Take a careful look at the magazines you sell and pitch titles together to create a narrative unique to your business. For example, these three vintage themed magazines can be promoted together targeting vintage lovers while the titles themselves regularly sit in different categories of the magazine department.
One way we can grow magazine sales is to stop pitching them as traditional magazines.
We have moved newspapers from the entrance to the magazine aisle and replaced them with a selected range of magazines. Our focus on the top row, the row people notice first, is on titles unique to us, independent titles through which we pitch a point of difference.
The next shelf down is about eating healthy and the bottom shelf is about funky craft.
We have gone for titles with broad appeal.
It is essential magazine offers in newsagencies change regularly and that we do not engage in billboard type displays of magazines readily available in supermarkets. The more we promote titles unique to our channel the more attention we will get from publishers for the uniqueness of our channel.
We are leveraging the Pacific Magazines Nexus email marketing in-store. We have printed an email promoting Prevention and placed it with the magazine. This is so those who may have received the email are reminded of it while browsing. We love the Nexus email service. It is free. All 1,000+ newsagents in Nexus should use it.
Click on this image to see an email I received purporting to be from Australia Post. Checking the email address, the sender is lois@libero.it. This is not Australia Post.
If I clicked on the attachment in the email, the ZIP file, on a PC running Windows I would have been locked out of the computer and subject to a ransomware attack.
More and more newsagents are being affected by these malicious attacks, they are being locked out of their businesses.
You can avoid being hit by an attack by taking care with your emails.
If you are not sure of the sender, ignore the email. Tell everyone who has access to your email. Lay out your ground rules and demand discipline.
Most ransomware attacks can be avoided.
For protection, backup your hard disk to a location external to your business. This could be a removable drive or a cloud based backup service.
Backing up your data to the hard disk will not protect you as this will be locked out by the ransomware attack. I know of a retailer who was backing up to the hard disk drive in their computer as advised by a local IT tech. This was bad advice. They lost all their data.
Here is another example I received this afternoon at 4:45PM:
News overnight from Retail Newsagent in the UK:
Trinity Mirror announces retailer margin for 25p The New Day will be cut from 11.6p to 5.8p per copy.
While the new margin rate is reasonable as a percentage, it is unreasonable in monetary terms.
With real margins falling for small business retailers of newspapers here in Australia as well as the UK, we need to educate newspaper publishers to help them understand th real cost of these products in our businesses. We need to educate the through our actions.
Retail space is expensive as is labour. Costs are increasing here in Australia for both at close to 5% a year yet the real return we achieve from newspapers is falling.
Publishers address their own financial requirements through ad rates yet they squeeze small business retailers through cover price and permitted margin.
This is why newsagents are moving papers to locations that cost less and, in some cases, getting out of newspapers altogether. These moves are, in my vote, more important than any lobbying done by industry associations. Associations have failed on this for decades.
News Corp. is paying small business newsagents twenty cents per copy of The House of Wellness freebie handed out.
News Corp’s expectation is rooted in decades of history with our channel, history that is not so relevant today.
While some newsagents will like this type of campaign, most will not, they will see it as an annoying activity they have to undertake in the face of concerns at how News Corp. may treat them if they refuse.
For the twenty cents per copy, News Corp. expects newsagents to:
If this issue of The House of Wellness freebie is like the last issue, it is an advertising catalogue.
In my opinion, the twenty cents per copy is disrespectful. It does not provide reasonable compensation for what is expected. It is not a socially responsible payment from News for what they expect of newsagents.
My other concern is the disruption to the business promoting something of little or no relevance. The posters and wobblers are visual noise distracting from higher margin products newsagents can sell. We need less noise and not more.
Newsagents who will hand our the freebie might consider doing so without the posters and wobblers. I can understand that. Others while choose to not engage at all, and I can understand that.
News Corp. needs to be more respectful of newsagents in structuring these marketing activities for its clients. They need to price fairer compensation for newsagents. Otherwise, fewer newsagents will participate and, I suspect, more of the freebies will end up in the trash.
This newsagency front window faces a busy capital city street. It represents a missed opportunity. In this city there are many magazine outlets – newsagencies, supermarkets and convenience stores. This low margin product window display is not pitching a point of difference.
If I had this shop I would be promoting unique and high-margin product to attract passers-by into the business – rather than using the valuable front window as a billboard for products readily available in many other retail outlets nearby.
