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

Month: February 2014

Micro retail tenancies a retail trend for the newsagency?

tinyshopRetail is changing in many ways and quickly. With  space costing more, landlords and retailers are looking for new models to through which to drive value. We are seeing more smaller shops open than ever before.

Years ago there was a trend for large newsagencies – 300, 400, 500 square metres with coffee shops and other stores within the store.  Now the trend in shopping malls is for newsagencies to be close to 100 square metres.

On Tuesday I saw one of the smallest shops ever, a ‘cafe’ in Auckland. Click on the photo to see how big / small the My Kitchen business is. It’s as wide as a doorway.  They serve meals from a space that is smaller than a kitchen.

My Kitchen is one of many similar-sized stores I saw in Auckland, reflecting a trend I’ve not yet seen on this scale in Australian capital cities and shopping malls.  It’s similar to some malls I have seen in China but there retail is quite different. What I saw in Auckland was these tiny shops mixed in with larger businesses – where a larger size space has been slices into a number of these micro spaces.

These trends are interesting but we need to be cautious as retail rends are like fashion – they take on quickly and fade even faster. The key for being a trend retailer is getting out ahead of the fall.  That said, this apparent trend to micro tenancies could be here for a while if it means landlords can improve their return per square metre.

I’m not sure I can see a newsagency in a space of three square metres (or less) but I could see part of a newsagency.

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newsagency of the future

Visual merchandising inspiration

v-nspireI love this stand-alone display promoting water that I saw at Melbourne airport.  Click on the image as see the detail as it’s the detail that makes the display special. See the windmill at the top of the display, on tip of the tank. In a busy retail space, it’s this detail that gets the display noticed.

Inspiring visual merchandising.

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visual merchandising

Promoting the Pacific Magazines opportunity in-store

magspacniHere’s how the team at one of my newsagencies is promoting the Pacific Magazines $10,000 competition opportunity. I love this display: it’s bold and strong on brands.

This display is at the front of the main magazine aisle. We have stock of each title in their usual location.

This simple cash prize promotion is easy for customers to understand and the collateral from Pacific plays into that.

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magazines

Here today gone tomorrow, do due diligence on your suppliers

2014 will be a disruptive year for some newsagency suppliers. I expect we will see some long-term suppliers close or consolidate and some more recent suppliers withdraw from our channel or close altogether.

Just as suppliers do due-diligence on new accounts they open with newsagents, newsagents should do due diligence on suppliers – especially suppliers of products into which you need to invest capital, space and labour to launch in your newsagency.

It can be disrupting to a retail business if we stock a line of products or a service, investing in launching this to our customers – only to find it ceases to be available because of the closure of a supplier or the takeover of their business by a company that does not want to serve through our channel.

While I am not writing this post with a specific story of closure or merger in mind, I am aware of rumours of several businesses in play.  As with any purchase you make – a deal that appears to be too good to be true is probably the deal to be most wary of.

Critical mass is what matters to newsagents and to suppliers of newsagents. If we’re smart, there is strength in numbers.

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Newsagency challenges

No lottery ticket sales after 7PM in NZ

nzscratchIn downtown Auckland at 8:30pm last night I tried to purchase a couple of instant scratch tickets from one of the many c-stores with big lottery branding on the street front. I thought the sales guy was joking when he said that it was after 7pm.  It turns out that they can’t sell any lottery products after 7pm. These twenty-four hour a day businesses can’t sell a key traffic driving product for key trading hours they are open. Odd.

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Lotteries

WH Smith makes Lovatts brand pitch

whsmithlovattsThe photo shows a prime location display of Lovatts puzzle titles on show yesterday at one of the WH Smith shops at Melbourne airport. Facing into the international terminal, it’s a strong pitch for Lovatts.

WH Smith purchased Wild Cards and Gifts as I mentioned on Monday. Newsagency style retail is their bread and butter. They are brand focused in their stores – as this Lovatts display shows.

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crosswords

Feast magazine stands out on the shelves

magsfeastI urge newsagents to ensure the full cover of the latest issue of Feast magazine is on show. It stands out against the sea of colour in the magazine aisle. We co-loate Feast for the first couple of weeks – usually with weekly magazines or at the sales counter, to leverage the regular ads on SBS.

