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

Month: November 2019

Appreciating evolution of boxed Christmas card packaging

It is good to see some Australian card suppliers, Paper Street and Henderson Greetings, offering boxed Christmas cards in open packaging this year. Packaging without the usual acetate all-enclosing container.

In this type of packaging, a slim cardboard box frame is used to hold the cards with most of the surface area front and back open so that customers can touch and feel the actual cards. It is an open box approach.

I like this. I like that it is a good environmental story as well as a good customer service experience.

Feedback from customers in-store has been terrific so far this year. since we have the traditional and new packaging from various suppliers in-store, it is interesting hearing unprompted comparisons about the packaging being made.

The open box in the photo below is from a card company in the UK. I am holding it so you can see what I mean about the benefits of this type of packaging.

Where cards have treatments, such as embossing, the open box approach works well, offering shoppers a tactile experience that could / should more effectively guide purchase.

I anticipate a consequence of more card companies adopting the open box approach to the traditional boxed Christmas card packaging will be better product, product that leverages the tactile shopping experience. Customers will benefit as will retailers and card companies.

Anything we can do to grow card sales has to be important, right?! I think this open box approach pursues that goal.

With physical retailers chasing opportunities to offer experiences, it  is appropriate and timely that innovative card companies are facilitating a better experience in Christmas boxed card shopping.

As competition with online intensifies, anything we in physical retail can do to leverage in-store tactile experiences matters. 

Boxed Christmas card sales are important for the newsagency channel in that compared to everyday card sales, we perform very well in the boxed Christmas card space. Being on the front foot with innovation matters as it is differentiating. This is where the work by Paper Street and Henderson Greetings is important as it provides indie retailers with an advantage.

8 likes
Greeting Cards

Black Friday update

Further to my Black Friday post yesterday. To come in this morning and see $1,500 in online sales overnight for one store when usually overnight sales would be at $250.00 is heartwarming. This result is almost as good as the result the night before.

Not one of the sales is to a shopper within two hours of the business.

Accounting for shopping, the GP% achieved is 46%, which is terrific for a sale event.

As fulfilment is from existing leased space and labour resources, there are no additional overheads.

While the name Black Friday has a very different meaning to Australians, online being what it is, there is no opportunity to swing against the tide. Embracing it more fully as we have done this year will see thousands of dollars bottom line benefit well ahead of Christmas.

I think this is where Black Friday plays most interestingly – pulling forward what for us might have been Christmas or Boxing Day Sale purchases, or net new revenue – I say this given that it’s online and I suspect many of the shoppers were looking for a deal so if we did not get them now we would not have got them later. the reality is, who knows?! I am okay with that as a $ banked today is real.

Update: 5:20pm.  $3,000 in revenue today from  this niche website. Not one sale to a  customer within 2 hours of the small suburban high street shop. All on the back of a Black  Friday promotion, on which we spent $0 in marketing.

8 likes
newsagency of the future

The Washington Post embracing TikTok…

TikTok is a fascinating platform to me. fascinating because the common questions re what? and why? It is interesting to see The Washington Post has someone full time creating TikTok content like this.

Happy Friday…

3 likes
Media disruption

Black Friday

What started as a US retail event associated with Thanksgiving is now a worldwide phenomenon in retail, in-store and online. Shoppers expect it.

One of my stores has received plenty of queries from shoppers about what they can expect in Black Friday deals. This at a store that has never engaged with it before.

If you are in a major shopping centre, I think engaging with Black Friday is essential. If you are online, likewise. Heck, this is now a retail event for all retailers.

We are using it as we do for Boxing Day sales, an opportunity to quit stock and free space. Bargain hunters will love it. we love the opportunity of clearance.

I get that it is not an Aussie season. However, the anticipation around Black Friday is so great in Australia that we need to engage, or be ignored.

4 likes
marketing

Is there an issue with the in-store digital advertising screens for The Lott?

Several retailers have told their their in-store ad screens for The Lott have been down for more than two weeks and that they have been told  they cannot put promotional posters in front of them.Instead, there screens remain of no promotional value to the businesses of The Lott.

While there are consequences for retailers when they do something wrong or have something go wrong, there are no such consequences for The Lott.

13 likes
Lotteries

Curious Planet / Australian Geographic mess challenges toy and book retailers and suppliers

The situation with Curious Planet as reported last week is challenging for all businesses in the toy and book and related space.

