We’re happy to have this range of Android titles in-store right now. With gadgets like mobile phones popular again this year for Christmas, magazines like these are a good add of or for other family members to give. We’re leveraging the opportunity by making sure that we have all Android titles placed together.
The terms and conditions of the loyalty program being launched by For Arts Sake indicate that newsagents need to have broadband and install a device to feed scanned sales data of items sold to FAS.
All data goes to FAS. This could breach supplier agreements including magazine agreements. It could also give FAS data about a business that the business may not want FAS to get. I suggest newsagents get professional advice before signing.
Basket data is valuable to newsagents. The moment they allow basket data to leave their business the opportunity for them to leverage value is diminished.
A device like this was mooted with newsagents five or so years ago. It was knocked on the head then because of the same data and contractual issues.
The email from FAS promoting the opportunity gushes. It includes…
No other supplier in the Newsagent industry has ever developed such a program to help support and grow their retailers business.
This is the BIGGEST opportunity for Newsagents since Lotto was introduced in 1974.
My experience is that both statements are not accurate. Caveat emptor.
I’d be interested in hearing from newsagents who are making fun of or leveraging in some way in-store the (miss but widely) reported prophecy of the mayans that the world will end today.
Disagreeing with myself (and conflicted about this), we are running a one day only end of the world sale opportunity on calendars and diaries. I went with this as it made me laugh. Anyone who does think the world will end today does not get the discount.
I talked with a couple yesterday who purchased four magazines as Christmas gifts for nieces – specifically choosing magazines with free gifts. Dolly, Girlfriend, marie claire and InStyle featured. They said they’d be back tomorrow when it’s their shopping day for nephews.
As we have done in the past, we are investing time and space to make the most of the opportunity of magazines as Christmas gifts. It’s paying off.
If you have customers who could be into graffiti and the art of graffiti, I recommend Australian magazine Clouded Thoughts to you. It is distributed by IPS.
We have decided to take on the title for at least the next few issues as it appeals to a demographic we’d like to encourage, one that will be likely to purchase the art-focused tattoo and similar titles.
We are carefully building our magazine range, working with those in control of allocations who want to work with us, giving us the ability to choose what titles we take and the volume.
Clouded Thoughts is a natural fit in our desire to be a relevant specialist magazine retailer.
The beauty of social media is that you can research new titles like this. Check out the Clouded Thoughts Facebook page here. Check out their reader blog here. Check out the IPS page for the title here. Hey, while you are on the IPS page, click on the map and see the stockists. We are there. This is a brilliant resource and wonderful support for retailers from IPS.
We are promoting the Moshi Monsters 2013 calendar in the magazine fixtures with the latest issue of the Moshi Monsters magazine. The two items make a perfect Christmas gift and are more likely to be purchased as a Chriostmas gift when displayed together in this way.
We do this where we can – display magazines and associated calendars together. It works a treat for us.
The Moshi Monsters brand is important for newsagents. It serves a demographic vital to us and gives us the opportunity to extend the basket and significantly add to margin dollars.
Our ‘fanning’ of New Idea to allow us to properly display the free tub of Olay product that comes with this issue is working. Shoppers can see the value-add and we can keep the stock neat and, indeed, in more of a feature display.
We don’t have any flat stack space – takes up too much floorspace – so we need to make these odd packaged work. This fanning is working for us.
Shareholder activist, founder or Crikey and now Melbourne City Councillor Stephen Mayne predicted today on ABC local radio in Melbourne (Rafael Epstein’s drive program) that Fairfax would be out of the daily newspaper delivery business qwithin five years. He predicted we’d still see weekend newspapers and maybe one weekday but that the seven day service would be gone.
What was more interesting than the prediction itself was the reaction. The program moved on as if it was not that big of a deal. A year or two ago…
We are thrilled with December trading so far. Gifts up more than 200% (off a good base). Magazines are up 8%. Stationery up 8% – this is after our consolidation. Boxed Christmas cards are up 22%. Most pleasing is a 9% increase in basket value.
Footnote: newspaper sales are down 20% – primarily because we are starved for stock by our newsagent supplier who continues to short supply.
I was surprised to see a newsagent discounting calendars by 20% a couple of weeks ago. This was in a centre without another outlet offering this range of calendars. While I have written about this before – premature calendar discounting – It surprises me when I see it.
