In Cairns last night I was thrilled to see News Corp’s Cairns Post proudly promoting that they have sold 6 million copies of the newspaper in the last year. This promotion speaks to locals and tourists about the position of the title in the community. I see plenty of publishers use their offices to promote websites and Apps – I’m pleased to be able to recognise good promotion of a print product.
I love that the folks at the Cake Decorating partworks bring out seasonal themed issues. Their Easter issue is going well for us. We have it with Easter product at the front of the store as well as with cake decorating titles. It’s an easy up-sell.
Take an blank piece of A4 paper and sketch out a flyer to promote your business. It’s important you start with blank paper so you really do have to start from scratch. The goal of the flyer has to be to get people into your business who are not regular shoppers with you.
I am serious, make a flyer. Single sided or double sided.
It does not have to be a work of art. Think about more as your ideas you;d have a designer turn into something professional.
The keys are: what messages to you pitch, what products to you feature and what is your call to action.
Once you have your draft flyer, think about this and your business. Are they aligned or is there a disconnect between you have on your flyer and the business being promoted?
If there is a disconnect, think about what you need to change in your business to connect with the business in the flyer.
If there is no disconnect and if the message is enticing, consider having the flyer professional designed and distributed.
Rely less on marketing others do for you and more on marketing you do for yourself.
Does your newsagency rely on too much traffic, GP or revenue for a single product category? By too much I mean more than 30%?
30% is a figure I have come up with, based on years of working with newsagents affected by categories which dominate their business falling into decline.
Tobacco, magazines and lotteries are three categories which can account for more than 30% of revenue, GP or traffic.
Any category accounting for more than 30% of revenue, GP or traffic presents you with a risk as it is a big hole to fill if something happens to the category – such as a store nearby getting lotteries or tobacco sales crashing following tighter regulation. While it is easy to blame these external factors, I blame any retailer for allowing too much of their revenue to be dominated by a single product category.
Take a look at your data – any computer system should provide you with the percentage breakdowns for basket penetration, revenue and traffic. Look at your data and act on any category accounting for 30% or more. No, don’t cut the category – work on other areas of your business to dilute the impact of the above 30% categories.
Act now, own the situation and your actions.
Easter is in full swing with excellent sales over the last week. Displays are thinning at the right end of the season. We’re not discounting and don’t plan to until next weekend – if at all. Cards, plush and gifts are all doing well. If I had to tag a hero category it would be plush. $2,000 for the season is excellent – and there will be flow on sales having introduced shoppers to new lines.
Easter is a season our channel could do considerably more with, beyond the traditional. Families are out shopping together. Yesterday was crazy around shopping centres in Melbourne. Centres were full of people spending. It was terrific.
Newsagents want people to be interested in purchasing their businesses. You cannot make people be interested by telling them to do be. The best way to make people interested in newsagencies is to make them appealing. The best way to make your newsagency appealing is make every day your pay day. The appeal of businesses in our channel to possible purchasers comes down to how we run our businesses. If you want to eventually sell, what are you doing today to make your business appealing?
Fairfax has announced the cover price of the Australian Financial Review increases 8.5% from Tuesday April 7 yet the gross profit increase permitted by Fairfax to retail newsagents is only 2.5%.
Fairfax is double dipping. They are increasing the cover price and reducing the margin permitted.
This is an appalling move by Fairfax against small business newsagents. It’s unethical and socially irresponsible. Shame on you Fairfax.
A newsagent selling the Australian Financial Review for $3.80 will make only $0.3636 from the sale. My AFR pocket costs me $2.50 a day. The retail space cost increases 5% a year. Sliding backwards as I am with the AFR while Fairfax improves their situation leaves me wondering whether stocking the title is worth it. The good news is this is a decision I can make.
Passionfruit on a shelf sells on the basis we think it will taste like. The passionfruit in the photo sells on the basis of how it looks. The retailer i this instance has taken us into the product, appealing to passionfruit lovers. I went to the supermarket to purchase something else and stopped to notice the passionfruit because it was sliced open, looking delicious.