Some people will complain about this post, saying I should not criticise a newsagent. Being silent does not serve the needs of our channel or this business. Staying silent is like giving up.
We can to do better than this photo shows.
Picking up on my post yesterday about what Coles is doing with Hallmark in its supermarkets, I write today to call on newsagents to exert more control themselves over the card departments in their own businesses.
It is unfortunate card companies for decades have taught newsagents to rely on them for management of many aspects of the card department from fixtures to layout to visual merchandising to even secondary card locations in-store. I think this strategy was all about grabbing and retaining real-estate in retail newsagencies. Newsagents, short on capital, often agreed.
What we require today is different because retail has changed, online and offline. You can see card companies changing to suit, but not enough in our channel.
Our shops are our shops. Responsibility ultimately lies with us. Too often newsagents point to a card company if sales are down and while they share the responsibility, they alone are not responsible.
We choose our suppliers, the location of cards, the total space allocated, how they are managed in-store, how employees interact with cards an more.
We are responsible.
It is up to us to manage card company relationships to best serve the needs of our businesses. We are better served to do this if we don’t owe them any money for capital works or investment.
At the heart of our decisions needs to be facts … as in business data, our business data, sell through data. This data should come from our systems and not from the card companies.
Dealing with facts can be difficult as the facts may contradict the personal relationships built up over many years in our businesses. This is where it can get tough. But you must not allow personal relationships to get in the way of facts.
For their part, card companies need to engage more actively with the newsagency channel as we offer them the best opportunity for commercially valuable growth in this marketplace.
If only there were enough people in the card companies with small business retail experience to see this.
Here is an update for newsagents from Gordon and Gotch on the transition from Network Services:
Thank you for your assistance and support in executing a successful transition and integration of the NSC business.
Calls to GGA
- As you can imagine, there has been an increase in the volume and length of calls to our National Contact Centre. We appreciate your patience as GGA staff work through the calls.
- As an alternative to calling, please email us at contactus@gordongotch.com.au
- Nexus and Connections Agents are reminded that there is a special queue for them in our Contact Centre, so be sure to select Option 3 from the menu at the outset.
Transition titles and returns
- The list of 92 transition titles are available at www.gordongotch.com.au/ggweb/XITChangeover.aspx
- The data to allow returns for these transition issues to GGA was generated over the last two weekends .
- If you have attempted to return one of these transition issues before Friday 4thMarch, you may have received a message on your returns acknowledgement stating “Title/Issue Code Is Not Valid For Any Product Invoiced To You”. If this is the case, please try again this week as your request would not have been processed.
- If you attempted to return one of these transition issues on or after Friday 4 March 2016 and received a message stating “Title/Issue Code Is Not Valid For Any Product Invoiced To You”, YOU WILL NOT NEED TO RE SUBMIT THAT RETURN ENTRYas your request would have been processed automatically on Monday after the second batch of data was loaded.
Physical returns
Two weeks ago you were advised of changes to GGA’s physical returns process. We thank you for your compliance. If you have any questions related to physical returns, please go to http://www.gordongotch.com.au/ggweb/physicalreturnsFAQs.aspx
I noticed this new Hallmark branded greeting card offer last night in an inner suburban Coles supermarket I check out every week or so. What is new is the two spinners at either end and the twenty-four pockets of $2 cards in the middle top tier of the unit.
The investment by Coles and Hallmark in this new approach demonstrates a focus by Coles in the greeting card category.
While some in various card companies will say we should not concern ourselves with Coles as a competitor, my view is this latest move in Coles shows we have to lift our own game in-store.
It is wrong in my mind to say Coles sells to a different card shopper. People may buy cards at Coles at different times but these people will also buy from newsagencies, at different times. This is why I am concerned about the Coles move, especially what appeared to be a stronger focus on the $2 cards.
We have to look at refreshing our own card offer.
Fixtures on the walls of most newsagencies are tired. They are the usual rake of pockets on the wall with cards laid out in the common way of birth to death and, often lifestyle in its own space. While some of us have experimented with full-face and integrated, not many newsagents have.
I think the newsagency greeting card approach today is pretty much the same as it was twenty years ago because card companies have not invested sufficiently in considering display alternatives for our channel and because too many newsagents have not taken initiative for themselves.
This has to change if we are to pursue and achieve card sales growth. We need to be more aware not only of Coles but of others in this space, especially kikki.K, Typo and the speciality businesses in the space.
