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

Author: Mark Fletcher

Promoting crosswords to businessmen

I travel a bit and see plenty of guys passing time doing crosswords, sudoku and other puzzles in newspapers.  However, back at the newsagency we tend to focus the promotion of crossword and puzzle titles on women.  I am trying something different at the moment.  Yesterday, I placed copies of the latest issue of Lovatt’s BIG Crossword next to the Australian Financial Review.  We still have stock at the usual location so we won’t lose sales to regulars.

While it is true that most crossword and puzzle purchases I notice are to women, I see plenty of guys doing them.  I want to find a way to increase sales of these titles to guys.  If it works by placing them next to newspapers then job done.  If not, I’ll keep trying things.

This is the sort of activity we have to engage in if we want to make the most of the current magazine opportunity.  Being magazine specialists means that we hunt down magazine sale opportunities, relentlessley.  Many times the reward is more sales.

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magazines

Using Geoffrey Rush to sell a photography magazine

We are promoting the latest issue of digital photography + design with ideal placement, showing off the full front cover.  Geoffrey Rush on the cover, in a brilliant photo, is enough for us to give this issue extra attention.  He was on the 7PM Project on Network ten this week, he’s getting coverage for a new movie as well as for an upcoming play.

I figured that all the attention on Rush could lift sales of digital photography + design – hence the placement.

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magazines

Promoting the launch issue of Wine Companion magazine

We are supporting the launch of James Halliday’s Wine Companion magazine with this in-location display in our women’s / food aisle.

The launch of this magazine is a major move in the wine title space.  It should get shoppers looking not only at Wine Companion but also other titles in the segment.

James Halliday is well known to wine lovers.  His name on the title should help drive interest.

I’d urge newsagents to check where they have this title.  It is worth making sure it is not left in a pocket hidden.  Put it in the spotlight.  the best time to let your customers know that you have a new title is to give it some time in the sunshine.

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magazines

Crema magazine supports newsagents

Check out the Tweet today from Crema Magazine advising that the next issue will be available from newsagents next Monday.  It is good to see publishers promoting title availability from newsagents.

Crema Magazine was created in response to Australia’s rapidly expanding coffee lifestyle.   It’s a good title to carry if your newsagency is in or near a coffee precinct or serves customers who love coffee.

While not a high volume title, Crema Magazine reinforces you as a magazine specialist.

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magazines

Maybe we should consider petitions to help with landlord challenges

Reading the story about the rent challenges facing independent book retailer St Mark’s Bookshop in New York made we wonder whether we should try their approach of having customers sign a petition of support.

While major landlords the world over have shown a reluctance to listen to anything, a petition may help in our situation should the rent dispute get to a tribunal or some other independent arbitrator.

Key to St Mark’s getting signatures is their well established tradition.  This comes down to the value their shoppers see in the business remaining.  I have shopped at St Mark’s.  It’s certainly a different, more personal and more enlightening experience than shopping for books at one of the big-barn corporate bookshops.

We need to ask is whether our customers would feel strongly enough about our newsagency businesses to sign a petition of support for us. If not then we need to think about what we can do to make our businesses that valuable in the eyes of our customers that they would sign a petition for us.

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Customer Service

Björk shows us the new world

Icelandic artist Björk is showing us a new world with the release of Biophilia and iPad app top coincide with the release of a new album. eBOOK NEWSER has more on this.

What is innovative is the direct access across multiple platforms being embraced by Björk.  For me, this speaks to the new world of mobile access to digital content.  The app lets the reader / listener interact with the music and personalise the experience.

Many look at the iPad and compare it to print and say they like the feel and small of a book.  Fair enough.  Björk is showing off a completely different experience which you cannot get with a book of a CD (or vinyl for that matter).

For me, the Björk release epitomises why digital innovation will continue to migrate consumers from the print experience.

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Media disruption

Promoting Better Homes and Gardens magazine

Click on the image to see the bold display we have been running in one of my newsagencies promoting the latest issue of Better Homes and Gardens as well as a Christmas Gift Subscription offer we have.  This display is at the front of the newsagency, facing into the mall.

I’ve written previously that I am not a fan of larger format billboard-type displays … unless they work.  This display does work.  The title is the key here.

