The window display promoting Valentine’s Day in Kikki.K stores is creative and inspiring, perfectly targeting the Kikki.K shopper. notice how it’s not about price? Their focus is on connecting with people looking at the window, triggering emotions and offering inspirations. This is good visual merchandising.
It’s five months since Australia elected a new government and more than ten percent into their term we are yet to be presented a business narrative, especially a narrative that speaks to small business owners, the group that employs more Australians than any other.
The narrative is vital to encouraging optimism and optimism feed into hiring, stocking and other business planning decisions.
Even in tough economic circumstances where a government is chasing a sizeable defect and finds itself in a global economic challenge a narrative that encourages and supports small business is possible. It all comes down to leadership.
In this climate is an extraordinary manufacturing downturn, we in small business and the whole country need leadership in the from of a narrative we can believe, a narrative on which we can build a future.
Who says card sales are down because of texting and social media?
Our sales of Valentine’s Day cards are up 65% on the same period last year. This is data up to Friday last week and it’s off of good numbers for 2013.
With our card sales up 15% for the first five weeks of this year compared to 2013, the Valentine’s Day result is even better. We are promoting the season on the lease line with a good range facing out into the mall. It’s checked and refreshed every couple of hours.
It’s for major seasons like Valentine’s Day that shopping centre based newsagents have an excellent opportunity to attract infrequent or first-time shoppers. Tis is where placement of an excellent range on the lease line and laid out to facilitate easy browsing are the keys.
One shot magazine titles can be tremendously successful in driving traffic and leveraging basket-building. INXS Commemorative Edition is a title achieving both. We have people asking for it and purchasing on impulse.
The INXS telemovie was a hit Sunday night – 1.97 million viewers versus the 1.02 for the Schapelle Corby telemovie. These ratings indicate public interest that we should be able to leverage into unexpected magazine revenue.
To make the most of the one-shot we have it places with music titles, weeklies and on the counter. I figure we have a week, maybe two, to leverage the opportunity.
We have been promoting Girlfriend Guide to Life next to Girlfriend magazine as well as with the weeklies where mum could pick up the title for a daughter. I took a look at Guide to Life and discovered a respectable publication I’d be happy to give my daughter. I mention this because magazine publishers are often accused of taking a sensationalist approach. This title is not sensationalist. It’s a good guidebook parents can use and it’s out at the right time of the year for this promotion.
From Mediaweek this morning the rating numbers for TV last night:
Mediaweek @MediaweekAUS SunTV:Seven#1 33.1% #INXS 1.97m SNight 1.79m #MKR 1.64m 7News 1.29m #TheBlock 1.27m 9News 1.22m #Schapelle 1.02m #Sochi2014 996k 60Mins 866k
I was thrilled to discover that Australians appear to be less interested in the reports about convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby and more interested in the music of INXS and the genius of Michael Hutchence.
I’ve read Fairfax journalist Eamon Duff’s book, Sins of the Father and felt it made a compelling case. After I read the book I felt done, that I didn’t need any more news or spin from, by or about the Corbys and their associates. One thing the family has been good at is making drama to sell stories to media outlets. The ratings last night indicate that interest may be waning. I hope so.
The drug smuggler has got parole. So what? If I see a Schapelle story I’ll look the other way – she and the family have nothing to say that I am interested in or would be likely to believe.
In our newsagencies today we have a commemorative one-shot from Pacific Magazines on INXS. This is well worth focusing attention based on the ratings for the telemovie last night.
Several moves in recent weeks suggest that magazine distributors Gordon & Gotch and Network services are reviewing small accounts with a view to cutting accounts that to not meet minimum sales criteria. While they have had thresholds for new accounts and in the past have review performance, I anticipate the review this year will be felt more widely.
Call it a conspiracy theory but I wonder if any such review and plan to reduce the number of smaller accounts related to the withdrawal of support and requirement for the previously mandated five day training course for new newsagents.
While there is active discussion among newsagents and their suppliers about the closure of newsagency businesses and what this means for the future of the channel, there has been little discussion about the support for the channel by core suppliers such as magazine distributors.
