Reminder: magazine delivery day survey
My brief survey canvassing newsagent opinions about the magazine delivery day changes has already attracted 80 responses. Please click here the link to take part in the survey. I’ll publish the results in full.
Magazines placement drives impulse purchases on exit
We have had this unit full of magazines placed on the lease line of the shop facing into the mall since last Thursday. It’s generated good sales – a good return on the space. We chose the titles deliberately, the selection is working.
We’ve seen shoppers purchasing magazines as they leave the business, shoppers who had made a purchase returning with a magazine from the stand – in some cases using the Discount Voucher they just received.
Connecting the the Man of Steel hype
We are leveraging the hype around the launch of the Man of Steel movie with placement of Empire in the usual location for the title and with weeklies – this is an issue that will appeal to people beyond those who usually purchase Empire.
The hype surrounding this movie is extraordinary – hence our off-location placement chasing impulse purchases.
Australian Family Tree Connect tweets support for newsagents
Australian Family Tree Connect has taken to Twitter to support newsagents as the go to retailer for the latest issue of their magazine. Support like this is important as the publisher is speaking to their community promoting us.
Magazine delivery day change survey for newsagents
Following my blog posts on the magazine delivery day change here and here, I have prepared a brief survey canvassing newsagent opinions about the change as I am concerned that newsagents were not fully consulted. Please click here the link to take part in the survey.
I am gathering state and type of newsagency data as this could be useful in analysing the results. I suspect we will see different responses in different situations.
I will leave the survey up for a few days to harvest a reasonable number of responses. I’ll publish the results in full here.
Excellent cover on Time magazine
The cover of the current issue of Time magazine is amazing, stunning. I have seen it in several situations and it looks fantastic!
Kudos to those responsible. This is an issue of Time to promote with newspapers.
Making Zoo Weekly the loss leader at just $1
I saw this promotion for Zoo Weekly magazine and figured people here would be interested. I understand the title mix they are pitching it with, it makes sense. But the message is Zoo Weekly is not worth more than $1. Okay, it’s an offer and the publisher will argue it’s to get people trialling the title. The thing is, Zoo Weekly is a title people drift in and out of depending on spare cash and time. I don’t think trialling boosts regular sales – not in the newsagency channel at least … not that this offer is in the traditional newsagency channel.
Must read article for newsagents
Elizabeth Knight wrote and excellent article for Fairfax papers yesterday about newspaper publishers News and Fairfax. It outlines the challenges and provides background on the moves of the two media giants.
Beyond our connection with Fairfax and News products, we also share the challenge of business model reinvention. Knight provides quotes as relevant to newsagents including:
The key to who wins the performance war rests with the company that best adapts to the new environment.
Both media bosses have the herculean task of convincing investors they have discovered the mutant gene that will allow them to adapt more quickly to the new challenge.
We have to convince banks, landlords, non print suppliers and our fellow shareholders. The size of our task is as big as for News and Fairfax if on a smaller scale.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: use a single message to cut through and attract shoppers
Newsagencies are usually full of many different products and lots of displays and promotions. Sometimes, we have too much going on for a single message to cut through at the level we need. We wanted to avoid this with our Queen’s Birthday weekend sale so we developed consistent collateral and dressed the store from the front through to the back. It’s a single message that overrides all other displays in the store.
That’s my tip today. For a major season or some other important sales event – go big with a single message and cut through. Use consistent collateral that visually cuts through the sea of colour on your shelves. Ensure it has a clear message. Run it storewide.
Do it yourself. It doesn’t cost much. The biggest investment is in the time it takes to dress the shop. When you are done take a look at what you have created – ensure you’re happy that it does cut through and will be noticed. That’s what it is about after all.
Sometimes simple works best.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: barricade the back room
For a week lock up the back room. Make sure its empty first! Make everyone who would work from the back room at any time do their work at the counter or on the shop floor.
Yes, I know some will say it’s not possible. Try it and see what the shake up brings.
Too often, the back room is used as a refuge by people who don’t like dealing with customers. Retail is about dealing with customers. Place yourself closer to them and you’ve got a better chance of swerving their needs.