Years ago, confronted with a Calendar Club in one centre where I had a newsagency, we discounted when they did. The next year we did not discount and it did not hurt our sales volume … but it did help the money we banked.
Discounting calendars before January 1 educated shoppers to expect to not pay full price for a premium item. I’d encourage all newsagents to not discount calendars yet. If you have a good range you’ll make more money and get better known for value rather than being cheap. This will be more valuable to you in the long term.
The only type of calendar discounting that does make sense is where shoppers purchase multiple items – say buy 2 and get your third for 30% or something like this. This offers a reward for genuine loyalty rather than what shoppers may do anyway.
At the Mall of Asia in Manila is this permanent magazine outpost. It offers a good range of special interest titles and not so much of the high volume. The layout is hard to shop. In Australia this space would cost around $15,000 a month to lease.
Check out this retailer of magazines in Manila and their subscription offer in-store. It’s a Christmas promotion. The discount message for subs and even for over the counter purchases in-store – see inside the shop – makes me uncomfortable.
We are promoting gift cards at several locations, to make the most of selling gift cards as Christmas gifts. It’s the range of iTunes, online game and related that work the best for us this time of year. They are a good point of difference.
Our main stand is at the counter, pitching to shoppers needing to make the last-minute purchase with little shopping time left.
The product mix suits our shoppers.
I was fortunate to see Zoodle, a new retail concept from WH Smith, at the international terminal of Melbourne airport earlier this week.
From the bright yellow fixtures to the brand-name products mix to the name, this is a fresh new business that could fit nicely in a variety of retail situations. It’s very kid friendly, very fun.
In terms of brands, the store offers excellent representation of Lego, Moshi Monsters, Hello Kitty, Crayola and more. Inside the store, the brands are the hero. Zoodle appears above the entrance.
What WH Smith has done with this new format is to pursue change in a way similar to what we need to do in our channel. They have a well-known brand yet have gone with a new brand ahead of this to chase new customers. While it looks like they are still playing with the model, you can see that they are using the new name to drive a departure form a traditional Children’s focused book and other retail store.
Our Newsagency of the Future could benefit from a similar approach. Starting with a completely different name and under this building a new retail format that is relevant to today and the future. What many newsagents have today is more of a homage to a fading past.
We had the opportunity to take on a two-for-one deal from Pacific Magazines for their first two New Idea Masterclass issues. We leveraged the value promostiion included in the collateral by placing the products in a dump bin on the shop floor. It’s working a treat. We’re at 45% sell through of the package in three weeks and should easily hit 75% by Christmas. Most customers are buying these as gifts.
This is an approach we will trial with some other magazines bagged with past issues. Promoting them too as two-for-one or three-for-one deals. I certainly think separating them from traditional magazine fixturing is appropriate given that they are not a traditional magazine offer.
The bonus is that the purchases are on impulse – nice extra margin dollars.
This section of our magazine department for alternative women’s magazines is very important to us. While each title is valuable, the collection is even more important. It makes a statement to the target shopper and helps drive purchases of more than one title in a basket.
Newsagencies don’t have planagrams and it is not uncommon for these titles to be mixed around in the women’s magazine section. We don’t let that happen because we understand the value of adjacencies.
Newsagents who see themselves as magazine specialists needs to do this work, to make sure that they have titles adjacencies that actually drive sales. That’s what we have done here with our alternative women’s magazines.
Our core magazine competitors in this shopping centres are major retailers and one other newsagent. Our magazine offer is the best because we are obsessive about what we do. Obsessive in a good way. We are proud of our offer and the value we bring to the category.
Magazine publishers who wonder why newsagents early return their titles should read this. Some newsagents received these toys from Gordon and Gotch on Monday.
Yeah, a magazine distributor has sent newsagents these Shoulder Buddies for sale at 25% GP. Newsagents get 50% and more GP on toys so why would they offer these for less? There is no obvious or promoted magazine link.
So close to Christmas with shops already brimming with stock – who at Gotch approved this? Who has treated newsagents this way? The Gotch leadership owes newsagents an explanation.
This is an appalling abuse of the newsagency channel by Gordon and Gotch. Gotch should not distribute toys. Newsagents have many toy suppliers at their disposal and the ability to achieve 50% (and more) GP.
