Kudos to the folks at desktop magazine for better engagement with newsagents. They are offered 40% for their March and April issues to drive engagement. They also provided clear advice on title placement – with ART & Literature/Design titles. Specific placement advice such as this is helpful.
I hope that newsagents noticed the opportunity and engaged.
It is good to see Mark Dreyfus QC, federal member for Isaacs, has engaged on the EFTPOS issue following representations from a newsagent in his constituency. Click here to see Dreyfus’ response and a letter he has sent to the Treasurer.
The more newsagents engage on this issue the greater the opportunity for a positive outcome.
It would be good to see more newspaper publishers engage in support of newsagents on this issue.
Crikey is running an excellent series on home brand products in supermarkets. I’d encourage newsagents to read this series as it looks at the strategy which some of our competitors are using to compete with us in the stationery space, a strategy which challenges us as a channel.
I remain committed to stationery brands as these brands invest into driving traffic to our channels. I think we are too disconnected as a channel for a channel wide house brand approach to work for us the same way it does for supermarkets.
We are promoting this week’s New Idea with another aisle end feature display, capping the entrance to one of our magazine aisles and facing onto the dance floor. The gold edged Elizabeth Taylor cover looks stunning and we figured it is bound to drive good interest. The unit on which this display is located is one featuring weekly titles – it is part of our co-location strategy for weekly magazines.
Network Services earlier this month announced the launch of a digital services platform for serving digital editions of print products in the portfolio. The Network press release opened provided a bold positioning statement:
Network Services becomes Australia’s first distributor to offer its publishing clients access to a suite of digital solutions. Following on from the recent announcement of the Magshop Digital Newsstand, Network Services is pleased to announce that it is now in a position to start working with its clients to capitalise on the position that the Magshop Digital Newsstand is quickly establishing in this emerging market place.
Some are saying that the Network announcement is a catch up to the previously announced initiatives from Gordon and Gotch in the digital space. Who knows? What I do know is that the two magazine distributors in this country are racing to leverage the digital opportunity.
The closest we come to playing in the digital space is selling the iTunes cards. Oh, and offering a free Kobo reader to a lucky Mother’s Day shopper.
A colleague newsagent just won $1,000 from the ACP I Love Magazines promotion. His sub agent actually sold the magazine to the customer. The newsagent won because his sub agent list was up to date with ACP. This is a timely reminder to newsagents to ensure that your sub agent list with each distributor is up to date. This newsagent is $1,000 better off.
I love the I Love Magazines campaign as shoppers can only win from newsagents and outlets supplied by newsagents.
TIME magazine published a good article online overnight by Tom Vanderbilt about the declining number of paperboys in the US.
While arrangements for the delivery of newspapers is quite different in the US compared to Australia, there are still plenty of men and women who will remember getting their start delivering newspapers here.
The abundance of real news this week provides us with an excellent opportunity to remember that we are newsagents with the emphasis on news.
While digital platforms are providing immediate coverage of the major stories – Lybia, Egypt, Bahrain, Christchurch and, yes, Ricky Nixon – on our shelves we have newspapers with the analysis and the pictures.
I’d encourage newsagents to take a moment and check how newspapers are displayed. Are they in the best position? Are you co-locating at the lottery counter as well? Are you showing off content for these top stories? Are your team members promoting newspapers across the counter? Have you considered a display around some of the big stories as you would feature a magazine?
This week newsagents have many reasons to take a fresh and bigger approach to promoting newspapers. I say go for it!
Pos comments here about what you are doing to promote newspapers in this week of big news stories.
We are promoting both Total Girl and K Zone magazines with this aisle end display which points onto the dance floor.
Just because kids magazines are challenged, as I wrote last week, it doesn’t mean that we should stop promoting them – indeed, the opposite should be the case. By bringing these two titles from their usual location at the rear of the store to the main stage we will hopefully reintroduce them to shoppers.
We are chasing a measurable sales lift and as we do with every display we will track and learn from the results.
It seems that not a day goes by and I hear about another newsagent hit by employee theft. It feels as if we are in the grip of an epidemic. I have just completed an article on the topic for the next issue of My Business magazine. My next step is to create a new video for newsagents on how to identify, manage and minimise theft.
We have to get this scourge under control.
Check out this promotional video for the Google One Pass subscription platform launched yesterday in the US. One Pass is a direct competitor to the new Apple subscription model announced a few days ago.
One Pass is a multi-platform subscription offer designed to serve publishers through a subscription model. Read the story from the Los Angeles Times for more details.
