Profitable Newsagent magazine, circa 1984
Lew Stringer, a terrific cartoonist, shared this UK Magazine cover image on Twitter a few years ago.
The New York Times ups pressure on local news outlets
This deal just out for The New York Times sure makes Aussie news outlets look expensive.
The pressure on local news publishers intensifies from outside Australia
The latest Washington Post offer is extraordinary: A$40 for a year after a 4 week free trial.
Experience what millions of subscribers love.
Get the Washington Post free for 4 weeks—then just A$40 for your first year.
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) September 20, 2022
Whoa: Optus announces significant security breach
Optus notifies customers of cyberattack compromising customer information
22 September 2022, 02:00 PM
National day of mourning
In my shops we’ve kept a low profile on our socials about the passing of the Queen. This morning we loaded our only post, which we think is appropriate given the day.
The Licenced music and images are used with permission.
Good comms from news Corp. on AFL Grand Final engagement
News Corp. continue to engage well with retail newsagents. They have sent out this communication re AFL Grand Final engagement:
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Grand Final week news coverageHerald-Sun
- Friday, September 23 — Bumper AFL grand final preview.
- Saturday, September 24 – 20-Page AFL Grand Final preview.
- Sunday, September 25 – 24-Page Premiership Wrap.
- Monday, September 26 — 16-Page Grand Final Souvenir Edition.Geelong Advertiser
- Mon to Fri 19-23 September – Bonus 8-Page GF week Special.
- Saturday, September 24 – 24-Page AFL Grand Final preview.
- Sunday, September 25 – 56-page Souvenir Premiers Edition*
- Monday, September 26 – 16-Page Grand Final Souvenir Edition
Supply review
- Please review your supplies for Fri to Mon, September 23 to 26.
- Please make supply changes online via iServices or iDeliver.
- Or by email (with “Supply Change” and route number mentioned in the subject header) or phone to News Retail Support.
- We may further adjust supply based on overall print volumes.
AFL Premiers Posters (Mark Knight)
- Posters go on sale Monday, September 26, for $5.00 (inc. GST)
- All proceeds go to Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday Appeal.
- Supply, delivery, returns & billing details to be sent separately.
Should you wish to discuss this with us, please feel free to contact your Area Sales Manager or our News Retail Support Team.
Kind Regards,
News Retail Support
This may seem like basic stuff, and it is, but it was missing for a while from News for retail only businesses and it’s non existent from Nine in my experience.
New Idea and Woman’s Day price increases announced
While timed for editions that come with a 16 page mini-mag honouring the Queen, the $5,80 cover price for each will stay for future editions.
Tower Systems announces new free online marketplace for local independent retailers including newsagents
Tower Systems is launching www.findit.com.au, a free marketplace for local indie retailers like you. Listing products on FindIt will be free for Tower Systems customers.
Our goal for FindIt is to help customers looking online for items you sell, to drive traffic to your shop.
All Tower Systems POS software customers have access to FindIt for free.
We have built FindIt because of the growing importance of being online to in-store retail, and because some retailers are challenged with creating and running their own website. This is a no cost / low cost solution to help you be found online.
If you do have your own website, you will still be able to list on FindIt if you wish.
Retailers can choose to sell through FindIt, or just list what they have available in-store. If they do sell through FindIt, there is a fee of 10%. This covers Tower for credit card fees and Afterpay fees once that is live. It also covers us for credit card fraud claims. Retailers choose whether to sell through FindIt or not. Again, to list products and have your shop found is free.
We are hosting the website on a large secure and fast server in a remote data centre. We are also doing the backend SEO work to raise the Google profile.
Customers will land on the website from Google. As the ranking of the site increases, products on FindIt will list in Google results. Customers will be able to add items from multiple retailers to a FindIt basket in a transaction.
The FindIt website confirms the order to the customer and provides the retailer with a recipient created tax invoice. Retailers will be able to go to their FindIt vendor panel to download a picking slip.
Retailers choose the price of what they sell – it can be their web price or their retail price. In the Tower Systems POS software, retailers choose whether a product is listed online.