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magazines

Monsterous mini plush perfect for Halloween

We have these small keychain mini plush items as part of our Halloween offer.  They give teens and adults an opportunity to connect with Halloween.  We are seeing them purchased for personal use as well as for gifts, adding nice value of Halloween sales this year.  We are on track to beat last year’s Halloween figures.

 

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newsagency marketing

Putting magazines together on a newsstand is driving digital sales

According to a report yesterday at PaidContent, putting magazines together on a digital newsstand and away from other digital content is helping drive sales.

Condé Nast is the latest publisher to claim a boom in digital magazine sales from the launch of Apple’s Newsstand two weeks: the publisher of Glamour, The New Yorker, Vanity Fairand Wired says that new subscription sales, per week, across all nine digital editions, was up 268 percent, with single copy sales up 142 percent compared to the previous eight weeks.

I think that our concern about print subscriptions and other retail outlets is misplaced if you take a long term view.  What publishers are playing which here and an entirely new channel from which we make zip.  Kudos to the publishers and Apple for doing this.  It’s what I’d do if I were them.

That said, what is happening here is another reason we need to get the Australian magazine distribution model right for newsagents.

I think that magazines present us with good opportunities in the short to medium term.  If some or all of us get the magazine distribution model right we can profit from opportunities.  I say some because I know of some newsagents who have turned their back on magazines.  That’s okay.  More for me.

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magazines

My Family stickers from The Sticker Family in the news

The page three report in The Age yesterday about the popular My Family stickers was odd for a page three story.  Hardly news.

Yes, there are some people who think the stickers are sinister.  However, the majority who notice the stickers like them.  You only have to stand out the front of a newsagents with the My Family stickers pull up banner.  I do this at the front of one of my stores and every few minutes someone stops and has a look, always with a smile.

We are still selling between $2,000 and $3,000 a month of these stickers.  This is in part helped by the constant evolution of the range.

So the report in The Age does not make sense.  A more interesting story is how newsagents have become the go to retail channel for these stickers, reinforcing our connection with the Australian family.

The Australian newsagency is the last family owned business where the entire family can shop and fine interesting and entertaining things to buy.  We are a natural fit for selling a product which shines the spotlight on the family, whatever glorious configuration that may take.

The My family stickers reinforce connection … exactly what our newsagencies do.

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Newsagency opportunities

Another way to display crossword titles

Check out the display of crossword titles at one of the airport outlets.  I can understand why they do this – to get more stock per square metre of lettable space.  It’s all about return on rent.

In my experience, crossword shoppers will look for the titles which interest them.  It could be argued that for the regular crossword buyer, showing the full cover is not essential.  What this display challenges is the occasional crossword buyer who may pick up a title on impulse, based on the cover.

We are experimenting with this type of magazine display in a couple of special interest areas, where we receive few copies of a title, but not in Crosswords.

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crosswords

Promoting The Australian Women’s Weekly

We are promoting the latest issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly with this excellent display at our high traffic counter location.   This display is also easily seen from passers-by in the mall.

AWW remains a very important title for newsagents, especially in the first ten days of on-sale.  This is why we do displays like this, promote it with newspapers and promote it at the front of the newsagency in an impulse unit facing into the shopping mall.

 

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magazines

Tripping Weed the new convenience product?

In Auckland today I noticed a few convenience stores selling a product called Tripping Weed behind the counter.  One retail person responded to my query whispering that it was legal marijuana.  It was expensive and that only reinforced his claim / promise.  I would have thought that the name of the product was enough to at least remove it from display.  That said, this is a country which still displays tobacco products in retail stores.

Here is some of what the supplier says on the website about the product:

Tripping Weed is 100% Legal and Natural Herbal Product. It is an extremely powerful hallucinogenic with mind altering properties, If you have not used salvia divinorum before, we recommend you start with a low strength (10x) pack and try the stronger smoking blends as you look to increase the intensity of your Salvia experience.

It’s fascinating what you see for sale in some countries.

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retail

Are newsagents killing sales of Australian 4WD Action and other magazines?

Newsagents sell 37% of all copies sold of Australian 4WD Action according to publisher Express Media Group.  Supermarkets and other distribution channels  account for the remainder of sales.

This 12 year-old title has a 70% sell through at retail.

Sales of Australian 4WD Action are declining in newsagents and growing in supermarkets.

