Some newsagents like agency products because they attract traffic and traffic presents up-selling opportunities. Some suppliers argue that agency commission can be low because of up-selling opportunities for newsagents. I have created a two-question survey about up-selling and would appreciate your participation. Please click on the link to have your say.
Yesterday we received more copies of AWW cookbook titles for which we still had plenty of stock. Bauer would know our stock holding from their own data yet they sent us more stock. The only conclusion available is that they found extra stock and decided it’s better in newsagencies with us paying for it than leaving it on the warehouse floor and not generating cash-flow.
When Bauer purchased ACP the commentary was that they would be frugal managers of the business. To me they look mean in their dealings with newsagents – oversupplying more often than before. Their actions in the last six months have seen a return to the bad days of Network Services.
Network used to be pretty bad but through 2009, 2010, 2011 and into the start of 2012 they had, overall, improved. Now it’s worse than ever. New titles coming out when we have no room and more stock of existing titles without sales data justification.
Either the Bauer allocations system is a mess or they are deliberately treating newsagents appallingly and lumping us with stock such that it puts us at a commercial disadvantage.
Did anyone else get more AWW cookbook titles yesterday for which they still had stock?
In our case we early-returned.
We early returned the Girls of Zoo 2014 Calendar since it does not meet calendar margin requirements. Publishers need to understand that the 50% is the minimum reasonable margin for calendars and diaries with 60% preferable. Plus we want complete control over what we get. It’s what the major calendar publishers give us.
We are promoting New Idea Christmas & Holiday Essentials with the magazine, with food titles and in this impulse purchase display unit near the main sales counter. We’re chasing early engagement with our three locations. We’ll adjust this based on sales. Kudos to pacific as supply in in-line with what I’d expect based on previous sales.
Some newsagents like agency products because they attract traffic and traffic presents up-selling opportunities. Some suppliers argue that agency commission can be low because of up-selling opportunities for newsagents. I have created a two-question survey about up-selling and would appreciate your participation. Please click on the link to participate.
Your response will help inform suppliers about how important (or otherwise) up-selling opportunities are to you.
The report on McPhersons Media Group in Shepparton by Alan Kohler published by The Australian today is a terrific read about a newspaper publisher. This is a good publishing company with a track record of engagement with newsagents.
No matter whether you are selling products at full price or discounting them you need to sell them. This means you need to merchandise them so the offer is compelling, easy to shop and appealing enough to attract browsers. This is especially true for products of style – such as the Top Model range.
The photo is from a newsagency I visited a couple of weeks ago. I’ve faded the edges and made it black and white so the source is not obvious since I am using the image only to illustrate my point and not finger the business.
If I was discounting a premium line like Top Model, which I am not, I’d do a bundled deal like buy three for two or even two for one or something along those lines. A % off discount and stock dumped in crappy old dump bins disrespects the Top Model range and the business its in front of.
If something is not selling in your store you have to first off look at your own contributions to causing this situation. Just as we create our own success, we often create our own failure.
We did $17,000 in plush sales for the three months to September 30, 2013, up 57% on the same period in 2012. We will easily pass $80,000 in sales this year, delivering more than $50,000 in gross profit.
The growth is a direct result of an ever changing mix of product, our commitment to known brands and excellent shop-floor engagement.
We have created this success for ourselves, growing revenue for the newsagency from a category the channel has been engaged with for years but one which we have neglected. From a small inventory investment and energetic shop-floor management we have made plush a destination product for us.
I mention this in the context of the promotion Hubbed by the ANF and the questions and comments I have published here. For the same amount of money Hubbed wants newsagents to commit to its new agency offering a newsagent can get into Plush and chase a far bigger reward.
It is analysis in to categories like plush the ANF should research consider as part of due diligence when recommending business development strategy to newsagents. Embraced nationally, plush could be more valuable in terms of new traffic, revenue and return on investment to the channel than Hubbed. There are enough newsagents embracing it to be able to harvest good data, current data.
Whereas Hubbed requires a technology platform, marketing to drive traffic, focus on a single supplier and does not fit with products we currently sell, a product category like plush requires no technology, can be sourced from many suppliers, offers the opportunity for local customisation and fits with existing products: cards and gifts.
In pointing these things out I am not seeking to be critical of Hubbed. rather, I am drawing attention to broader consideration newsagents and their representative bodies could take into account when considering any new traffic generator. Before you make any business commitment you should take your time and undertake thorough research.
In my newsagency, plush is proving to be a game changer. Our success with plush is encouraging us in other areas. The pay-off is considerably more than our plush sales.
I reposted this Facebook post from Hallmark Cards Australia over the weekend and saw a considerable (25%) jump in Facebook likes for the Facebook page of my newsagency. In fact, it’s been the most popular Facebook so far. I think this is because it resonated with those who saw it – friends and friends of friends.
Sometimes the most successful social media posts are those that give people a smile or make them feel good without trying to sell anything.
Further to my post yesterday about the inaccurate report in The Australian, I am currently reviewing the data for the latest newsagency sales benchmark study and can see newsagents turning their businesses around, chasing their own success. What these stores are doing make for a good story and not the puff-piece The Australian ran yesterday.