The company behind famous retail brands Australian Geographic and the Co-op bookshop owes more than $12 million to toy sellers and publishers that say their payments are in some cases months overdue.

…

Internal documents seen by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age show suppliers across both the university textbook store and the science retailer were last week owed $12.6 million, of which $8.8 million was owed for stock delivered and services rendered at least 90 days prior.

One supplier, textbook publisher John Wiley & Sons, was owed more than $1 million, and 26 suppliers were owed more than $100,000 each.

The University of Western Australia and the Sydney University Sport and Fitness Centre were owed six figures, as were Australia Post and wholesale toys giant Independence Studios.

While the financial fight is between retailer and suppliers, the reality is business is that all in the ecosystem are impacted one way or another.

It is easy to feed a story like this into a narrative of, hmmm, take your pick: tough retail conditions, online is killing us, landlords charge too much, Aussies are not spending. In my opinion, these narratives are unhelpful.

A retail business in trouble is usually in trouble because of decisions made in that business. What sucks is that other businesses in or close to the ecosystem are affected through consequences of the money lost.

3 likes
Ethics

Subscription referral bonus

Isubscribe offers $5 for each magazine subscription referral that results a subscription. That is a nice reward.

Newsagents, on the other hand, are expected to offer use of their retail space and resources to promote subscriptions for no reward.

While it has always been thus, in this world of little or no increase in cover prices and newsagent earnings from magazines far less today than ten years ago, it is only natural we look at issues like this.

FYI, here are their current featured deals…

5 likes
Magazine subscriptions

The fundamental way accessing news has changed

Since newspapers began, they can controlled access to their stories in print and, later, online. That has served them well, delaying the impact of digital engagement that we see impacting many other industries.

That is changing, and fast.

With more and more news and content aggregation services and an apparent like of bundled subscription services, newspaper publishers are on board and overing lower cost access to some of their content through these platforms. This is a fundamental which in their model.

The story is the thing for many. They will pursue a story or topic as an entry point rather than going to a masthead and reading what it has to offer.

For decades, we’d pick up a paper and read what the publishers served.

Today, thanks to rap[idly evolving mobile tech, we start with what interests us and let that guide where we go.

Online retailers dealing this. Their realise that their brand is irrelevant to shoppers pursuing an interest or product. Look at Google searched, they are far less for department stores than specific items for sale. The same is true for Google searches for news. People search for the topic  rather than the masthead.

This is why I think services like Apple News+ are driving  seismic change in how, when and where news is accessed and why I think it is today far less abut the masthead than it is about the story.

An interesting shift will come when News+ and similar connect directly with respected journalists, cutting out the middle-man of publishers. We see this already through a range of websites. I expect the pace of change here to pick up.

Where are newsagents in all of this? Nowhere except for some gift cards some of us sell for a micro margin. We partner with publishers for print product product only. For digital, they have different and bigger partners who get them closer to people prepared to pay for their content.

I see no downside in this if we have embraced new traffic opportunities and are bringing people to our shops and websites for other products we sell, products through which we can adjust our focus.

8 likes
Media disruption

People visit for the experience

Major landlords like Westfield are encouraging retailers to offer experiences, usually around major licences. They are doing this because they know it is tougher to get shoppers into physical retail. At one of my stores they have refreshed the behind the counter pitch to more deeply connect with lovers of Frozen, the hit movies and Broadway musical. People are loving this. We welcome them being photographed with it.

6 likes
marketing

The Walmart approach to change in retail

CNBC published a fascinating story yesterday about US retail giant Walmart.

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon: ‘We could go away at any minute’

Walmart is constantly evolving to avoid dying off, as plenty of other retailers have, according to the company’s chief executive officer.

“Walmart is not arrogant,” CEO Doug McMillon said at CNBC’s Evolve Summit in Los Angeles on Tuesday morning. “We could go away at any minute. I think most of us act that way every day. If you’re not willing to fail — and we are failing at some things — you’re going to go away.”

McMillon went on to say that, at Walmart, “everything is open to change.”

…

“Retailers come and go,” McMillon said. “It’s really simple: If you’re not meeting the wants and needs of the customer, you’re done. There’s not a lot of loyalty here.”

There is plenty here that relates to our channel.

7 likes
retail

Newsadoo – Spotify for news

I met some folks behind Newsadoo, a new app for accessing news stories, at a start-up conference yesterday. It is an interesting app that offers the ability to follow a story across multiple platforms. It also leverages subscriber content without you needing to have multiple subscriptions if you have a Newsadoo subscription.

