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

Author: Mark Fletcher

Featuring Mollie Makes

We are featuring the latest issue of Mollie Makes magazine at the front of our craft section. We are still growing sales, chasing our capacity for this title. I suspect we are barely half way there based on interest expressed after we sell out.

Mollie Makes magazine is the ultimate special interest title. My experience is that it generates new traffic for us as shoppers come in to purchase the title having been recommended by friends.

I am concerned that the damage done by oversupply is causing newsagents to pass on opportunities presented by special interest titles such as Mollie Makes.  If I am right then shame on those who have dilutes and even killed the passion of newsagents for magazines.

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magazine distribution

Newsagency marketing tip: hype drives retail sales

I was in Vietnam recently and saw this terrific display in front of an electrical goods store. The containers stacked next to and op top of each other looked impressive. They made it look like there was a lot of sock to move and this supported the discount pitch.

While it does not look like good visual merchandising, it was, in fact, perfect for the pitch. Shoppers were queueing up to purchase the items. The no-frills approach felt believable even though, upon reflection, it was more likely part of a sophisticated strategy by the retailer.

We use a similar approach but on a much smaller scale in my newsagencies – cutting the tops off boxes of products we are selling at a good discount. This worked particularly well with boxed Christmas cards we bought in for our post-Christmas sales. However, we do it infrequently as we don’t want to educate shoppers.

Click on the image for a larger version.

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marketing tip

Newsagency management tip: track petty cash

Track cash you take from your register for petty cash payments. Otherwise, you educate those who see you that cash management / balancing is not important to you and invite their laziness on tracking cash.

Newsagency software can help you record petty cash taken out or cash added, this can feed into your accounting system and thereby provide an easier means of managing cash in your business.

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Management tip

Change your password now!

One newsagent this morning has discovered they are tens of thousands of dollars worse off because they did not change their business password. An employee used the password to manipulate data and hide the theft of cash. The newsagent’s distress is amplified by the realisation that basic steps to protect the business against such action were ignored.

Passwords exist to protect you and your business. Treat them with respect.

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Newsagency management

Late Christmas shoppers

How late have you seen someone shopping for Christmas 2012? Yesterday, I saw two guys in one of my newsagencies purchase cards, wrap and two gifts. They high-fived each other when they saw we still had cards and wrap available.

Are others seeing Christmas shoppers this late?

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retail

Silly games by politicians about living on the dole

It’s been disappointing watching politicians of all sides engaging in games on whether they could live on the Newstart allowance for a week. It’s typically ignorant of them to play these games. Media outlets run with the stories and the community remains poorly served.

Politicians who really want to empathise with and understand the challenges of their constituents would walk in the shoes of others for more than a week.

Take a small business like a local newsagency, a politician who wanted to understand our situation would live and work as a newsagent for at least a month. I am confident that such an internship would result in better small business policy.

I am not talking about a contest here, to see if they can make it. No, I want something more valuable, something real which they remember when they next consider small business issues.

They need to understand the challenges of government regulation, banking, retail tenancy, employees and competition – especially with the supermarket duopoly. Understanding can only come with them delving into the business. A ten minute photo opportunity may look good on TV or in the newspapers but it does not give them a lasting memory of what small business constituents go through every day.

Politicians of all sides have failed small business for decades. In 2013 I’d like to see genuine engagement in pursuit of genuine respect for one of the most important business sectors in Australia.

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Ethics

High-end candles work for us at Christmas

We decided to give these candles a crack in the run up to Christmas. At more than $50 each, they were going to be a challenge. But they worked! We sold enough to encourage us to try more for other seasons. They are not something we would carry all year but for Mother’s Day and Christmas we expect to have them again.

They worked best when we took one out of the box and ‘lit’ it. There is nothing like a practical demonstration to sell a product.

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retail

Promoting Unique Cars

We are promoting the latest issue of Unique Cars magazine with this aisle end display facing into our men’s magazine reading area.

I like the competition being promoted with this issue – it provides an excellent reason for us to give Australia’s top selling car magazine time in the spotlight.

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magazines

Politicians should block acquisitions by Coles and Woolworths

Just before Christmas there was discussion in the media about work between Coles, Woolworths and the ACCC on the oversight and regulation of their purchases of independent retailers. At the time, the ACCC Chair said they needed to watch for market power of the two supermarket giants.

Huh?! By any measure overseas, Coles and Woolworths already have too much market power.  Farmers, wholesalers, independent retailers, logistics companies – many complain about the bullying of these two on price. The only winners are the shareholders of the two and while that is good for them, the economic damage of their market share is considerable.

Politicians concerned about small businesses and having a strong and balanced economy should legislate to stop Coles and Woolworths. Politicians concerned for the Australian voice to be heard through high street retail ought to legislate to stop Coles and Woolworths.

