How are paper bags handed to customers with their purchase? Are the scrunched up? Is the top of the bag left open? Think about it. Make a decision to handle bags, paper bags especially, a certain way, you way, a professional way, a way customers appreciate, a way that respects what you have sold.
Think about. Train your people. Manage the folding of shopper bags professionally and be proud of your point of difference.
The Reed Sydney Gift Fair and the Home and Giving Fair kick off today. For plenty it will be a busy few days, up to five for some, navigating the two fairs, looking for new product opportunities.
Change is what people will be looking for, significant change. Differentiation from what we have done in the past is important as is differentiation from what other retailers with which we compete is important.
If you can get to the fairs and have not planned to do so yet, I urge you to go. For inspiration alone it will be well worthwhile.
I will be there for Tower Systems and for newsXpress. Anyone who wants to catch up can call me on 0418 321 338.
In terms of preparing for the fairs, I know newsXpress published two weeks ago a guide to the fairs along with maps and supported by on the ground buying assistance from a team of merchandise experts, ensuing exclusive deals are understood. This is supplemented by a couple of social activities for networking among member newsagents. I expect the other marketing groups will have offered the same services to their members. It is at large fairs like this that marketing groups can show off their point of difference and demonstrate value of membership.
Looking through more than 2,000 photos I have taken at international gift and toy trade shows already this year it is clear we need to be ready for another wave of colouring and adult colouring products.
In addition to the color-in socks pictured, I’ve seen many ranges of colouring cards, place mats, table runners, wallpaper, jewellery, caps, t-shirts, books, books and, yes, books, calendars, plates. You name it there are businesses out there turning it into a colouring opportunity.
I am concerned that some of this product will come to Australia. My concern related to the copycat product. For each terrific product, there are plenty of awful cheap knock-offs, undermining the trend-setter.
As our market is small and we tend to follow launches from overseas, I think we need to be prepared to be pitched a new wave of colouring product.
On one key counter location we have the new Doctor Who part series with a terrific display created by the team.
At the other key counter location we have the first issue of the DC Comics Graphic Novel Collection.
We are promoting both outside the business, ensuring customers in our area know we are the best destination for these titles. Partworks continue to be an excellent traffic driver for any engaged newsagent.
I am garteful to Credit Suisse for sharing analysis of the latest Tatts results. I encourage newsagents to read the full report. here are a couple of highlights that I think are of particular interest to the newsagency channel.
Tatts also has a number of other initiatives to stimulate growth in 2H16, including new website and app, expanded roll out of distribution into convenience stores.
Tatts did caution about margin expansion from digital growth. With growing digital sales comes savings in commissions Tatts needs to pay to retailers, however, during the half Tatts reinvested much of these savings into Facebook campaigns and Google search engine optimisation. Tatts indicated this spend was a few million dollars, broadly consistent with the commission saving Tatts would have received. Tatts will also need to grow the dollar value of commissions over time, in our view. Tatts’ agency network is responsible for nearly 87% of sales and therefore an integral part of its distribution. It would not be in Tatts’ interest to see falling commissions contribute to agency closures.
My approach to early returning of magazines is not changing because Network Services is closing down. I am not engaging in a mass cull of Network titles prior to the end of the month. I am not acting out of ear or malice. No, it is business as usual.
The approach being taken by Network to handling returns as the business winds down is as it has said from then outset. The people running this side of the business have long term newsagent relationships at heart. I am sure of that.
If you really return magazines you could authorised have sold based on your historic sales data then you are only hurting yourself.
I urge all newsagents to serve their businesses well as to serve the magazine publishers they hope to represent into the future.
Several newsagency businesses have been hit by ransomware in the last week, malware loaded onto the computers blocking future access until a ransom is paid. Without appropriate precautions, the operational and financial implications of recovery for a business can be considerable.
It is vital you protect your business by managing emails in a thoughtful way.
One business last week was shut down for more than a day because of poor protection. Once they got back up and running they had lost days of data because of inadequate backups. Trying to sell a business with such a data hole could be expensive.
Warnings like this will be ignored by too many people.
We have noticed a nice uptick in sales of weekly magazines from this display unit placed on the lease line facing into the shopping mall. While we are also promoting the MPA competition deep in the magazine department, it is this front of store pitch that works best for us. being in a shopping centre opposite a Coles it is good to have something they do not have supporting weekly magazines. We have moved the unit a couple of times to help it not get missed.
The Monday and Wednesday editions of the Geraldton Guardian are ceasing with a larger Tuesday edition to take their place. West Australian Newspapers has made the announcement to newsagents. handling the attendant data changes will be straightforward for retail newsagents and a bit time consuming for distribution newsagents. I expect we see more changes like this soon in response to circulation challenges.
