If you have SciFiNow I suggest to place some copies with your entertainment titles as the cover story about Star Wars Episode VII should drive impulse purchases for you – of the magazine and other products you may have for the brand. Star Wars fans spend big on their interest.
We have been promoting the latest issue of Home Beautiful magazine with this aisle end display. Home Beautiful responds well to promotion – right through the on-sale period. We have found the key is having the full cover on show. We’re increasing supply.
The installation of ExchangeIT software at newsagencies enabled PBL to track real-time sales of all titles and thereby fine-tune its distribution and cut costs. After that triumph, Alexander as also put in charge of the Nine Network, which has since improved its leadership of the television stations. SIC.
This is from a story by Trevor Sykes published in The Australian Financial Review on June 10, 2004.
It is July 2014. While the magazine distributors may have fine-tuned their distribution and cut costs, newsagents have not. Indeed, the magazine distribution model does not offer levels with which we can control this side of our business. The processes imposed by the magazine distributors hobble our businesses.
Too often today, ten years on, we receive magazines supplied at volumes that do not reflect sales data. Indeed, the experience today and in the last ten years makes a mockery of the story by Sykes.
A good journalist would have done their research rather than taking the PBL spin about XchangeIT. Sykes clearly did not. I wrote to Sykes at the AFR at the time and no correction was printed.
For the record, the problem is not XchangeIT, it is a model that sees distributors ship all stock they are provided. For the most part, that is how they are paid – as a freight company. If their compensation model was based solely on sales newsagents would start to see fairness.
Today newsagents are not treated the same as our competitors – the two big supermarket groups. Coles and Woolworths are supplied on a more equitable basis, giving them an unfair competitive advantage.
With more than 60% of all magazine titles supplied to newsagents loss-making, something has to give. I think we are reaching a tipping point where newsagents will exit the category. Several have done so already – they have stopped selling magazine altogether. I am not advocating this, just reporting that it has happened.
Magazine distributors have the capacity to supply on the basis of sales data and to a model with a goal of selling out close to the end of the on-sale period. It is time they started using their data to achieve this.
Slastdot has a post about an old computer that had been used for running POS software in a retail business which was sold on eBay. Here’s what was found on that old computer: default passwords, a security flaw, and names, addresses, and social security numbers of employees of the terminal’s previous owner.
The safest way to get rid of a computer you no longer need is to take a hammer to the hard drive or solid state storage. Smash it to bits. If you do sell it or give it away, format the drive first.
The latest issue of Vogue Australia covers the title behind it with the card holding the St Tropez tan gift with purchase. I moved it after I took the photo so it was in the top pocket and not obscuring anything. In many newsagencies I suspect it would not be moved – thereby blocking the title behind. Publishers of the obscured would have every reason to be frustrated, especially if sales are impacted.
While a good gift can lift sales, publishers sending our packages like Vogue Australia with this issue of should ask for placement that respects other titles.
The AWW Classic Cookies cookbook from Bauer feels too cheap at $5.00. It’s a good quality product that feels like it could sell at two or three times the price. It’s the type of cookbook that could sell as a gift.
Am I missing something in thinking it’s too cheap? What do you think?
What does your business card say about your business? Does it pitch you and your business or does it include the basic details? Does your card represent your unique selling proposition or does include the basic details?
Does your business card define you and your business? Does it reflect how you see yourself?
A business card that’s basic will achieve basic results for you.
Maybe that’s what you want, a basic, functional, business card. While there is nothing wrong with that, a business card can be so much more.
A good business card can encourage pride in your business, it can promote your business it can attract new shoppers and it can be clear on your USP. A good business care is one you will be proud to thrust your card into the hands of more people, inviting them to connect with your business.
Take out your business card and have a look at it, think about whether it pitches your business in the best way possible. Embrace it if you are happy with it, change it if you are not.
Make your business card your personal advertising billboard. Get noticed. Get more business.
If a supplier claims a product is selling well, ask for proof. If someone on the phone says they have been told to call you by a colleague, your marketing group or someone else, ask for proof. If a landlord makes a promise, ask for proof – get it in writing. If a salesman makes a claim about being better than a competitor, ask for proof – get it in writing.