While magazine distributors continue to supply stock and bill newsagents as if print magazines are a growth category, news like this suggests otherwise.
Apple yesterday released a subscription service for iTunes, removing a barrier complained about by magazine and newspaper publishers. Expect to see a renewed push by publishers to the digital delivery platform. Cnet has more on this move by Apple.
There is no real surprise in this move yesterday. It was long expected. From the perspective of Australian newsagents, this move ought to be seen as an even clearer welcome mat to publishers to deliver content through iTunes. It is another reason for us to seek to have more control over the newspaper and magazine products which get into our channel.
By being able to purchase a subscription from within an app for a newspaper or magazine, the publisher can more easily get the sale and Apple can more easily guarantee their 30% share.
If what I have heard is true, Newslink newsagents are not required to return unsold copies of magazines. Entering returns data is all that is required for them to be provided with credits.
No returns processing in-store.
No freight shipping unsold stock back to the magazine distributors.
How would you like that fellow newsagents? Not having to return any unsold magazines? In my own situation, I would save more than $4,000 a year on freight and at least $2,000 a year in labour.
I suspect that my magazine cash flow situation would improve too since the magazine distributor would not be able to charge their usual returns processing fee they would take more care in determining supply. My guess is that this would see my magazine bill drop by around $4,000 a month without any negative impact on sales.
So, yes, I would love not having to return unsold magazines.
If my information is right and Newslink newsagencies do not have to return unsold magazines then why are other newsagents treated differently? If I am right, what will we do about it?
Of course, as I noted here in December, there is a question over whether Network Services can force newsagents to do full copy returns of non ACP titles.
Gordon and Gotch and Network Services ought to make a statement on this, so that all newsagents know the truth. I’d be happy to publish a retraction if my information is wrong. Likewise, I’d be happy to lead the revolution of newsagents if I am right.
Yesterday I saw an excellent example of the Trivial Pursuit promoting driving Herald Sun sales. Several customers purchased multiple copies of the newspaper, saying it was for the Trivial Pursuit card.
If I had more time I would have asked whether the copies were for friends of themselves. If themselves then the copies purchased will drive audit numbers but not advertiser results.
We received a call yesterday from a customer asking if we had a specific certain magazine which came with a free gift. They wanted this specific gift. They were chasing a free pack of makeup and wanted a certain colour. When I advised that we had sold out they said that I was the twentieth newsagent they had spoken to.
Weird. Twenty phone calls and all that time chasing some free make-up. I imagine that my caller was not the only one interested in the gift. Maybe her call was an example of much bigger word of mouth.
I started to wonder if there is something I am missing about these free gifts that people would spend an hour on the phone chasing and then be prepared to drive 10 or 15 kilometers to pick up (as my caller would have had to do).
Are the deals really worth it. Some can be I know but make up?
I guess that sometimes the desirability of a gift can go beyond the counter value of the gift itself. It all depends on how the gift is promoted and maybe a celebrity connected with the promotion.
The folks behind frankie magazine issued a press release today announcing excellent growth…
frankie magazine’s phenomenal growth spurt continues, with sales up a whopping 32.57%* year on year. This makes frankie the fastest-growing magazine in Australia, a title it’s held for the past three audit periods.
And the result – released today as part of the ABC Aust ANPS Audit Jul-Dec 2010 – has given the frankie team yet another reason to smile. They’ve cracked the 50,000 issue mark and now sit at 50,832*, with a total readership of 199,000 (RMR).
Regulars here would know that I love frankie magazine. The sales growth it is delivering for newsagents is phenomenal and against the trend of so many titles. Well done frankie! We have successfully used frankie to drive sales of other titles by careful placement with the popular title.
As the latest newsagent sales benchmark study indicates, newsagents experienced a difficult Christmas and fourth quarter of 2011. While we each need to reflect the current conditions – economic challenges and structural changes – in our own business plans, there are steps we can take immediately to improve sales.
Here are thirteen simple and low cost steps newsagents can take to arrest declining sales or improve sales if they are not experiencing declining sales:
Share these ideas, discuss them, challenge them, add to them.
This list of ideas is by no means difinitive. Consider it a starting point.
It is easy to complain that sales have dipped. Smart business people see the numbers and act. How about you? Start today.
Greeting card sales in newsagencies dipped 4.3% in December 2010 compared to December 2009 … based on the newsagency sales benchmark study I have just completed. This decline in unit sales in December is steeper than the decline seen for the December quarter.