Network Services has issued a third communication to newsagents, which I share here with permission.
They have also provided a list of ‘Transition’ issues – title issues that will be dispatched by Network Services but will be returned to Gordon and Gotch. There are 150 issues on this list.
Newsagents will need to ensure their software is appropriately setup to handle the transition.
It was a thrill to spend two days at the New York Toy Fair this week. Serving a US domestic market of $22B, you can imagine the scale of this event.
Covering 415,00 square feet and covering a broad range of segments, this trade show was extraordinary for its size, the range of products covered, the nature of supplier engagement and the fresh ideas revealed.
While clearly aimed at national buyers there were plenty of small business representatives there. There was a strong Australian contingent too. I ran into a couple of other Aussie retailers as well as several wholesales representatives.
Looking back on my photos on the flight home, I took more at this trade show than any of the six international trade shows I have attended already this year. I have been inspired on product range, visual merchandising, marketing and innovation. The inspirations will play out in what I do over the next couple of months.
While I expect the Toy Fair in Melbourne next month to be good, it cannot compare to the New York experience because of the sheer size difference between our markets. There are plenty of opportunities from New York I know we will see in Australia in the coming months. The race is on.
London is a newspaper town. Many daily newspapers are readily available in shops from newsagents to supermarkets. You can’t miss them. Newspapers are readily available for free in the afternoon on street corners. Newspapers are everywhere in London – not only in shops but you can see plenty being read on trains, in the streets and elsewhere.
It is hard to find newspapers now in New York. While there are newsstand kiosks in some streets, most will have one or two titles and even then they are tucked away. The newspaper space is taken by convenience likes like umbrellas, drinks and candy. Newspapers appear to be nowhere in New York – despite plenty of foot traffic on the streets.
While I have been to both cities plenty of times in recent years it was only when I visited each in the last week that the difference became obvious to me. I wonder why it is so? Is it a reflection of the place of newspapers in the respective countries? Is it as a result of publisher commitment? I don’t know. What I do know is that in London I get the feeling that newspapers are relevant while in New York I get the feeling that the medium is dead.
Michael Wolff is as insightful ever in his Print’s dead — but so is digital piece published by USA Today. I highly recommend it.
I am grateful to have been at the Spring Fair in Birmingham last week. This is the biggest card / gift / homewares fair for the UK – over twelve massive halls, some with their own side hall extensions. Our largest fair in Australia is tiny by comparison.
In the greeting card space alone there were between 40 and 50 companies with creative product on display.
The halls are arranged by product category, making comparison easy and intensifying the competition.
The Fair was insightful in that I could see what some of our local distributors do not pick up for the Australian marketplace. It also introduced me to suppliers not represented in Australia and, of particular interest, product lines not currently available in Australia that could work well.
I especially appreciated spotting trends that I can expect to hit Australia in the second half of this year and into next.
Being able to connect with brands we already sell was terrific as it builds relationships not only for my but for the Australian distributors.
While I appreciate it is challenging for retailers to travel overseas for shows like this, I encourage people to consider it sad the insights are truly worthwhile for immediate business and into the future thanks to stronger business relationships.
While I have a bag of brochures and a stack of business cards to work through I have already connected several suppliers with local Australian distributors. I was not at the fair to source product to direct import but rather facilitate relationships that make it easier for me to buy what I like from Australian distributors.
I am excited for the opportunities I have seen as they will help continue to evolve the retail model that used to be called a newsagency.
From what I could tell, the attendees were mainly specialty gift, homewares, toy and garden retailers. I did not notice any newsagent attendees.
It is frustrating seeing people not take the top newspaper on display – and usually make the display more untidy as a result. Internally you scream it’s the same paper but you smile and let it pass. I wonder what happened to them that they do not trust the top paper. Is it they missed a catalogue or a tv guide? Or is it they think the top paper has been used?
Last week in London the hotel had a stack of The Independent newspaper on a table outside the lift on each floor. It is a neat paper, no inserts. The stack on my floor was clearly fresh product, no curled corners, no dirty marks. These copies looked fresh, untouched. Yet I saw two people move the top copy and take the next one down without giving it a thought. It was as if this was the normal thing to do.
Is this something taught in school that I missed?
The launch yesterday of the DC Comics graphic novel collection gives us an excellent opportunity to sell more than a magazine thanks to an excellent range of licenced product from several suppliers in this space.
Some newsagents will leverage this more easily than others because of long term pop culture supplier relationships offering easier access to excellent complimentary product.
