Crumpled Miranda and Harper’s Bazaar
Check out the state the latest Harper’s Bazaar arrived in one newsagency yesterday. Crumpled. The damage to the spine and across the cover makes copies unsaleable, for the premium fashion magazine that it is.
Massive Star Wars interest driving new traffic for the newsagency
I thought interest in Star Wars products could not increase, but it has. Star Wars Itty Bitty characters are very popular. The new traffic generated by promoting these cuties is a reminder of the importance of licenced products in the newsagency. Shoppers love them.
Growing Christmas sales in the newsagency with special orders
It is a special order Christmas for us with plenty of orders for customers. Shoppers can see the orders – promoting the special order service, giving customers confidence we have them covered if they want something we do not currently have in stock.
This process of showing off what is usually in a back room works with LayBys too as it shows off the popularity of products – and popularity drives popularity.
In the case of LayBys and special orders, having solid management processes is key – to save time on managing them, ensuring accuracy, delivering consistent customer service and maximising the shopper contact opportunity.
When National Newsagent magazine writes positively about a supplier
Newsagents who rely on ANF publications like National Newsagent need to know content is primarily advertorial and not written with the journalistic standards you may hope for. Coverage in National Newsagent or other ANF publications should not be seen as endorsement – yet to many newsagents it is.
Sunday newsagency challenge: trust no one
- Have systematic processes in place to check cash, inventory and hours worked.
- Make catching employee theft easy.
- Make detecting shopper theft easy.
- Systemise your processes to eliminate shadows and corners.
- Rely on facts and not gut.
Trust no one.
A newsagent discovered the employee they trusted the most had been stealing $300 a week for two years. This went undiscovered because they did not use the tools at their disposal that provided evidence of the theft.
Trust no one. This who respect you will want you to have strong management practices in place – to prove their honesty.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: have a coffee with a magazine
Grab a magazine you sell, that you enjoy and is not available in supermarkets. Grab a coffee, or some other favourite beverage, and sit out the front of your shop or at a table in your shop for a read.
Hopefully, people engage with you while you engage with a product you sell. At the very least they see you loving something you sell.
Sunday newsagency management tip: find trends before they find you
If a supplier is pitching a trend to you it is often too late to achieve the maximum potential from the trend as the supplier will be pitching to other retailers as well.
The best trend to discover are those yet to hit around your business. The best way to spot these trends is to engage online and outside you business with groups likely to spot trends. This is where Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups and Twitter trendsetters are good to follow.
Thanks to technology today we have wonderful opportunities to spot trends overseas long before Australian suppliers have products available.
Trends that find you are not as profitable. Look at adult colouring. The newsagents who made the most were ahead of local suppliers.
Promoting magazines from the newsagency on Facebook
Newsagents often ask how to promote magazines on facebook other than saying out now. Here is an example of the type of post I like. It is one I loaded this afternoon. You can see I am trying to appeal to those worried about the weight they gain over Christmas and those who like to look at nice bodies. It’s an attempt and being light-hearted.
If you want to connect with Millennials in your newsagency
A survey funded by Nestlé Purina has found cats are the pet of choice for many in the millennial generation. Close to half of 1,000 survey respondents in the millennial age range (18 to 34) said they own cats.
Many also reported that they believe their cat is similar to themselves, considering their personalities to be independent, yet social. 57 percent of millennial cat owners said that their cat is as important in their lives as their friends, and two in five consider their cat to be their “best friend.”
While this is a US survey, it is being taken seriously by pet products retailers in Australia. Newsagents ought to consider the survey if they want to connect with Millennials. There are plenty of cat products we sell and can sell: calendars, diaries, magazines, cards, social stationery, gifts … plenty.
Offering products that appeal to a passion of a section of the community is good for business.
Terrific window display in Ballarat
I love this Christmas window display by one of the team members at newsxpress Middle in Ballarat, Victoria. It is inspiring as it creatively pitches a range of products for Christmas in a level of visual merchandising often only seen in major retailers.
