Here’s a good example of where there is value in promoting magazines in prime location. We are pitching the Scooby-Do interactive product from Hallmark at the counter with the latest Scooby-Do comic. We have done this to add value to the display – to both the products. It makes sense to do this rather than have the products in difference locations in-store. It’s all about leveraging the brand as much as we can.
Here’s a table outlining the gazetted public holidays over the Easter weekend FYI. Click on the image for the detail. Fair Work Australia will confirm the accuracy of the information.
I’ve been talking with three publisher representatives over the last few days about counter promotions. In each case, the titles were not high volume with sales per store expected to be below 10 and often closer to 5. In each case I’ve declined the opportunity. 25% margin for a low volume title doesn’t cut it for newsagencies in shopping centres and other high-rent locations.
Magazine publishers used to ‘buy’ counter space by giving us a professional perspex unit for displaying their title. Newsagents took such units because they looked good.
Today, the world, our newsagency world, is different. We have access to counter products more than double the GP of magazines. Magazines have to compete with higher margin products for counter space. Publishers need to understand this.
We put out these canvasses with optimistic messages on Friday. Today, we’re ordering more stock since they have just about sold out. This is another example of happy and optimistic products driving new traffic and achieving excellent sales.
We had the optimistic art facing into the mall and I saw it attract shoppers to the business. This is important – that we bring in products that of themselves attract shoppers. Newsagencies have too many products that seek to leech off existing traffic and that’s not great model for the future.
messenger COLLECTIVE launched earlier this month and from what I have seen newsagents are treating it as a fashion title. Despite the cover shot, this is anything but a fashion title. It’s a magazine with stories about business, about entrepreneurs.
I’d encourage newsagents to check where they have the title. If it’s with fashion, as it was where I took the photo, consider co-locating with business and inserting a book mark: this is not a fashion magazine.
messenger COLLECTIVE defies categorisation. It is worth taking the time to read it. from this you’ll better understand how to pitch it to your shoppers.
Newsagents selling Frankie should check out the Frankie gift paper book opportunity just announced by the publisher. This is a nice brand extension that stays true to the spirit of Frankie. This premium product shoud sell easily to your Frankie customers. It can be displayed with the magazine. Here is an excellent example of a publisher working with enwsagents, giving us the opportunity to decide for ourselves if we want to take on this product opportunity.
Click on the image for details.
We are promoting the Complete Guide to iPhone Photography with off-location placement with weeklies. We’re doing this since those most likely to purchase the title will not come in looking for it. This is a slim A5 publication, making it easy to place next to or with other titles without taking up too much space. We’ve had success with other promotions of photography titles away from their usual location.
Bauer has announced to Connections member newsagents that it will invest $2.5 million specifically into the newsagent channel:
Under the new leadership of Bauer Media, Connections is pleased to announce that this year, you as a Connections member will be given the opportunity to participate in a range of unprecedented promotional activity unmatched by any other publisher.
Over $2.5 million invested directly into Connections with Bauer members
In 2013, Bauer will invest over $2.5 million into our newsagent members including new line launches, a calendar of exclusive promotions and value-adding upgrades to field support – the biggest investment aimed directly at newsagents made by any publisher.The Power of Bauer.
Bauer Media is excited to provide member newsagents the opportunity to participate in a calendar of BIGGER and BETTER consumer promotions driven by our range of market leading titles including 6 of AUSTRALIA’S NUMBER ONE MAGAZINE TITLES in their respective categories.
A retailer specialising in products for celiac suffers in Queensland charges people for browsing according to a report in the Courier Mail. Given that knowlegde is a service in such a specialised area I think it’s fair they charge.
While we operate in a different space in newsagencies with magazines, it does make you wonder if sharing our regular readers is worth a shot.
Security people at one of the shopping malls where I have a newsagency returned around $65.00 worth of products stolen from us a couple of days ago. A team of a young girl, a lady in a wheelchair and another lady bought an item, distracted us and lifted a bunch of other product. Watching their action back on our security system was instructive as it showed where we were weak.