The photo to me is reminder to look at what we sell and to consider how differently we can present products so they are noticed by people who are not in the newsagency to purchase those products. The same principle can work with window displays.
Everyday we make choices which affect traffic through our front doors and shopper engagement once inside. If we act in the usual, average, way, our results will be average. Take a fresh approach and you risk a fresh (good) result.
The folks at Sweet magazine promoted newsagents on Twitter with a terrific tweet promoting their magazine as available it local newsagencies.
I love their call: Support two small Australian businesses. This is a message we can identify with.
We need to support magazine publishers who actively support our channel as their support shines a light on a point of difference for us.
The weekend penalty rate deal between union and government in South Australia announced this week does not appear to be as good as pitched in my view. At its heart, the deal shifts labour costs from penalty rates to the base, thereby not reducing the cost of labour to a business. Further, the deal is voluntary and that is problematic.
At a small business round table with retailers and Minister for Employment Eric Abetz – before he was minister – I was part of a conversation about weekend penalty rates. While employers in the room were keen to achieve a lower operating cost on weekends, the risk of a change which was voluntary was clear as it could make competing for employees more difficult.
Speaking for my own business, an hourly cost of $40.00 on a Sunday is not justified in my view. There is no difficulty in finding people to work on a Sunday – because of the pay. I sense that cutting this to, say, $28.00 an hour would not alter availability of employees. That saving would add $9,984 to the bottom line of the business over a year. All of this would be reinvested in a mixture of marketing, stock and more hours. This reinvestment would improve the business which would require hiring more people.
While I am no economist it seems simple to me. If the government wants to address unemployment, addressing the out of date weekend penalty rate structure is one of several options to consider.
The bigger picture here is overdue economic reform. The issue of penalty rates needs to be considered along with taxation (all of it – personal and business), government services and other economic levers available to government to stimulate the economy and reflect equity for all Australians. In other words, as part of a complete package of economic reform which deals with all participants in the economy and not one or two sectors. Unless this is done, selling any real penalty rate change would be impossible.
This week I am going to publish a different reason each day on why a newsagency is a good business to buy – in no particular order.
#5 you are trusted by the community
Ask anyone on the street to rank retail businesses they trust and I bet newsagencies rank high on the list. People trust us.
They come to us for advice on all manner of things from pens to use in certain situations, glues appropriate to a task, how to get a magazine on a particular topic or what card to give in an unusual situation.
They come to us for help – like where some place is in town or how to deal with a tax matter or even how to deal with an everyday situation.
We are approachable as in most situations the person who owns the business is the person working in the business.
Trust is bankable. This trust is something we can build on as we transform our newsagencies.
To anyone thinking about buying a retail business I’d say – for trust, it is hard to go past a newsagency and the newsagent running it. The bond between newsagent and newsagency employees and customers is deep and difficult to copy. This is a bond, a trust, you can trust. It’s another thing which makes our businesses good to buy.
All of us in this channel need to work on respecting the trust we have and nurturing it for the future.
Newsagencies are good businesses to buy. We newsagents need to do more to demonstrate that this is the case. It starts with us making our businesses more appealing and is assisted by stories we tell about being a newsagent.
In Auckland Monday at Beresford Square I could choose to get a sandwich and coffee from six outlets, all within a minute of each other. I chose The Station because of the single difference on their sign over the others – good tunes.
All the outlets promoted good food and good coffee. The good tunes message was different. It suggested a funkiness which appealed. Sure enough, inside, they had tunes playing a perfect backdrop for a break from the day.
Sometimes two words on a chalk board are all you need to pitch the difference of your business over the others nearby.
My software company received a note from Pacific Magazines recently promoting advertising in Total Girl and K-Zone. The pack was sent to all companies that exhibited at the recent Toy Fair in Melbourne – as I software company had.