This is an interesting product that already partners with some Aussie news outlets such as Crikey, Nine and News.

The world is changing, rapidly.

5 likes
Media disruption

Gifts that can be posted work well in the newsagency

Gifts that can be easily posted with a card, like these Christmas 2019 mint coins from the Royal Australian Mint, work well at the counter in-store as well as on social media.

There are other gifts too, which can be easily posted, such as small format gift books, badges, tokens and more.

Plenty of people are keen for a gift they can post, something they are proud to give, which can be posted with a card, especially at Christmas.

I am particularly interested in gifts that people rarely see at a newsagency counter. That is why I like the Royal Mint coins so much. They are a genuine point of difference – driving impulse purchases and attracting new shoppers.

Differentiating is key.

10 likes
Gifts

Grateful for good stories from ‘newsagents’

I am grateful for the opportunity over the last two weeks to have met with many newsXpress members as part of a series of member meetings around the country.

While most newsXpress member meetings focus on business strategy discussion, business development opportunities, product category training and related topics, this series of meetings has been about checking in with newsXpress business owners, to understand business performance, local economic factors and more, to listen.

I am particularly grateful for the good news stories shared so far at these meetings. newsXpress members sharing with other newsXpress members local success stories from the small to the large. So many good news stories, each encouraging optimism.

  • There is the story about the newsXpress member who started a personal craft project to help them deal with a challenging personal situation. While it did help with that, it also resulted in a unique locally made product shoppers are loving, something through which the business differentiates even today, long after the personal project commenced.
  • There is the story about a business confronted by high operating costs and a poorly negotiated lease from before they joined newsXpress. Following a carefully structured process, they were able to achieve a beneficial reduction rent. They also were able to cut the cost of insurance, labour costs and EFTPOS costs. Combined, the lower costs were the encouragement the business needed to set path on a brighter future.
  • There is the story about the business in a small country town that was facing a tough challenge from a local gift shop that was copying every move they made. They embraced the training and opportunity of social media and a year later they succeeded in what had become a challenging competitive battle.While the closure of another small business is not a good story, it is good news for the newsxpress business.
  • There is the story about the business confronted by a shrinking town and diminishing relevance because of challenges with core newsagency lines. With support and encouragement and based one research they introduced a completely new product category and through this attracted new shoppers. Two years on, that category is delivering a third of their revenue and providing oxygen for their business.
  • There is the story of the newsagent who embraced advice to be more local by connecting with local makers and introducing their products in the store. The result was more shoppers, local and from further afield, shopping for the local products – on the back of the local markets promoting the business to their own social media followers.

These are five of the many stories  I have heard over the last couple of weeks. Stories of encouragement from success and optimism about the value of pursuit of change.

While many of the stories I have heard do not fit comfortably under the old newsagency shingle, they fit comfortably within each business to which they relate. Kudos to those retailers involved.

Good news stories are good. I am glad newsXpress is part of them.

14 likes
newsagency of the future

Politicians fail to nurture confidence among Australian shoppers

An important role for politicians is to nurture confidence in the community as it is confidence that encourages economic engagement, such as spending in local retail shops.

We know from consumer surveys in Australia in 2019 that consumer confidence is challenged. While a survey this month shows an uptick, confidence remains low, and this plays out at registers in shops large and small.

It is unfortunate that politicians of all sides too often prefer to attack rather than lead, they prefer to score points against competitors rather than encourage the broader community to feel more confident. It is the politicians at the edge who appear to pull the most focus in the media and therefore do the most damage to consumer confidence.

There is plenty to be optimistic about, plenty from which we can build confidence in the community. This ought be the focus of all politicians. It ought be the focus of news outlets, too. They should stop doing the bidding of politicians, running their fringe issue stories, running stories for which there is non evidence of support.

Australian businesses, Australian retailers, small business retailers especially need local shoppers to be more confident. Confidence is key to getting people shopping.

While personal confidence is nurtured by personal success and achievement, community wide confidence can be nurtured through good leadership, the type of leadership politicians ought be delivering. The right words in the right locations could make a significant difference to the performance of retail businesses this Christmas.

No, I am not suggesting politicians say go out and spend up this Christmas or go and shop local. Those statements, which I have heard recently, are not confidence building. In my view, such statements are lazy. They fall flat.