Too often in our channel we are too trusting of what we are told. You’ll often find that asking for proof, evidence or documentation of a position put is ignored or declined – meaning it’ open to you to not trust what the have said.
There have been some grand lies told to newsagents, individually and collectively, over the years, lies that have cost individuals and the channel dearly.
Asking for proof is basic due diligence.
It’s healthy to be suspicious and trusting when you are provided appropriate evidence.
We are promoting magazines this weekend on the lease line – facing into the mall. I selected the titles to appeal to our typical weekend shopper. Food made sense to me being the weekend and all. The Ian Thorpe cover on Who made it a good choice to cap the stand.
I placed the stand next to the Peppa Pig display as this gives parents something to browse while the kids look at Peppa.
So far the stand is working for us.
We have been promoting the latest issue of Take 5 with a placement in a second location above the pocket where the title is usually located. This placement features the gift with purchase – allowing it to do its job at driving sales. We’re doing this of our own accord and not because the publisher asked – because we want the sales.
I heard this week about a newsagent who relied on someone who claimed they could get a better lease deal and ended up paying more per square metre than a nearby competitor. The lease negotiator they used negotiated the lease for a couple of newsagencies that went broke on the back of what I’d saw were poorly negotiated leases. I say they were poorly negotiated because I saw the leases and would not have agreed to them myself.
It is easy to claim to help newsagents get a better lease. Achieving a good lease requires a good business or business plan from the newsagent, diligent professional work, a co-operative landlord and a lease professional who has no vested interest other than getting the best lease deal for you.
If a newsagent asks me for lease advice, especially one in a shopping centre, my advice is to pay for the services of an independent lease professional.
Too many newsagencies have gone broke in recent years on the back of leases negotiated by parties with a vested interest. This is why I say buyer beware of people who claim they can negotiate a better lease for you.
Be inquisitive about any marketing pitch by someone or a business claiming they offer lease negotiation services or that they are favoured by landlords. Seek evidence. Seek clarification. Get it in writing and do your research.
See if the claims about lease negotiation stack up to the test of history.
Anyone can make a claim in their advertising and marketing. The truth is what matters and I know of former newsagents who would say that they wish they had done their research before believing they would get a better lease through a specific party.
Ask for before and after evidence in writing. Ask for their most recent references. Don’t accept their word, accept only proof of good they have done.
Even ask for advice from a friend or someone in whom you have trust. Don’t be afraid. The alternative is you trust them and maybe find that the lease they negotiate for you is the worst business decision you even made.
A bad lease can cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars, your home, your health and even your family. There are former newsagents with stories they could share.
This post is about no one person or business. The advice is advice anyone with your best interests at heart would give.
Maybe I missed the announcement to newsagents. Publishers Australia has details of TV Week Soap Extra launching at the end of the month to sell fopr $3.95. It will be fortnightly and published on a Thursday. Maybe I am wrong but I suspect this could be more of a supermarket focussed title.
The Herald Sun reported yesterday a surge in interest in knitting. This is reason enough for newsagents to promote knitting titles including the Better Homes and Gardens knitting title.
The age of the people in the article suggests we move knitting titles to next to Frankie, Yen and Russh. The article is a reminder to not to prejudge who purchases knitting titles.
Someone anonymously sent me a flyer about a Newspower / West Australian promotion running at the moment offering a chance to win $20,000. It looks like a good promotion depending on what the words chance to win $20,000 mean. Is there a $20,000 prize for one customer or a chance to play a game of chance to win $20,000? If it’s the latter it’s not as strong a promotion.
There is an asterisk on the poster but no explanation for the point of the asterisk.
Just as Better Homes and Gardens sales surge around the TV show, the promotion on 7 of Your Knitting & Crochet Collection is boosted by advertising and promotion through the Better Homes and Gardens TV show. I saw the title promoted on TV tonight as it was a reminder to co-locate the little remaining stock we have – from our second order – with newspapers to get extra sales.
This has been an excellent tile for us as as noted already it’s generated traffic from passers-by.
Damn! I should have done more than just sell Loom Bands. I should have made a dress and sold it on eBay for £170,100 – an amazing story at Essential Kids.
If you still have Loom bands in store here’s a promotional opportunity – get people to make things to raise money at an auction for a local charity.