The only way we could combat them would be to introduce a greeter / security role responsible for bag checking. So that’s a question I have for this morning:
Do you check shopper bags?
I recall a newsagent in Hobart brought in a security officer for twenty or so hours a week and was able to fund the cost of security out of theft savings. I don’t want to go that far but I am curious what others do.
A subscriber to Vogue Australia noticed the collector’s case with the current issue on our shelves. She wanted to purchase the case by itself as she did not receive this as pert of her subscription. We declined. I suspect the publisher will get a call or an email.
It feels good to have an offer in-store that is only available in-store.
The creative team behind The Australian Women’s Weekly must spend considerable time developing the magazine cover. I wonder what they think of half the cover being covered by the mini cookbook stuck on the current issue. I think it detracts from the visual impact of main product – especially in a busy magazine department. Brand is everything.
The other factor is the damage done when it’s shoved back into the fixture by someone browsing the title. In one newsagency the damage is so regular that the freebies are removed.
While I understand these things are done to boost sales, I suggest that a free mini cookbook does not have the same value as years ago. Today, they are dime a dozen with magazines.
Newsagents should check the price at which the current issue of OK! is scanning. I have heard of several cases of it scanning at $4.95 with $4.70 printed on the magazine as the price. We have to honour $4.70. A colleague checked some other retailers and they are selling the title for $4.95.
UK newspaper publisher Trinity Mirror has launched an App for handling the payment of newspaper purchases according to a report in the Press Gazette.
The pilot of the free PaperPay app for iPhone and Android was launched this morning. It enables users to pay for The Daily and Sunday Mirror in advance, and then use a barcode on their phone to buy papers in newsagents, rather than with cash.
Trinity Mirror says the service can be used in more than 47,000 newsagents that have PayPoint or Payzone technology. As well as a pay as you go service, weekly, monthly and annual subscriptions can be purchased.
This is a smart move as it brings to regular over the counter shoppers the financial benefits of home delivery subscriptions. From a newsagents perspective it may not be so great as they may make less per newspaper sold – I am not sure of the details.
It would be easy to get a similar program up and running here – either through an App, a coupon program or a mixture of both. It would be easier to implement this type of program through newsagencies than the other retailers selling newspapers.
Further to my post last week about Speedimpex introducing a $3.50 delivery fee, they have also introduced a $1.00 charge per electronic invoice. This is set to lose them accounts. Maybe this is what they want.
Check out what one newsagent wrote to them about this:
Today I received Elle Decoration, it was single title, my cost was $7.50, the delivery charge was $3.50 and the invoice charge was $1, so it has cost me $12. The retail price for the title is $11. So I am making a $1 loss for the privilege of selling one of your titles, which is also taking up a pocket that could house a magazine that I actually make money on.
Well said. Maybe Speedimpex will take notice and reverse their decision.
We have more products coming in-store with LCD screens playing content showing how the items work. The display unit on show for the Make-Do range in the photo is the latest. It’s the third LCD we have on the shop floor at the moment.
I’m pleased to have these in-store shop floor sales assistances. The movement in the video can be enough to draw attention, same with the sound. It significantly adds value to a floor unit and gets it more attention that a unit without a video playing.
The only challenge in some locations is access to power.
Display units like this help us present a more professional and current retail image and this helps attract shoppers and drive sales.
The One Direction boy band still has it if my sales of Girlfriend magazine are anything to go by. Sales in the first few days of the on-sale of the latest issue are stronger than for what is usual at this point.
We overheard one teen girl say to her friend – the only reason I’m buying it is because the boys are on the cover. I’m happy with that.
We’ve ordered more stock to ensure we can satisfy demand. We’re expecting double digit growth over recent issues of Girlfriend. The aisle-end display will get a longer run as a result.
I love the covers of these magazines! Excuse the pun … they look delicious. Chocolate never looked so good.
Gourmet Traveller, donna hay, good taste and Feast all look terrific individually. We’re leveraging the four titles with full cover display as shown in the photo. We’re already ordered extra copies of Feast as we’re set to sell out.
