A blog on issues affecting Australia's newsagents, media and small business generally. More ...

Author: Mark Fletcher

Australians prefer print magazines to websites

In excellent news for magazine publishers and magazine-specialist newsagents Roy Morgan today published research results today indicating that Australians prefer engaging in print magazines in the home and garden space over websites. The release starts with:

So much for websites poaching readers from print publications: when it comes to magazines, at least, many titles are thriving. Take home and garden magazines, a category spanning publications such as Home Beautiful, House & Garden and Real Living, for example. In the last month, 16% of Australians (or more than 3 million people) read a home and garden magazine — double the 8% who visited a website from this category.

When you get a moment, read the whole release and understand more about the opportunity for us.

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magazines

Don’t forget magazines at Christmas

magwallMagazine sales spike in the week before Christmas as people purchase them as gifts. It’s important we find time to refresh the magazine offer, making sure categories are obvious and gift appropriate titles are put in their best light. Ten or fifteen minutes every day in this last week can help drive extra magazine sales. Given the surge in sales of cards and gifts it can be easy to forget magazines.

Is this store with the magazine feature wall with plenty of magazines on full face display we relayed on Friday and have seen good results since.

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magazines

Driving sales of religious Christmas cards

religiouscardsI like the collateral from Hallmark for promoting single religious-themed Christmas cards. I’m sure it’s helping drive our sales of these.

Whereas through the year religious-themed card sales are soft, at Christmas they take off – both in these single cards and in boxed cards. Indeed, with boxed cards we sold out of boxed religious-themed Christmas cards and will sell out of the additional stock.

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Greeting Cards

Abs cover shots bring Christmas joy

magsabsI suspected the two thirty-something ladies were up to go good in our men’s magazine area. They were laughing too much. Wouldn’t it be nice one said to the other looking at the abs on the guys on the covers of the three health and fitness titles. I could buy him all three and say that’s what I want the other said with a laugh. We can only dream the first lady said as she wistfully brushed the abs of the guy on the cover of Men’s Health.

When they turned to leave they saw me watching them and giggled like naughty girls.

Watching customers can be fun and occasionally creepy (if you get caught).

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Fun

Another zombie product success

zombiekeychainZombie-themed products are selling out for us this Christmas. These zombie-themed keychains are another success in this theme of products. It’s no wonder given the slew of TV shows and movies with zombie and related themes.

The success here is a reminder about offering gifts that are socially relevant. I couple of grandparents on the weekend bought zombie gifts for their grandkids because they remembered they liked The Walking Dead. They were excited that they would appear to be with it.

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Gifts

Gadgets for Christmas drive basket depth

gadgetchristmasGadgets are selling out for us this Christmas. One customer purchased six of these pocket screwdrivers at once for all the guys she buys for. Another customer bought four of the USB chargers as stocking-stuffers for her sons.  In each case the customers told me they came in to buy Christmas cards and ended up spending considerably more.

Getting sales like this starts with buying months ago, thinking of the people customers could be purchasing gifts for. While some buying is luck, much of it requires careful consideration – and for success for the next year it requires thorough tracking so you know what worked and how quickly it worked.

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Gifts

Interest in tablet computer magazines on the wane?

Check out the fascinating article at GIGAOM on the waning interest in tablet magazines – magazines published through iTunes and the like for reading on the iPad and other tablets.

The Newsstand and tablet magazine honeymoon is over. Apple knows it. The industry knows it. And consumers have made it painfully clear for far too long.

As Twitter and other social media platform use shows, story form preferences are changing. While longer format interest will continue, volume traffic today is more about more immediate shorter form and more accessible content.

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Media disruption

How to protect your newsagency business when an employee leaves

Here are some simple steps to consider taking when an employee stops working for you. These steps are designed to protect your business and the former employee.

