New Idea and Woman’s Day have a similar diet pitch cover story this week. New Idea wins thanks to the free diet booklet on the cover and the additional collateral provided to us to help draw more attention to the pitch. A shopper looking to purchase one of the two titles this week is more likely to go for New Idea on the basis of the pitch. Pacific does these header cards well, designing them with a dual purpose.
We are promoting Hot Boys of Music with our One Direction part serves as well as with teen magazines and music magazines. I do think, however, that it’s the placement at the front of the shop with the One Direction titles that will work best for us. We are promoting the title with a range of social media activity. This should work given that we’re well known in the target marketplace.
Click on the image to see the detail of a Tweet sent early today by @jadeleanneNDUBZ to her 1,531 Twitter followers. In the image you will also see a text from her dad and her response to that text. Her dad sent her a text about Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez splitting. Her response about this being a headline in a newspaper is gold for those watching the impact of social media on old media news channels.
The text messages and tweet reminded me of why we are able to sell magazines with Bieber and One Direction featuring in them. They are purchased more as collector items and not as news as such.
It is not just this generation getting news from Twitter and other platforms. My own newspaper interaction has diminished significantly due to Twitter. It’s short-form publishing platform works well in a time-poor world. It’s instant publishing gives me access to news sooner.
Years ago, if we sold out of newspapers by lunchtime on a Saturday there were several means by which we could get replacement stock. We would pursue these because of the role newspapers played in the traditional retail newsagency business.
Today, we are out by noon 50% of the time and no longer chase replacement product because the supply model seen non newsagency outlets supplied to not sell out and because the newspaper is not as important as it used to be. When I told a shopper on the weekend that we were out of The Age they said – it’s old news anyway. Seriously, that’s what they said.
All of this is as it should be – the world evolving, embracing new technology. Our challenge as newsagents is to be retailers focused on the future, giving less attention to the past.
Most newsagencies have excellent foot traffic. Challenges we read about in the comments on this blog and at newsagent meetings are not related to traffic. Margin is what many complain about. Slim margin on lottery, circulation, mobile phone and some other products is what I hear complained about often.
The question we have to ask ourselves is are we leveraging our excellent current traffic to build a better future margin dollars story?
Too often we look at a newspaper sale or a magazine sale or a lottery ticket sale in isolation.
What if the newspaper sale today led to a greeting card sale tomorrow? The newspaper sale becomes more valuable, it delivers to us better margin dollars than the newspaper sale itself. This is what our competitors are doing. While they chase today’s sale, manyn of our competitors work hard to get that person back to bring more value to the business.
What are you doing, consistently, to bring newspaper, magazine, lottery, mobile phone recharge, transport ticket and other slim margin business back into your shop to purchase other products? Consistency is key here – having a structured approach that every team member engages in.
Here are some ways we can do this: with loyalty cards like the magazine club card or the greeting card loyalty card or a business wide points based loyalty program or coupons that are dated to get people back within a certain time. Whatever you go for you need to ensure it is pitched across the counter regularly to invite and entice shoppers back sooner. The indirect message is that you are asking for their loyalty.
If you do nothing to entice shoppers back then you will not achieve the maximum value from the traffic you have today.
While many newsagency business owners work the shop floor, many do not … not as a sales person that is. My management tip suggestion is that owners set themselves a sales target for each hour on the shop floor.
The target should reflect the value of items shoppers purchase based on your work on the shop floor. These will usually be incremental purchases, items they might not have bought had it not been for your shop floor work.
Working to a target will … show how hard or easy this is, help you measure your own effectiveness, get you looking at your shop floor differently and maybe fines your approach in managing your own staff. Take it seriously. Let your team know what you are doing and why. Share with them the sales target you have set for yourself.
This suggestion came about because of my own experience on the shop floor yesterday.
We have shifted half our stock of It Girl from the usual location to our front of store One Direction display to make the most of the One Direction cover on the magazine. we placed it next to the One Direction one shot which has been selling very well for us. The extra space cost us nothing and we’re certain to pick up some sales as a result.
