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

Author: Mark Fletcher

Halloween behind the counter in the newsagency

Click on the image to see the detail of our behind the counter promotion for Halloween at one of my newsagencies.  With so many other retailers coming on board Halloween is getting easier.  More competitive, certainly.  Easier too as it is better understood and more mainstream.

For average-side newsagents Halloween can be a $500 through to a $5,000 season.  It’s certainly traffic generating.  Our front of store display pulls a younger than usual audience to our newsagency.

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newsagency marketing

Digital subscription to The Australian announced

I was fortunate to be briefed by News Ltd yesterday about the launch of a digital subscription service for The Australian which will launch on Monday.

The Australian is the first of the News Limited newspapers to move to the long talked about paywall model.  On Monday, they will start with a free three month trial.  This will be followed by a ‘freemium’ model – some content will be free but the good stuff will be behind a pay wall.

On Monday they launch a redesigned website and a new m-site for mobile devices.  The iPad App stays as is for the moment. After the three month free trial period, the price offers will be:

  1. $2.95 a week for what they are calling The Australian Digital Pass.  This will give you access to the entire website, iPad and Android Apps plus the m-site.
  2. $7.95 buys you The Australian Digital Pass for 7 days and the print newspaper home delivered for six days.
  3. $4.50 buys you The Australian Digital Pass for 7 days and The Weekend Australian home delivered.
  4. $5.20 a week buys you The Australian Digital Pass for 7 days, The Weekend Australian home delivered and one more single weekday edition home delivered.
  5. Existing six day subscription customers will receive the Digital Pass for no extra cost.

I like that they have print in with the mix.  While I am not a fan of paywalls, I understand that publishers like News have to take this step.

What the folks at News do not have an answer for at the moment is how newsagents could engage in selling the $2.95 a week Digital Pass. News is open to suggestions on this.  It is with their permission that I encourage newsagents to email their suggestions on how we could sell or promote or otherwise commercially engage in the Digital Pass.  Email your suggestions to: circulation@theaustralian.com.au.

It would be relatively easy for newsagents to sell coupons to pay for the digital subscription, like we sell the iTunes cards today or like a phone card on the eziPass platform.  We could also sell it directly through our newsagency software and gather required customer details for emailing by News of login for the digital content.  So a technology solution is achievable at the newsagent end, feeding data real-time to News.  There is a question whether News has the appropriate technology at their end to receive this data real time for efficient handling.

I have put the idea of a newsagency software based technology solution to News.  I’d encourage newsagents to put their ideas to the company.  This is at their invitation.  They are genuinely interested in engagement suggestions around driving uptake of the Digital Pass.

There will be some reading this saying that we should do nothing to assist or support the uptake of the Digital Pass.  Resistance or lack of engagement by newsagents will not slow or block the progress of the Digital Pass.  News is doing what I would do if I were them.  It is no different to magazine publishers embracing the iPad and Android devices or lottery companies selling their products online.  Such moves are inevitable.  It’s why we need to be reinvent our businesses outside of our business with magazine and newspaper publishers.

How we engage on opportunities around The Australian could define what we do when this model is offered for the state based dailies in the News Limited stable.

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Media disruption

Lego Christmas cards popular

We have a couple of designs of Lego licensed Christmas cards in our boxed Christmas card offer and customer reaction is terrific.  They love the humour and that these are fair-dinkum lego cards.  The reaction is a reinforcement of the value of supporting brands – sales are easier and word of mouth drives return traffic.

Click on the image to see one of these funny cards.

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Greeting Cards

Promoting Women’s Health magazine

We have been promoting the Latest issue of Women’s Health magazine at my newsagencies. The most successful approach we have found is in-location displays as the photo shows. It makes Women’s Health the hero title in the women’s magazine aisle for the first week of the on-sale. We pull back but slightly in subsequent weeks.  I’d note that this location is on the same side and just one step away from marie claire, Cosmolpolitan and Cleo.