I am tracking double-digit card sales growth year on year. I know others tracking excellent growth too. So there is good news out there in newsagencies. I suspect this growth could be intensified if we are even smarter in our card offers, if we play way outside what has been traditional for us.
I urge newsagents hearing about the Coles move to not get angry as that would be futile. Get even by pursuing a more current model card offer. Do this by managing the category for your success. Be demanding of yourselves and your card suppliers. That Coles is innovating with Hallmark is business. We need to respond in a business appropriate way.
Footnote: What I saw at Coles this week reminded me in part of a display a saw when I visited the Papyrus showroom at the Atlanta Gift Fair in January this year:
Another newsagent is being audited by the ATO as their ratios fall outside the ATO published benchmark. The problem is, the newsagent has not done anything wrong. They have not under reported income, employed people off the books or done anything to warrant the audit. Their only ‘crime’ is submitting end of financial year numbers that do not fit the ATO narrow model.
This poor business is now penalised with an expensive audit – for which the ATO will offer no compensation, even when they find the business has done nothing wrong.
It is appalling the ATO sets its benchmarks without reasonable industry consultation and triggers an audit without justification other than a comparison with their benchmarks.
An ATO audit of a business that has not done anything wrong is a further tax on the target business. For a small business using external accounting services the cost can be considerable. This is why I say the ATO ought to refund the real cost of complying with the audit request, so the ATO is financially responsible for its actions.
If they ATO had to pay for wasteful audits it might be encouraged to revisit its benchmarks and thereby trigger less unwarranted audits.
The problem with thenATO is they do not engage on any rinsable level when you try and discuss anything like this with them. They are your worst nightmare government bureaucracy. There is no consideration that they have done anything wrong and always a presumption of guilt, especially when it comes to small business.
I urge newsagents to read through the entire benchmark page and see whether you fit within the ATO expectations.
I have been talking with the publisher of Lunch Lady magazine and through this gained an insight into the impact of early returns. Please do not early return this title as it is highly sought after and because it will sell right through the on-sale. This is a title through which you can promote your point of difference as a magazine specialist.
It started with the sharing of this post by a Lunch Lady fan on Pinterest:
Here is the original post launching issue #2. You can see the support for our channel here.
Here are comments from the original Instagram post. I urge you to read them:
hellolunchladyHAPPY LUNCH LADY NEWSAGENT DAY ! 🍾🍾🍾 Here’s a short story about launching a magazine that I didn’t once know. When you send your magazine to a newsagent they don’t always put it on on the shelves, there are times they put it back in their store room and send it right on back to you. True story. BUT the more ladies/men/kids/dogs who mention Lunch Lady to their local newsagent, the more chance she has of finding her place on a shelf. Lunch Lady is launching in newsagents TODAY, so swing by your local and pick her up and if you can’t find her, ask for her. If your local newsagent doesn’t have one email us office@hellolunchlady.com.au and we will see what we can do about it or check our stockists page – link in profile. Post pictures if you find her and tag so we can see where she has landed! #indiepublishing #askyourfriendlynewsagent
#lunchladymagazine (thanks Daylesford Newsagent for your amazing support!)
view all 60 commentsverylittlewing@misstoryb yay! So excited to check it out! Xxx
bowievalentineI just went into the newsy at Sorrento they didn’t have it so she’s going to order some 💪🏽
mrscutlassWent to my local yesterday, Morayfield, had them look it up and realised I was a day early. They popped one aside for me overnight! Something for me to look forward to once both littles are napping 😊
pingdiniHooray! Will have a look in Castlemaine.
janegrover_Wonderful x
kaitlynhoughAwesome, got one at Castlemaine newsagent @pingdini
sweetpeadarlingheartOh, I’m so jealous! I will have to resist – I’m still waiting for my copy on the post @hellolunchlady xx
poppyandmustardI was lucky enough to manage to pick one up yesterday! My newsagent must’ve had theirs out early. I’m totally not complaining though 🙂 My 18 month old has loved both issues now and carries them around the house with her everywhere. I must take a pic 😀
scrapkinsellaPleeeease also ask at your local health food store !! It’s a fantastic magazine that needs to be out there.
shannonhowAny stockists in Hobart @hellolunchlady ?
ash.foodieThat is true, I work in a newsagent.. Must be frustrating for you
middleaisleRight between the new idea and women’s weekly!! 😂 Lunch lady winning! 👏🏼👏🏼
fawn_tastic@hellolunchlady I kept bugging my local agent until they got it. I mean I was in there twice a week telling them about it. Now they stock it!