I like the male skew of the range and the visual aesthetic as it is very current.
The only risk for newsagents is runaway success and a supply pipeline that is unable to keep up. This is not the fault of Gotch as they are the carrier for the publisher who makes all the supply decisions.
Gotch yesterday sent newsagents Zomlings, a small collectible toy. While the product is interesting, for it to be successful it needs to come to us through a toy wholesaler who understands what is necessary to create a successful collector base. Using the magazine distribution model does not do this. Take a look at Amazon UK to get an understanding of the broader Zomlings range.
The GP we are receiving is inadequate. Average toy GP is 50%. Using Gotch disadvantages us as it denies us best practice GP.
The only reason I can see Gotch being used to scale out this product is because it cost the supplier less than the usual route to market or because they could not engage an existing toy distributor.
The extraordinary fall in magazine circulation reported for the period to December 31, 2015 fits with what I reported earlier in the newsagency sales benchmark study – among the worst declines we have seen for many titles.
This cannot continue.
As I have written previously, the best opportunity for specialty magazine publishers, those publishing special interest titles, titles outside the top 20 sellers, is to focus solely on the newsagency channel. We are their best hope to stop the decline and, hopefully, grow sales.
Newsagents are specialty retailers. We understand catering to niche interests. To many of us, magazines are not a commodity.
Together we can arrest the decline of many magazine titles.
If you are publisher looking at this and saying sales are declining in newsagencies why would I do this – because what you pay today does not cover newsagent operating costs, why should newsagents support titles for less than a living wage?
Adult colouring related products were massive in 2015. Indeed, the trend started in late 2014, spiked by mid-2015 and spiked again later in the year.
Commencing in the UK, it next hit Australia. The second spike came as a result of US suppliers and retailers joining the party, late.
Looking back on the phenomenon, there are useful learnings I’d like to explore.
While adult colouring will be a hobby for some for years to come, sales today are not what they were last year. Given this, many of are such that plenty of retailers are getting out, as the return they are achieving is insufficient.
Some suppliers are not done. We already have calendars in this space. Watch out for greeting cards, jigsaws, specialty journals and wrapping paper. While some of the additions could be valuable because of goos profit, others with a lower than 50% gross profit will be of dubious value.
For high interest trends we need to get in early, execute well, get out ahead of the curve and manage the amount of low margin product compared to fair margin product. We do this by being proactive. If an Australian supplier tells you about a trend you have not heard of before, it is likely you would be introducing the product after the trend has started fading overseas.
Footnote: I have seen plenty of adult colouring greeting cards, wrap and jigsaws at international trade shows over the last few weeks.
Further it my post about employee theft last week, contact your newsagency software company and ask them to do a theft check of your business. Give them your data and nothing else. See what they come up with.
The most interesting of these I did was years ago when the wife of a partner was found to be the thief, feeding a poker machine gambling problem.
Leverage more margin dollars from magazine destination shoppers with thoughtful placement of snacks – candy, jerky, chips etc – with magazines.
This example is from a UK newsagent – smart clip strip placement to make the pitch. This is easy and newsagents have access to plenty of products today.
The products you choose to place need to target your shoppers. Jerky might one in one location while premium candy might be ideal elsewhere.
Personalise your communication and help people get to know you. In your emails to customers, include your name. When commenting on your business Facebook page, use your name. Let people know who you are as you are a competitive advantage for your business.
I mention this today as I saw an email last week from a newsagent to a customer where the newsagent did not include their name on the email – there was no idea who wrote the email. Impersonal and unprofessional.
I have been helping a newsagent left in the dark by the people they purchased their newsagency from. They were taught the basics of operating the shop and given a one-page given a list of suppliers as a hand over document. This was their first business purchase and did not know what they did not know until it was too late.
When I sold a retail business in 2014, I provided a four page 1,200 word document with all details necessary for the new owners:
What was especially useful (I am told) was the information on suppliers. The list given to the newsagent I am helping has no contact details, no history of trading. This is problematic as the new owners wiped the computer system of all data except for basic stock information.
Having the package of information available helped sell the business as it made the business seem easier to run for someone with no experience. It also gave me peace of mind knowing I have provided a good hand over.
Vendors have an ethical responsibility to hand their business over in a thorough and professional way. Those of us in the channel for the long term ought to push harder for this to be resolved.
Here is the smartest Valentine’s Day pitch I have seen, an impulse pitch at the sales counter of a very funky gift shop in New York. The card selection is the key – non-traditional. This is the way to get people buying Valentine’s Cards who would not usually do so – with funky product placed ideally for impulse purchase.