I like the pitch from Pacific even though it was not relevant to a software company as it provided insight to how they solicit advertising. I’d been at Toy Fair as a newsagent, buying, meeting suppliers. The note from Pacific got me taking more notice of suppliers who support the magazines we sell in the newsagency. It reinforced the relationship between publisher, supplier and newsagent.
In our toy departments we have products from suppliers who advertise. I am sure we can find other product connections between magazines and other departments. Looking for these in the pages of magazines we sell =can enhance the relationship we have with magazines.
If you are contemplating similar products from different suppliers and one advertises in magazines you sell while the other does not there you have additional information with which to make your buying decision.
The reaction online to the announcement overnight that Zayn Malik has left boy band One Direction is a lesson in knowing your prospective customers.
Younger shoppers are important to the future the newsagency channel and, indeed, all retailers. Attracting them is challenging for our businesses. This is why how the world reacted to the news of Zayn leaving 1D is important. We can learn about these potential shoppers y reading their reactions.
Sure, some responses are over the top but who are we to judge potential customers? Today, we have access to plenty we can sell these customers. Understanding them can help us do this. Their tweets, facebook posts and the like can help us understand them.
See coverage at Mashable (excellent) and SMH.
We could see a magazine sales jump next week if publishers react to the opportunity.
Check out the ad in the Adelaide Advertiser promoting a Crows sticker. What the ad does not say is that it’s available in all newsagents. Promoting Newspower is disrespectful to other SA newsagents – branded and unbranded.
Newspower location numbers are down in SA so why News Corp. would hitch this promotion to only that brand does not make sense.
A newsagent who was adamant they could not sell gifts priced above $50.00 is now regularly selling gifts priced at $100.00 and more, much more.
After being encouraged to give more expensive gifts a go, they discovered their customers would happily spend more than the limit they had set themselves.
Sometimes we hold our businesses back by deciding what our customers will purchase and how much they will spend on an item.
This week I am going to publish a different reason each day on why a newsagency is a good business to buy – in no particular order.
#4: you have permission to change
Unlike many retail business formats people purchase when getting into small business for the first time, what your newsagency does is very much up to you. That’s right, if you have ideas, if you want a business you really can make your own, a newsagency is an ideal starting point. I say that because you have good base traffic and traffic is vital to any business.
In fact, I’d say you have more than permission to change. The owner of a newsagency has a mandate to change – in areas appropriate to your local situation
While some will find comfort in a highly regulated franchise, say in the food sector, more entrepreneurial types will prefer the freedom of a newsagency.
Sure there are regulated areas like magazines, but they are but part of our businesses.
Many people buy businesses because they want to work for themselves -think for themselves, fulfil dreams. Buying a business within which you can have the freedom to do this is important. Newsagencies are such a business – if you are the type who likes change.
Newsagencies are good businesses to buy. We newsagents need to do more to demonstrate that this is the case. It starts with us making our businesses more appealing and is assisted by stories we tell about being a newsagent.
I was fortunate to be at the Touch 2015 Retail eServices Forum in Sydney yesterday. Speakers ranged from the visionary to the practical, all offering insights into how retail is changing and opportunities for retailers, like newsagents.
I found Dan Gregory particularly fascinating when talking about how businesses engage versus how they can engage. O. Schmitz from Amazon Europe was challenging with his vision of the reach of that company across the globe.
Speaker after speaker spoke to common themes of the importance of engagement with the customer, the need to embrace change and the importance of the value add.
Talking one-on-one to some representatives of some of our competitors, it is clear that over the counter services is a hot area of interest to them. This is where Touch plays a role for newsagents and why being at this session was insightful.
I expect Touch will have more news to share on opportunities as 2015 unfolds.
In a national discount variety store yesterday I noticed that half their Easter chocolate is being discounted lower than their already discounted price. Some of the lines are selling for less than the wholesale price paid by newsagents if they purchased these lines. I notices a nearby Coles, too, was discounting some Easter chocolate lines.