  1. Change your locks. If you’re in a high-street situation and if the employee had keys, changing the locks is important, especially if the employee has left under a cloud.
  2. Change all your computer passwords – regardless of whether they had access to these or not.
  3. Change your supplier website access passwords.
  4. If your employee did any buying, advise your suppliers of their departure.
  5. Ensure superannuation is up to date.
  6. Have business-supplied uniforms and name badges returned.

Too often business owners don’t consider steps like these until after an incident has occurred.

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Management tip

Take 5 and That’s Life

deay-t5tlWhile I have only looked at decay data for less than twenty newsagencies, it appears that the move to a Thursday on-sale for Take 5 and That’s Life has slightly challenged sales in newsagencies. The image on the screen is a blended result of data from businesses that are open seven days, all day every day. You can see that whereas from the Wednesday delivery (the red line) we had four days of measurable sales, from the Thursday delivery (the black line) we have three. Knowing this should focus our attention on Thursday through Saturday more.

In the data I have seen, some weeks are up on last year and others are down so for me, the jury is still out on the overall impact of the shift of on-sale on these two titles.

The small bump registering on Wednesdays for the Thursday on-sale data is, I suspect, from customers yet to realise the change of day.

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magazines

Promoting Men’s Health

magsmenshdec2013We’re promoting the latest issue of Men’s Health magazine in our men’s reading area with this aisle end display. We’re also pitching the title as an ideal Christmas gift for a guy as part of a group of titles elsewhere in the store. Plus we have it in its usual location.

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magazines

Note to magazine publishers: delayed billing will NOT reduce early returns

Newsagents are being swamped with titles where billing is delayed. It feels like title range and volume has increased as a result. This is nuts. I early return a title based on its sales performance and not based on when it will be billed. Retail space has a cost. Delayed billing will not and should not remove a title from consideration for early return. Anyone saying otherwise to magazine publishers is not accurately representing newsagents – the people paying for the retail space, labour and shrinkage in newsagencies.

Publishers: Stop using us as your warehouse. If your title has an on-sale of more than  four weeks, hold the stock and send additional stock bales on our sales data. While your distributor may say that they don’t have accurate sales data, challenge them as they are probably wrong.

If the increase in delayed billing titles does not stop more newsagents will strike out by cutting magazine space and sending more titles back early.

For Christmas, newsagents want magazine distributors and some magazine publishers to treat them with more respect.

There was a time delayed billing was used by a few publishers with care. The free for all we are seeing now has ruined it for everyone.

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magazine distribution

Australiana Christmas ornaments sell out

xmasaustralianaWe have sold out of our Australiana Christmas ornaments and other Australiana-themed Christmas items faster this year and we had more stock. My could have ordered double … maybe next year. Price was not an issue because not many other retailers in our centre had Australiana themed ornaments. If only we knew we would have a point of difference.

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Gifts

Here’s one reason food magazine sales are not as strong

magscolesfoodThe food magazines made freely available at checkout counters of Coles and Woolworths are excellent publications, far superior today than was was available even a couple of years ago.

Looking at the Christmas edition of the Coles magazine custom published for Coles by Bauer.  This is a publication they proclaim is Australia’s No. 1 food magazine – I can see why people would be satisfied with this as their Christmas food magazine. For free they get access to recipes from Curtis Stone and others, baking tips, presentation ideas and plenty more. Someone on a budget wanting inspiration for Christmas food ideas will get it with this title.

That they can pick up the title for free at Coles could give shoppers reason to not visit their local newsagency to browse a broader range of food titles. There’s no point in complaining since Coles is doing what they need to do to drive sales. The magazine does that well through ads and editorial content. The consequence for newsagents, I think, is less of an appetite for the everyday food titles we sell.

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magazines

No choice but to early return Dolly

magsdollyexcessOur supply of Dolly was increased significantly even though previous issues were not coming close to selling out. While I would not usually early return such a major title I had no choice given the gross oversupply and no storage space for such a thick issue where we can fit only one copy per pocket.