Magazine distributors continue to treat newsagents unfairly. They supply us using rules and processes established in the days of regulation yet our competitors are treated differently, in a de-regulated way. This creates an unfair playing field that newsagents have failed to have addressed.
While the ANF invests in a struggling bill payment platform, its member newsagents are facing more challenges from an old magazine distribution model that leaves their businesses uncompetitive in this slim-margin product category. And while on the ANF – any distribution account review should see newsagents treated the same as another direct drop account.
I’d encourage newsagents to share here if their account is being reviewed or has been cut.
There was a time not so long ago when we could rely on remainder book sales three or four times a year to deliver excellent good-margin revenue. Those days are gone with landlords signing up deep discounters for outposts. Whereas newsagents would tend to run catalogues with prices delivering healthy margins, today’s book discounters pitch a price that only works with a sales volume far greater than newsagents could achieve with an in-store promotion.
I took the photo yesterday in a regional mall in Queensland. Everything was $6. Looking at the stock on offer, it only works if they achieve volume. The space would be costing around $3,000 for seven days. Labour would be at least $1,700 a week and this needs to be factored in even for an owner-operator. Round it up to $6,000 in operating costs for a week once you allow for freight, storage, insurance and other items and you’d need to sell at least $12,000 in books in seven days to justify the outpost.
There is no point in pining for opportunities of years past. If we want to be in books in 2014 we need to work with suppliers keen to do it differently and suppliers prepared to commit and not succumb to the discounters who do deals with landlords that harm the businesses of their long-term tenants – these outposts from non-tenants are a blight in shopping centres, they hurt many businesses.
These outpost operators who pitch on price can do so because they are here today and gone tomorrow. Retailers with long term leases can’t pitch on price unless we are prepared to forever pitch on price and that is a losing game. People who purchase on price are the most fickle shoppers. The only way to retain them is to forever pitch on price.
As for books, if we want to be in the space we have to do it in a way that represents a value proposition, one that works for us in terms of the investment needed and one that pop-up retailers will struggle to match. One newsagent I know in country Victoria has done this well by focussing on kids books and creating a section of the store beautifully decked out for this.
We have placed a line of Valentine’s Day themed plush in with our car magazines to pitch the season to guys who are blind to the season to the last minute. By the time guys get to our car magazines they will have passed three displays of these cute things. We’re chasing a sales record of a single plush item and we’re hoping our car magazine shoppers will help us achieve that. Retail can be fun.
The Herald Sun Mr Men promotion kicked off yesterday and if what I’ve seen played out across the state they are in for a good sales boost. All week Melbourne TV has been running ads so demand was strong from the outset. People came in asking for the free book and that’s a good start – the rest is up to us.
Newsagents often cite superior customer service as a point of difference they offer over other retailers selling magazines, stationery and greeting cards. This newsagency marketing idea challenges newsagents to take the customer service experience to a new level and to have fun at the same time.
Setup a small desk near the entrance to your newsagency on the busiest day of the week. Fit out the desk with a visitor chair, a phone (it does not have to work), blotter (if you can get it), pens, a couple of trays – make it look like something from the 1960s. Try and find a bell for people to ring too. Make a name plate: CUSTOMER SERVICE.
Next, dress the part of an old-style office manager. Sit behind the desk, smiling at people as they come and go.
Hopefully, something happens. Hopefully, customers enjoy the fun of the set and hopefully you get questions and engage in discussions that lead to business opportunities.
You could put a money box on the desk and ask for a gold coin donation for a local charity for every bit of advice you give – and you could take questions not directly related to the business. This could be one way to broaden the focus of what you are trying to do.
The core goal of the idea is to show current and prospective customers that you care about customer service. Along the way you can show them you can have fun. The gold could be opportunities you uncover as a result.
If you really immerse yourself in this idea talk to the local paper and use your business Facebook page to promote it.
This is your opportunity to change how people see your business in terms of customer service.
It’s easy in small business to lose touch with the world outside your business, to lose touch with the world your customers live in. It could be that the world as you know it has changed in ways you are not familiar with.
Take a day, yes I know that is harder than it sounds, but take a day and hunt down where people living in the area served by your newsagency could purchase any of the top twenty products or services you sell.
