Facebook and Twitter have lit up over the last couple of days with reports of Woolworths outlets promoting only News Corp. titles. I’ve not seen any evidence of this in newsagencies or Woolworths outlets. I checked a Woolworths in Sydney tonight and they had Fairfax and News Corp newspapers next to each other.
The nude photo of Pink on the cover of Who magazine is driving shopper interest in Australia and gaining media attention overseas. This is a magazine where the full cover needs to be displayed to get the full impact of the stunning artistic cover shot. Pink remains a hot performer in Australia – she’ll help us sell more copies of Who.
I heard from a newsagent today who is missing the Spectrum part (part 2) of The Saturday Age for three quarters of his supply. There other newsagent in town received full stock – putting this newsagent at a disadvantage with will surely cost sales.
Has anyone else experienced this today? It is poor Fairfax customer service that it is not easy for newsagents to get issues like this handled on the weekend.
I saw this display of cushions at the Gibson / Unity showroom in Melbourne earlier this week. While the cushions themselves are impressive and make a perfect gift offer for a newsagency, the display itself was even more stunning. Using a couch as the ‘stand’ is perfect. It’s the type of visual merchandising that is perfect for this item and perfect for a newsagency: casual, fun and visually impactful.
How we display what we sell is as important is the products we offer. Suppliers who offer visual merchandising inspiration – like on show at Gibson / Unity right now – are more valuable for us as more newsagents transition from the traditional newsagency offer to something more current.
While the space taken by the couch could be a challenge for some newsagents, I could see a reasonable impact being achieved with a chair or two as the ‘stand’ for the cushions – using the couch idea but finessing it to the space available.
Some products work better when not placed on regular shelves.
We purchased this wire frame of a female torso for a display we are creating in-store and another retailer saw it and purchased it at a nice margin. It’s cool when this happens, and surprising. It’s a reminder to not underestimate what we can sell in our businesses.
A newsagency selling a wire female torso – who’d have thought!
We have no spare pocket for the discount pack of Cosmopolitan so we have the discount pack at the back of a pocket with the single copies of Cosmopolitan. We try and find space but sometimes there is no spare pocket. Rather than taking space from another title our view is that the discount pack has to be in the pocket of the Bauer title. I’d prefer to not get these.
This Official Match Program for the FIFA World Cup arrived in-store on Thursday, just hours before the first game. Too late to be of any interest to football fans who had already spent up on the terrific range of other World Cup titles. I don’t know where the blame lies for such later delivery but the publisher should expect considerable returns.
Dynamic Supplies has shared this timely warning of an ink buying scam:
NOTIFICATION OF SCAM EMAILS
We would like to bring to your attention scam emails that have been transmitted to distributors, resellers and the like attempting to purchase product.
Below are some specifics to look out for:
– Request for procuring genuine HP product.
– No contact details are provided (i.e. phone numbers).
– Email addresses are typically from a hotmail or yahoo webmail provider.
– Unauthorized credit cards are used for payment. Quite often, more than one credit card number is supplied until the transaction is approved.
– Some credit cards get approved stating they have sufficient funds, but within a couple of days the money is withdrawn and the bank informs you that the transaction is indeed fraudulent.
– The order value fluctuates between $2,000 to $6,000.
– Delivery requests are always to a freight forwarder who have no prior knowledge of the order.
A typical example:
—–Original Message—–
From: Dr Richard Hudson [mailto:supplieshudson@yahoo.com]
Sent: 21 September 2006 09:37
To: QLDSales
Subject: SuppliesDear Sirs
I would like to request for the unit prices of the
following underspecified OEM cartridges;(1)HP INKJET CARTRIDGE # 78D
(2)HP INKJET CARTRIDGE # 28A
(3)HP TONER CARTRIDGE # 29XI would like your goodselves to send me detailed
information as to the prices and forms of payments
accepted.Your earliest response will be highly solicited.
Thank You,
Dr Richard Hudson
PO Box 374,
St Marys NSW 2760
AUSTRALIA
Here’s another magazine fixture I saw recently in a transit newsagency. This is a sturdy free standing unit with pockets that hold a good amount of stock.