But politicians won’t act. When it comes to these matters they are all words and no action.

Without legislation, the ACCC is powerless in this area as time has shown.

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Ethics

Whoa! Shock! Newspaper adds journalists and pages!!

The new owners at the Orange County Register in California are defying newspaper publishing trends by hiring additional journalists and adding pages to their print edition. The Huffington Post has a full report – read it.

Aaron Kushner added about 75 journalists and, with 25 more coming, will have expanded the newsroom by half since his investment group bought the nation’s 20th-largest newspaper by circulation in July.

Changes also include thicker pages with triple the number of colors to produce razor-sharp photos and graphics. By the end of March, the newspaper will have 40 percent more space than under previous owners, Freedom Communications Inc.

Kushner, 39, believes people will pay for high-quality news. His bet is remarkable in an industry where newspapers have shrunk their way to profits for years, slashing costs while seeking clicks on often-free websites to attract online advertising.

Of particular interest is their nearly five-fold increase in community news pages.

If their changes work, it will reinforce a theory among some that the medium is not the main cause of the decline in newspaper sales but, rather, the content.

This is a good news story about a new newspaper publisher taking risks and getting back to basics – giving readers more news that is more relevant to them.

I’d love to see Australian newspapers make moves like those at the Orange County Register.

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Media disruption

Promoting the traditional post-Christmas diets

We are supporting Women’s Health, Prevention and Good Health and their usual post-Christmas diet and health pitch with prime placement in our women’s magazine section.

Full cover display of these issues of Prevention and Good Health is especially important as traditional magazine fixturing will cover the free booklets attached to the covers.

I suspect titles with free booklets attached in this way work better in supermarkets where the full covers are almost always on display.

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magazines

Promoting real living

We are promoting the latest issue of real living magazine with this aisle-end display facing the front of the shop and our dance floor.

While it’s a good but visually basic display, the summer themed colours of the cover and poster do cut through against the sea of colour in-store. We can tell from activity at the display that shoppers are picking up the title.

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magazines

Wonderful back to work visual merchandising

Check out the back to work window display being rolled our by Loius Vuitton stores. It’s visually stunning – like all their window displays. It is also perfectly connected to the season without being all about price or looking boring like most BTS VM displays look.

While Louis Vuitton sells high end bags with excellent margin, I do think we can learn something from this display. It presents a strong visual connection with the season which is enjoyable.  Like any good display, your eyes are drawn to this window.  That’s the first step to getting you ton consider the products on offer.

We often judge our displays against other displays in newsagencies. I think we need to judge them against other retailers as these are our real competitors. This is where we, each of us individually, need to make visual merchandising choices that are appropriate to our specific business situation.

For example, do we display to compete with a supermarket? … a department store?  …  a card shop? …  some other specialist retailer?  I think these are interesting questions as I certainly believe that the days of displaying in ways traditional to newsagencies are no longer relevant to us.

Click on the image for a larger version.

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visual merchandising

Useful mouse mat from Pacific Magazines

I like the mouse mat from Pacific Magazines promoting their nexus program.

The mouse mat has got useful information about the nexus program and how we can engage. Their use of the mouse mat to remind us of this is excellent. It’s certainly reminded me to check sales performance when using one of the computers at the shop.

nexus is a unique program in that it makes it easy for us to promote our businesses to existing customers, outside our four walls. It also provides the best transparency of our performance compared to other newsagents. I’ve used this to lift sales of a range of Pacific titles.

One of the major features of nexus is the email marketing. While we used this in 2012 we were not as regular as we could have been. Our plan for 2013 is more regular emails with exclusive offers to shoppers on our email database. These emails cost nothing to send. Every nexus newsagent should be sending them twice a month.

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magazine distribution

New Years Day retail wasteland

I’d be curious if other newsagents in major shopping centres found yesterday very slow. Based on what I have heard, many independent retailers had a very quiet day and probably did not cover wages.

New Years Day is like Australia Day. It’s a day for relaxing and forgetting shopping.

While there are plenty of positives for being in a major centre, a day like yesterday is a definite negative.

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retail

Promoting new season arrivals

I was going through some of my 2012 photos and found this one which I thought newsagents would find interesting. It’s from a homewares and gift store in a mall in Denver in October this year.

The setting of the new products on what looks like a hay bale and a chequered table cloth makes for an eye catching and professional display. I also love the NEW ARRIVALS sign, it makes the point of the display very clear.

Click on the image for a bigger version.

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retail

Happy New Year

May 2013 be a healthy and happy year for all who engage with this blog.

I believe that in business we make our own success or failure. We have to own our situation.