Search online for the items – from your home computer and using your mobile phone when out on the street near your shop. Where are people looking on-line and on-mobile being sent when searching for these top selling items on which you rely? Go have a look at those businesses. Look at them in the context of what you offer, look for points of difference.
There will be some businesses competing with you, through the search engines, that are not located near you. Consider these carefully as part of this exercise. Too often newsagents discount them – you’d only do that at your peril.
The goals here are for you to discover competitor businesses that may not have been on your radar and to learn more about how they specifically compete with your business. The insights gained could inform your business plans. They could lead to immediate changes in your business.
Consumer habits have changed significantly in recent years and smart retailers are embracing these changes. My experience is that independent small retailers are not keeping up with the changes because they are ignorant of how some people, people who may have shopped with them in the past, now shop.
So, take a day and try and compete with your business.
One mum commented last week that she liked our healthy options at the counter – more products like the fun high bounce balls and other fun things for kids and less of sugar charged candy. In addition to these being healthy options for kids and parents they are healthier for us too – generating good high-margin purchases … adding to the basket.
We have one copy of Yen magazine left. The cover featuring Lorde has been a hit as I expected. We have been supporting Rolling Store with placement next to Yen. We can grow magazine sales if we take notice of cover stories and engage beyond our own interests.
A successful newsagent with a growing business told me yesterday that a magazine publisher representative visiting their business was unhappy with the shop and said they would have to report them. The representative said the newsagency looked too much like a gift shop.
This is in a business achieving double-digit year on year growth, a business worth more today than a year ago as a result of lifting gross profit. A business worth more to this publisher than it was worth a year ago. Yet the publisher representative treats the good retailer like a naughty school kid.
No magazine publisher or distributor has the right to complain about how a successful newsagency looks, they gave up thst right when they supported deregulation fifteen years ago.
Have you been told you will reported? If so, please share your story here and out overbearing behaviour.
Slam Skateboarding magazine is using Twitter (1,671 followers) and Facebook (49,531 page likes) to tell people the latest issue of the magazine is out at your local newsagents. They specifically tell people to shop with us. Here is a very cool niche magazine supporting our niche businesses.
This is a reason for us to do something special with and for this title – to leverage and support it the way it is leveraging and supporting us.
How are you supporting Slam Skateboarding?
Sugar is a hot topic in the news and on current affairs programs and we’re tapping into that by ensuring the full cover of the latest issue of New Scientist magazine is on show. Placement in usual magazine fixturing could miss an impulse purchase opportunity. A bit of extra attention can grow magazine sales.
I caught some of the Better Homes and Gardens TV show last night and was reminded of the importance of the show in driving magazine sales. The magazine featured and newsagents were promoted. We have BHG with weeklies, in the usual location as well as with newspapers.
How do we grow magazine sales – by engaging with titles.
The October – December 2013 newsagency sales benchmark study is the first in years to report more newsagents achieving growth in magazine sales than declining. This is great news. Digging deeper into the data I think the growth is in part due to engagement with magazines and in part due to these businesses attracting shoppers for a strong gift or card or plus (or a mix of all) offering.
Whereas in the past newsagencies have attracted shoppers for magazines, newspapers, lotteries and cards, newsagencies today that attract shoppers for gifts, plush and cards first are more likely to achieve a deeper and more valuable basket and this different shopper engagement flows on especially to magazines.
In this newsagency sales benchmark study more than any in recent years I can see more newsagents changing their businesses, pursuing new opportunities and achieving measurable results.
Here are the results of the benchmark study:
Customer traffic. 59% of newsagents recorded an average decline of 2.9% in transactions. 11% reported no change and the rest an average growth of 3.8%.
Overall newsagency sales decline. 61% reported an average revenue decline of 8%. Of those reporting growth, the average was 7.2%.
Basket depth. 54% reported a decrease in basket size (items in the basket) with an average decrease was 1.9%. 8% showed no change. The rest achieved 2.3% growth.
Basket value. 32% of newsagents reported an average increase in basket value of 2.6%.
Discounting. 14% of respondents engaged in significant discounting.
The gap between growing and contracting newsagencies is bigger than ever. This presents an extraordinary problem for the channel as growth and decline separate newsagents and their businesses from each other.