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magazines

Buy and Sell Classifieds TVC to help drive sales

Buy and Sell Classifieds, a Queensland classifieds title distributed by IPS, will be running a Television campaign to promote their classifieds newspaper.  The campaign will be running on Queensland digital channels 11 and One HD for remainder of the year.

While the ad does not tag newsagents it should certainly raise awareness of the title, offering a good reason to give the title prominent positioning in-store. This is what I would do if I were in Queensland.

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magazines

A Bill Express connection with the NBN roll out?

activ8me is one of the companies tied up with the Bill Express mess and they have been announced as a seller of NBN satellite and some other services. Technology Spectator has the story.

For a bit of background on activa8me and where it sat within the Bill Express mess click here.  For more on Bill Express, click on the link to the right.

While I’m no lawyer, I would have thought that there were enough concerns on the tale regarding the lineage of activ8me for it to not be part of the NBN story.  But, hey, maybe it’s all been cleaned up…

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Bill Express

Switching card companies could hurt your newsagency

I have been talking with newsagents recently who made changes to their card supply arrangements which have resulted in them being worse off.

One newsagent switched from one the major card companies to a smaller company on the claim that sales would increase and the offer of a margin boost.  Their sales, year on year, are down 25% following the move.  The extra 5% margin they negotiated is worth nothing.  They are worse off.  It is easy for a card company to offer a bag of cash or a boost in margin.  The harder road is to help you boos sales.  However, boosting sales is better for you.

Another newsagent went from 100% with one company to 75%.  The net increase in sales year on year was 2%.  However, the sales drop for their main supplier, due to 25% less pockets, resulted in the newsagents dropping to a lower rebate grouping.  Financially, they are considerably worse off.  A lack of research leading up to making the decision has resulted in them losing money.

Some card company sales representatives are less than accurate when outlining hat a switch to their business would mean for the newsagent.

My advice to newsagents is caveat emptor, let the buyer beware.

  1. Take your time, talk to newsagents who have moved.  Ask for details of the financial impact.
  2. Get every claim and every offering writing and signed by senior management of the company with authority to sign.
  3. If you are moving because of unhappiness with your current arrangements, take time to ensure that your existing supplier is afforded every opportunity to fix any problems.
  4. Get a written guarantee on the financial benefit of the move.

The two newsagents I have worked with don’t have anything to go off and cannot therefore easily get out of their worse-off situation.

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Greeting Cards

Food magazine relay boosts sales

We are still seeing growth in food magazine sales as a result of the magazine relay I undertook a month ago, nice double digit growth.  This is a category we shuffle a couple of times each week, responding to new titles as they come out.

We are maintaining excellent positioning for the anniversary issue of donna hay magazine while also promoting the latest issue of MasterChef and promoting the latest issue of Feast magazine.

I do the shuffling when I am in the store myself as I see this as a senior management task.  Too often newsagents leave choices about magazines to be made by juniors … and they then wonder why magazine sales are not what they need.

I urge newsagents to look t the magazines and invest the time in completing relay.  There is money to be made from a small investment of time.

 

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magazines

Promoting the read ezy 2012 calendar

The counter is the best location for read ezy 2012 calendar. Shoppers often ask for this. Having it at the counter makes offering the upsell easy too.

With an excellent margin, more than double magazine margin, it’s a product worth pitching to anyone 65 and over and those with family and friends who are 65 or more.

This is the kind of product that some people will not think abut until late in the season – offering it to shoppers now is doing them a good service and driving sales basket efficiency.

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Calendars

The $1 magazine sale in the US

I don’t understand some US magazine publishers.  At magazines.com there is a SALE running at the moment offering a bunch of magazine titles for $1 per issue or less.  Time magazine, for example, is available for $16 for 28 issues, Good Housekeeping has 12 issues for $7.97.  These are US only offers for US published titles.

Yes, the US model is different to Australia.  But that different that they have to devalue their product this much?  I’d want people to buy my title because of the value they see through reading the title rather than some cheap-ass deal.

Crazy.

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magazines

Will newsagents ever learn about employee theft?