The Australian yesterday ran a story about newsagents yesterday: Signs of hope after agents battered by print fallout. Written as a puff piece to promote Hubbed Connect, I say it is incomplete for these reasons:
There are many newsagents who have successfully reinvented their businesses, newsagents achieving growth in shopper traffic and growth in revenue on the back of their own entrepreneurial efforts. Why does The Australian not cover that?
Yes, retail is tough and being a newsagent is hard work. This article in The Australian is written to serve a commercial purpose and for that reason it is incomplete and inaccurate.
Tatts started rolling our barcodes per product over the last couple of days and failed to advise those who help newsagents deal with such technology changes.
For a company that spends considerable sums on rating the customer service newsagents provide this barcode roll out is poor form. The company will see consider this blog post to be unfair criticism. Hey, I did not decide on the barcode change and neglect to properly inform stakeholders. Tatts people need to judge their actions to the standard they judge their retailers.
Click on the image for supply and return detail to see for yourself the supply and return data for Puzzler Simply Code Crackers and tell me if you think I am wrong to complain about oversupply of this title by Network Services in one of my newsagencies.
Issue 1/5/13: Supply 5, returned 1. 5/6/13: 6/1. 3/7/13: 6/5. 1/8/13: 7/5. 29/8/13: 9/9. 26/9: 10.
The magazine allocations experts at Network have been increasing my supply without justification.
Talk any supplier to newsagents and they will tell newsagents don’t respond to emails and rarely engage with opportunities. They will tell you newsagents are time poor. One reason newsagents are time poor is because they have to deal with a magazine distribution model that burdens them in out of data business practices and because they have to spend time chasing errors that bleed them of cash in addition to time – like this creeping oversupply of Puzzler Simply Code Crackers.
Newsagents strike out at all magazines because of the oversupply of some.
When the pick over the caracas of this world, an anthropologist will discover that the magazine opportunity in our channel was killed off by very few behaving selfishly while those who should have been concerned sat on the sidelines, on their hands.
The coffin arrived and is now in place as the centrepiece of our Halloween 2013 display. Sadly, like all Halloween centrepieces, it will probably sell early.
We’re making the most of the opportunity and showing others in the centre how to do Halloween – we;re expecting their displays this year to be like last, very vanilla (boring).
Sales continue to be excellent – up on 2012.
Newsagents should watch the video story produced by The Australian Financial Review on magazines. It looks at educating advertisers about readership versus sales and tracks some of the factors driving sales down.
I’d like to have seen the story cover more areas that I think are playing into sales challenges: too much range in some areas (too many imported titles), poor content and a supply model that disadvantages newsagents over other magazine retailers. I’d also like to have seen more publishers represented.
We were grossly oversupplied with a bunch of new small-format Puzzler branded titles last week. Not only did we get a bunch of new titles we did not need to satisfy shopper interest in puzzles but we got way too many. Ten copies of a new title is too many.
Crossword and puzzle magazine publishers using Network Services should be asking why Network did this. from where I sit this action can only dilute attention for existing puzzle and crossword titles. For example, what do Lovatts think about this – a bunch of new titles competing directly with their mini books and distributed by the same company.
We’re short on room so on the weekend I decided to early return the new Puzzler titles. A better approach would have been for Network to give newsagents control over whether they took on these titles and if they did, the volume they desired.
This is a good example of the broken magazine distribution model in Australia that magazine publishers and distributors enable.
Footnote: occasionally when I write a post about the magazine distribution model I think why bother? Nothing changes right? The thing that keeps me chronicling just some of what newsagents have to put up with is that one day someone who can drive genuine change will realise the harm done by a few to what should be the most important route to market for Australian magazine publishers.
We have a spinner packed with Peppa Pig product on our lease line as I have noted here previously. On Saturday I saw the importance of this stand in attracting shoppers to the business who might otherwise not have shopped with us.
Standing outside the newsagency I watched as a young girl dragged mum, dad and an older sister to look at Peppa. She pointed to the sign on top of the spinner. She bought a Peppa and the older sister bought another plush item. The parents bought two greeting cards.
Sometimes we don’t need a big billboard display to attract shoppers. Sometimes, easy to see well-located placement of a recognisable brand can attract traffic that otherwise you may not have attracted.
Footnote: our discount vouchers helped us maximise the opportunity from this family. Total spend was in excess of $35. The team working in this newsagency created this success for us.
Every car owned by a newsagency business or owned by the owner of a newsagency should have a full rear window ad promoting the business. The cost is low and the space is free. Check out Autoskin, Sign A Rama and similar companies.
If you have people working in your newsagency who disagree with the direction of the business and or changes you are making then you need to act. Either they wholeheartedly support your moves or they go. Having people remain working for you when they disagree with what you are doing can harm the business and distract from the changes you want made.
It’s one thing to have a robust debate about changes you may make and another entirely to face disruptive challenges to every move you make.
I was talking to a relatively new newsagent this week (they’re six months in) about the challenges of a long-term employee of the business who questions almost every move they make, complains about them behind their back and even undoes changes on the weekend if the owners are away. I told them to issue a written warning to the full-time employee with a view to termination if their behaviour does not change.
The employee in this business was being passive-agressive to the new owner and exerting more control over the business than they should. Given that the business has less that 15 employees the owner has options for a faster resolution of what is a toxic situation.
Newsagents need to act as the owners they are. They need to lead the business and run it from a position of authority.
While I welcome debate about change in any business I own, once a decision is made I expect 100% support from all team members.
