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

Author: Mark Fletcher

Using a GoPro to learn more from shopper movement in the newsagency

IMG_0629We have been experimenting with a GoPro camera attached to a register terminal at the far corner of the counter in the newsagency, placed such that we can see people entering the business, where they head, how long they are in-store and whether they purchase.

The vision from the GoPro camera is another data point useful in understanding what happens in the shop and useful in guiding business decisions based on the data.

Using a GoPro like this is more useful than a fixed CCTV as it is flexible, it an be moved as needed and placed in different locations for different occasions.

Being small and portable, the GoPro could easily be situated to show people walking past the shop. On playback you could see those who look in the window and stop as well as those who walk on by without even noticing the business.

The opportunities are terrific. I see the Go Pro as being especially useful in businesses that are changing and attracting more than the regular shopper who can be as store blind as those who work in the business.

I have written here previously about the value of sitting outside the business and looking in, watching shopper movement. This camera offers similar benefits without you have to commit so much of your own time.

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Newsagency management

Sunday newsagency marketing tip: check how your marketing group is promoting your business

Screen Shot 2016-06-19 at 8.07.31 AMStaying on top of advertising and marketing an be a challenge for any small business retailer in this media diverse world. It takes time and money. More important, it takes skill – to promote the right products in the right way to attract shoppers for the business in-store and online. Experts say between 70% and 80% of purchases have an online component.

Marketing is what newsagents usually expect from a marketing group, especially marketing that leverages movie franchises and major brands on behalf of member stores.

Through my work with newsXpress I know a bit about how markets on behalf of its members nationally and regionally on a range of social media platforms and in mainstream media.

A good example of leveraging a movie franchise has been on show this weekend with its promotion of Finding Dory products for the movie that was released a few days ago in the cinemas. In the first 17 hours of the Facebook post by newsXpress more than 1,246 people had entered the competition and more than 232 had shared the post. More important than these two stats is the 1,543 clicks on the post with many of these using the find a store facility through the newsXpress website to find their local newsXpress.

Engaged newsagency marketing groups can do the heavy lifting for local newsagency businesses. Newsagents in a group ought to expect the marketing activity of the group they are in to raise awareness and drive traffic.

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marketing

Sunday newsagency management tip: check on your partner

Checks and balances on cash, inventory and other business assets is as important between partners as it is with employees. Too often I see theft occurring in newsagencies and other small retail businesses where a partner has stolen from the business.

Theft by a partner in the business is usually done in the same way and for the same reasons as that by employees.

Managing theft by a partner, stopping it, is done by having good management practices in place for cash, inventory and assets and applying the rules and requirements against everyone working in the business. Core in the management practices are checks and balances along with transparency at every step.

Discovering theft is often too late for any effective recovery for the business.

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Management tip

Finding Dory … in the newsagency

I am thrilled with the front of the newsagency as created by a talented manager at Knox – ready for the opening weekend interest around Finding Dory that opened at theatres Thursday night. How is this for a front of store pitch in a newsagency.

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marketing

Pressure on ink consumables for newsagents

IMG_0575 (1)With manufacturers promoting long life printer cartridges and ink bundles offering two years of ink with printers, the ink and toner consumable marketplace looks set to be under pressure as more of these printers are put there.

This move by the printer companies is their response to generating products being sold.

This is a trend newsagents who rely on ink as a traffic driver need to watch and take into account in their business planning. The major printer retailers are on board with large displays in-store and posters on store windows promoting these large tank and similar printer options.

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Stationery

Has GNS Toner crossed your path?

Screen Shot 2016-06-17 at 1.51.12 PMI have heard from a customer about GNS Toner and did some digging to find out more about this business, checking who is behind the company and who registered the domain name. GNS Toner has no connection whatsoever with GNS. I would be interested to hear from any newsagents who have heard about this business or had interaction with them.

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Stationery

Collectible bear event in Melbourne

CollectableBearEventSouthlandWe are hosting a special collectible bear event in Melbourne later today at my newsXpress Southland store from 2pm onwards, at Westfield Southland.

This is a premium collector event that includes several activities through afternoon and evening. We have an expert who will share how bears are designed and made, another with wonderful knowledge on the exclude hand made in UK Willow range and bear collectors keen to share their passion.

To keep participants refreshed we have arranged cake and coffee from the Fergusson Plarre located opposite us.

We have promoted the event as a Facebook event, using social media to attract new shoppers.

While we are targeting collectors, we are also seeking to attract those who do not currently collect buy may collect. Oh, and by collectors, we mean any premium plush collector – of bears, dragons and other characters, people who are happy to spend anything from $100 to $750 on a purchase.

A core goal of this event is to find new shoppers people who would not usually shop with us and who may not shop in a newsagency. The event and the marketing of it play against assumptions, they challenge what people expect and through this have them look at us differently.