I have been working with another newsagent this week on an employee theft / fraud issue.  It was the lax processes around managing cash which led to the newsagent being hit for at least $50,000.  They did not worry about balancing their registers accurately each night, they also did not manage stock on hand.  These weaknesses in processes invited the thief to act… and they did.

Check of the story in the Herald Sun yesterday about employee theft.

Newsagents are their own worst enemies sometimes.  Here are some very basic rules to help newsagents avoid employee theft.

  1. Use your newsagency software properly including the full stock control facilities – they pay for themselves in no time with theft saved.
  2. Balance your registers at least daily.  If cash is out by more than $5, hunt it down.  Demand that employees are responsible.
  3. Use employee initials and codes on all sales.  Yes they can fudge this.  Just doing it is a hurdle many newsagents do not have today.
  4. Track stock on hand for tobacco products, transport tickets, phone cards with a face value, confectionery, ink cartridges, premium pens and, stationery.  Start slow and work your way up.  You will bank results from the work and eliminate the need for an annual stock take.
  5. Establish a theft policy and publish this to your employees.
  6. Change your system passwords monthly.

If the newsagent I was working with balanced their cash daily and tracked cigarette inventory they would have uncovered the problem much sooner.

Cutting the cost of employee theft in a newsagents is straightforward, all it takes is will on the part of the newsagent.

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Newsagency management

Moshie Monsters out today

An Australian edition of Moshie Monsters magazine goes on sale today.  It has tremendous potential given the reported 5 million Australian Moshi Monsters users and given strong TV promotion on both free to air and pay TV starting today.  Targeting 6 to 12 year olds, this new monthly title could help us increase traffic and sales in our kids section, a magazine section which has been challenged in recent years.

I plan on us making the most of the launch with a good display in a high traffic location.  It’s the kind of title which could work at the counter, especially is at kid eye level.

To newsagents considering early returning this new title, I’d suggest you ask parents and 6 to 12 year olds.

 

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magazines

Tapping into the pink ribbon campaign

In addition to promoting the Pink Ribbon magazine which comes free with The Australian Women’s Weekly this month, we are promoting this week’s Pink Ribbon issue of New Idea magazine.  We also have the Hallmark boxed Christmas cards in-store raising funds for the Pink Robbin campaign too.  So connecting all of this activity makes a lot of sense.

Drawing attention to these social issue related magazines connects our business with the campaign.  This makes us more relevant than a supermarket which will typically do nothing special – unless they are paid to by the publisher.

 

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magazines

Newspaper placement drives magazine sales

We achieved a nice lift in sales over the weekend and into this week with the placement of Better Homes and Gardens and Diabetic Living at the counter next to newspapers.  We aim to change the titles we have at the counter in this prime location at least twice a week, making the most of the different shoppers we see in-store.  Newsagents who don’t do this should try.  It will usually take a couple of months to learn which magazines perform well with newspapers.

 

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magazines

Complete cover-up at The Australian newspaper

The Australian newspaper yesterday preferred to take money from an advertiser than promote the top stories of the day.  The wrap around advertisement was further evidence for newsagents that publishers do not think the front cover is all that important in selling the newspaper.  I remember battles in years gone by about obstruction of the cover and the claim by publisher representatives that showing the cover, and the headlines, was vital to driving sales.  Defaults were threatened if they were obstructed.  Now, it seems, who cares?

 

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newspaper masthead desecration

Vale Gary Angus

I was saddened to hear this morning of the death of Gary Angus of newsXpress Pall Mall.   Losing any newsagent is sad, losing someone at their workplace is even more so.

Gary was a genuine character in the newsagency channel as well as in Bendigo, a loveable larrakin some might say.  He was a great supporter of our channel and key suppliers.   Gary will be sadly missed.

 

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Newsagency

Over the counter bill payment is dead

I was talking with a newsagent last week who was keen for a bill payment option for newsagents even after the financial collapse some years ago of Bill Express.  I was surprised as I have considered that over the counter bill payment is dead, not only in newsagencies but everywhere. Sure there are some who prefer to pay bills in cash but that number is declining from what I understand talking to people within Australia Post.