We have ordered more copies of the Home and away 25th anniversary special since as of yesterday we had sold all but one copy. It’s an easy impulse sell at the counter and with our weekly magazines … very easy. Smart placement = easy sales with this title.
I’d be interested in hearing from newsagents who have experiences issues in then last year with their Gotch contract. Have they asked you for a new contract? Have they wanted a new guarantee? Have they called in your guarantee? Have you have any contractual issues you would like to share on a confidential basis? mark@towersystems.com.au
Check out the tweet from a One Direction fan who was thrilled to see “the boys” on magazine covers. I mention it today as a reminder that in this twitter world, word of mouth (via tweets) spread faster and wider. It’s also a reminder that we can connect to this world and the fan base of brands and music groups through careful tweets of our own. It starts with each of us having a presence of Twitter. Sadly, our channel is poorly represented.
I appreciate time is a challenge for newsagents. Maybe we are spending too long on old processes and opportunities and not enough on the new. The world has changed.
We are promoting the Home and Away 25th anniversary special at the counter as well as with weekly magazines. It’s working well in each location with more sales coming from the placement with weeklies.
Next week we are planning a bold in-store display having freed up some space to push harder – to chase more sales.
We are making the most of the free wrapping paper offer with the latest issue of House and Garden magazine. Better Homes and Gardens has done this for years with terrific success. It’s a good practical gift at this time of the year and ideal with this type of magazine.
Famous delivered 2.5% year on year growth in the July-September audit results just out. Grazia dropped 10%, Woman’s Day 6%, New Idea 1% and Take 5 and That’s Life 10% each. Check out B&T for more details. I suspect we will se one or two more titles go the way of Australian Good Food shortly as sales volumes are unsustainable.
What we need to take away is the growth for Famous. We should check our sales and see if we are benefiting from this. It’s an opportunity.
Also, benchmark your sales for Woman’s Day and New Idea and see if your figures match the audit. As B&T notes, the recent New Idea campaign and refresh of the product are paying off.
The July – September sales audit results are challenging across the board for newspapers but devastating for Fairfax where The Age lost 16.9% Monday to Friday and The Sydney Morning Herald lost 15.1% Monday to Friday. Read the details at B&T. With the AFR down to 68,000 copies a day you have to wonder about when they will switch to digital.
Several newsagents have suggested that they have been told to expect The Sydney Morning Herald to have transitioned to compact (tabloid) format by the end of this month. Anyone else heard this and timing for The Age?
I love it when we can get a product exclusively for a major season like Christmas and when the product is easily displayed on the shop floor. We have achieved this with the world’s only mains pressure water canon.
We have had the water canon out for only a few days and we’re certain we will sell out. Shopper interaction is excellent – having the product on display is vital as they can feel for themselves the quality and understand the value.
We aim for one or two hero products for every season, products that define and differentiate our offer, to show us off to our shoppers as unique and to pitch value.
We are promoting the water canon through flyers as well as using social media.
We have created our own marketing collateral for promoting the charities supported by our boxed Christmas card range this year. These posters sit atop our stacks of boxed Christmas cards and the show off the logos of the charities supported by the cards we carry.
We have found over the years that the charity connection for boxed cards has grown in importance. hence our decision to present a very clear message on the help our customer provide when they purchase their boxed Christmas cards from us.
Promoting the charity connection in this way shines a light on a point of difference for us.
Bauer announced yesterday that they will close Australian Good Food magazine. That’s two food magazines gone in a short time. I don’t think it’s reflective of a problem for the segment. rather, these titles were not attractive shoppers because they did not stand out.
The last issue of Australian Good Food will be the December/January issue.
We have seen a significant increase in the supply of thick book-size food related magazines this year. Usually priced at $19.95 they soak up working capital and take up considerable space.
We have embraced each new title, giving it time in the spotlight, like we are doing with this excellent title, Food Gardening, from Universal Magazines. We have it located with food titles at the moment. In a couple of weeks any remaining stock will feature in our gardening titles.