I like that the display includes the tatts promotion on the side, maintaining the promotion obligation but doing it in a way that works with the stunning Christmas centrepiece.
Also, see the Christmas cards in the display. Showing how people use products they can purchase from you will absolutely drive sales.
I am told plenty of customers are commenting on the display. This is inspiring.
What does your Christmas window look like?
Is selling body parts innovation?
In Hong Kong this week I found these packs of Freddo frog faces for sale, packaged for Christmas.
Is this marketing innovation – to pull apart a loveable chocolate treat treat and sell off parts. What is next, Freddo legs? Frog’s legs are a delicacy so I guess we need to expect them.
Seriously, though, what is the point of this other? While I am not the customer, I don’t get what they have done here and why.
Harry Melbourne, the 18 year old chocolate moulder from Australian who invented Freddo in 1930 would be turning in his grave.
Appalling editorial from the Herald Sun
People at News Corp. must think Australians are idiots with their continual spin against state and federal labor parties. They pass off as news made up headlines and stories. Yesterday’s Herald Sun front page story was typical News Corp. nonsense. It is a headline driven by the Auditor General’s report into the East West Link. I have read the summary of the AG report and listened to and read several news stories. Only the Labor hating News Corp paper saw the story this way.
The Herald Sun coverage is not news, it is biased and unprofessional.
News Corp needs to stop expecting newsagents to be the pushers of their brand of politics.
Footnote: this post is about the editorial content only, not the circulation people or processes.
Newsagents do have a competitive advantage over major retailers
It is easy to say we small business newsagents cannot compete with major retailers like K-Mart, Target, Big W and others. While we do not have the buying power or the capacity to fund deep discounts, we have one advantage we can leverage to be competitive with the majors.
Our advantage is that we can be nimble. By this I mean we can choose when we do things – and timing can be everything.
Take this Star Wars R2D2 interactive robotic droid. K-Mart went out early with a low low price. Now that they are out of stock, we can offer the product for a good margin and achieve excellent sales.
The movie is a week away from launch and the publicity machine is in full flight. Right now is the best time to sell this R2D2 at the suggested retail price. So that is what we are doing, as part of a large in-store commitment to the Star Wars licence. We have products from five suppliers, three of whom do not usually deal with newsagents.
Our strategy of holding off our main promotion until just before the movie launches is working in-store and online. K-Mart going out early and at a low price for the hero droid product is not harmful.
All we need to be successful with an opportunity like this is between one and two weeks, the right one or two weeks in the context of the calendar followed by the majors. It’s a blue ocean opportunity – offering the products after the majors have sold out and enjoying a relatively competition-free marketplace.
This is one way we can leverage being nimble to compete with the majors. It is the type of activity the newsagency marketing groups can drive for their members – leveraging buying deals, sharing marketing plans of the majors and helping their members make the most of the opportunities that appear in cracks in the plans of the majors. Indeed, it is a valuable benefit of being in a group as especially shown through the Star Wars engagement.
Thank goodness for last minute shoppers as they are the ones who make these timing opportunities work for us.
Sales numbers reveal an early start to Christmas in the newsagency
Christmas kicked offer for us around a month ago. Looking back on the first four weeks, there is a terrific sales bump, providing confidence that this year will see a good increase over last year. The increase is primarily in cards, ornaments, gifts and special interest items.
Retailers often talk of when Christmas kicks in. This year, for me and many I talk with, it has been an early start … for which I am most grateful.
AFR reports on Tatts and the next Victorian gambling licence
There is an interesting report in The Australian Financial Review today about the expected applicants for the new lotteries licence in Victoria coming up for grabs soon. While the expectation is tatts will retain it, it is interesting to read about the other companies and their at least having a crack at the opportunity.
The duration of licences is a factor newsagents ought to consider when assessing capital investment in lottery branding.
How can Coles offer half price Bauer Media magazine titles?
Coles Express is promoting half price Bauer Media magazines: Woman’s Day, OK!, NW and The Australian Women’s Weekly.
