We are promoting the latest Good Taste magazine with an in-location display, making it a hero title in our food section for the next week. This simple display is driving sales … food is such an easy category to promote. With in-location displays we have one on each side of each aisle.
I was discussing the magazine supply model with a representative of a magazine distribution business recently who was arguing that full retail real estate costs should not be apportioned to the magazine department as if it were a profit centre of thee business.
The argument was that magazines pulled in traffic and that this presented newsagents with an excellent opportunity for other sales. It was put that the full rent for the magazine space should not be applied to the magazine department cost centre because of this traffic pull.
Maybe, just maybe, prior to deregulation and the direct supply to petrol, convenience and other outlets this argument about traffic may have had some merit to at least consider. Today, definitely not.
More than 50% of magazines are sold outside newsagencies. While they do generate traffic, this has declined considerably since deregulation.
My newsagent sales benchmark data shows that magazines are sold alone around 50% of the time. That is, around 50% of people purchasing a magazine purchase other products at the same time.
While I accept that the efficiency of magazines is very much up to newsagents and their retail skills, there is no case to argue that magazines are effectively a loss leader for newsagents. Rent and labour costs are too high.
It is entirely appropriate that the magazine department operates as a cost centre. This is why it must stand or fall on its results. It is why I will continue to factor in retail real estate costs when I undertake magazine title cash flow analysis.
To magazine distributors and publishers who say that an assessment of the profitability of a title should not include the cost of retail space occupied by the title – I say you are wrong. Walk in my shoes for a year, pay the rent, labour and other costs. You will soon see that while magazines are important, they MUST pay their way … every title must pay their way.
In too many Australian newsagencies, there are magazines which are not paying their way – they are riding off the coattails of top selling and profitable titles.
I am concerned that lack of attention by newsagents, publishers and magazine distributors to this will irreparably harm the newsagency channel. We all need the magazine department to be a good profit contributor to newsagents.
I have enjoyed tremendous success with boxed Christmas cards over the years. The keys are to get in early (immediately after Father’s Day), to promote cards with a charity connection and to display them on trestle tables.
The suppliers I like and which have worked well for me are: Simson Cards (brilliant design range and excellent charity selection), Cardpac (brilliant range and a Peter Mac Hospital connection), Charity Greeting Cards (good charity support) and Hallmark Cards (not so good charity connection last year but much better this year).
I have had no trouble competing with supermarkets and majors as they take a different approach to boxed Christmas cards. They tend to not go out as early. Also, their range is usually more limited.
The Queensland Newsagents Federation recently published power saving advice which could inadvertently lead to newsagents to causing computer problems for themselves. Do not change power settings on your computer until you check with your computer supplier that doing so will not impact on your use of the system.
While the QNF recommended power saving options for a computer screen, a non computer literate newsagent made setting changes on the computer which caused system challenges.
Any supplier or association providing computer settings advice to newsagents should run this by newsagency software companies first.
Paid Content reports that Google is bringing local news to mobile devices based on location at the time. Google News Near You looks pretty nice, allowing you to check news as you move about – if you’re into that.
Check out this video promoting Aside magazine, the first tablet magazine for both iPad and Android devices.
aside magazine Trailer from aside magazine on Vimeo.
That is is being delivered on both platforms is the innovation everyone is watching.
We have been promoting our three top-selling health related magazines for women with this full face display in our women’s interests section. This is in addition to a co-location campaign for each which sees the titles in another location in store. In addition to showing off the full cover of each magazine, our goal with this placement is to drive sales of more than one title.
Our women’s interests section is next to women’s fashion.
Ever since Easter, Mother’s Day cards and gift sales have been strong. I think that the Royal Wedding has played a role. I have certainly seen some wedding magazines purchased as Mother’s Day gifts.
The Royal Wedding effect aside, the feel about Mother’s Day this year is more optimistic than in 2010. This is reflected in traffic as well as sales.
We have been running with cards and Mother’s Day books right across the front of the newsagency, facing into the mall. This prime space commitment has worked a treat. Sure there is far more browsing of cards and therefore work to tidy them – but the sales result is worth it.
With the big day now here, the challenge is … what’s next? It is months to Father’s Day. We are planning a series of promotions back to back, some we will advertise externally while others we will run using existing shop traffic.
So, while Mother’s Day is (almost) over for another year, the marketing calendar is full with activities to leverage the growing optimist we see and hear from shoppers.
Happy Mother’s day to all the mum newsagents.
We have been enjoying good sales from our Mother’s Day Book Sale with shoppers usually buying at least two books in each sale. Since we are not a book shop, many book sales are in addition to the destination purchase of cards, magazines or newspapers. Given the good margin, book sales are performing a welcome role enhancing our overall margin story. We have been promoting the Book Sale with a terrific catalogue featuring Mother’s Day focused titles as well as with tactical placement – to drive the impulse business.
We continue to make the most of every Royal Wedding opportunity presented to us. Today this New Idea Royal Wedding Special Souvenir Magazine is receiving prime positioning in several locations in-store.
I am not seeing any sign of interest in the Royal Wedding waning yet. We even had a customer in one of my newsagencies yesterday asking if we would sell them one of the posters for this New Idea special – we had a locally printed copy on display yesterday announcing today’s on-sale inviting pre-orders.
Today we have more stock of Monday’s New Idea thanks to a reprinting decision. We also have the AWW Royal Wedding special and more stock of AWW itself. So we are well setup for the weekend. I know that not all newsagents are this fortunate so I am not crowing too much.
What a terrific fillip this wedding is proving to be for us!
We have included the Mother’s Day themed Lovatt’s BIG Crossword title from as part of our Mother’s Day displays. We do this every year – because this tactical placement delivers incremental business. Simple as that. It is easy to place with Mother’s Day gifts. I have seen shoppers drop this into their basket with a Mother’s Day card and a gift. Where else could they purchase this crossword title for Mother’s Day. I see it as a terrific point of difference.
Check out this fascinating interview with Matthew Carlson, principal of experience strategy and design at Hot Studio Inc., a design company playing in the iPad and related spaces.
Anyone looking for how magazines could break out of the box on the iPad and other tablet devices should watch this compelling interview from the recent Web 2.0 conference.
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.