I think we need a joint conversation with the various publishers of these book format food magazines. They are placing what feels to be a growing burden on newsagents. It would help us if the various publishers worked better together. I appreciate that in a competitive marketplace this is a challenge. However, given the impact on our businesses such co-operation is important.
We are promoting Empire magazine facing onto the dance floor with this display.
Since the last instalment of the Twilight movie is about to hit the screens and it’s the cover story for this issue of the magazine there is an opportunity to grab impulse purchases.
The collateral has good visual cut-through.
We have received twenty-five copies of The Australian Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book from Bauer (ACP). Their own data shows we have stock on hand. They also have our sales for the last year. This data, had it been checked, would indicate that supplying additional stock was unnecessary. Further, our history with the AWW cookbooks would indicate to them that we will order stock when needed. We did not need twenty-five copies and how have to pay to send this stock back.
This does look like an unjustified cash grab.
We are early returning fifteen copies. Yes, I should return all of them … many would.
It is this type of unjustified oversupply by Bauer that gets newsagents to early return out of frustration. They see this and strike out at the publisher and or distributor, impacting other publishers. Yes, I know this should not happen. At least here is a live example of why it happens.
The allocations team at Bauer ought to be better than this. They would not do this to any channel other than newsagents.
Magazine publishers who complain about early returns could help newsagents by asking their distributor about this scenario, supply of a title where copies are still in stock. Newsagents could use your help on this.
I know there will be people at Bauer saying this blog post is unfair. I bet newsagents don’t think it is unfair. I don’t think its unfair … I wrote it.
If we have stock of a title like this cookbook there is no need to send more. You expect newsagents to pay their bills on time and are known to threaten them and bully them into meeting your trading terms – yet you do not meet fair and basic business requirements. I’d have trouble believing that this supply is a mistake, it happens too often.
I want a fair and just magazine supply model where newsagents are treated equally with other retailers. We need to be given the ability to control our indebtedness.
We are giving the launch issue of Family Health extra space for the first week to give it a chance to be noticed. While launching any magazine is a challenge, this one is entering a competitive segment and apparently with little in the way of in-store support. When we pare back from three pockets to one next week (every pocket is expensive in a shopping centre newsagency) we will co-locate with weeklies or newspapers for a week to give it another opportunity to find buyers.
The Little Squares & Slices cookbook for $5 with the purchase of any $12.95 AWW cookbook promotion from Bauer (ACP) is excellent. Newsagents have been provided good collateral for the promotion. The timing, too is excellent. We are making the most of this opportunity with a bold display in with our AWW cookbooks as well as promotion in a second location. We want to sell out early.
Every time Australian Property Investor magazine features on Today Tonight sales increase. The magazine features on the show tonight. The story being aired tonight is about the property market and areas expected to boom. The latest issue of the magazine features. This is an excellent opportunity for newsagents. Place the magazine with newspapers, at the counter and even with women’s weekly magazines tomorrow and for the next few days. Even put a sign: as seen on Today Tonight.
Other retailers will not engage beyond the average for this title.
Following on from my previous post, here are simple steps you can take to cut theft in your newsagency:
135 newsagents responded to the poll on theft and indicated that theft is not a major concern.
On theft by customers, 72.9% said it cost up to $5,000 in the last year while 14.6% said it cost between $5,000 and $10,000.
On theft by employees, 69.1% said they had suffered none in the last year, 20.2% said it has cost up to $5,000 and 8.5% said it had cost between $20,000 and $50,000 in the last year.
55.1% said there had been no increase in theft i the last year.
Click on the image for a more detailed breakdown on employee theft.
My experience working with newsagents on theft is that most don’t know they have suffered until after the event. This could be years. Often, by then, the cost has reached $200,000 or more. Studies in other retail situations show that theft is retail costs between 3% and 5% of sales. My experience in the newsagency channel is that this is an accurate assessment.
The key for newsagents is to manage for measurement of employee and customer theft. Saying there is no time or that it is too hard could be costing your business tens of thousands of dollars a year.