This extraordinary deal is available with any fuel purchase, yes, any fuel purchase. The AIP says retailers make around 5% on fuel sales so they can’t be funding this deal.
While I understand there is a difference between the magazine shopper in a newsagency and someone buying a magazine, this type of promotion encourages shoppers to expect to purchase magazines at half price. I say this because the campaign is running for two months. People purchase fuel, say, weekly. This campaign has the right triggers and is running long enough to educate the weekly magazine shopper to switch from their current retailer to the Coles Express outlet.
I think the only way to see this campaign is to drive people to choose Coles express for their weekly magazine purchase. Sure, there will be some incremental business – but I doubt this will amount to much.
Weekly magazine shoppers are not as loyal as they were – because of price games like these,
I’d love someone from magazine publishing or distribution to tell me that I am wrong, that this two month long half price campaign for the Bauer titles is not designed to change shopper behaviour like I suspect it is.
This supermarket chain campaign is the type of campaign I hate to see. It makes us look expensive. Hell, we are expensive when we charge double for these participating Bauer titles. Where is the sense in that?
Based on a network size of 650 stores and considering the titles involved, allowing for conservative sales numbers, I’d expect this campaign to have a cost of at least $15,000 a week in terms of what is being given away. Whoever is funding this must be expecting a return on this investment for the titles being promoted.
With newsagents selling close to 50% of all magazines sold in Australia, why run a campaign that makes them look expensive compared to Coles?
Would Bauer fund a campaign like this in newsagencies? If they want us to grow magazine sales they would as they would want us to be seen as competitive.
My supermarket contacts say they expect Coles Express will make full margin on all titles if this campaign is run in the same way other magazine campaigns are run. That would make it an expensive for whoever is funding the campaign. I would love to see that level of investment made in selling these magazines in newsagencies.
What do others think?
A good kids magazine section in WH Smith
I like the kids magazine section of a local WH Smith store I saw a few days ago. It is easy to shop, presents the titles well and handles the considerable gift with purchase challenge so as to maintain order for the display. I think this display approach is one we could learn from.
Click on the image for a larger version.
Censorship laws impact magazines in Hong Kong
Check out the sign bagged with magazines that are considered unsuitable for open public display in retailers in Hong Kong. The person I asked said it was ore likely something to do with politics. I didn;t open to check.
The adult colouring book for political junkies
The #AUSPOL Colouring Book by Zena Kells that has just been published looks like a lot of fun. I can see it doing well in selected suburbs where politics is a hot topic. I love the or dart board note on the cover.
The shift in newspaper marketing newsagents need to see and confront
For decades the focus of newspaper marketing has been home delivery as it sat at the heart of the economic model pursued by newspaper publishers. Long-term home delivery customers were gold when it came to setting advertising rates. Advertising revenue has been the most important revenue stream to publishers.
That was then.
This is now.
The ad stuck on the front of the Sunday Age newspaper at the weekend was all about promoting six months access on any device, anytime. This is a digital subscription. No sign of a home delivery offer in sight. No support for the print product being used to serve the ad.
I have written here previously that I expect Fairfax to be the first newspaper publisher to retreat from seven day production of a capital city newspaper. On pure circulation numbers it ought to be one or more of the News Corp. dailies in single paper cities. However, in smaller cities there are factors other than circulation that can keep a newspaper publishing. Also, I think News is more invested in not being first than Fairfax.
This ad reflects a change on focus by Fairfax. We need to take notice … today, not next month, not in six mounted, today.
- What percentage of transactions in your business include a newspaper?
- How many newspapers are sold alone?
- How much do other parts of your business rely on habit-based newspaper shoppers?
- What is the overhead of newspapers in your business – in terms of space and labour?
- What new traffic are you generating now to replace newspapers into the future?
These are other questions deserve consideration and answers. Thinking about this issue and the starter questions I have noted is a positive thing to do. The only negative in all this would be if you did nothing.