I don’t get businesses disrespecting brands during peak season by discounting. It speaks to their poor point of difference that it comes down to price.
Shoppers who purchase on price are less like to come back, unless you entice them on price.
Our Easter offer in the newsagency does not compete with these other retailers. Deliberately, we have an offer which cannot be price compared, an offer which appeals for reasons beyond the traditional everyday Easter product. In one category we are already well up on last year.
When I first wrote about digital subscriptions by newspaper publishers years ago I noted that if I was doing it I’d bundle the offer with a tablet. This explains why I like offer promoted in the Herald Sun today – and, I am guessing, other News Corp. products.
This is a smart offer and essential to uptake and engagement. I’d be surprised if it does not work.
Owning your route to market is key for any newspaper selling digital subs to consumers who could be challenges with other channels. It’s also a terrific ‘gift’ to drive up-take.
Thinking ahead and considering the disposability of mobile devices, a free tablet with every year-long subscription has to be on the horizon.
Yes, I understand newsagents are not part of this story. It does’t matter as we have an abundance of opportunities of our own and print for titles like the Herald Sun has a good future for the foreseeable future.
If you’re in Perth and are interested in considering what your future could be, I encourage you to book for the first Newsagency of the Future workshop. It’s on in Perth next Thursday at 10am. Attendance is free. I promise you will be challenged and encouraged.
Perth. Thursday March 26. 10am. Country Comfort Inter City. Great Eastern Highway Perth.
Any newsagent is welcome to attend.
Click here for the booking form, or email your details to bookings@towersystems.com.au.
This Perth event is the first of a national series that will include Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide, Hobart, Cairns, Townsville, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Newcastle, Parramatta, Geelong, Launceston.
This week I am going to publish a different reason each day on why a newsagency is a good business to buy – in no particular order.
#3: you’re part of something bigger
Even though newsagencies are independently owned and operated, vary significantly in range, service and location, trade under different brands and vary in terms of local community connection, they are all part of something bigger.
Whether this connection is seen or unseen, at the very core of every newsagency is the common connection of newspapers, magazines, cards and stationery and for many, lotteries. These product category cores provide newsagents with reasonable base traffic today and this is what you can leverage for success.
This about it. Buy a retail business selling gifts and you have one category on which to rely. Buy a newsagency with gift or one you plan to add gifts to and you have a base on which you can build thanks to being part of something bigger.
Even with declines in some categories we carry, being part of it is better than being in a retail category without this. I know of retail categories which would love even half the daily traffic of an average newsagency.
So, yes, newsagencies are part of a bigger, sometimes unseen, network and this can be leveraged to our success.
Newsagencies are good businesses to buy. We newsagents need to do more to demonstrate that this is the case. It starts with us making our businesses more appealing and is assisted by stories we tell about being a newsagent.
If you sell Easter eggs in your newsagency and you compete with Coles, make sure you staff know that the Thorntons range sold by Coles is imported from the UK. Know the source of your eggs. If they are made in Australia, pitch this and have your staff ready to let customers know. Locally made eggs are better for our economy that the Thorntons eggs from the UK.
I am finding shoppers more engaged than ever with locally made products in certain product categories. Food is one such category. You can drive this engagement with promotion of locally made. Even a simple sign LOCALLY MADE = LOCAL JOBS works a treat. Coles can’t say this with their Thorntons products.
I like the bookmark gifts with the latest issue of It Girl magazine. The gift is slim and does not hinder display of the host product. It encourages reading. The designs suit the target shopper. Kudos to everyone involved in selecting gift to accompany It Girl. Newsagents: have the full cover on show to leverage the gift in-store.
Every time my newsagency software company runs a workshop on how to cut your magazine bill it fills up. Newsagents want this training more often than anything else. The popularity of the training goes to show what matters to newsagents.
Magazine publishers and distributors should take note. They won’t but they should.