I’d rather politicians talk about the awesome local gift they found, shine a light on a local shipping precinct in theirs electorate, talk up locally made food or celebrate with gratefulness every business related good news story in their electorate.

Politicians need to talk optimistically about the economy, shopping local, the country and the future. They can do this without being political, without supporting fringe issues. and without being clumsy in their pitch.

Community confidence builds over time, layer by layer, story by story. Politicians, for part of their lives, are storytellers. We need them to be good storytellers and tellers of confidence encouraging stories.

25 likes
Social responsibility

Christmas version 4 in the newsagency

We are now at the fourth version of Christmas on the lease line of the Westfield mall based newsagency and from now, the changes will be weekly as the season moves up several gears.

The tree I posted about a 10 days ago lead to the sell our of all the homewares ornaments we stocked.

Christmas 2019 is going well for us with cards, gifts and ornaments performing ahead of goal.

6 likes
Newsagency management

UK newspaper publisher to cease Saturday editions in pursuit of digital products

US newspaper publisher McClatchy announced yesterday plans to cease printing Saturday editions of some of their titles. This story fromMarc Tracy at the The New York Times:

McClatchy Says So Long to Saturday (Print) Newspapers

Subscribers to The Miami Herald, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram and The Charlotte Observer will no longer find a newspaper at the end of their driveway on Saturday mornings.

McClatchy, a newspaper chain with more than 30 publications in 14 states, said on Wednesday that it planned to eliminate Saturday print issues at all its daily newspapers by the end of 2020, though a new slate of articles will continue to appear digitally.

Craig Forman, the chief executive of the publicly owned publisher, announced the decision during a call with investors to discuss third-quarter earnings. He added that what he called “digital Saturdays” were already underway at four McClatchy papers: The Sun News in Myrtle Beach, S.C.; The Bellingham Herald in Bellingham, Wash.; The Durham Herald Sun in Durham, N.C.; and The Centre Daily Times in State College, Pa.

“In those markets where implementation has occurred, we are seeing an accelerated conversion to our digital products,” Mr. Forman said. “We expect to expand digital Saturdays to all of our markets during the course of 2020 as we advance toward our digital future.”

We need to look at all moves by newspaper publishers through the lens of driving engagement in digital product as that is their future.

If I  had shares in a newspaper publishing business, I’d want them singularly focussed on driving share value. Today, value will not be driven by sustaining print editions that are not even covering their costs. The future of news is on the digital platforms. While long form analysis works in print, not enough purchase this to sustain it as a daily or even several times a week medium.

7 likes
Media disruption

UK’s Sainsbury’s to supply Coles

Euronews reports that the UK Sainsbury’s supermarket group is to supply the Aussie Coles supermarket group with product.

LONDON (Reuters) – British supermarket group Sainsbury’s <SBRY.L> has struck an agreement to sell packaged groceries and household products in Australia as it seeks to grow its wholesale business, it said on Monday.

Sainsbury’s said it has agreed a wholesale partnership with Australian grocer Coles <COL.AX>.

The UK firm’s biggest wholesale deal yet will see it supply own brand products to Coles supermarkets across Australia, as well as online, from early next year.

This is an interesting move in the home brand space and while not directly related to newsagency product categories, it reflects the changing nature of home brand. This deal is on the back of others in the home brand space recently that could impact our channel.

2 likes
retail

ACCC seeking submissions on Bauer takeover of Pacmags

The ACCC has written to a number of interested parties seeking submissions by Friday this week on the proposed takeover of Pacific magazines by Bauer. The Merger Investigations office of the ACCC has published questions to be considered by consumers/readers, advertisers, content suppliers, newsagents and magazine distributors, printing services and others.

3 likes
magazines

Tabcorp gives in to a small software company and saddles newsagents with another poor process

This Friday, Tabcorp will communicate with newsagents about how it will handle POS barcodes for the pay-in-store digital wallet.

We are releasing the new POS Barcodes for the Pay-in-Store tickets on the terminal. Having spoken to you three POS providers and listening to the needs of many retailers, the decision has been made to have a separate POS Barcode for tickets that are purchased by a digital wallet with an actual dollar amount.

Pilot outlets will be from Friday 15 November 2019. If all goes well it will be rolled out to the whole network commencing Monday 18 November 2019.

This will be communicated to the network in What’s Hot @ the Lott Friday 15 November 2019.