hellosugarlace@milkthieves have you got the 2nd edition in? Xx
daitchesonI bought mine yesterday at Mount Ommaney in Brisbane. It was still in the shopping trolley right at the bottom. The lady was lovely and dug it out for me. I told the lady behind the counter about it and she was going to buy it as well. Your book is fantastic and I love it. Well done.
pingdiniThanks, @kaitlynhough!
alex_willcocksIs there a gippsland newsagents that has it stocked?? That you know of???
dianaberruecosIs this available in the US? I was just about to buy it online and then saw the cost of shipping 😳. It is more than the cost of the magazine.
possumagik@ange_nicholson @denisehaslem
justfordaisyI’ll be checking @hellolunchlady is there someone sticking in the Illawarra or Southern Highlands, NSW?
As I noted, please do not early return as doing so can damage the whole channel to the people who are supportive of this title.
My newsagency software company Tower Systems has launched a new option[1] acquiring newsagency software, a pay as you go model. Here are the details of the announcement as published by Tower:
The time is right given changes in the channel with newsagents sourcing new products, pursuing new traffic and leveraging higher GP. Thanks to our work with gift, homewares and other specialty retail channels, Tower Systems can help you transform your business.
$220.00 a month is all it costs to access the Tower newsagency software package. The $220 is paid by credit card. Stop paying if you want to stop using the software.
We make this offer now as we think some software companies are considering quitting the newsagency channel. You can see this through their lack of engagement with newsagency specific development, non-attendance at trade shows like the Sydney and Melbourne Gift Fairs and lack of engagement in the structural changes in the channel.
Developing software and backing it with good support for newsagents is expensive. A software company with less than 500 customers will struggle to keep up.
1,755 newsagents use our software – our closest competitor has 600.
We have experience switching from POS Solutions, Computerlink and AccessPOS to Tower.
Pay as you go customers have access to weekly online training workshops, 130+ professional training videos, software updates, our friendly help desk, our after hours support team, our theft check service and our business performance assessment service … for no extra charge.
If you have current hardware, the only up-front cost is for installation and training. This new pricing option saves capital, it eliminates the need for a lease or bank financing.
You will see from the simple agreement that you can turn it off at any time and not pay a cent more. You are in control.
Come and see the software and meet our team at our user meetings – details enclosed.
THE TOWER NEWSAGENCY SOFTWARE
For $220.00 a month you can use our newsagency software covering:
SUPPORT AND TRAINING.
Included in the low monthly fee is access to the extraordinary Tower AdvantageTM service:
BUSINESS MANAGEMENT HELP.
Tower Systems is there when you need, helping with advice, insights and guidance as much or as little as you want. These services include at no extra cost:
The time is right to make this offer as only Tower Systems has the capacity, commitment and vision to help newsagents leverage best-practice technology in a valuable and unifying way. Let us help you.
NOTE: Here is our response to any competitor who comments that this offer sounds desperate: – it would if it was coming from a company with 500 or fewer customers that is not growing. Tower Systems is strong and growing. We serve 1,755 newsagency businesses. We are making the offer because we have the capacity to and because we have a vision for a bright future.
[1] All existing purchase options remain available for newsagents installing our software.
Note: I was not going to write about this here but feel I have to because of the misleading information published by POS Solutions on their company blog. Their Subscriptions blog post followed the Tower announcement. It contains inaccuracies not only seemingly about the Tower offer but also Xero and other pay as you go offers. It also neglects to address the mandatory annual fees situation. Note – Tower does not charge mandatory fees. Reading this post and others from them it is as if they would prefer to trash others rather than innovate for themselves.
With only one significant magazine distributor now, the time is right for Gotch to do things differently – and I think the company will. One such area of difference ought to be with partworks. Those of us who commercially appreciate and leverage partworks to their full potential for our businesses ought to be treated differently than those who treat them as another magazine.
I am sure we can provide greater sales certainty for the UK publishers, Gotch and our collector fans.
In one of my newsagencies we had to gift to get the new DC Comics Graphic Novel Collection. We received 5 copies. I was in a remote newsagency in Queensland a week ago and they received ten. Whereas we treated it as an event, connected with related product we sell, this other newsagents had it placed in with magazines with no special support.
