I don’t mind that the latest People’s Friend special is bagged because it won’t hurt sales whatsoever. This is not a magazine that is browsed. I watch people who buy magazines and those buying this title pick it up and come to the counter.
I also like that it’s bagged with two gifts that are appropriate to the People’s Friend reader – a diary and a pen. The $11.99 price won’t hurt sales.
We are promoting the latest issue of AWW, out yesterday, with newspapers as well as in the usual location. We are chasing as many early sales as possible to try and get above our mediocre sell through of under 50%. With a decay curve that sees 85% of sales in the first week and with this first week being disrupted, we have a lot of stock to shift in a few broken up days.
We put a display unit of Lucky Elephants with Christmas gifts late last week. In 24 hours we had sold almost all of them. We expected them to sell but not so quickly. It’s a good ‘problem’ to encounter and a reminder that retail is about constantly trying new products, especially products you would not buy yourself.
With Christmas holiday migration under way we are seeing more shoppers from interstate. I was in a newsagency on the weekend and was delayed by an altercation between a sales person and someone from interstate arguing about getting VIP points for a $100+ purchase. The shopper argued that if the business was happy to give points they should get the discount because they would not be back in the shop.
The next customer in line, the customer before me, was given the pitch about signing up for the loyalty program and they had questions.
Efficiency in handling transactions at the counter is vital at Christmas. Treating all customers the same is also vital, this includes ensuring that all customers have access to the same deals.
The same day I shopped this other newsagency I served a customer in my newsagency who received a $3.00 discount voucher from a purchase of boxed cards. She commented that she was from Sydney and wouldn’t be back.I suggested she could spend it right away. Ten minutes later she purchased close to $100 worth of our Christmas chocolates. You got me she said with a smile. Yes, we did.
While I understand the value of building a view of shopper loyalty, I am getting more economic value from the more immediate and more easily understood discount vouchers.
Mark Day writing in The Australian recently criticised Bauer Media for repurposing overseas content and making it appear that a story which occurred in the UK actually occurred in Australia, in Redfern. Mumbrella first wrote about this. Their report is detailed and fascinating.
Bauer Media’s real life magazine Take 5 has been accused of misleading its readers after suggesting the story of a British “crooked copper” who used the police database to access information about women in order to sleep with them, actually occurred in Australia.
The magazine implies to readers the offences took place in NSW.
The German-owned publisher – which has been increasing the amount of syndicated international copy it uses – claims the change was a typographical error. Bauer claims that the location of “Redruth, Cornwall” was accidentally changed to “Redfern, NSW” because the names were similar.
While I wouldn’t regard Take 5 as a credible news title, what happened here is a new low.
We are promoting the How to Stay Anonymous Online magbook in a couple of places to try and tap into growing anxiousness relating to online security. With more people quitting Facebook and this being covered (somewhat gleefully) by mainstream media, it’s a good time for this title – hence our shining a spotlight on it.
A customer yesterday wanted to buy the Melway street directory but they wanted us to match the K-mart price. K-Mart had sold out. Our price was $4.00 more. I explained we don’t match prices but we do have a discount voucher opportunity in place for $$ off her next purchase. She rolled her eyes.
It turns out K-Mart had sold out and this was the last Christmas gift she had to purchase. While I could have discounted, I resisted because I don;t want to get caught up in the price matching game. She bought the street directory and then two boxes of cards in a second purchase.
I think price matching marketing is lazy. It can also be deceptive. Good retailers will offer a competitive price for their product / service offering. Poor retailers will say we’ll match and then either sell product you cannot easily compare and or discount to ride off the traffic generated by the marketing of others.
Government owned Australia Post outlets in a couple of shopping centres I visited yesterday were closed, leaving last minute stamp customers having to go to newsagencies for stamps. In one of my stores we only had full price stamps. One customer ripped into us about this – what kind of newsagency are you where you don’t sell Christmas stamps? The kind that offers stamps as a courtesy service when the post office is closed is what I wanted to say. Instead I gave off a lame smile and a shrug of ym shoulders. The customer grumbled their way out of the shop. I was pretty happy when a customer after them looked behind them and said Grinch.
Government owned post offices should have been open yesterday.