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magazines

Taste magazine gift with purchase only at Coles

magstasteexclusivePeople purchasing Taste magazine at Coles get a set of bamboo salad servers. I’m not so sure it will affect our sales since the magazine looks better in newsagencies un-bagged than it does in Coles. The gift is good but not great. My only frustration is the notice on the bag that the gift is exclusive to Coles.

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magazines

The Saturday Paper launch details

Here is a press release from a couple of days ago about the launch of The Saturday Paper, a new newspaper that will be sold through newsagents.

Schwartz Media is happy to announce that The Saturday Paper, a quality weekly newspaper from the publisher of the Monthly, will launch in print and online on March 1.

The Saturday Paper can also announce the first of its contributors – a stable of the best writers in Australian journalism, as well as new voices and well known figures who have not previously appeared in print.

David Marr, the country’s finest long-form journalist, joins the paper as a columnist. Hamish McDonald joins as world editor and Kirsty Simpson as business editor. Martin McKenzie-Murray joins The Saturday Paper as chief correspondent in Melbourne and Sophie Morris, formally of the Australian Financial Review, will write as Canberra correspondent. Richard Cooke has been appointed sports editor.

Christos Tsiolkas, the author of The Slap and Barracuda, is The Saturday Paper’s film critic. He is joined by Tim Freedman and Dave Faulkner, who will write as the paper’s music critics. Helen Razer will write on television for the paper.

Andrew McConnell, the owner of Cutler & Co., joins as food editor. Women’s Wear Daily correspondent Patty Huntington will work as the paper’s fashion editor and Lucy Feagins from The Design Files will anchor its interiors content. Mungo MacCallum will provide his storied cryptic crossword each week.

More names will be announced as The Saturday Paper approaches its launch on March 1. Publisher Morry Schwartz said: “This is a list of big voices and brilliant writers. I am enormously proud to publish each of them. The Saturday Paper is materialising before our eyes as a major force in Australian journalism.”

The Saturday Paper’s editor, Erik Jensen, said: “Assembling this team has been a pleasure. Almost 500 journalists applied for positions on The Saturday Paper – people of enormous talent that made choosing our journalists both easy and extremely difficult. I am sure the team we have will produce the best narrative journalism in Australia and, from hard news to lifestyle, will make The Saturday Paper a compulsory read.”

The Saturday Paper is a quality weekly newspaper, dedicated to long-form journalism – to writing that breaks big stories and gets behind the news of the week. It will be available in print in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, and as a website and an app everywhere else.

The Saturday Paper is offering a Foundation Subscriber price of $99 for a year’s print subscription. The paper’s cover price is $3.

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Newspapers

It’s important we use our own voice when using social media in small business

I heard a social media expert recently telling a group of small business retailers that they should pay his company to run their special media program for them. His pitch was compelling. He had lots of success stories, I was impressed as were many who were at the presentation. He made it sound easy, that using social media for your business could be automated.

The pitch was cleverly preying on people in the audience not understanding social media, it was leveraging their ignorance to have them pay for an outcome without understanding the process.

Whether you use Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+ or other social media platforms, the most valuable voice your online presence has is your voice.

You can’t pay someone to speak for you, certainly not a service provider business that spends an hour a month or less on your business.

Unfortunately we there are many consultancy businesses and service providers offering to run social media for small businesses including newsagencies. Some I have looked at are clueless. Others are lazy. Others use technology to automate updates. In each case, your voice is lost, the tweets, Facebook posts and Pinterest pins are not from you and as such are removed from who you are and what you stand for.

You or a trusted long-term employee are the best people to speak for your business through social media.

Using a social media consultancy would be like paying someone else to mingle with your customers or paying for an automated posting service would be like using a robot to do this for you. neither case works for small business. Small retail businesses like newsagencies are personal. Our tweets need to be personal. Our Facebook posts need to be personal. This can only happen if you control it.

Yes it is time consuming and time is a resource you probably lack. However, if you want the best outcome you want the best person on the job. That’s you or a trusted colleague.  You can’t contract out someone else as the voice for your business.

The social media expert I heard speak recently claimed that automated posts were the way to go, ignoring that good social media engagement is conversations, many conversations. Conversations rely on humans on both sides actively engaged with each other.