No wonder 50% of newsagents are reducing magazine space in-store. Most feel that this is the only way they can control supply.
I would not be surprised if some newsagents struck out at Gotch and early returned magazines in punishment against Gotch. Yes, I understand such move could be crazy … but think about how abused some newsagents will feel.
Footnote: I did not receive this product in any of my stores.
Langham hotels demonstrate the value of a consistent service offering under a common shingle. Whether it’s at the Langham in Southbank in Victoria, the Langham in Auckland or one of the other Langham hotels, the experience is consistently excellent. It is this consistent service that brings me back. Each time I am surprised at an extra service or extra step to help me enjoy and remember my stay.
On Saturday night I stayed at the Langham in Melbourne after our Christmas party. When I collected my car in the morning they had left this free bottle of water for the road. Talk about exceptional service. Brilliant.
I love how an organisation the size of the Langham hotel group has been able to systemise providing exceptional service yet doing this in such a way that it feels personal, like they do value you as a customer. It makes me confident that no matter which Langham I visit I will have a consistently good experience.
This is the challenge of the newsagency shingle and the reason more and more newsagents will break away from this and trade under a shingle that operates with some discipline. Major landlords get this and often require newsagents to trade under a shingle that is promoted and has values supporting it.
There is nothing I would love more than the shopper experience in newsagencies to be uniformly exceptional or just good. We can’t do it because we don’t own the shingle and can’t control what people do under and behind it.
This illuminated Christmas tree has been working a treat for us at the counter in the lead up to Christmas. Having one lit has been crucial to our success.
Having a shopper ad an item worth $10 to a purchase on impulse is tremendously valuable and can drive a significant enhancement to the margin dollars achieved for the sale.
We are promoting the iPhone for Beginners magazine and the The Independent Guide to the iPhone5 Magbook as ideal Christmas gifts this year. The work in a broad range of situations so pitching them as Christmas gifts makes sense.
Newsagents have an opportunity to significantly grow magazine sales in the lead up to Christmas. We have an opportunity to achieve some stickiness into 2013 from this sales surge as gift recipients come back to try the title they were given again.
We are taking the opportunity to slip a bookmark into the magazines as a service and for self promotion.
We have had to shuffle space to accommodate the wider Madison magazine. This part of our women’s magazine area is tight with every title up next to each other. We like clean lines. The wider Madison has disrupted that. While we have coped, I mention it to remind those designing magazines that a size change can create challenges at retail.
Fairfax has announced announced today their exit from the NZ TradeMe online classifieds business.
This is a a disappointing yet somewhat understandable move from Fairfax. Disappointing in that it makes sense for them to own a strong classifieds business. Understandable because they need the balance sheet benefits to flow from the sale.
If I was a Fairfax shareholder I’d have preferred them to retain interest in the TradeMe business and to use this as a beachhead for digital expansion. Digtal is the future for Fairfax – they have said as much.
Newspaper publishers need to work hard at growing non print revenue – as do newsagents. If I had a strong online business I would not be selling at this time.
The sale is another move in a very busy year of moves by Australian newspaper publishers throughout all their operations.
Four weeks on, the display on the lease line with three large Beanie Ball plush items and our interactive dog has experienced NO theft. Despite being far away from the counter and quite easy to steal from, our property has been respected.
We’re surprised … we expected to lose one or two and were prepared to take the risk.
I am glad we did not give into fear of theft and not display these items in this best location. Had we given into fear of theft we might not have achieved sales of close to $3,000 of these two items alone.
In a meeting with Western Australian home delivery newsagents last week I realised that many of them were not using XchangeIT for managing magazines – returns were done manually. So, the team at my newsagency software company created a training video. While the video uses my software for the example, the content is useful for any newsagent not currently scanning returns:
The more newsagents using XchangeIT the greater the pressure on magazine distributors to use the benefits facilitated through the service.
Tower has close to 40 videos like this for newsagents and their staff to view to learn how to use the software.
We are promoting the latest issue of InStyle magazine with the full cover on show – making the most of Jennifer Lopez touring in Australia right now. This issue gives us an excellent opportunity to introduce InStyle magazine to new readers. We can do this better than any other retail channel.
We have this issue of InStyle with weeklies as well as the usual location. More eyeballs – more sales.