I like that this stand is a space-efficient way of displaying magazines away from the magazine department. This is often a better way of driving sales than a billboard-like display that publishers tend to prefer.
Click on the image for a larger version.
I heard a story about a young couple who decided to open a new newsagency in an area already well served. After they sorted out a lease they next met with a rep from a major supplier to our channel. This rep signed them up to take on their products and offered to help them get the business up and running.
The rep connected these green newsagents with some service providers who had no experience with newsagency businesses. The service providers delivered sub-standard products and services for a price considerably higher than originally promised.
The rep failed to provide advice essential to the opening of the new business. The business did not have some core newsagency basics right from the outset.
A while back I heard a story of someone planning to open a newsagency in a country town already served with a newsagency. The local newsagent offered all sorts of help to their prospective new competitor – genuine help with suppliers and other trusted industry connections. The prospective new newsagent ignored much of the advice and is doing it tough as a result.
Two very different stories. One about a young couple who needed better advice and connections they could trust and another about a new newsagent who was offered excellent advice and ignored it.
Back in the days of regulation (pre 1999) it was easier to ensure the right help was given to new newsagents thanks to the firm control exerted by newspaper publishers. In today’s unregulated and more competitive marketplace support for an of new newsagents is rarer.
The first story suggests that there is a role to play, maybe by associations, where a new newsagent not affiliated with any of the groups is provided start up assistance services they can trust. Suppliers with a vested interest in successful start ups could financial support such a service. The challenge is that in a free and competitive marketplace, newsagents like in the second story could reject a good offer of help.
Check out the photo for a magazine display unit I saw in Hong Kong a few weeks ago. I meant to post this at the time and found it again last might when cleaning up photos. Notice their approach to the flat stack of bulk titles on the floor.
I like that they use an acrylic fixture to hold the magazines in place as this presents the product more professionally. I also like that it allows a higher stack without any chance of it being knocked over – this is essential in the small-format high-volume trances stores where I noticed this approach to flat stack magazines.
With many newsagents reconfiguring their magazine space I’m taking more notice of what other retailers do and will post more photos here of what I find interesting. I hope it helps.
Click on the photo for a bigger version.
Every time there is a book bagged with People’s Friend sales lift. My experience is that every gift places with People’s Friend lifts sales. I mention this because of discussion here recently about the value of gifts with magazines. Sure the do not work 100% of the time but them they do, like with People’s Friend and current Women’s Health and Prevention – as I mentioned Wednesday – they work a treat.
The latest issue of Mindfood magazine is another title with a sugar related cover story – The Sugar Debate. Thanks to clive for this tip.
This sweet issue of Mindfood could work well displayed next to Healthy Food and The Monthly in a sugar power display.
It’s been a privilege over the last couple of weeks to meet and learn from some exceptional retail newsagents. Yesterday, newsagents shared stories that demonstrated the value of knowing about what you sell.
There is no doubt that the more we know about what we sell the better we are at selling it. In some cases, this knowledge can help beyond the sales themselves, we can touch lives for the better and that’s a wonderful feeling.
Big businesses we compete with would stubble to match newsagents for shop flow customer engagement. This is a strength we can play more to.
The extra traffic and sales that have come our way because of the World Cup have been excellent. From these card packs to the magazines new customers have been terrific to see and serve. We do our best to give these new customers a reason to look around and or come back again – otherwise the single visit is not worth as much.
Too often with a major opportunity like the World Cup retailers focus too much on that opportunity and not enough on how to leverage the new traffic bounce beyond the event itself.
Further to my post on the weekend about the terrific cover story in The Monthly about sugar, the latest healthy Food also has a cover story on sugar. This is a rare and good opportunity to put these two magazines next to each other. Sugar is the in the news and we can increase sales because of this.
Check out the stand pitching an Exclusive competition being run in Woolworths supermarkets by Bauer at the moment.
The Woolworths in Sydney where I first saw the stand had two of these in their magazine department and a smaller stand elsewhere in the store.