The image for a product will be the first image loaded for a product. If a retailer has a better image than the first one loaded by another retailer, it would take a manual process to change it, a process not currently in place. The same applies to descriptions.
We connect products by barcode. If a retailer generates their own barcode for an item already on FindIt, it will treat that product as a new item.
The price will be the retailer’s price – yes, multiple retailers on FindIt could result in different prices for the same item.
The product description is the key. Our advice on this is to try and think about what someone is likely to type into Google.
Retailers will have the option to be either freight free or charge. If a retailer has product dimensions and have selected to charge freight, the Australia Post plug-in we have will calculate a freight charge. Retailers will also have an option, on their vendor page in FindIt to set a flat freight charge if you wish.
We currently serve over 3,000 local small business independent retailers. Across that eco system there are more than 100,000 unique products. FindIt has the potential to be an important marketplace.
We are around 3 weeks away from launch.
In terms of the launch tho, it will be soft, no major fanfare. We’re taking a Field of Dreams approach … building it in the hope they do come.
This is a new space for us and for our customers. There will be missteps along the way for sure. We will evolve the site based on what we learn from these and from your feedback.
We are excited to help local indie retailers find new shoppers for your business.
Find out more about our Tower Systems POS software at our website, www.towersystems.com.au, where you can also easily watch demonstrations of our software. We only supply independent retailers. Plus, our software is Aussie made and supported.
For a personal demonstration or to discuss your POS software needs:
- sales@towersystems.com.au
- 1300 662 957.
Lottery Office competitor to traditional lotteries appears to be gaining traction
www.lotteryoffice.com.au, owned by Global Players Network Pty Ltd , is appearing in several social media feeds and while they are not engaged in paid advertising as much as in their past, traffic to their website is growing as this graph I pulled yesterday. The second graph shows keyword penetration in key groups.
I mention it because I suspect plenty of lottery retailers are not aware of this competitor that offers games related to overseas lotteries.
They pitch interestingly on Twitter. Here’s a post from yesterday, for example:
Our world-class lottery jackpots, our amazing local customer support, and the fact that we are 100% Australian-owned and operated are all motivating Aussies to join The Lottery Office. Here’s why we’re safe to play with online 👉https://t.co/P3oGb1Uras
— www.lotteryoffice.com.au (@LotteryOfficeAU) September 18, 2022
8% of their online traffic comes from people searching for lotto in Google. This keyword is searched 301,000 times a month in Australia. The Lottery Office ranks at position 6 currently in Australia.
I don’t know their revenue, or whether they are winning customers from sales of over the counter games. What I know know is that they are present in the marketplace, and pitching themselves well.
Their website shares more information abut them:
The Lottery Office is operated by Global Players Network Pty Ltd. We are Australian owned and operated and licensed by the Northern Territory Government. We have offices in Darwin, NT and on the Gold Coast, QLD.
The Lottery Office is unlike other companies. Our unique business model allows you to enter our own Government approved lotteries. When you enter one of our lotteries, we will then purchase a matching ticket in a major overseas lottery and we will claim any prize that is won from the overseas ticket and pay you the exact same amount. This ensures we are able to pay out any prize and not have to rely on an insurance policy like other companies. It also allows our players to have the chance to win from matched tickets with major overseas lotteries having prizes reaching into the billions.
I mention this so as to avoid confusion.
This is how a supplier supports their small business retail customers
We started buying from a US based supplier (not the one I wrote about recently). They have unique products, nothing like them in Australia.
Their first order has just arrived. Yesterday, they asked if we ship as they have someone in NSW interest in a product of theirs we have just received. It was an easy sale.
Now, overnight, we have received 2 more similar leads.
While they could shop to Australia, and Aussies would pay shipping for their unique products, their choice is to support retailers who purchase through them and pass on leads.
It’s terrific seeing a supplier support its retail partners in this way.
Leveraging the mega-influencer
Even though the Kim Kardashian visit was to a US store, we shared the image locally, and sales followed.