The Liquidators of OnQ are contemplating recapitalisation of the company. They are currently reviewing expressions of interest. This means the corporate carcass of a key part of the Bill Express operation could live on.
Newsagents collectively poured tens of millions of dollars into Bill Express on the back of robust industry association endorsement only to have the value of the bill payment network wiped out overnight in 2008 when the business collapsed amid scandal.
For years, Bauer (formerly ACP), provided newsagents with around six weeks exclusivity for new AWW cookbook titles. This was an excellent opportunity for us to promote the new titles without competition from supermarkets.
It looks like the exclusive window is over as the latest title, baking puffs and pastries, is on the shelves in Woolworths already. In one Woolworths I visited on the weekend it was a feature on the service counter – a position suppliers usually pay extra for. We received baking puffs and pastries on March 6.
Supplying newsagents and supermarkets at (or close to) the same time as newsagents would be a blow to our channel … and something I’d expect to have been widely announced. If this is a policy shift, it further strengthens our case for being treated more equally with supermarkets in terms of title selection, payment for premium placement, full copy returns and other financial benefits afforded supermarkets. Also, Bauer they will need to reconsider their scale out to newsagents and the expected on-sale period.
I’d prefer to order my own stock of AWW cookbooks as I’m expected to be financially responsible for it.
News Limited has advertised a role key to their implementation of newspaper subscriber migration. The role, Change Manager – Subscription Migration Project jobs in Sydney NSW 2000, was advertised a couple of days ago.
Migration is separate to T2020 but does form part of the overall goal of T2020 – to make newspaper distribution more efficient for the company and more viable for newsagents.
Migration when first announced in South Australia some years ago was flawed. News did listen to newsagents and adjusted their plans. This was especially important to retail / distribution businesses that rely on newspaper home delivery payment traffic to support viability of the retail operation.
This latest advertisement for a change manager shows that Migration in NSW is close. It also provides timeline guidance on the project. The ad included this information about the role:
This position will lead the development and implementation of a change management plans in support of the Subscriber Migration project. The primary focus will be developing and coordinating the implementation of the change management and communication plans to facilitate the collection and migration of subscriber data from Newsagents to News Ltd.
The change manager will work closely with senior stakeholders within the business as well as with newsagents and their state organisations to analyse issues, develop approaches and deliver change management outcomes in line with defined program objectives.
Following the airing last night on the nine network of Easter with the Australian Women’s Weekly we all ought to put the latest issue of magazine at the counter, next to newspapers and elsewhere to leverage interesting following the TV show.
Many newsagents are stocking up for Mother’s Day and receiving products purchased at recent gift fairs. Now is a perfect time to schedule an open house, an event where you invite shoppers to check out new ranges and get in some good value buying at a closed-door event.
Open house events are popular among US retailers. They are simple to run:
A good open house will attract new shoppers and renew a buzz among existing shoppers. It gets people talking about your business and gives an opportunity to make a fresh pitch.
What is the percentage of gross profit of your newsagency business today compared to a year ago and a year before that? If it has not increased then you are behind the game as many newsagents I speak with are chasing GP growth.
The current retail newsagency business average GP is between 28% and 32%. if you are within this band and run a traditional newsagency it should be relatively easy to get close to 40%. Climbing from 40% to 50% is harder work, relentless work in fact as you need to completely reconfigure your business and move it away from the more traditional agency model to a self reliant retailer model. While I say it’s harder work, there are newsagents doing it.
My management tip today is pretty simple – know your GP percentage as it is now and compare this to last year and a year before. Are you headed in the right direction? If not, ask for help. I’d certainly be glad to help.
Our placement two weeks ago of some health related magazines below weeklies has worked. Almost all titles benefited from a sales lift from this location – we pocket count copies.
Often, magazine shoppers only visit the part of the magazine department containing what they want. Our off-location placement brings the mountain to mohammed.
Not every range we place here works. Over time, we have found what works best for us and cycle through these categories every couple of weeks – keeping the up-sell promotion fresh.