The infrastructure cost, not IT wise but cash handling wise, is too expensive for there to be any money to be made even if there was upside from a customer interest perspective.

The cost and infrastructure issues aside, as a retailer I question the cost to the business of the disruption of a bill payment transaction compared to the traditional newsagency transaction.

Newsagents hanging on to the possibility of a bill payment solution need to let go.  Some still hang on to the promises made by a newsagency software company in the 1990s about their bill payment solution and their million dollar data centre.  Smoke and mirrors as I said at the time.

Hmm … now that I have written this I bet there is an announcement showing I am wrong.  If this happens so be it.

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Bill Express

Simply Knitting magazine App

I noticed this ad on a business news website last week, pomoting an App being launched for Simply Knitting magazine in the US via the new Apple Newsstand facility.  The latest developments from Apple in this space are certain to lure more publishers into pursuing subscribers through digital platforms.

I hope that newsagents are noticing these moves and are ensuring that their businesses are appropriately flexible.

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Media disruption

October is too early for Christmas carols

At a shopping mall in Manilla last week I heard Christmas carols being broadcast to the shoppers – two and a half months out from Christmas.  Seriously!  Maybe they get in early so that they can start easter promotions at the end of December.

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Ugh!

Featuring Prevention magazine

We are featuring Prevention magazine with this in-location display in our new women’s magazine aisle.  We will usually maintain this double pocket allocation for the first two weeks, less if sales mean we don’t have enough stock for it.

We are careful with these in-location displays, ensuring that we only have one up in each space at any one time.  They continue to perform as well as or better than an aisle end display.  I think this is because they are closer to the destination of shoppers, where they actually start to look at what they are visiting for.

Since the Prevention moved to a full size format a while back it has been easier to display in more traditional magazine fixturing.

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magazines

Promoting the magazine and the diary

Where possible this year we are promoting branded 2012 diaries with their companion magazine.  While this will be a challenge the closer we get to Christmas, we have the space for it at the moment.

Girlfriend magazine and the Girlfriend 2012 Diary next to each other (see photo) offers a better chance of selling both.  They are in an eye-level position … prime space.

We are also reminding our team members that diaries make an excellent Christmas gift.  For example, the Girlfriend 2012 Diary is an ideal gift to the Girlfriend reader.

Talking about diaries, current indications are that there is no slowdown in diary sales, the plethora of mobile devices with diary facilities is not diluting the need for or interest in a hard copy diary.

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magazines

Coverage on SA newsagent concerns over lotteries

Adelaide Now has a story on concerns held by newsagents about the possible privatisation of SA Lotteries.  It is good to see the ANF agitating the state government on this issue which is close to newsagent’s hearts.

Newsagents need to agitate on this issue and indeed every issue which challenges their model.  Our businesses are finely balanced, which each part of the business relying on the other parts for support.

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Lotteries

Appalling retail customer service gets talked about

A couple of friends shared with me their story of appalling customer service they recently experienced in a newsagency.

They had been in the shop for 10 minutes or so, selecting around $25 worth of stationery to purchase along with a magazine.  On their way to the sales counter, the stopped at the newspaper stand and picked up a newspaper.  They were from out of town and wanted to decide whether to purchase it.  Less than 30 seconds after picking up the newspaper they were hassled by the newsagent.  The rudeness of the approach resulted in them putting the newspaper down and purchasing only the items they had already selected.

While a newspaper purchase would not have added much to their basket, it may have got them enjoying a paper which they would buy again.

I doubt they will go back in the newsagency.  Indeed, their story of what happened is likely to encourage others to not shop in this business.

There was no need for rudeness, especially given the value of what they were purchasing.

Some people should not own a newsagency.  Customer service is just about all we have going for us. Bad word of mouth about one newsagency reflects badly on the whole channel, unfortunately.

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Customer Service
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