Behind the decision to change magazine delivery days
I have spoken to a few people about the cutback in magazine distribution from three days a week to two to try and understand more about the move. While no one I spoke with is prepared to go on the record, here’s what they say about the move:
- Planning began long before Bauer purchased ACP and before the management changes at Gotch.
- Money is at the core of the cutback in distribution days – the profits of Gotch and Network.
- Gotch and Network have been on the same page, pursuing a reduction in days as a means of cutting their costs.
- The ANF was consulted – they were told magazine volume was declining while costs were fixed. Apparently they did not request data to confirm the accuracy of this assertion. Volume has not declined as much as the distributors claim.
- No discussion took place between the ANF and distributors about the impact on sales cycles in newsagents nor traffic flow on different days of the week.
- Plenty of magazine publishers, large and small, are unhappy with the move. Mid size and small publishers feel helpless because of what they call a magazine distribution duopoly.
- In deciding on Monday and Thursday, they had to choose days that worked with sales based replenishment (if they ever get it working) and provide a reasonable spread apart to serve the needs of the major weeklies on Monday and Who at the end of the week.
- The overall move and most other decisions have been taken to serve the needs of Gotch and Network.
Personally, I am not against the move necessarily. I understand that businesses need to cut costs. However, I remain concerned about the potential impact for newsagencies versus supermarkets.
On the need to cut costs – it disgusts me that Gotch and Network use this as their reason yet they do not provide newsagents with reasonable ability to achieve cost cutting in magazine supply. This move is another example of do what I say and I will stop you doing what I do.
Chasing sales over the long weekend
The Queen’s Birthday weekend is one of the quietest weekends for retailers. Many retailers in a variety of retail channels tell me this is their experience.
This year, we are pursuing a change in the Queen’s Birthday experience in one of my newsagencies. We are running a campaign of 30% off all gifts and plush.
Our engagement in this campaign is putting into practice our belief that we make our own success.
While we could have been more selective and targeted only on the slower selling product, we decided to offer the discount on all gifts and plush so there is no doubt for shoppers. They can easily understand the pitch. No fine print shows that we reject the selective discounting game many retailers play.
The sale is for three days only, until the close of trade on Monday, so the risk is not great. Also, our buying on all gifts and plush is good, at better than average prices. Even at 30% off we’re in good shape.
Our artwork was created in house with a use of A3, A5 and A4 in-house printed posters and a couple of A1 posters printed offsite. We deliberately chose yellow on black as it tested well at cutting through the sea of colour in the newsagency.
Care has been taken to dress the shop with collateral throughout – carefully placed to tell a story from entrance to exit, to drive shoppers visiting for one product category to consider other products on sale.
News Limited trashes news for money on yesterday’s Herald Sun newspaper
News Limited has been fierce over the years in dealing with newsagents who don’t follow their rules – where newspapers are placed, displaying of posters, advertising their masthead. Year after year they threatened newsagents and sometimes breached them for not following their rules. All the way through they said it was about selling the newspapers by promoting news.
All the rules are gone now as the company scrambles to make as much money as it can from the declining sales of its print product. Case in point – yesterday’s Herald Sun. The headline of the day was covered by an ad for Eureka Report, a media outlet News owns.
A house ad is more important than the lead story of the day in the top selling daily newspaper in Australia. Go figure.
This photo shows how important news is to News Limited today.
How times have changed.
If I was a newspaper publisher I’d be focusing on fresh content, content people want. Content is what makes news or breaks outlets. Disrespect content and you disrespect your product.
Promoting mini cookbooks off location
We’re running a campaign of promoting the mini cookbooks from Bauer off location in a selection of positions in-store. In the photo you can see that we have the mini cupcake book sitting above Girlfriend magazine. We did this because young girls like cupcakes.
Tactical placement can be more important than stunning visual merchandising.
Mixed interest in special Woman’s Day issue
We have experienced mixed interest in the Jennifer Hawkins wedding special issue of Woman’s Day today with sales at a 20% of regular Monday sales in one of my stores – but up on Friday sales. The test will be where we get to by the end of Monday.
We have the magazine at the front of the business, on the leas line, as well as in prime position with our weeklies. So, we’re actively supporting it.