News Corp needs to improve it’s engagement with online
A new issue of the House of Wellness advertising catalogue is out next week and people interested are told to take the coupon to a newsagency to collect. If you follow the links News Corp has published to see stockists you get a non-searchable list with truncated names.
The list is useless unless you want read through 18 pages. They could have easily made this searchable. It’s an easy fail by News Corp.
We’re hiring: Retail Manager, newsXpress Malvern
We’re hiring for a Retail Manager role at our Glenferrie Road, Malvern, VIC, store.
Retail Manager: newsXpress, Glenferrie Road Malvern.
We are looking for an experienced retail manager, keen to manage their own shop. Someone with good current Aussie retail skills, ideally in innovative small business.
Product categories of interest are gifts, homewares, greeting cards and pop culture.
We provide considerable freedom, which is backed with encouragement and support from our head office team.
The use of current POS software is key to success as are online sales fulfilled through this business.
This role reports to our head office retail businesses manager. There are opportunities in the future outside the shop, too.
We own several suburban Melbourne retail businesses. They are run under management. Our retail managers spend most of the day in the shop, serving, working with customers, suppliers and team members.
While our retail businesses look a bit like a newsagency, they are not a newsagency. Our focus is on gifts, homewares and greeting cards. There is no confectionery product, no lotteries and no tobacco.
This is a full time role.
Want to know more, email us at newsXpress head office: help@newsxpress.com.au. Also, check us out online at www.cutenessoverload.com.au and www.beanieboosaustralia.com and www.jigsawsaustralia.com and www.mintcoinshop.com.au.
No agents.
$60,000 – $65,000 + super + vehicle allowance.
Some pop culture brands are easy wins for retailers
The Golden Girls is a successful pop culture brand in Australia based on online searches, but not based on products sold. Monthly Google searches are sitting at 30,000+ yet there is little here in the way of products available from suppliers.
What fascinates me is the broad age and gender appeal of this brand. Like some other TV show brands from the 60s, 70s and 80s, it’s a brand with a ton of latent demand here.
Thanks to good data resources we can gauge consumer interest in a brand. It surprised me that the wholesalers with access to overseas businesses manufacturing products with these licences appear to not have done the search data research.
While The Golden Girls is on my mind at the moment, there are other brands even more successful, more often searched, than it for which there are no products in Australia. It’s frustrating and disappointing, and leading some retailers to explore unconventional routes.
I am interested in this because I think that in these niche spaces lay opportunities. Sure, it’s easy selling what everyone has access to. But, it is likely to be more valuable playing in these other spaces.
Now, I do get that the mug in the photo is =not Licenced product. It has been created in a way so as to not represent itself as genuinely Licenced. Rather, it is inspired by if you like.
Newsagents: be careful in handling the extra magazine issues published to commemorate the passing of the Queen
The extra magazine issues out tomorrow present challenges for newsagents as you will have 2 issues of one title on sale at the same time.
Tower Systems earlier today published advice to its 1,700+ newsagency software customers. It’s in the Tower knowledge base and may change to suit changed circumstances:
Early Magazine Arrivals – Queen Commemoration Issues
On this page
Woman’s Day, New Idea, and Who will be releasing an early special issue on Thursday September 15th to commemorate the Queen. To avoid any billing issues with the title coming out twice in one week you will need to follow the below advice:
Subagents
You will have to manually change the orders for Woman’s Day, New Idea, and Who on Monday the 19th back to Friday the 16th. This will ensure that you have dockets and a corresponding charge for the Friday deliveries. To do this please follow the steps below.
Go into your subagent orders screen & select generate orders & select the week ending date in which 19/09/2022 is contained. For Most users this will be 25/9/2022.
Click Generate
Go to the subagent orders screen and select the week ending that contains the orders for Monday 19/09/2022
Locate and change each title with the arrival date of 19/09/2022 to the 15/09/2022. You will need to do this for each subagent who receives the title.
This will then move the order back to the week ending in which the 15/09/2022 is contained.
When you then arrive Woman’s Day for 15/09/2022, you will be asked if you want to change the arrival day from Monday to Friday. Select NO.