More than 75% of stores participating in the sales benchmark study recorded a decline in card sales in December. The average increase of the 25% of stores reporting an increase was 2.3%.
I put the greeting card sales decline down to the pre Christmas interest rate rise, consumer uncertainty which was a theme for all of 2010, increased messaging by text and social media and lack of promotion of the greeting card category to educate consumers about the emotion of sending a greeting card as opposed to a text message.
While it is too early to say, my sense is that greeting card publishers and retailers should team up to promote cards to consumers. You do not want to be wishing this had been done when it is too late.
We are promoting the ACP I Love Magazines campaign with this coupon on customer receipts. The coupon / ad is being included on all receipts for the duration of the promotion -directly from our newsagency software. I love the campaign as it is designed to drive traffic to newsagencies. The campaign encourages consumers to indulge their passion for magazines. There are cash prizes for shoppers as well as for newsagents. It’s a terrific campaign to kick in now that the school year has started and we are all getting down to business. Kudos to ACP for running this promotion and for providing participating newsagents with such an excellent range of collateral.
Newsagents using the Tower Systems software can download the coupon for free from the user area of Tower website. Other newsagents who want to use the coupon should email me and I will send it to them.
In the light of experiences newsagents have had and are having with insurance as a result of the floods and some experiences from Victoria following the bushfires two years ago, now is a good time for newsagents to check their insurance coverage.
Ensure that you have coverage for all of the events appropriate to your business. Ensure that your stock value is accurate. Ensure that your fixtures value for replacement is at the level it ought be.
The last thing you want is to find that you do not have enough coverage when you need it.
ASIC last week based Sandro DiDonato from being a director for four years because of matters relating to the collapse of Bill Express and OnQ. Check out the report in The Sydney Morning Herald.
I June 2008 I blogged about Sandro DiDonato and his role in a web of companies related to Bill Express.
It will be interesting to see if any of the Bill Express directors are ever held accountable.
Newsagents lost millions of dollars from Bill Express, They were led into the bill payment business by the ANF without any due diligence and buckled in the face of high pressure selling techniques – locking them into five year contracts.
Amazon offered a $20 gift card for sale through LivingSocial, a 1-day deal website, for $10. 1.35 million people grabbed the deal. People grabbed it too: more than 1.35 million of them. Analysts are saying that while the discount was steep, Amazon got more value from the buzz of the deal than it cost in the discount given. Then there is the breakage – the gift cards which are not used.Finally, Amazon recently invested in LivingSoial so they are boosting their investment.
What is interesting here is how deals are now promoted. Companies used to pay for advertising in TV and in newspapers and magazines to promote special offers. In today’s world, smart companies are using sites like LivingSocial and Groupon and their communities to drive more immediate success for their deals.
Here in Australia, deal a day sites are still in their infancy. I’d encourage newsagents to check them out. They can offer a low cost marketing opportunity.
The New York Times has published a piece offering perspective on the Amazon deal.
Giant UK supermarket group Tesco is launching a chain of beauty salons, with reports suggesting up to 70 salons by next year.
This is interesting on a couple of levels: the competition from a major retailer to a previously independent service offer and the extent to which a business like Tesco can and will evolve from its traditional model in order to achieve growth.
The second point is the more interesting from a newsagent perspective since we need to be discovering new revenue and traffic generating opportunities for our businesses.
Groupon is being hailed as the next big online ‘thing’. It attracts business from companies which would otherwise have used traditional media to reach consumers.
Groupon launched in 2008. It’s a deal-of-the-day website that is localised to major markets in the US, Canada, Brazil, Germany, France, the UK and a bunch of other countries. It offers one Groupon each day for each of the 150+ locations it serves. Businesses use the service as they would advertising except that with each Groupon there is a clear call to action.
The company just completed another round of funding which has resulted in the business being valued at around US$4.5buillion. Not bad for a start-up from 2008. We are going to hear a lot more about Groupon and the look-alike companies in this offer a day space.
I have been signed up for Groupon for a while. The deals which come through, while not available here, are fascinating.
Zoupon is an Australian site which plays in the same deal a day space.
In a related story, Amazon last week launched an iPhone App which offers daily deals. This and Groupon are examples of new channels for promoting specials and sales.
Douglas Fraser writing at the BBC blogs site offers an interesting perspective on the impact on UK newsagents of pressure from disruption from digital platforms. His post agrees with others that newspapers will play a more analytic role in the future and less of a breaking news role.