I was disappointed to hear that Feast magazine is closing after the next issue. It’s a terrific magazine, a different food title that takes you some interesting places.
Not long ago food titles were selling very well. Today, the segment is challenged. Feast is unique, a magazine I personally looked forward to.
If your retail business is in tough times and facing imminent closure, you may be able to save it if you act quickly and ruthlessly. Based on years of working with many different retailers, I have found that some basic steps can successfully turnaround a business in trouble. But you need to be ruthless.
The following tips are designed for businesses with a little (but not too much) time available to fix things. While they are not appropriate to every business, the ideas can lead to others that may be appropriate.
Crucial to saving a business from closure is to understand why it is in this situation. You have to be honest with yourself about this. How did it get to this?
Do not be afraid or ignorant in confronting these questions.
Make an honest appraisal of the state of the business as the truth can inform what you do next.
You have to own your situation. This means being realistic about what you face and what got you there. This is important as it opens you to what you need to do to resolve the situation, to rehabilitate your business.
Now, to the urgent steps you could take to avoid the closure of your retail business:
What I am suggesting here is general advice. It is intended to get you thinking of ideas that could work for you.
No situation is impossible. No business is dead until the doors are closed for the last time.
Never give up. Fight hard and fight smart to turn your business around.
Facing tough circumstances in retail can be like the deer in the middle of the road facing an oncoming vehicle. Don’t freeze. Take action to mitigate your situation. A series of small steps could be the difference between closure and trading out of the problem.
I have prepared this in response to a comment from a colleague newsagent who asked for advice on how to deal with a business facing closure.
I am told there is a radio ad playing in Adelaide at the moment promoting the terrific Disney Storybooks on offer with the Adelaide Advertiser. It encourages people to shop at Coles, Woolworths and Newspower. With the majority of SA newsagents not in Newspower it makes no sense that News Corp. calls out that brand. On their website for the Disney promotion shoppers can search by postcode. I searched for the West Lakes area and it’s an example of how out of touch the radio ad is – no Newspower stores but plenty of other newsagencies.
How can News Corp. sell more newspapers – work better with newsagents and understand your retail network. This ad is ridiculous.
The Victorian government has announced that Easter Sunday will be declared a public holiday to provide for an increase in pay for people working that day. Sunday penalty rates are already excellent, there is no need for the government to force business owners to spend more money getting people to work when they want to work.
Paul Plant, the editor of Sub Tropical Gardening Magazine has advised readers in the latest issue that his special interest title will no longer be available in newsagencies. Plant blames higher production costs and lower advertising revenue as the reason for the move.
In his note, Plant says that wastage per issue is between 40% and 60%. It’s good to see a magazine editor writing about this wastage. However, since they set their print run size the wastage is up to them.
Plant also says We will save you not only time but also money and fuel in avoiding having to source our title from newsagents. Seriously? – as if the only reason people who purchase the magazine from a newsagency only purchase this one item. Of course, that’s not true.
I expect there would be people who discovered this title when browsing in a newsagency. Some of those would have become subscribers as a result of the introduction from our channel. Others would have purchased the title regularly from a newsagency.
Thinking people only come to us to purchase Sub Tropical Gardening Magazine and nothing else is ignorant.
By all means Paul Plant make business decisions which are right for your business. But own your decisions. Don’t put down your retail partners who have served you well. Don’t say things that don’t pass a fact check.
All the best for the future of Sub Tropical Gardening Magazine. Australians interested in browsing interesting garden magazines will still come to newsagencies – as we the the magazine specialists of Australia.
This photo shows part of the cover of a magazine received in a newsagency yesterday, sent by Network Services. Click on the image and look at the detail. That gunk on the cover is from stickers placed on these titles when they were on sale in other newsagencies.
As the angry newsagent who tole me about this wrote in their email: How dare they send unsaleable magazines.
Shame on Network for sending out such poor looking product. Where is their quality control? Non existent clearly.
This title is now on its third time around from Network Services. What appalling behaviour.
Shame on you Network Services and shame on the publisher involved in pushing this title on newsagents.
That this has happened speaks to the weak situations newsagents find themselves in. Our major competitors are not treated this way. That this is done to us disadvantages us, it makes us less competitive.
The usual supply of Psychology Today magazine for our newsagency was doubled for the Happiness? issue which went on sale yesterday. This 100% increase in supply is despite us rarely selling all the story we are usually supplied.