You will then be asked if you wish to create a non-arrival for the title. Select NO.
These titles will show correctly on your subagent dockets and will correctly bill for that week.
Do NOT generate your subagent orders again after this point for the week ending that contains the 19/09/2022 as this will re-create the orders that you have moved. If you do you will need to go into each subagent grid for the week affected and zero out the Qty for each title
Customer Home Deliveries
For home delivery customers we you will need to
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Print off the Run List for the 19/09/2022 and the 15/09/2022 on the afternoon of the 14/09/2022.
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Transpose any home deliveries for the titles affected to the run list for the 15/09/2022. Customer will be billed on Mondays as normal, providing you have NOT entered a Non Arrival.
Is The Lottery Corporation shifting focus to convenience and tobacco?
It feels to me like the folks at The Lottery Corporation are interested in new outlets in the convenience and tobacco retail niches to the detriment of the historically strong focus on newsagency businesses.
Okay, I don’t have evidence to support this. It’s why I say it feels like.
Any move referencing tobacco retail would be odd as it challenges the values of TLC. I mean, seriously, any support of tobacco businesses would be problematic for any partner. I mean, lung cancer …
It’s been on my mind recently because of colleague newsagents who have had to deal with new competitors, tobacco outlets, approved by TLC for a lotteries franchise.
I mention it here to put the topic on the record, to see if anyone comments.
I may be wrong. There may be nothing to see here. But, on the other hand, there may be plenty to see here. It could be a trend.
It wouldn’t surprise me given what we see in some overseas markets.
A roster and opening hours challenge for the national day of mourning, especially in Victoria
The national day of mourning for the Queen announced this morning presents challenges for business, especially small business retailers, like newsagents, and especially so in Victoria.
Friday September 23 is already a public holiday for the AFL Grand Final.
Now, we have the day before, September 22, designated a public holiday. It’s a Thursday, with attendant magazine challenges for plenty of newsagents, too.
We’ll all have to consider opening hours and roster settings. Given penalty rates, it presents a challenge.
Since school holidays are already under way then, that is also a consideration.
Everyone has their local situation to consider. For us in suburban Melbourne, for example, it will be a half day open on the national day mourning I think. 7am to 1pm probably.
Most sales for many newsagents will be papers, at 12.5% GP and magazines, at 25% GP. Wages will cost around $45 an hour. You can soon work out the cost of being open on this new public holiday.
Maybe the federal and state governments could join in on the mourning and waive taxes and charges for a day. Of course, that’s a ridiculous and impossible suggestion. But I do wonder about the cost to all businesses of this new public holiday. In small businesses, especially, days like this increase the cost to business owners either in financial terms or demands on their own time.
I get that there are some in the community who will embrace and appreciate the national day of mourning, and I get that the country, as part of the Commonwealth, needs to be seen to do something like this, and that plenty of Australians will want it. What is frustrating is the considerable cost that falls to small business without consultation – which, of course, would be impossible in this rare circumstance.
I mention it merely to note it.
Also, it would be churlish to not note the economic value to flow from the passing of the Queen in newspaper, magazine and mint coin sales, and more I suspect. So there is that, for which I am grateful.
…
I am all for a republic. The sooner the better. The Queen dying doesn’t sadden me. I feel no connection to her. I’m not aware of anything good she did for me, or anyone I know. I am aware of her involvement, by proxy, and by looking the other way, in the removal of a democratically elected government in Australia, as documented thoroughly in The Palace Letters, by Jenny Hocking.
Bloodline monarchies have no place in democracy in my opinion.
Yes, she was a strong woman of influence in the world, and she was likeable and she was the official British Head of State. But, getting the seat because of bloodline and being surrounded by such luxury and opulence public funding is problematic to me, as is their invasion of well settled lands, like Australia, where the indigenous were slaughtered.
UK newspaper front pages
This image shared just now on Twitter by Paperboy provides us with a fascinating insight into UK newspaper coverage of the passing of the Queen.