I understand the frustration with partworks and the supply model and that this gets newsagents being frustrated with partworks. Allow partworks experts / specialists better attention and allocation support and the UK publishers and Gotch will soon see the network grow and sales beyond the first few issues stabilise as more of us will confidently promote putaways and that is where we make good money off of partworks as their loyalty facilitates loyalty to our businesses in other departments.
We have the technology in our shops to provide the distributor and publisher certainty for the supply model.
Now is the time for us to act on this.
Yes, I am advocating some newsagents are treated different, better, than others – based on their commitment. They treat partworks differently than others so let’s see this encoded in distribution practices.
With TV commercials on for partworks promoting us, we are reminded of the launch investment of the publisher and the opportunity for publisher / distributor / newsagent to agree a more equitable approach.
There is so much more that could be achieved for partworks. From where I sit, the biggest barrier is the will of the publisher to engage.
If you hate partworks, I get it – they are not for everyone. Please don;t attack those of us who love partworks and the traffic surge that flows from a TV campaign. This post is aimed at those who hate them getting less and those who love them having more control over what they get.
It is great to see the NRL promoting small business newsagents to their 394,000 Twitter followers.
Here’s a marketing tip, promote the collector cards on your business Facebook page and Twitter feed.
I love this cubby house I saw within a toy shop in Sydney recently. Kids see it and they run to it. They know it is there for their pleasure. Newsagents focussed on toys and other items for kids could create something similar for school holidays and promote it outside the business in the local paper, to parents groups and on social media. Having this in-store will change the feel of the shop and make your kid focus clear.
The newsagency channel has changed … because retail has changed because how people shop has changed because how people get news and information has changed.
Too many of our old school suppliers don’t get it. They think they can continue pay party commissions, expect premium space and expect us to focus on them ahead of where we make our real money.
Too many old school newsagents don’t get it .. you know, those who run their businesses as they did 10 and 20 years ago are in businesses with no future. these are the businesses closing, as they should.
Newsagent associations don’t get it. They focus on old school stuff and try and copy proactive marketing groups for new stuff.
I have spoken with three newsagents today who are being treated badly by suppliers because they are putting the needs of their businesses ahead of individual supplier needs. The newsagents are being smart. The are building stronger businesses from which the suppliers will most assuredly benefit yet the suppliers are too arrogant and stupid to see this. They think they can demand the newsagent serve them ahead of everything else.
My suggestion is if a supplier is being too demanding, beyond the value of the return of their products for the business, quit the supplier. Be done with them. This is true for any supplier including magazines and newspapers and lotteries. You own your business. The needs of your business have to come first.
And if you are paying association fees expecting the ANF to work on these issues for you – save your money, back yourself instead.
I like this retailer training initiative from Lotterywest. The only enhancement I’d like to see is for the training to be available online – but still live to facilitate lower cost engagement. Here is their announcement
Last week we made an exciting announcement to our retailers in our weekly e-newsletter InTouch, about the launch of our Lotterywest Retailer development workshop program.
The program has been introduced to provide retailers and their teams with regular professional and business development opportunities during the year. We’ve chosen topics based on feedback retailers have shared with us over the last six months.
Take a look below to see what’s on this year.
Workshops are for owners, store managers and staff. Meet our workshop presenter, Danielle from the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Western Australia (CCI WA) who we’ve been working with to customise the workshops to best suit the business operations of our retailers, whilst providing practical skills, knowledge and tools to enhance workplace performance.
I like this placement of the iPhone 6s instruction magazine with British weekly magazines. It was done by the manager at one of my newsagencies in response to noticing the demographic of the iPhone magazine customer. This type of deliberate off-location placement of a magazine title is the work of a magazine specialist.
Miranda Ward writing at mUmBRELLA has represented newsagents well in our fight with supermarkets on magazines.
I am pleased to see this quote from me as it is a message publishers need to get.
“Supermarkets treat magazines as a commodity. Newsagents continue to range the category as specialists. That has a higher cost for us yet we are not respected for this.
“The MPA needs to reconsider its focus on newsagents as the specialists as the current situation is a band aid approach that does not serve them or us well.”
While the current MPA newsagent only competition is good, it is not a strategy to revitalise magazines in our channel and for all Aussie publishers. No, to do that, we need to be respected for the specialists we are – as I have written before. If publishers do that, newsagents will reinvest in the category and, I expect, the dangerous sales decline of recent years will slow.
The current promotion is a tactic. What is needed is strategy. The MPA is not currently demonstrating an appetite for developing a strategy with and more newsagents.