Benchmark results by key departments:
57% of newsagents reported average growth of 3.9%. Of those reporting a decline, the average was 5.3% – in line with a growing gap between growth and decline. Everyday counter cards were strong through this quarter with some newsagencies reporting double-digit growth.
It is clear from the data in this study that successful newsagencies are changing more rapidly than the not so successful newsagencies and that the changes themselves are significant. It is a thrill to see newsagents chasing more traffic, better overall GP and deeper baskets.
Newsagencies continue to be good businesses to own. They respond to attention. More than any benchmark study in the last three years, this study supports this belief. That so many newsagents are reporting growth is magazines sales is a testament to the active engagement of those newsagents and their employees in this traffic-critical category.
The best type of newsagency to own is the one where you have the most control over what you sell and where you generate traffic for several product categories where average gross profit is 50% or higher.
The most important advice I have for newsagents is: Run your business today as if today is your pay day. Too many newsagents continue to run their businesses as if their pay day is when they sell. This will not happen.
Newsagents: look at your business, your sources of traffic, your average GP. Your success will come from many small steps.
Suppliers: Get smart in your engagement with newsagents. Trust them. Treat them with respect. Share their mission to grow traffic and GP and basket value. Give newsagents complete control over what they sell of your products.
We received twenty-eight copies of the launch issues of Yours magazine from Bauer Media yesterday – double what I would have expected to receive based on sales of other magazines appealing to the target reader. We received more copies than People’s Friend, an established title for us that is skewed at women just slightly older than the Yours target.
I wish publishers would start a title slow and build rather than using us as their bank and warehouse by giving us more stock than necessary. This new title has a two-week on-sale. Bauer could have used their sales based replenishment to top-up supply instead of front-loading. Despite this, we are supporting Yours with full cover display placement in two locations – with our weeklies and this location in the photo next to People’s Friend, next our our UK weeklies.
I spent half an hour reading Yours last night, cover to cover. Seriously. It feels true to its target reader except for the fashion and beauty pages – they felt very advertiser heavy and out of place – but I am not the customer.
Comparing it to the cheap and cheerful UK weeklies chasing the same reader, the Aussie Yours feels right at home. The difference here is that we don’t have a section of titles except for the imported UK titles. Yours feels more like them than an Aussie title. It being placed with the UK titles may not help it find the Aussie customer. I wonder if Yours would be more successful over time if it was not the only Australian magazine in this space. I think for these reasons it is important we promote it with our regular weeklies as well as UK titles – to get both shoppers.
It’s way to early to look at sales data. We plan to support the title for two months, your issues, and then asses our space commitment.
The Who cover featuring Phillip Seymour Hoffman is getting full cover treatment in two locations in-store from us – to promote the title to people who might not normally purchase it. Who does stories like this well and even for the shot time available the coverage is satisfying for a fan in my view.
There have been rumours circulating for some time about the structure of the Hubbed business being promoted to newsagents by the ANF. I have not written about them here as I waited to see if the situation would clarify. It is taking longer than expected.
A lack of disclosure is leaving newsagents considering Hubbed vulnerable.
At the heart of the situation as I understand it is the ownership of Hubbed. It could be that some of the key people newsagents ultimately deal with at Hubbed are different to those they thought were behind Hubbed.
Since the rumours started circulating here has been plenty of miscommunication about the issues. The ANF has been a party to this, as they have been with Hubbed all along. They have invested considerably in Hubbed and have, indeed, tied their success as an association to the success of Hubbed.
Newsagent uptake of Hubbed has not been what the business expected. Their roll out is not where they needed it to be. If they don’t get the numbers they need the model does not work. if it does not work and ultimately closes, newsagents could be left with financial lease agreements for equipment they took on specifically for Hubbed – like what happened with Bill Express.
Anyone facing signing a Hubbed contract should undertake thorough due diligence including getting documented clarity from a Director of the company as it where it is at right now in relation to their business plan projections.
Given what the ANF knows and given their active promotion of Hubbed, they owe newsagents a statement. Anyone signing with Hubbed based on the current ANF pitch is doing so without all the information the ANF could / should share.