Why is it that sales of Australian 4WD Action are declining in newsagencies?  Early returns is one reason.  I have been shown data, without identifying the newsagencies, where newsagents have early returned, leaving insufficient stock in the businesses to even get close to their average sell through.

This early returning action is driving sales of Australian 4WD Action down in some newsagencies.

If this is happening for Australian 4WD Action is it happening for other titles?  I think so.

In thirty or forty newsagencies for which I have seen data there appears to be no commercial reason for early return.  Indeed, these businesses are suffering financially as a result of the early return activity.  They are losing guaranteed sales.

Connecting this information with what I know form other publishers, it appears to me that ill-considered and sales killing early returning is at epidemic proportions in our channel.  If this is true, the implications could be most serious for us.

Beyond creating a self fulfilling prophecy about the future of magazines, there is the implied invitation for publishers to find other channels through which to see and distribute their titles.  I’d do that if I was a publisher and saw that retailers would rather send a title back than get guaranteed sales from it.

The data I have seen for Australian 4WD Action suggests a very serious problem which we all need to address for the future health of our channel.

The folks at EMG (Express) are particularly concerned since they have recently announced:

  1. Moving from full copy to topped returns, saving time and freight costs.
  2. Bonus margin for two months, giving a newsagents an opportunity to reengage in EMG titles.
  3. Shorter (4 week) on-sale periods, better for cash flow and space allocation.
  4. Better allocations for newsagents, leading to a higher sell through.
  5. A new customer service team to help newsagents, queries are handled quickly.

The early returning of the latest issue of Australian 4WD Action gives EMG a message that these moves are of no interest to newsagents.  That is not a message we want to give off at all … unless we want to kill off magazines in our newsagencies.

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magazine distribution

Getting ready for the launch of Grand Designs magazine

I am looking forward to the launch of the local edition of Grand Designs magazine from Universal Magazines early in 2012.  Last week, Kevin McLoud, host of the hit TV show was interviewed in Australia by MediaWeek about the show, the Grand Designs live show and the Grand Designs franchise overall.  Listen to the terrific MediaWeek podcast here, it’s good background to the launch of the magazine.

The Grand Designs magazine will be quarterly and priced at $8.95.  With the TV show attracting around 1 million viewers, the magazine is bound to generate strong interest.

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magazines

Fresh Halloween display for run up to October 31

The proactive team at one of my newsagencies refreshed the Halloween display earlier this week.  Check out the refreshed display in the photo.  Talk about retail theatre.

This display faces out into the shopping mall, drawing plenty of passers-by in for a browse and shop.

This display separates us from the rather boring displays in nearby supermarkets and general retailers.

Click on the image for a bigger version.

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magazines

Mixing it up with health magazines

Further to our promotion of the latest issue opt Prevention magazine, we have been using other pockets in the health area of our magazine department to promote popular titles and topics.  We review the titles being given feature position each week, remembering those which respond best to the full face display at the front of the eye level display.  As he photo shows we also mix titles from find when appropriate.  I figured that the Weight Watchers cookbook was worth a try between WellBeing and Good Health.

My experience is that a small investment of senior management time in your magazine department can increase sales.  Too often, newsagents leave magazines to junior employees … and then they wonder why the department is not performing as well as the rest of the shop.

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magazines

Promoting the latest Wheels magazine

The latest issue of Wheels magazine is the title we are promoting in the auto section of our magazine department.

We have watched male browsers and they pay little attention to billboard type displays.  I am sure this is the case in many newsagencies.  Guys tend to have a destination in mind when they enter and it is only when they reach the destination that they start to look around.

We have found that guys do, however, pay attention to these in-location displays.  So that’ what we are doing for the issue of Wheels which came out Monday.

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magazines

Another newsagent walks from a shopping centre

This is becoming an almost weekly occurrence:  Another newsagent has decided to walk from their retail business in a relatively major shopping centre rather than pay a 10% increase in rent and fund the landlord required shop fit.

Some landlords are happy to accept this, and see families lose the businesses they have built up, often over many years, because there are those ready to take on a newsagency at the higher rent.  I have heard of cases where leeches are in the ears of landlord representatives long before a lease is up, as if encouraging the landlord to not offer the existing tenant a deal.

Other landlords accept a long term newsagent walking because they are ignorant of the newsagency economic model.