My advice to small business newsagents of social media is to speak for yourself. Take small steps. Find your voice. Speak for your own business by talking about what matters to you and your customers. You don’t need to pay someone to do this for you.

For more reading on this, check out: Sunday newsagency marketing tip: use social media for a conversation.

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Newsagency challenges

Interactive plush at Coles for Valentine’s Day

olesplushColes is running with some interactive plush for Valentine’s Day. The bear in the photo is pretty cool. A few seconds after clicking the on button, the words, BE MINE, appear and spin around. It’s $15 – good value at this price. I was pleased to see their Valentine’s Day cards more than 100 metres away from their Valentine’s Day plush.

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Gifts

Time magazine 57% subscription discount

magstimesubsThe subscription card that fell out of the US edition of Time magazine pitches a compelling offer: $3.00 an issue posted versus $7.00 an issue in store. Thankfully, the publisher of Time has most subscription offers floating loose in the magazine – if they fall out I don’t replace them. I’m not paid to do that.

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magazine subscriptions

Tapping into iPad Air interest

magsipadairWith the iPad Air still selling well it’s timely we are able to promote this magbook created specifically for the title.  We have it in our technology magazines as well as with news magazines. We will also give it a shot with newspapers.

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magazines

Pot, kettle News Corp. on ABC journalism standards

journalismstandardsThe media pages of The Australian newspaper today continue the co-ordinated News Corp attack on the ABC. This time, they are calling the death of journalism standards at the ABC.

The relentless attacks on the ABC by the News Corp. media outlets are disgusting. They are designed to achieve a commercial outcome for the company, nothing more. Their federal election victory has gone to their head.

News Corp. questioning the journalism standards of the ABC would be laughable if it were not such a serious matter.

While the ABC is not perfect, their journalism is of a considerably higher standard than that published by News Corp. newspapers.

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Ethics

UK retail chain WH Smith purchases Wild Cards and Gifts business

UK retail newsagency giant WH Smith has purchased the Wild Cards and Gifts business. The former owners of Wild have announced the sale to suppliers and franchisees. I note that WH Smith is yet to publish a statement about this to investors.

It will be interesting to see what happens to the Wild stores. Do they become WH Smith stores and follow the UK model or do they remain as Wild and through them provide the company an opportunity to develop the local card and gift model. Or, do they evolve to something we are yet to see.  The Wild statement to suppliers and franchisees says the Wild model will continue:

Their aim is to grow WILD Cards & Gifts in a professional and sustainable way both in Australia and potentially overseas in the future. They have a number of profit improvement programs planned for stores and will deliver these as 2014 unfolds.

Wile I understand the aim as outlined in the statement from Wild,WH Smith is an aggressive and innovative retailer. The company is constantly playing with its models. I say models as WH Smith stores vary in shape, size, product range and retail situation. They are clear in their mission when it comes to retail:

Located in areas that vary in many ways, we are experts at flexing our space and product mix to fit the specific needs of each location. Working closely with our landlords we create new and exciting shopping experiences in both high street and travel locations.

Regardless of what WH Smith ultimately do with the Wild stores, this move will have extraordinary ramifications for key parts of the Australian newsagency and gift channels. Suppliers, landlords and newsagents will (should) all be watching. Like any disruptive move, it is certain to drive others to act.

2014 is shaping up as a year of considerable change in and near the newsagency channel and in this change we can find opportunities.

Any announcement of the purchase of the Wild business would be big. That it has been purchased by a UK company with an extraordinary pedigree in the newsagency and related retail spaces makes it extraordinary. It is the kind of move that does not happen in isolation.

You can see what I have written about WH Smith over the years here.

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Newsagency challenges

Melbourne Gift Fair popular with newsagents

melb-gift-fairI met plenty of newsagents at the Reed Melbourne Gift Fair which started on the weekend. I bet by the time the fair is over several hundred newsagents will have been through.  While not the biggest gift fair of the year, this event is well worth visiting.

The representation of homewares, jewellery, toys, baby items and even outdoor items was excellent. Well worth seeing.

My POS software company has a stand at this fair and the first two days have been very busy talking with gift shop owners, newsagents, jewellers and fashion business owners. Indeed, the mix of retailers is broad. It’s mixing with such a diverse crowd that I found valuable when I was looking at the fair as a newsagent.