I have not written this post to alarm anyone. Rather, it records the fact of the shift on focus of Fairfax marketing – with the hope of engaging newsagents in thinking about retail businesses without daily newspaper traffic.
While the decline in over the counter newspaper sales is not new, too many newsagents are yet to factor this into their business planning.
Rupert Murdoch started talking about the shift in April 2005. Back then, he was considered to be slow to the digital discussion. sadly, he appears to have been an early adopter compared to too many newsagents.
The future of your newsagency with less reliance on newspapers is up to you. Just as Fairfax is clearly planning for less income from print, so must you.
Stunning Empire cover strategy to attract Star Wars collectors to the newsagency
I saw one of the stunning covers of the Star Wars series being released by Empire magazine. Using lenticular 3D technology, the cover I saw popped out of the magazine rack. It truly was stunning. I am not sure what the release plan in for Australia. Based on Star Wars licenced product sales so far, I expect all in the series would sell out if we got them. In fact, I am sure I could sell the whole set many times over – if I could be sure of getting stock. Star wars fans online are raving about the covers.
This is an excellent example of where a magazine can achieve sales beyond average by connecting with fans in a personal and collectible way. It is an example of when the distributor needs a way of identifying those of us with a commercial interest beyond regular magazine sales.
News Corp. Christmas closure creates storage challenge for newsagents
Newsagents is Tasmania have been advised News Corp. is closed for a week, requiring newsagents to store newspaper returns in their businesses. based on past experience that could result in a busy business storage thirty, even more, bundles of unsold newspapers.
Have other newsagents been told of Christmas closures by newspaper publishers?
Can you handle phone orders from your newsagency?
We processed another phone order in the newsagency yesterday, a sale that we got thanks to a Facebook post. The customer lives interstate and was happy for us to post the item for a small handling fee.
Key to being able to handle this type of transaction is being able to take payment over the phone. Some newsagents cannot do this because they have not made arrangements with their EFTPOS provider. It is easy to do and once setup, you have another method of payment that makes over the phone, email and other out of store purchases easy.
My advice is make sure you can handle payments over the phone and then start to use it.
Customers are everywhere today, often not in your shop. The more able you are to serve them when they are ready to purchase the more purchases you will achieve.
The shop is just one location for your business. Think and act beyond this and compete for today’s shopper. It starts with being able to transact with them.
Why do newsagents early return magazines and why is cutting space the only option to manage magazine costs?
Australian magazine publishers need to understand that they are all judged by the actions of each other. All it takes is for one publisher to oversupply and there are consequences for others.
I lay the blame with the publisher as they set the print run. This is where what we receive begins. The print run determines what is sent to the distributor to distribute. The distributor may have a contract requiring all copies sent to be distributed.
As newsagents have embraced better IT infrastructure they are better informed. The screen shot below shows the supply and return history for Australian House and Garden. There is no reason the newsagent should have received more stock on the new use. But they did.
I know of newsagents who respond to blatant oversupply by striking back at other titles from the same distributor. I don’t blame them sometimes as they feel helpless to manage cash-flow in any other way.
Take a look at this evidence for Australian House and Garden below from one newsagent for yourself. I am left wondering about the IT infrastructure at Network that allowed this to occur.
What newsagents want is fair supply, to a level that helps them actually make money from magazines. The supply model in the MPA code of conduct does not have settings to enable this. Unless that is resolved, newsagents will have no alternative to early return and cut magazine space allocation.
If we cannot make money from any product it is not worth stocking and any model that forces us to do so would be unfair.
Publishers need to engage on this issue with thoughtful newsagents. Not the ANF as they have shown themselves to be out of touch, to not know what is appropriate for newsagents.
Now is the time to promote O magazine
With Oprah in Australia, now is the time to make sure you have O The Oprah Magazine in prime position in the newsagency – if you stock it.
I was at the Oprah event at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne last Wednesday. The merchandise stalls were doing amazing business. People were buying bags, books, t-shirts and all sorts of products with Oprah emblazoned on them.
Now is the time to pitch the magazine.