Are media announces magazine publication plans for commemorating the life of the Queen
Are Media has provided this advice to newsagents re their current plans for commemorating the life of the Queen following her passing.
Monday 12th September on-sale:
- Woman’s Day, New Idea, and TV Week to go on sale as normal
Thursday 15th September on sale:
- New Idea and Woman’s Day, which were due to go on sale 19th September, will be brought forward and remain on sale for 10 days
- Who will be on sale as normal
- New Idea additional special commemorative one-shot will go on sale RRP $9.99=
Monday 19th September on sale:
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The Australian Women’s Weekly commemorative issue one-shot RRP $12.99
News Corp advises newsagents of supply increases this weekend
This comms was just sent to newsagents:
Dear Newsagent/Retailer,
Our Saturday and Sunday newspapers will contain significant news coverage related to the passing of Queen Elizabeth II.
In anticipation of increased reader interest, we have increased your supply for these editions.
Our regular weekend magazine inserts are printed several days before the newspaper is printed. This means that for this weekend only, we don’t have enough magazines to cover the increased newspaper supply.
You may find that this impacts your own supplies. If so, please let your customers and staff know, and convey our apologies.
And to minimise any possible delay in arrival times, additional delivery vehicles have been added.
If you have any concerns on this matter, please don’t hesitate to contact News Retail Support, your Area Logistics Manager or Area Sales Manager to discuss further.
Kind Regards,
News Corp Australia
And later today after emailing them I got this from Nine:
QUEEN ELIZABETH II SPECIAL EDITIONS – SATURDAY. Retail supplies will be increased for special editions of The Age and Financial Review on Saturday 10th September. Because of the late changes some country and metro AGE copies may be delivered without the Good Weekend magazine and on Sunday some copies will be without Sunday Life.
Waking up to $8,000 in online sales overnight
I knew that when the Queen passed the $100 Platinum Jubilee Coin would sell well. I did not expect $8,000 in sales three hours.
What happened here is a testament to having the right product, being online, and being high in search results.
I am not sharing this to disrespect the Queen. Rather, I share it as an example of value we can cultivate in thoughtful diversification.
This is not an isolated situation. And, it is something any newsagent could achieve.
Now, here’s a newsXpress pitch – because access to the coins is through newsXpress. This coin has already been very successful for us. What happened overnight is the icing on the cake. And, what’s most interesting is … many shoppers bought other coins and almost all are first time shoppers with us. This is all part of newsXpress strategy – with execution details shared with members long ago, presenting the same opportunity for all.
UPDATE (12:05pm): It’s continued with people purchasing other coins knowing they will be the last with the Queen. It is fascinating seeing the depth of range of purchases.
That hit product everyone wants
We were lucky to have stock of the 75th Anniversary of the Australian Signals Directorate – 50c Uncirculated coin 2022 released by the Royal Australian Mint.
It sold out quickly and while we’d like to have had more stock, having it helped us attract new shoppers. This is good because coin shoppers are habit based shoppers and they return, and they tend to purchase other items when in the shop. They are valuable customers.
Habit based shoppers are tremendously valuable in any retail setting as their habits offer an opportunity for predictability and it is this that helps us in our business planning.
In a typical newsagency, the key habit based shopper opportunities relate to the magazines (special interest and crossword are the two best for us), greeting cards (birthday is key here), stationery (home use tends to outperform office use) and, of course, lotteries.
So when we unlock a new habit based product opportunity we analyse the results and work on ways we can leverage it for broader success in the business.
This is where the mint coin products do work a treat. But it takes time and management. I have seen some newsagents get into this space and give up after a few months. Others have worked at it, tuned it, and after 6 or so months found a level of wonderful and valuable consistency.
Too often I see retailers take a step with a new product and toss it out if that one step does not fail.
As retailers we need to work our shops and the products in them. If something does hot work, we need to look at location and the support we have, or have not provided, to the product. We need to do our best to find shoppers, to cultivate them.
Now with this new coin from the Mint we were lucky because of excellent publicity around its release. It made it a dream-run product. But it does not always happen this way.