I put Your Garden in this impulse purchase location on the weekend and shoppers bought the title. I rate this free standing single title floor unit as the most effective I have used in a newsagency. Choose the right title, place the unit in the right location and you can achieve better sales than if you were to do a display on a power end. Being tactical can drive magazine sales.
One thing Australian shoppers think about Australian newsagency businesses is that we don’t change. One way to push back on this perception and to help your team enjoy the business more is to provide a refresh of staff uniforms. For a couple of weeks get people wearing a different t-shirt, for example. You could go with something fairly traditional like in the example I have created or go crazy with a t-shirt like: A grown man can never have too many soft toys.
Choose a caption that promotes part of your business in a fresh way. Your people also get to wear something different to work. Plus you are promoting your business in a fresh way – that may get it more noticed.
The keys are: be really out there with what you put on the t-shirt, everyone must be involved, have fun, target a specific business outcome, and, most important: get everyone in the business on side before you pay for the t-shirts to be printed. Remember, at its core, this is a business marketing idea.
The strength of and value derived from the team working in your newsagency will depend on the leadership you provide. The best leadership you can provide in small business retail is being present with team members, working alongside them, giving them opportunities to learn from you.
Too often newsagents try and lead their businesses from the back room. Too often I see an old-school structure when a small business works better with a flat structure.
The best way to communicate how you want something done is to show it being done. The best way to share your vision is to work at implementing it alongside team members. The best way to show the level of customer service you want is for you to deliver it. The best way to show how you want your team members treated is for you to treat them this way.
Being present and working your business with your team offers excellent opportunities to good leaders.
In Manila last week I took a good look at this magazine store within a store at the Landmark department store at Makati. It offered more titles than your average newsagency – 1,000 I would say. Most were older issues, making me wonder if they purchased returns in bulk. All titles were bagged, blocking browsing.
I like how they displayed the magazine titles. Someone with a special interest could browse these racks, meaning the vendor could drive a space efficiency level far greater than Australian newsagents get with traditional and even the more recent magazine fixturing. With floorspace our largest single cost we need to be looking at all display options – including what I saw last week.
Click on the image for a large version. be sure to look at the counter at the front – it’s like the operator built a fortress for themselves.
We’ve received terrific feedback from shoppers this Christmas for promotions offering a range of common-themed hospitality related products – like this Christmas range with bags, mugs, placemats, serving platters and the like.
We keep common-themed products together so the complete story can be told. This drives sales. While I understand this is basic retail management, I mention it as there are many newsagents new to retail.
we do the same with brands. For example, we have all Peppa Pig product together: plush, stationery, books and magazines. Online does this well and we need to get better at it.
We’re seeing excellent year on year sales of plush this Christmas season. While some sales have been to customers visiting to purchase cards or gifts, others have been to customers who know us as a plush destination. This is thrilling.
Achieving $750 and more in a day in plush sales is wonderful. Achieving it day in day out in the run down to Christmas is excellent. We could have achieved more had we not sold out of some lines – but that’s a good problem to have this close to Christmas.
We have created the plush results for ourselves as part of our business plan from mid 2012. Not only the sales ahead of plan, the net new traffic generated by the category is ahead of plan. It’s terrific seeing the business plan deliver these results.
The success with plush is a reason I prefer to focus on being a retailer in my businesses as opposed to being an agent. People are coming to us because of decisions we have made and actions we have taken. They are coming to us for us and not for a product or service over which we have little or no control as to where they get it, how much we make from it and or how much someone else promotes it.
The more of my business over which I have control the better for the future of my business.
Footnote: the photo reflects another reason for success with this category – our team creates displays that attract shoppers from within the shop. This line of colourful bears toward the back of the shop draws people further into the business. We’re always thinking beyond front of store displays. Attention to visual merchandising and product placement mid way through and at the rear of the store are just as important as the front window.
In case you missed it vintage is in and this magazine we found from IPS is a welcome addition to our magazine range. Vintage Made is an excellent special-interest title. It’s perfect for magazine specialists like newsagencies. We have it in women’s interests but we could equally place it as part of a range of vintage-themed titles. It’s titles like this that can help in drive magazine sales and our relevance within niches.
Not content with running a flawed magazine supply model, magazine distributor Gordon and Gotch today emailed newsagents reminding us to pay November accounts by today. If only the company was as attentive to fairly supplying newsagents.