Newsagents in shopping centres owned by major landlords – AMP, Centro, QIC, Colonial First State, Westfield etc – need support from magazine and newspaper publishers, lottery businesses and the like to achieve more equitable rents. Otherwise we will see more shopping centres without newsagency businesses.

We need to stop families feeling so helpless that they walk away from their family business.

It takes a lot of guts to walk away from your business at the end of a lease.  This act alone speaks to the unfairness of lease terms and the competitive forces marshalled against the incumbent newsagent – sometimes including competitive forces of people closely aligned with the newsagency channel.

To read more about the cost of running a newsagency in a shopping centre, read Finding $17,500 extra gross profit this year, my blog post from August 17 about the cost of annual rent increases in shopping centres.

Newsagents facing a tough situation with their rent may have more options than they currently know.  For example, in Victoria there is the office of the Small Business Commissioner and VCAT which can be used to resolve tenancy disputes.  The Small Business Commissioner is specifically charged with helping resolve tenancy issues so that small business owners do not lose their businesses.  I have used this route with success.

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Newsagency management

Network Services website meltdown could hinder magazine sales

Newsagents had trouble contacting magazine distributor Network Services yesterday for the handling of queries, extra copy requests and the like.  The Network Services website had problems from mid morning and the best newsagency could achieve was to hear a recorded message when they called the Network help desk.

Newsagents need to lodge missed stock, damaged stock and reorder requirements by Monday to be certain of receiving stock by Wednesday.

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magazine distribution

South Australia to get a Small Business Commissioner

Despite opposition from the Liberal Party, South Australia is to get a Small Business Commissioner as announced last week.

This tremendous achievement is in part due to the work of some newsagents and Professor Frank Zumbo among others.

I know from the eight years of work by the Small Business Commissioner’s office in Victoria that this new body in SA will give newsagents a good forum for use in revolving disputes with suppliers and landlords.

Those who fought for a SBC is SA have done a good thing not only for all small businesses but specifically for newsagents.  Given the newsagent support and push for the SBC, the channel can be proud of the achievement in parliament.

Shame on the Liberal Party for not supporting this from the outset.  There is only so much you can oppose for the sake of opposing before voters see that you put yourselves ahead of voters.

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Newsagency management

Chasing the Christmas tape purchase

We are promoting Scotch Wrapping Tape to early Christmas shoppers with this display on one of our pillars.  It faces shoppers as they get about a third of the way into the newsagency.  Just in front of the display is our wrapping paper and our table of boxed cards.

Right now, shoppers are taking their time with Christmas.  There is some activity, but mainly around boxed cards at this point.  By the time we hit December it is more about convenience. We will move the tape from here to the counter as we get closer to Christmas.

On the side of the display is the Scotch wrapping paper cutter.  We have been selling this for years … it sells very well, just as our Christmas pitch for gift wrapping tape does.

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Gifts

The new issue of frankie magazine selling well

Our promotion of the latest issue of frankie magazine is working well, so well in fact that we have ordered more stock.  If this extra stock sells, and we expect it to, we will have driven well into double digit growth compared to the last issue which achieved double digit growth on the issue before.

We get in early, in the first week of on-sale, with ordering extra stock to ensure that we have enough to get deep into the on-sale.  By looking at sales in the first few days of a monthly we can usually predict what we will need.

I’d urge all newsagents to look at their sales of frankie.  This is is a title you can use to achieve growth in magazine sales and to attract younger shoppers.

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magazines

Promoting the latest issue of T3 magazine

We are promoting the latest issue of T3 magazine as the feature magazine in our technology section.

This simple in-location display is seen by all browsers of this section as well as all guys shopping the computer, car, bike and sports area of our magazine department.

This is a smaller format, less intense in-loction display.  It is designed to act as a beacon without detracting from the overall magazine offering in the space.

The goal with these displays, beyond selling more magazines, is to make the magazine department look more fresh and relevant than the usual aisle of magazines all in a line.  We don’t want to look like an average newsagency.

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magazines

Promoting Cleo magazine in-location

We are promoting the latest issue of Cleo magazine in-location at the entrance to the aisle where the magazine is usually located.

All the girls and women who enter our women’s magazine aisle get to see this display, along with some looking across from other aisles.

We are in a smaller format store, by choice and preference, and so we have to make the most of every space opportunity.  We can lease in-location displays up for longer than a more traditional billboard type display.

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magazines
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