The photo shows what the production fuss was about yesterday. The barcode is a sticker stuck on the cover. It’s usually printed on. While most newsagents did not need the barcode, supermarkets and petrol outlets could not cope without it.
Potential impacts for newsagents from magazine on-sale day changes
I have been thinking through the possible impacts of the magazine distribution changes announced earlier this week. Both Network Services and Gordon and Gotch are switching from Monday / Wednesday / Friday deliveries to Monday / Thursday deliveries.
While handling the switch operationally in-store will be easy for most with newsagency software, it will require some roster changes. However, enough time has been provided to handle this. The change will also require careful consideration by newsagents with sub-agents as it changes the dynamic of the work week. However, again, addressable given the time.
I am concerned about the potential impact on shopper behaviour and newsagency traffic flow.
Wednesdays have been important for us for the weeklies on sale that day – Take 5 and That’s Life – and for other titles. While sales of Take 5 and That’s Life have been in significant decline for a couple of years, we should not dismiss their importance to our businesses. Both titles are still often in the top 10 in most newsagencies. In many newsagencies, weekly magazine sales decay reports show that between 55% and 75% of all copies of Take 5 and That’s Life are sold on the Wednesday. It would be wrong to think that these regular shoppers will shop with us on a Thursday.
What if for the Take 5 and That’s Life purchase on a Wednesday we are the destination? Then, what if for a Thursday shop they have other items and we are not the destination?
Newsagents can look at their data and see how many sales on a Wednesday include Take 5 and That’s Life and assess the potential impact of losing these sales on that day. Good reporting will sold sales of the titles alone and with other items and what those other items are. They can also consider the knock-on effect if they don’t retain all those customers on the Thursday.
The risk I see is that the shift to Thursday makes buying Take 5 and That’s Life more convenient at the supermarket when shopping for the weekend. I am told that Thursday is a big shopping day /night in many areas for supermarkets as it’s often a pay day and, in some states, has late night trading. If supermarkets see a traffic boost Thursday it could be that the magazine delivery shift presents them a better opportunity.
Think about it from a shoppers perspective – if they buy Take 5 and That’s Life or other Wednesday titles available at supermarkets and need to do a supermarket shop, why go to two shops when they can go to one?
I don’t think shoppers are as loyal as we wish or think – certainly in the city at least.
Every time someone buys a magazine from a supermarket it dilutes the position of newsagencies as the go to place for magazines in their minds. That’s how we have to see this at least.
I don’t think I am jumping at shadows in pondering this. While I don’t know what will happen I am concerned for newsagents who are not already planning for the change, planning on driving traffic on Wednesday, planning on bringing Wednesday magazine shoppers with them to Thursday, ensuring current Wednesday magazine generated traffic is somehow encouraged to visit Thursday.
It would be complacent for newsagents to view this as simply a shift in delivery days. This move has the potential to impact our traffic and sales. We need to view it as a structural change that impacts us more than our biggest retail channel competitor.
I’d be interested to know whether the magazine distributors consulted any newsagent representatives on this and whether any concerns, such as those outlined above, were put.
The ultimate newspaper sell out with flu-page page one ad
The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald newspapers sold their front page on Wednesday to department store David Jones and in doing so provided an insight into where news sits in their organisation.
These once venerable newspapers of record in Victoria and New South Wales sold off the most important page of a newspaper to advertising, completely. The only non advertising content was the masthead. Why bother?
After the decades of fights, threats and contract breaches imposed by publishers, including Fairfax, at the treatment of their products, now, in what some call the last of days for print newspapers, we see that advertising is the thing and the pressure on newsagents over treatment of content was for nought.
Customers don’t like their newspaper being damaged in this way or by stuck on ads. They say so across the counter.
It’s action like we saw on Wednesday that will speed up the death of print newspapers in Australia as it challenges newspaper reader perception of the product. It shows the newspaper as an advertising medium ahead of a news medium. This will encourage some to look for news elsewhere.
On the websites for the mastheads, Fairfax did not cover the news with ads for David Jones as the screenshot shows. A news junkie would have had a better experience online than with print Wednesday.