This email request from Gotch reflects disappointing double-standards. All newsagents want from the company is fair and equitable magazine supply. Gotch, on the other hand, wants on time payment for what is often unfair and inequitable supply.
While one could argue that the money is due today, there is also the consideration of gross oversupply and the other, expensive, challenges of the magazine supply model.
I am shocked at the news out of the US that Target stored over the counter purchases customer credit card details including name, number, expiry and CVV in their POS software – and that around 40 million records were stolen in a security breach experienced by the giant retailer.
My shock is that Target kept all this information about over the counter customers in their POS system. If I was a Target customer with my card data now in the hands of criminals I’d be angry at the retailer for poor data management.
I know that newsagency software from Tower Systems, the company I own, does not store this information for over the counter purchases. Customers purchasing at a newsagency using, for example, the Tyro integrated EFTPOS, the newsagency software does not have any visibility of or access to customer credit card details. This arms-length approach is far more secure than the approach taken by Target.
While newsagents can turn on a facility to collect and store credit card details separately, they would need to take this action – and most don’t. Even then, however, the data is encrypted and the CVV is not stored as added protection.
Even though newsagency software offers better security over card numbers than the POS used by target, what has happened to them and their customers this week is a reminder for us to be vigilant with customer data.
We have been building our sales of the tennis Australian Open program for the last four years and then this year some genius or some genius process at Network Services cut us back to our 2010 supply number. Last year we sold 26 copies out of 28 supplied. Talk about a screw up. While I am sure the allocations experts at Network will have their excuses, we are not interested. All we want is reasonably supply based on the accurate sales data we provide. That they cannot get this simple thing right shows how useless they are at their job. Now we go on the hunt for more stock, we have to jump through their pathetic hoops in the hope that they allow us to make the money we could have made selling this title.
For the record here is the supply / return data:
Idiots.
The latest issue of Australian Cupcakes & Inspirations has not sold for us and the only difference I can see is that this issue is bagged. We can often sell out of this title, not this time around though. This is a title people like to browse – to see if the decorations covered are of interest to them. How have sales of this issue been for others?
Both The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald had their front and back pages covered yesterday with a four-page house ad promoting digital and print subscriptions – with print being pitched as the add-on loss-leader. So much for news selling news. The SMH hours ad itself was partially obscured by another ad for Notre Dame Uni – pushing the news further back.
In a newsagency recently I heard a staff member complaining to a colleague behind the counter about the roster, the weather someone at home. I was several metres from the counter. Shoppers in the newsagency could hear too.
Unhappy staff are a turn off for shoppers and for the leaders of the business keen to create a happy place where people enjoy themselves.
We need to hire happy people and train them in their tasks rather than hire skilled people and hope to train them to be happy – if that is a choice you face.
Being happy in a newsagency can be a challenge some days with customers complaining about the smallest thing, some suppliers treating you appallingly, you discovering how much theft has cost you recently, your bank rejecting you banking a fake $50 note … and so on. Yes, there are many opportunities for us to be unhappy. This is another reason we need to surround ourselves with cheerful / happy people.
But there is plenty we see and hear in our newsagencies that makes us happy – if we look for it. If our natural disposition (as the owner and leader) is to be unhappy, we need to push back on that urge, we need to choose to be happy. Surrounding yourself with happy people is key to this.
We need to show unhappy people the door and encourage them to go work somewhere else.
In keeping with tradition, I’m posting here new artwork for A4 and A4 Boxing Day sale posters for anyone to use.
Click here for the A4 PDF.
Click here for the A3 PDF.
Boxing day is massive in some states. We have purchased product especially for the two-week sale event that starts December 26. It can be as valuable as the two weeks before Christmas.
I was fortunate to see a balloon outpost yesterday where there have some excellent crestings on display as Christmas items and also promoting their creativity in terms of what they can create using balloons.
This amazing free-standing tall Santa is just one of many products they had on display for people to purchase and take away from the outpost. If I was doing balloon displays in a shop this Santa would make for an excellent window feature. He’s what drew me to the outpost in the first place.
This Christmas tree is another terrific Christmas-themed balloon product that I am sure would sell easily almost anywhere. It’s something I’d like to have the space and time to try next year. What I saw from the outpost has shown me that maybe this is the way to go since the margin is good.