Customers need purchase one title to enter. More than $100,000 worth of prizes are on offer.
In March this year a rumour was put to me that WH Smith had purchased a newsagency related business in Australia. I reported the rumour to one of the owners of the Australian business. They denied it and that was the end of it as far as I was concerned.
A couple of weeks ago, I was told another rumour about WH Smith acquiring a local newsagency related business. This, too, was denied.
Last week, yet another rumour about WH Smith acquiring yet another newsagency related business.
Either many people are jumping at shadows or there will soon be an announcement to put meat on the bones of the rumours. That the name WH Smith is being spoken of so much in newsagent and newsagency supplier circles speaks to the interest and / or fear we have here of this large UK business.
The speculation is heightened by the company not saying much on the back of their swift and unexpected purchase of the local Wild business.
My view is that WH Smith is not a small or medium-sized operator. Their model relies on a mass network. In the UK it is transit and high street businesses. In Australia it is hospital related retail, transit retail and a mid-size gift franchise group. What they have today feels, to me, incomplete. I am expecting news about WH Smith in Australia – I am not sure when and I am not sure what, specifically, the news will be but I am expecting news.
I love the way the Fisher Price brand owns this fixture housing its products.
This stand has more impact than if the products were on the same fixture without the Fisher price branding on the aisle end and on the shelves themselves.
I think a shopper looking at this stand will be more confident as it shows Fisher Price supporting the retailer – kind of like encouraging you to transfer your trust in the Fisher Price brand to the retailer.
I’m not sure what data Network Services has to justify sending us Asiana Wedding. It’s a new title for us and to fit in with wedding magazines we have to take a pocket away from another title. Landlords fine retailers who take more than their allocated space. Maybe we should fine magazine distributors who do this.
Any magazine publisher who feels their titles are unreasonably early-returned by newsagents should look at what Network has done here. They have supplied a new title based on evidence that Asian themed titles are strong for us and applied into an already full segment. Any newsagent with an eye to cash-flow will either early return this new title or early return another title to balance the account.
The free write band with Prevention and the free training socks with Women’s Health have hit the mark – driving good interest for both titles. We have them next to each other in our women’s health section plus we have them located elsewhere to attract shoppers to looking for a health title as this is where the gifts will work best for us. My advice to newsagents is to ensure that the full cover is on show.
Newsagents and other retailers selling e-cigarettes will want to listen to The Law Report on ABC radio National today at 5:30PM as that’s the topic this week. The promo indicates that the show will cover the recent court case in Western Australia as well as look at the legalist of selling e-cigarettes elsewhere in Australia. After the show is aired you can listen online via the program website.
UPDATE: click here to hear the program.
Typo is a chain of homewares and stationery shops owned by the Cotton On group. They compete successfully with newsagents in what we call the social stationery space. Indeed, they do this well.
I think we can learn a lot from Typo – from their effective front of store displays to their ranging to their price pitch.
To the shopper their products look like good value and maybe they are compared to similar products elsewhere. Having looked at prices for some similar lines sourced from China, I suspect that the margin being achieved in Typo stores is excellent.
Typo stores are a good place for newsagents to visit for retail inspiration. Their fixturing, product ranging, victual merchandising and tactical product placement can teach us a lot. We ought to look carefully at their stores as they are taking business from our channel.
I noticed this magazine, Online Privacy, on the shelves of another newsagency and was surprised it had not been widely scaled out. With the many stories about online security breaches and data hacking hitting international companies, this title would sell. Fear drives sales. Online Privacy is a title I am sure many newsagents would have selected had it been offered to us through a pull model.
The first Slow Cooker title from Bauer (then called ACP) was a ripper of a success. We sold around 300 copies. The publisher responded well – they reprinted and airfreighted stock to Australia to keep up with demand. It was a wonderful and unexpected success. Now, a few years on, Slow Cooker 4 is out. It its a challenged space because of other slow cooker titles and because of a warmer winter. Nevertheless, we are supporting Slow Cooker 4 with good placement and co-location.