The irony is extraordinary. How can I be happy about such an unwarranted oversupply. It wasted our time, paper, fuel. What a waste! A very unhappy situation.
I look at this situation with this issue of Psychology Today magazine and shake my head. There is no sense to it. the distributor could say we have to send out what we are sent. From their business point of view I understand it. But it is ridiculous. It is shameful that the distributor, intros case Gordon and Gotch, can double supply without any justification in our accurate sales data.
Magazine Distributor used Twitter Friday to promote newsagents again and shared images of four magazines. While I love the support from Gotch for newsagents, I’d prefer them to choose titles more newsagents are more likely to regularly carry. For example, I’ve never heard of Bomb magazine. I looks to be a niche title for a specialist market.
We are promoting Australia The Story of Us from Pacific Magazines in several locations in the newsagency to make the most of the opportunity, of the launch of the four-part title and the premiere of the TV show of the same name on the Seven Network last night.
We thought about the best place to promote the title and decide on placement with newspapers, in the middle of the main magazine aisle and at the counter. We will assess this space commitment late this week before deciding if we will change the space allocation.
Australia The Story of Us is a terrific looking title – excellent quality. I’m hoping the TV premiere last night gets people looking at it.
Saturday was a great day in retail with many infrequent shoppers out.
One lady purchased a valentine’s Day card after lunch and I quipped with a smile: leaving it a bit late! She smiled and said after we said we’d give Valentine’s Day a miss this year he went and gave me a card so her I am. We shared a good laugh.
Later in the day a mum brought in her son (in his late twenties and who still lives at home) and said – there you are, go on, you have to get her a Valentine’s Day card. This mum then selected the card and pushed him to the counter.
I still can’t figure out, however, why someone would purchase three Valentine’s Day cards.
It was a busy day with plenty of laughs and terrific sales.
Check out how one newsagent labels magazines. While the photo is fro last year, it is from a CBD bed newsagents which considerable magazine sales. The label itself reminded me of what newsagents used to do twenty years ago and here it is being used today. While it does not have the useful of today’s label, it does at least allow shop floor management of when the return is due.
The Christmas special edition of The People’s Friend is one Christmas-themed magazine that sells well into the new year. While the Christmas editions of many other overseas titles struggle, this one performs as well as the main magazine itself – very well.
No matter how tough your situation, no matter how impossible the road ahead, never give up, there is always something you can try, a step you can take to move forward.
While I expect that comes across as glib, the words are sincere.
I have never seen a difficult situation being faced by a business for which there is not something else to to try, someone to speak with, steps you could take to explore hope.
I have seen people give up too soon, locking in what they saw as inevitable yet which could have been avoided by owning the truth earlier.
There are newsagents facing tough situations today who may feel it is too late to change their business model. I say it’s never too late. There are also newsagents today when see dark clouds yet who are not acting because they thing a storm is inevitable when, in fact, they can avoid rough weather by acting now.
We have more control over what our businesses are, what they stand for, who they attract and their very future than we think.
I have seen businesses on the brink of bankruptcy turn around. I have seen businesses with barely 20% of revenue they once had turn around.
We are losing too many newsagency businesses because newsagents have given up.
This has to stop.
It stops by us believing in ourselves and our colleagues while at the same time acknowledging the challenges unique to our channel and those outside our channel.
We need to talk positively to each other, without ignoring the challenges of retail the economy, print media and other factors. Indeed, those downers can be leveraged for a brighter future – if we adopt the attitude which is my management tip today: never give up.
Newsagencies have dead space that is often not used where you can draw attention to products and drive shopper engagement by investing a few minutes of time. Take Something Sweet, the new partwork launched this past week. We ran a strip of the first issue on the floor in one of our magazine aisles. It used space which is never used, cheap space down low where people often don;t look. Shoppers noticed, sales engaged and we’re on track to sell out of part one easily – moving 120 copies and probably more.
the space cost us nothing and the placement was done in under two minutes. It made a difference in the aisle, drove sales and leveraged a good looking product which is being advertised on TV right now.
This is an example of no-cost marketing we can undertake to drive basket depth – drive additional purchases from shoppers in-store. Try it … it works.
These Quick Stick hearts have been a hit for Valentine’s Day. the season is a perfect opportunity to get them out of the stationery department and onto a seasonal display. Why not? An excellent point of difference with a traditional newsagency product. Not my idea – an engaged team member did it. Terrific!