2013 will be a year of more change for newsagents and in the midst of change we can pursue opportunity. It’s hard work. It requires us to look at our businesses with fresh eyes and outside what we and others expect of us.

We all ought to make 2013 a year of pursuing change on our own terms and for our own benefit rather than waiting for it to walk through our front door and do its thing.

Newsagencies are good businesses to own, 2013 will give us plenty of opportunities to prove that.

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Newsagency management

New Year resolutions for 2013

A year ago I published a bunch of New Year resolutions for newsagents.  I have revised the list in the light of what 2012 has delivered and what 2013 looks like. Here are my top three New Year resolutions for 2013:

  1. Take control of your inventory. Order stock based on what has sold. By stopping supplier reps doing orders for you will probably find that you cut your stock holding and increase your stock turn. Included in this is trimming your magazine department.  My view is that 700 titles in the max I would carry.
  2. Answer the questions: what do you stand for? Answer this in what you stock, how you merchandise it, the service you provide and how you promote your business. Just relying on a shingle – NEWSAGENCY – above your door to declare what you stand for are over. You need to own your unique selling proposition.
  3. Cut debt. This is the most important of all. Debt is a high cost on any newsagency business. Every dollar of debt you eliminate is interest saved. A lower debt level will make navigating change easier.

If all newsagents did these things we would be a commercial force, a retail network, to be reckoned with.

Please add your resolution suggestions.

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Newsagency management

Customer service survey results

Click here to download the newsagency customer service survey results.  The results provide a good insight into the customer service issues newsagents face.

48.6% receive complaints rarely, 27.1% a few times a month and 20.0% a few times a week.

53.0% of complaints are product related outside the control of the newsagent and 33.3% are service related outside the control of the newsagent.

55.7% of newsagents have a complaint handling process in place.

I hope that these results are of use to other newsagents. I certainly find them useful – particularly as a reminder to have a clear process in place for handling complaints and recording feedback to go to those who can improve the situation.

After all, customer service is our most important point of difference.

I am grateful to the 75 newsagents who took part in the survey.

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Customer Service

Pumpinator sales strong a year later

We bought in stock of the Pumpinator to have for school holidays. It sold exceptionally well in January this year and while we did not expect the same interest we thought we’d have a second crack. It seems that we have a new generation of water bombers.

We had space so we put the stock out before Christmas. We sold out in two weeks.  While we have ordered more stock for our expected January school-holidays interest, the sales success goes to show that getting stock out ahead of a planned season can be commercially valuable and educating.

We are getting known for fun and interactive products by shoppers who visit the shopping centre mainly at holiday times. We are buying products accordingly.

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retail

Newsagency marketing tip: tell your community why shopping with you matters

The major retailers pitch price as the reason shoppers should shop with them.  Some use service. the latest Officeworks ads pitch price, through a guarantee, and service.

Each of us needs to make a marketing pitch to promote our business. It should connect with our unique selling proposition.

If you do not tell people why to shop with you then what will they decide on?  … because they like you? In this marketplace we need to regularly remind shoppers in our catchment area why they should invest time with us. We need to explain to them the benefits for them and their community of shopping with us.

In ads, on social media and in flyers – we need to tell people why shopping with us is better than the supermarket, convenience store, online store, major retailer or any other outlet competing with us.

No one else is doing this in a way that is relevant to your business sin your local situation.

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marketing tip

Newsagency management tip: target basket depth

Most newsagency software reports on items in each sale and average sale value. Both are important KPIs in retail but most newsagents do not not take notice of or target these KPIs.

Both items in each sale (in the basket) and average sale value measure the efficiency of sales in the business. the more items per basket and the greater average sale value the more margin dollars you get to bank per sale.

Long-term success for any retailer in today’s marketplace is all about small steps. Small increases in basket depth and value can add significant profit today and value to the business over the long term.

How do you grow basket depth and average sale value? …

  • Relevant counter offers placed with little competing visual noise.
  • Well-trained and motivated shop floor staff.
  • Compelling displays.
  • Products people want.
  • Good external marketing of the business.

All this is just a start.

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Management tip

Fairfax in play, again

Reports over the last couple of days indicate that Fairfax is in play, again. This time it’s Gina Reinhart and John Singleton.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

The recent history of millionaires and billionaires getting involved in media ownership has not resulted in good outcomes for consumers and those working the the organisations. The Fairfax print business has already been gutted and is struggling with the loss of many good journalists.

Reinhart has little connection with real Australia and as her writings show she has little understanding of what is good for the country. John Singleton owns the station that gives us Alan Jones. That he permits Alan Jones to rant on radio and wreak the damage he does makes me worry for Fairfax and its media outlets.

While I am jumping to conclusions here that go against the Singleton statement a couple of days ago, actions do speak louder than words.

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Media disruption
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