I have noticed a couple of other outlets serving our channel running stories prompted by posts here. While I’m okay with that, attribution would be appreciated. In one case recently, a party passed off as their initiative an issue I raised here first.
This week I am calling out five basic areas of retailing where some newsagents make the rest of us look bad. I am writing about these five areas because in the minds of plenty of Australian shoppers all newsagencies are as bad as the worst one they have visited.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Even in basic customer service there is a big difference in newsagencies from uniforms and name badges to eating and drinking behind the counter to over the counter service. What one newsagent things is good service another may consider appalling and another may consider too good.
While in banner group businesses with which we compete such as 7-Eleven, Officeworks, Australia Post, Smiggle, supermarkets and others there are guides to drive consistency, in the newsagency channel among independent businesses there are no such minimum standards.
Does this matter? Not so much if we each care about our own businesses. However if we are relying on public perception about our business based on experience with other newsagencies it does matter.
This is why I think we need to be concerned about other businesses trading under the same shingle as us. We all need to do better, to meet minimum good standards for our future.
It is very basic retail management to focus on a consistent professional customer service offering. I think it’s something that we as a channel need to talk about and work on together.
Australia Post supported newsagents in a Tweet last night. Just their mentioning us in this tweet put us in front of their 16,800 Twitter followers. yes, they mentioned Officeworks in the same tweet. No matter, newsagents were mentioned and Australia Post did not have to do that.
We early returned this discount magazine pack from Bauer. We don’t have a spare pocket, the discount strategy does not make sense and the title mix in the packet does not make sense. I’ve seen no evidence from Bauer that proves these discount packs work for the publisher, the advertisers and the retailers.
I took this photo of the magazine department at a suburban Melbourne Coles supermarket on Thursday afternoon. It’s messy, hard to shop and includes questionable placement.
What an appalling representation of magazines.
It is disappointing publishers let Coles get away with this.
Newsagents do a better job.
I like the use of a floor-mat poster promoting the latest issue of Australian Traveller magazine that I saw at a news outlet on Wednesday night at Perth airport. It drew attention to the title in a location retail outlet ideal for the title and in a way that shoppers can’t miss.
This week I am calling out five basic areas of retailing where some newsagents make the rest of us look bad. I am writing about these five areas because in the minds of plenty of Australian shoppers all newsagencies are as bad as the worst one they have visited.
QUALITY
I suspect that if a survey was undertaken of everyday Australians as to the retail businesses they trust, local newsagencies would feature high on the list. For decades we have been known for selling quality products from stationery through.
The core categories of our businesses are build around brands – in cards Hallmark is the best known brand in the country, in magazines the entire department is about brands, in stationery it’s Scotch, Post-It, UHU, Papermate, Uniball, Bic, Spirax and many others.
Respected brands can attract a higher price.
Unfortunately, some newsagents prefer to play down-market, where quality is not important, where price is the differentiator. They do this without thinking about the consequences.
Newsagents selling inferior product can damage the rest of us as our businesses are only as good as the weakest business trading under the same shingle.
Product quality matters as it is one factor that drives loyalty. The sale today achieved because you have a cheaper and inferior product is less likely to drive a sale tomorrow for the same product whereas a sale today at a higher price for a quality product is more likely to drive repeat business.
Unfortunately there are some in the channel who prefer ro focus on cheap. I am certain that one day, if they;re still in business, will realise that cheap is not a viable business plan for the long term.
We need to focus on quality products on which our customers can rely.
If you’re at Adelaide airport check out the new look newsagency at the Qantas end of the terminal. I like the low-profile magazine units – they provide good sight lines into and out of the store. It makes it feel quite open and welcoming. The fixtures present the magazines well.
The publisher of Car magazine took to Twitter last night to promote the latest issue – celebrating 50 years. In their Tweet they gave a call out to newsagents for which we should be appreciative.
I don’t like their use of good in the tweet since they do not disclose that as the publisher they control where their magazine is distributed so they decide which are the good newsagents.
The publisher could say their distributor decides. Enough publishers control which newsagents carry their titles that this publisher could too.
Are you a bad newsagent if you don’t stock Car magazine? No!