connect Lite is in excess of $7,500. This is how newsagents have to approach it – as a $7,500 decision. Will you make three or four times this back? Will you make more from the space and time allocation from this investment than you could by being a retailer and bringing in new products to drive more retail traffic to your business.
The folks at Hubbed and the ANF will probably say that I am against their offer and am talking down their plan to help newsagents. The Hubbed offer as being put to newsagents today is incomplete. There is insufficient information with which to make an informed decision about its appropriateness for a newsagency. The ANF conflict is profound. The Hubbed business model as currently pitched is flawed.
I remain concerned at the apparent lack of due diligence undertaken by the ANF and its Directors both into the Hubbed commercial offer to newsagents and the viability to the typical newsagency business of the Hubbed services and the underlying cost of offering these.
Newsagents could achieve a considerably better return by investing in their business as retailers and not as agents.
As I have noted previously, I’d like to see a public debate to test the business model and the newsagent contractual arrangements at the core of the model. If Hubbed is as good as the ANF Hubbed partnership says it is then it would emerge from the debate in a stronger position. I would appreciate an opportunity to be proven wrong on this.
Stunning 80th birthday issue of AWW
The latest issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly looks stunning. The cover shot is ideal for the magazine. The purple theming on the cover and supporting collateral works too. Kudos to the people behind this.
We have AWW in the usual location as well as featured with weeklies for the first week of the on-sale. In a couple of my newsagencies we are promoting it at the counter as the magazine of the week.
Note in the photo the placement of the AWW puzzle title above AWW. This always works for us.
Promoting Girlfriend and 1D
We’re promoting the latest Girlfriend magazine and One Direction products from Pacific Magazines with this aisle end display facing the dance floor. We also have the titles being promoted in the usual location for Girlfriend. While some say the 1D train has left the station, their current concert tour is getting plenty of media coverage. I’m happy to give these products a crack.
Making the AFL pitch
The promotion of Hallmark AFL licenced greeting cards, Beanie Kids and the Grand Final Record at the front of the business on the lease line has been working for us in terms of sales and being a talking point in the lead up to Saturday’s game. I like being able to offer commonly licenced product from several suppliers. The Grand Final puts giving AFL themed products as gifts on the radar.
Is Tatts applying different rules to Coles outlets?
Two people have told me that Coles staff received as little as a couple of hours training in the sale of Tatts lottery tickets. If true, this makes a mockery of the training requirements imposed on newsagents by Tatts.
Less training coupled with lower corporate image branding requirements and, I suspect, no up front payment provides Coles outlets with a lower barrier to entry than faced by newsagents when taking on Tatts products. Indeed, the costs of establishing a new Tatts outlet in a Coles location based on the trial model illustrate a considerable financial disadvantage for newsagents.
I’d expect the difference in the obligations of Coles taking on Tatts compared to a newsagency to be something taken up with the new federal government given their declared interest in the market power of Coles and Woolworths. I would also not be surprised to see one or two newsagents take the matter up with state based small business forums where a complaint could be easily prosecuted.
The photo shows a lottery ticket sold by one of the new Coles outlets selling Tatts products in Victoria. It’s now like the 7-Eleven tickets. This Coles ticket appears to be printed on the regular Tatts printer. A newsagent got the ticket when a customer wanted it checked.
UK crossword titles take space from Australian product
I’ve been helping out a newsagent recently and have been surprised at the volume of imported crossword titles they receive. Indeed the space taken by the UK titles limits what the business can do to properly display other titles. The imported titles don’t sell that well yet the distributor continues to supply – taking up space and labour – reducing the opportunity for the newsagent to better manage the business.
I’m pretty sure the folks at Lovatts will respond to this as they have in the past been frustrated at the impact imported titles have on the ability of newsagents to professional display their Australian product.
I don’t want to promote newspaper subscriptions
I wasn’t surprised to see the newsagent ripping off the home delivery stickers from the masthead of The Australian newspaper yesterday. As a retail-only newsagency the business makes nothing from migrating a customer from over the counter to home delivery so why promote it on product they sell? While there could be an argument that they are only an agent, a smarter approach from the publisher would be to commercial engage with the retail-only business.
Vintage caravans popular on magazine covers
The cover of the latest issue of Australian Country includes a nice shot of a vintage caravan. While I prefer the stylings of Vintage Caravan Magazine – it’s the world’s first such specialist magazine – this issue of Australian Country is a good addition to in-store vintage promotions.
Touch Networks launches paysafe card for safe online payments
Newsagents will have access to the paysafecard, a new product launched by Touch Networks for sale to shoppers wanting to shop online safely. While the margin is slim, 2.5%, there is no stock carrying cost. here are some details from the product announcement sent today:
paysafecard is a prepaid voucher that lets you pay safely online. Prepaid means that you purchase paysafecard from sales outlets worldwide and you will receive a 16-digit PIN. Online payments are made by entering this paysafecard PIN on websites where paysafecard is accepted. paysafecard is safer than other payment methods because you don’t have to enter any personal information or your bank or credit card details when paying online.
Any newsagent can access Touch through their computer system.
Are internal changes at Bauer the cause of magazine supply increases to newsagents?
I am told that a reason for the increase in supply of Bauer magazine titles to newsagents beyond what is justifiable in the sales data has its roots in a change in how allocations are managed for these titles.
ACP Magazines used to do their own allocations for ACP titles and had done so for many years – closely aligning supply to net sales. Undersupply was a common complaint by newsagents for ACP titles.
Since the Bauer takeover of ACP, I am told there has been a structural change affecting supply allocation. They have split circulation management into two areas, separating the circulation manager from those analysing sales data. Circulation reports to finance. This change sees less focus on sales data and it is this that is resulting in newsagents receiving a significant increase in supply of Bauer magazine titles.
If my information is right and these changes have occurred at Bauer and they are feeding the consequences we are experiencing in our newsagencies then we as a channel need to consider a plan of action. Oversupply at the current level is commercially unfair to newsagents.
Newsagents who are not in the elite Connections Emerald group have to return full copies of unsold stock most of the time. This acts as a penalty on oversupply, taking cash from businesses as a result of an action over which they have no control.
With the staffing changes at Bauer it is no wonder people from inside and recently departed from the company are talking.
OzLotteries promotes 30 million Powerball win
OzLotteries, the online lottery agent, is set to experience even more growth as they actively promote selling the winning ticket in the winning Powerball ticket in last week’s $30 million jackpot. Their email to their customer database is appropriately happy. That you can buy a ticket in the next draw in a couple of clicks direct from the email reinforces the ease with which one can purchase lottery tickets online.
As any newsagent selling a lottery ticket winning millions will know, it can dramatically increase sales. This $30 million connected with OzLotteries will boost their sales – especially with their excellent marketing.
Elle off to a slow start
Elle, the new title launched by Bauer this week is off to a slow start based on the twelve newsagencies I have spoken with. each is promoting the title in two locations including one feature position. Three reported sales and nine none. I suspect the launch media campaign is yet to kick in. Also, we received very little in the way of collateral with which to promote the title or place it on the shop floor – like the stands leading to the checkout that I saw in a Woolworths in Sydney Monday night.