While it is true that Tabcorp did speak with people from POS software companies, including mine, Tower Systems, they have gone with a request from a smaller company, an idea that results in, in my opinion, more work for retailers, more risk of mistakes. This is a dumb move by Tabcorp, a move that does not respect retailers, a move will have negative consequences in-store.

How do I know Tabcorp is acting on  the request of a smaller POS software co? It’s in an email from Tabcorp, in which they name the company and detail their request to handle this  the way Tabcorp has now decided on.

Rather than implement the right technical approach that respects retail counter workflow and data accuracy, Tabcorp has gone with an approach because, I think, of the need to work with inflexible (backward?) software. regardless of the reason, Tabcorp’s decision is wrong for retailers.

Newsagents are the losers in all this, again. At least they will know who to blame.

Footnote: the proposal from Tower was based on what the Tower COO know would support retail sales counter workflow and data accuracy and would work with all POS software. Tabcorp, does not support those goals, apparently.

28 likes
Lotteries

Suggestions for politicians on how to kick start small business retail in Australia

Every election, politicians say that small business is the lifeblood of Australia. Then, after the election, they forget about small business. No wonder trust in politicians by Australian voters is low.

Small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy.

Small business retailers are nimble and able to lift local economies faster than big businesses and certainly better than  online businesses.

Here are six tips for politicians on steps they can take, decisions they can make to help lift retail, especially small business retail.

  1. Direct all politician electorate Christmas spending to be with local small businesses. For gifts, parties, cards, everything for a year. Have the results assessed independently. Ensure that spending is fair, too, to benefit a variety of local businesses, and not dolled out as political favours. Shop local, shop small.
  2. Run a national shop small shop local ad campaign. Make it educational, smart, encouraging …, guiding Aussies on the value to them from shopping local, shopping small. Help to understand the true value of shopping local, shopping small compared to the alternatives. The ad campaign should run regionally across multiple media platforms, giving preference to locally owned platforms with a track record for not managing their business to minimise tax.
  3. Local shops refresh grant. Give every local retail business a grant of at least $10,000 with the stipulation that it is spent locally on capital works for the shop, to improve the shop. Proof of local spending is to be in the form of an invoice from a local tradesperson or company with and ABN and more than a year of trading as recognised by the ATO – to avoid fraud. Spending could be focussed: painting, electrical, carpentry, flooring, repairs. The management of this should be online with quick approval and payment. Note: the $10,000 is suggested as anything less could be cosmetic.
  4. Local artists grants. Offer cash grants to fund buskers for local high streets, to make shopping locally more entertaining. Make the application easy. Focus on local artists entertaining in their local community. This serves the dual purpose of injecting cash locally as well as fostering the local arts. The application process should be online, approval fast and payment immediate.
  5. Local visual merchandising supports. Keeping in-store displays can be a challenge for small business retailers. Fund a network of merchandisers to make a 2 hour call weekly on qualified independent small retail businesses, sub $1M turnover, ABN registered, trading for six months or more. With each visit to be about visual refresh of the shop. Cap the cam pain at three months assess the economic value. Only local merchandisers to be used – i.e. to an overseas agency who hires local contractors.
  6. Establish local currency systems. These work overseas on regional towns where local currency has more value than the national currency. It supports shopping local through a smart value structure. the government role could be on the tech back end to manage the currency – taking away capital cost from local councils. To find out more ab9out this, read up on the Bristol Pound.

This list could be much longer. It is offered here as a start, to gets people thinking of practical ways to support shopping small, shopping local.

The current disinterest by politicians in practical support for local small businesses has us on a path of business closures. Urgent action is needed to engage locals in supporting local businesses.

23 likes
Small Business

Fun sells for Christmas 2019

We have been featuring fun Christmas items at the front of the store in recent weeks and it has worked a treat, connecting with younger shoppers who look for less traditional Christmas related cards and gifts. They also work well with work colleague gifts where Christmas tradition is less formal.

There are many forms of Christmas celebration and having options that serve a variety is key to making the most of then traffic boost the season brings.

While we pitch traditional in our Christmas offers in-store, it is the fun and the non traditional that are working well early in Christmas 2019, and we are grateful for that.

3 likes
marketing
  • 1
  • 2
Trending Articles

Fairfax changes approach to TV Guide, disrespects newsagents

Published on April 20, 2011

What do you think of the Powerball changes?

Published on February 16, 2018

IPS releases new magazine contracts

Published on June 21, 2011