I think this is something we need to do in our businesses – we need to range product, host events and market the business ignoring what people expect from our type of business. We need to not allow our shingle or shopper expectations for our type of business restrict shoppers we can attract or what we can achieve.

We will know by tonight how the event has gone. Success will be measured by revenue, new customer contact and feedback from those with whom we have connected through the marketing, and this has been happening through the last two weeks. In fact, the learnings already have been terrific.

FYI here is the text of our social media marketing yesterday. I share it to show the style we are going for:

We are very excited to be bringing the beautiful range of hand made in the UK Willow Bears to Westfield Southland (in Melbourne) tomorrow from 2pm for a very special showing. If you love beautiful bears you will not want to miss this event at newsXpress Southland. There will be cake. www.willowbears.com.au

If you happen to stop by and check out the event, be sure to introduce yourself.

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marketing

Lotterywest retail transformation

I have been provided two more up to date images of the Lotterywest in-store retail transformation. I am sharing them here to keep readers up to date and to offer non Lotterywest lottery retailers an opportunity to compare to the Tatts in-store retail requirements.

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Lotteries

Tatts launches The Lott on mobile

IMG_0592Tatts has switched from its state-based branding to the The Lott for the App for mobile devices. This move makes the years-long transition for retail concerning for retailers and confusing for shoppers. If I play on the app am I going to forget about brands like Golden Casket or Tatts?

While I understand tatts had no choice because of the various online competitors, it appears to have rushed the move for itself and not thought through the implications for its retail network. I suspect that has to do with the capital cost of change. However, to that I would say the branding change is being driven by tatts so they ought to bear the cost of the change.

There is one screen in the App that connects The Lott with Tatts:

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If I was a Tatts retailer I would be working to achieve clarity on exactly what is happening with the brand into which I have invested so much money as the move by tatts immediately devalues the capital investment tTatts has required me to make. I’d like an independent authority to assess the situation on behalf of small business retailers.

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Lotteries

This is the one reason why you will want to get serious about stock control

It shocks me when I hear of any retailer selling items for which they do not track movement, While they scan items when they sell them, to get the price, they do not ‘receive’ new stock into their POS software.

Not tracking the movement of all inventory in the business sets the business up for certain failure.

Not tracking stock makes the business considerably more vulnerable to theft. The evidence supporting this claim is irrefutable.

If you are serious about reducing the cost of theft in your business you will track stock.

If you are not serious about reducing the cost of theft in your business you will not track stock.

Yes, it is as simple as that.

Not tracking stock is a dumb move. It is like saying come on and take what you want, because I will never know what you take, I won’t be able to report it to the police, I will not be able to claim it on insurance, so come on in and steal from me. Better still, all my employees – it is open slather as you know for sure that I don;t track anything.

Yes, not tracking stock from the moment it arrives in the business is dumb, stupid. Those do not not track stock get what they deserve.

There are no excuses.

Plenty of suppliers provide electronic invoices. Receiving stock into your software is fast, easy and leads to accurate pricing.

I have stories, many stories, of extraordinary theft in retail businesses including small business newsagencies, amounting to. in some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars, where theft of cash would have been caught much sooner had all stock been tracked.

It is not the fault of the POS software if the business owner chooses to use it badly. Just as it is not the fault of the car maker if the driver makes poor driving decisions.

I urge you to ensure all stock coming into your business is tracked from the moment it arrives. Do not put it off. If you don;t know what yo do, ask your software company, they are sure to have free training you can use to learn and get this under control.

The benefits will be less theft and better business decisions based on accurate data.

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Management tip

The cringeworthy specials in some newsagencies

IMG_0581 (1)I cringe when I see a display or dump bin in a newsagency selling separately items that were bundled with magazines to help them sell – cheapening the businesses where it is done and all businesses that share the shingle. It needs to stop. We are better retailers than this.

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Ethics

Back to basics: scanning training is important for retail employees

Does everyone working in your retail newsagency know how to scan barcodes?

I urge newsagents to check in with everyone working in their businesses, to see how they scan. Inaccurate scanning can result in register over rings, under rings, inaccurate inventory data … and more problems than these.

Please don’t dismiss this advice as professional scanning reflects the professionalism of your business.

I was talking with a newsagent last week about a theft problem that was not discovered as early as it could have been because of the lazy approaching the business to scanning. I know of another where customer throughput at the counter is regularly impacted by poor scanning techniques.