Production issue for Woman’s Day special issue tomorrow
The early publication of Woman’s Day, tomorrow instead of Monday, featuring the Jennifer Hawkins wedding story and photos, has been hit by a production challenge. I’ve been told by several people the cover is missing the barcode. While this would not be an issue for newsagents, as they can print barcodes to standard in-store, it would be a challenge for supermarkets.
My understanding is that not all areas will get stock tomorrow as planned as they cannot get all stock stickered and onto trucks in time. As I noted above, they could send all newsagents their stock without a barcode.
The folks at Bauer are still working through how this will play out. I’m told Queensland looks set as does metro Victoria and NSW. Country areas appear unlikely to get stock. Lots of people busy putting stickers on magazines this afternoon.
What we do not want is our competitors to have stock and newsagents not. I suspect they are working a plan to ensure this is not the case – i.e. that all retailers in an area have stock.
Someone somewhere will be in a lot of trouble for this mistake for an issue they had high hopes for.
Bagged magazine frequency increased by Bauer
The frequency of these bagged magazine offers from Bauer has increased significantly this year. They will say they’re getting sales growth as a result. I don’t see it in the data. Regardless, I am worse off if I sell these titles if the sale of a discount pack results in selling less of the titles inside.
I am told that our major channel competitors are compensated at the full cover price of the magazines in the bag. The only way to know for sure would be to see the billing details to these major competitors – something we will never see. All we can do is speculate. My certain speculation is that we are not being treated the same as our major competitors when it comes to these discount bags.
Out of respect for newsagents, Bauer should disclose their arrangement with our competitors and provide evidence of this.
The other factor for newsagents is the space cost. Since we get the original titles too we have to find another pocket – the bagged item is like an additional stock item for us.
Promoting magazines?
Check out how one convenience store I walked past this week is promoting the availability of magazines inside. What I saw inside was as pathetic as this A4 sign was on their window.
When a supplier and your landlord take business from you
I was disappointed to hear from the Bauer owned Ticketek that they were taking our Ticketek agency business from us and giving it to Westfield. This was happening because our centre recently switched from AMP to Westfield.
While Ticketek was within their rights in terms of the contract, it disappoints me that a key supplier to newsagencies and my landlord can do this.
We had served Ticketek well, building excellent sales for their brand in the centre, delivering an excellent service for major and smaller events. We opened long hours – far longer than I expect the centre management desk to offer.
Why Ticketek agreed to the Westfield deal years ago is beyond me – especially with them knowing that many newsagents offered Ticketek.
My disappointment at the move escalated when the landlord had the gall to place a sign right in the front of our store on the weekend promoting Ticketek now being located elsewhere. It was a reminder that big businesses take care of their own.
Stretching the VM display onto the shop floor
I love display for Calvin Klein I saw at Auckland airport earlier this week. It’s inspiration on a few fronts: the colours a vivid and break free from the sea of colour in-store, the design does this too and the spilling of the materials onto the shop floor brings the display alive.
I’m posting the photo here for inspiration. Click on the image for a larger version. Note the screen to the left 0- the movement in the video attracts attention.
Gordon and Gotch goes to two days a week magazine delivery
In a move demonstrating independence and a lack of collusion, magazine distributor Gordon and Gotch has this afternoon announced it will move to a two day a week magazine delivery – Monday and Thursday.
Effective, just like the change announced earlier today by Network Services, from July 15, newsagents have some changes to deal with. Newsagency software should handle the announced day of week change without issue.
Network Services goes to two days a week magazine delivery
Magazine distributor Network Services has announced today it is moving to a Monday / Thursday magazine delivery roster.
This not unexpected move will alter workflow and shopper traffic in newsagencies. I can think of plenty of Take 5 shoppers who will be disappointed. You only need to look at the seven day sales decay curve to see the impact.
I do wonder if this is part of a broader move around other changes – time will tell.
Woman’s Day out this Friday
Newsagents have been notified that Woman’s Day is coming our this Friday, three days early. There has been no announcement from Bauer or network services. Newsagents found out because they have received the electronic invoice already.
I could be wrong but I doubt the interest in Jennifer Hawkins’ wedding justifying the effort and challenges of going on sale three days early.