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Magazine oversupply

Sunday newsagency management tip: take a walk

It’s tough work running a newsagency, working 70, 80 and more hours a week covering many tasks from business manager to cleaner to customer service to creating retail displays. There is always something to do. Some days it can feel like no matter what you do you have more to do at the end of the day than when you started.

No matter how busy you are in your newsagency I urge you to take time out every day for a brisk 20 to 30 minute walk outside, in the sun, alone. Leave your phone behind – the shop worn’t burn down. Time yourself and try and get at least 3k, preferably 4k, of walking in.  Getting your heart rate up will be good for your physical and mental health.

If walking every day during the day is too much of a challenge, try it early in the morning or once you close at night.

Being away from the business, other people an the phone will give your body and mind time to process. I walk between 8k and 10k every day. It’s the lunchtime walk that’s the best as it refreshes me for the afternoon. I find the business benefits of walking outside in the sun are considerable.

See the Vic. Government website for health benefits of walking for a brisk 30 minute walk each day. See the SA Government website where they talk about walking making us happy.

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Management tip

Sunday newsagency marketing tip: change your layout

This marketing tip is for this last ten days before Christmas when every newsagency should be at their busiest. With all the marketing activity from major retailers now is not the best time for small businesses to spend as your voice will be drowned out. Instead, focus your marketing attention inside your business. Work to leverage existing shopper traffic.

Change things around. Move your highest traffic items to a different location to disrupt shopper flow so that they see the products they may have missed before. Newsagents often complain that shoppers don’t notice things. This is because the newsagencies don’t change that much.

By making two or three tactical moves you could get existing shoppers spending more. We did this just over a week ago with a significant move for weekly magazines. In the last seven days to last night weekly magazine sales are up 7%. This is more than overall growth for magazines.

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marketing

Off-location promotion of Better Homes and Gardens attracts impulse purchase

magsbhgtvcWe have ordered more stock of the latest issue of Better Homes and Gardens on the back of success with this off-location promotion using a single purpose stand placed so that all of our magazine and newspaper shoppers will pass it. Many of our plush customers will also pass this stand. Sales are ahead of usual for the January issue at this short time in the on-sale. I think that’s helped by the stunning cover (a delicious-looking trifle that featured on the TV show on Friday night) and this second location promotion of the magazine.

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magazines

Featuring Australian Traveller

magsaustravellerWe are giving the latest Australian Traveller magazine (with the popular reader’s choice awards) time in the spotlight with placement between our two daily newspapers. A couple of minutes work achieves extra sales. Newsagents can grow magazine sales.

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magazines

The Grinch sells Christmas candy

xmasgrinchThis pack of Christmas Grinch Medication is a sell out for us. In less than a week it’s gone. Customers buying it usually have someone in mind. It’s fun listening to their stories and the Grinch they will give the medication to. Fun products like this make Christmas in retail more enjoyable!

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confectionary

Stunning sales of frankie magazine

The performance of the latest issue of frankie magazine has been stunning. We have sold 75% of our stock and ordered more. The higher cover price has not hurt sales whatsoever. Our additional support and the promotion by the publisher is paying off. Newsagents can grow magazine sales with the right product and store level engagement.

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magazines

Impulse lines off the charts this Christmas

splatballOne newsagent was putting out boxes of impulse lines a week ago and one customer purchases four full boxes spending close to $300. While we have not experienced that, our impulse lines of funky gifts and toys are going exceptionally well. These Sp;at Balls are a good example – selling out in a week. These types of products are terrific financially and enjoyable for the delight they bring our shoppers.

While Christmas decorations and gifts are performing well, it’s impulse lines we are spending the most time keeping up with. Thankfully suppliers are topping up quickly.

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Fun

Blogging software update

The software managing this blog has been further updated. While most of the changes are behind the scenes, one change makes it easier for people to read and comment from their smart phone or tablet device. Enjoy.

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