For younger romance where the Valentine’s Day gift price point is lower, these stone pieces have been amazing. Selling very well and fitting perfectly as part of our Valentine’s Day display. Most have been purchased with a card.
Jewellery sales are up and Valentine’s Day has been an excellent season to show off the growing range and achieving a higher price point purchase at the same time. A perfect introduction to a(relatively) fresh category for a newsagency. Nice!
While plenty of shops have chocolate for Valentine’s Day it is good to be the only shop with different chocolates – so ur customer can be the hero with something very different, tasty and made locally in Victoria. Sold out!
Soap has proven to be very popular this Valentine’s Day. Not any soap but a quality Aussie product pitched as a trusted gift that will last – like a good relationship. You know you are on a winner when people say – that’s different – and then purchase!
I have seen Valentine’s Day displays in ten supermarkets this week when comparing parts of their businesses to ours. each supermarket has done Valentine’s Day poorly. The photo is one of the better ones. yet they will achieve reasonable sales simply because they have the stock. They are used by people who purchase on impulse because of convenience.
Newsagents can and often do do better than this. By better I mean offering a broader range of product people would be proud to give, better quality product in the gift area, displayed with pride and supported with customer service helping shoppers with choices.
It is seasons like Valentine’s Day where we have opportunities to compete with the supermarkets. Key to this is being on the lease line so those walking past can see our point of difference.
We have recently added Manuscript to the list of magazines we sell – proving that newsagents do seek out additional titles to expand their range. I mention this to show magazine publishers who stop by here that some of us actually use a pull model. The challenge is that so much of what we get is pushed and pushed inefficiently that we rarely feel inclined to seek out new titles. The other reason newsagents don;t often order a new title is out of fear for being overloaded.
We regularly look for new titles to carry. And by we I mean everyone involved in the business. This is another factor in our growth in magazine revenue.
Here’s a photo from one newsagent showing what they have done with the collateral from newspaper publisher APN sent to support the classroom makeover promotion being run with Staples.
The APN collateral is in the trash bin.
As I noted here, newsagents are angry that APN is promoting US stationery giant Staples and not the local newsagent businesses on which they rely to promote and sell the newspaper.
Mary berry is the queen of baking and right now she is featuring on The Great British Bake Off on Australian TV. This has been reason enough to make the most of her cover shot on My Weekly to drive impulse purchases.
There is no good news in the capital city daily newspaper circulation numbers just released.
The decline is such that there must be a live discussion as when one or more of the titles ceases to be printed daily. Circulation of The Age declined 18.3% down to 106,838 copies. This is around 30,000 copies lower than the circulation of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer a respected broadsheet from Seattle WA, USA when it ceased being printed.
What’s worse for The Age is that there is no dramatic uptake in digital editions – the decline in print is not due to migration.
News Corp has plenty of bad news too with the Herald Sun down 7.9% Monday to Friday.
Shame on newspaper publishers for continuing to ignore opportunities for working with retail newsagents to grow over the counter single copy sales. Worse still, shame on newspaper publishers for not even having a current database of retail newsagents with home they could work on such a project.
There is no good news in the latest newspaper circulation results. The numbers remind newsagents of the need to proactively engage with other traffic generators to build the viability of their businesses.
Do I think we can grow newspaper sales? Yes!
Weekly magazine circulation has declined again based on the latest audit results published at mUmBRELLA.. From the declines speak to the failure of their discount bagged magazine strategy. here are the Bauer declines: Zoo (now terminal) 36%, NW 15%, Woman’s Day 5.7%, TV Week 4.4%, OK! 3.7% and Take 5 3.4%. Pacific weeklies declined too: Famous 14.5%, Who 12%, That’s Life 6.3% New Idea 3.5%.
Consumer habits have changed and some titles are yet to catch up with that in terms of content they offer. The publishers also need to engage differently with retailers. They focus too much on billboard displays and not enough on engagement that fits with retail today, specifically retail in newsagencies.
The publishers have not helped themselves by spreading into retail outlets where magazines are not treated well. Their arrogance has distanced some publishers from the newsagency channel.
In short, publishers need to reset their contact, change how they engage at retail and embrace newsagents as their specialist retailers. We’re all in this together and can support each other. However, supermarkets, convenience and petrol will not see themselves that way.
These declines are not new. The lack of a smart response from publishers is also not new. In some respects it is like watching a train wreck in slow motion.