The timing of the fair is excellent with retailers cashed up from Christmas. That was obvious from the spending I could see.

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Gifts

A newspaper stand at Melbourne Gift Fair?

newyorktimes-melbourneThe International New York Times has a stand promoting subscriptions at the Melbourne Gift Fair. Their pitch was compelling: A$1 for 12 weeks access. Talk about disruptive pricing. The problem is the A$3.75 a week price for iPhone access thereafter. That’s too high. I suspect people are more likely to spend on a local paper app unless the cost is kept to a few cents a day – such is the price expectation for digital access.

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Media disruption

How would you explain your newsagency business?

We all know our businesses right? We live them every day and see them as straightforward. Most likely, we think they make sense, we think they are understandable and we think everyone who shops with us understands the business.

How would you explain your newsagency business to someone who has never seen one before? 

By explain, I mean explain fully so they understand the business just from your description – no photos – and its place in the retail mix, the service it provides and the necessity for this. How would you explain its relevance? How would you explain its future? How would you explain why you own it, what it means for you?

I was involved in a business workshop recently where I face the same question. It’s tough to do, to explain your business with only your words and with the person listening having no reference point whatsoever other than what you say.

The explanation you will likely result in you thinking about and seeing your business differently. This is the goal of the exercise – to dislodge the everyday view and dig underneath for what we are not seeing every day.

How we see our businesses today can be useful in considering our future.

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Newsagency challenges

Sunday newsagency marketing tip: email campaigns work

Regular emails with promotions can reconnect past shoppers with your business and attract them back based on what you;re promoting.

Pacific Magazines through their free Nexus program provides newsagents with a free email marketing platform. If you are a in Nexus you should be sending an email out every fortnight. Plus you should be seizing every opportunity to harvest customer email addresses. Pacific is happy for newsagents to promote anything using the free emails.

I’ve heard of plenty of email campaigns working for newsagents. I use them.

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marketing

Sunday newsagency management tip: listen to your customers outside your business

While we get plenty of advice from people inside our newsagencies, how much advice and feedback do we get from the community outside? By connecting with local clubs and community groups and using local services, we give people and opportunity to provide us feedback.

One way to get feedback is to offer to speak at a local community group – maybe sponsor them and this can open the door. Just by putting yourself out there you’re likely to be in front of people who do not frequent your business and in doing so let them see that you’re not the person they have heard gossip about or that you are not the person they assumed you were. They feedback could help you see something that needs addressing in your business that you have missed.

The more you are in front of people in your community who do not currently shop at your newsagency the more opportunities for attracting them to your business.

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Management tip

Attracting shoppers to the newsagency in the mall

knoxfrontfeb12014My feeling is that newsagency businesses in shopping malls rely more on passers-by than newsagencies on the high street – maybe more so in capital city locations than in regional and rural situations. My own experience is that around a third of all customers are not regulars. This makes the display at the front of the business mission-critical. Get this wrong and we reduce the traffic drawn into the business.

The photo shows the front of the newsagency as it was yesterday. On the left we have a gift feature with Valentine’s Day plush at the front, next to this is an alley of three spinners (behind each other) featuring popular plush, then a magazine floor unit from Pacific Magazines and then three units of Valentine’s Day cards and on the far right, two posters promoting an in-store competition (one customer will win a tablet computer) connected with an ink campaign.

We adjust the front-of-store pitch during the week and make more significant changes on the weekend. We leave two key traffic routes with enough room either side for a shopping trolley.

In our displays across the front of the newsagency we seek to be: relevant to people in the mall, interesting, reflecting value and fun.

The measures of success are foot traffic followed by sales. We measure ourselves against ourselves and not an expectation as to what a newsagency is.  Year on year, traffic and sales are ahead of the newsagency channel average.

I am posting this information here to show that it’s not rocket-achieve. No, running a successful newsagency today is all abut being an engaged retailer responding to changes around us and customer demand.

Click on the image for a larger version.

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Newsagency management

Early-returning AWW Low Fat Family Food title

magsawwlowfatWe early-returned AWW Low fat family food because we’re satisfied with our range of food magazines and are concerned at the $29.95 price point. We have plenty of low-cost cookbooks on which we make 45% and more. This title is a good example of a product for which our gross profit should be significantly more than 25%.

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Magazine oversupply
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