So, take a moment to check that your employees scan professionally:

  1. Be aware of where barcodes are located on products.
  2. Do not put price labels over barcode.
  3. Pass a barcode across the scanner once.
  4. Pass from one side to the other, always following the same path.
  5. Only hold one product when you are scanning.
  6. Rapid movement back and forth does not assist scanning.
  7. Rubbing a barcode on a scanner does not assist scanning.
  8. Hitting a scanner with a product, barcode facing toward it, will not assist accurate scanning.
  9. Scanners should only be cleaned with screen cleaning cloths, using an abrasive cleaner will not help the scanner.
  10. Place the scanner on the side of the register than the majority of employees prefer – knowing left handed employees will have a different preference to right handed.

While this topic may seem to be of minor interest, there are plenty of retail businesses I have seen where following the simple steps above will improve accuracy, shopper throughput and data integrity.

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Management tip

Ensuring the Pacific Magazines promotion is top of mind

FullSizeRender 4We have a small reminder of the titles that are part of the Pacific Magazines $150,000 competition placed just above the Point of Sale screen at the counter. This placement is as a reminder to team members from their side of the counter about the promotion and the titles involved. Since this is a newsagent-only promotion, anything we can do to reinforce this the better for us.

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magazines

Placing Time with newspapers

FullSizeRender 3The latest issue of Time magazine has been best placed with newspapers thanks to the Muhammed Ali cover. It is one issue people are likely to purchase solely for the cover story. Our job has been to put this issue in front of them.

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magazines

Sock promotion a hit for Vic. newsagents

FullSizeRender 6The sock giveaway with the Herald Sun and in association with Energy Safe Victoria on Saturday was a hit with customers. While socks were gone by lunchtime, people were okay if they missed out. The promotion was helped by the especially cold start to Saturday. I’d rate this as a good promotion.

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Newspapers

Sunday newsagency challenge: list what hasn’t sold

Go to your software and run a report listing stock on the shelves for which you have not sold one item in the last six months. In most newsagencies where I run this report the owners are shocked as it lists the value of this dead stock. A common response is to do nothing about it. I tell people buying newsagencies to not pay wholesale for dead stock – it should be discounted by its age.

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Newsagency challenges

Sunday newsagency marketing tip: stop marketing what everyone else is marketing

I continues to be surprised at how much time newsagents spend marketing lottery games, newspapers and the top selling magazine titles on social media and other marketing platforms for their businesses.

This marketing is not differentiating for your business.

The only time I see value in promoting a lottery game, scratch ticket, a newspaper or top-selling magazine is when the context of the marketing message is unique to your business. That uniqueness could be convenience of the shop, the hours or some other genuinely unique factor.

Unless there is a unique factor to offer context, the marketing of the lottery game, newspaper or magazine is not useful to your business.

For every social media post or every ad, you have to ask: what does this say about us?

Some of our national suppliers have been good at training us to promote their brands in a way that is not unique to us. That has to change with their products now widely available on many different retail businesses.

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marketing

Sunday newsagency management tip: have a policy on people who take photos in your newsagency

If you do not have a policy on photos being taken in your business you need to establish one and share with all who work in the business.

The policy needs to be simple: easily understood and easily enforced.

For what it is worth, here are my thoughts.

PHOTO POLICY OF THIS BUSINESS

  1. You are welcome to take selfies and photos of friends while in the shop.
  2. Please ensure others are not captured in your photos.
  3. Please do not take any close up photos of products without permission.
  4. Please do not take any photos of the business without permission as there are aspects of what we do that are commercially sensitive and such photos could disadvantage us.
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Management tip

Is News Corp. acting to harm newsagency sales when it wants newsagent support for its federal election promotion?

News Corp. appears to have launched a major hotel promotion with newspapers being provided, possibly free, to CBD hotels on the same day News Corp is asking newsagents to run its federal election promotion for capital city dailies and The Australian.

I have seen supply data for hotels due to receive significant numbers of papers from Monday with this note in the email to newsagents from News:  the hotel listed below has been increased as from and including Monday June 13th to Sunday June 26th to the figures as show. This hotel is across the road from the newsagency.

Increases have included supply where no newspapers were previously supplied.

I cannot see the sense in News Corp. running this hotel promotion at exactly the same time as the election promotion as both target the same shopper.

Is this one part of the company competing with another?

Footnote: News sent out the advice after 5pm yesterday, Friday, for a Monday morning start. That is poor form in my view.

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Newspapers

Changing the way we display cards in the newsagency

IMG_0441While the card department in the newsagency serves destination card shoppers, it does little to drive impulse purchases. We regularly pursue impulse purchases of cards by placing cards outside the card department, way outside, usually in a way to disrupt the shopping experience.

Every week or two we make a move with cards, to change-up the approach and have cards seen by people who might otherwise never purchase cards from us.

This photo shows one such move with cards. We have pegged a range of naughty cards to a black wire-frame mannequin. We felt this stand was an appropriate host for these cards as it plays against the naughtiness of the text.

The beauty of our approach of playing with cards outside the card department is that we can do this for ourselves, we have more control.

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Greeting Cards
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