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

Author: Mark Fletcher

Missing Tractor partworks

fhn_partworks_oct09.JPGI have heard from several newsagents that they are experiencing supply problems with the Tractor partwork which was launched in June. If you are having trouble with supply of Tractors, please let me know. I want to understand the scope of the problem and help if I can.

Newsagents are the front line on partworks and if we cannot supply it affects our reputation with our customers. Publishers, importers and distributors need to understand the cost to our businesses of problems in their supply chain.

Many of us take on putaway orders for partworks in good faith. Inability to honour a commitment on this jeopardises business worth upwards of ten thousand dollars a year for many.

I do not accept the response of it has been more successful than we expected or the publisher has a supply problem. These excuses are useless when you are facing an irate customer with whom you have a contract to supply.

My experience is that partwork supply is good overall. All it takes, however, is a problem such as we appear to be having now with Tractors for the world to collapse and you left wondering if partworks are worth the hassle.

I wish someone would accept responsibility and apologise for the mess.

The photo shows our permanent partworks display.  This is in addition to feature space allocated toward the front of the shop for recent releases.  As the display shows, we are committed.

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Newsagency challenges

The fright of Halloween prices

halloweenprice.JPGI don’t often price compare with other businesses nearby because I don’t see price as a differentiating factor.  That said, on the weekend I checked out the prices charged by Cardeaux for their Halloween product.  They are charging between 33% and 50% more than us for exactly the same Halloween merchandise.  Talk about frightening people for Halloween.  Of course, we are letting our team know because shoppers go to Cardeaux thinking they are cheap.

The other difference in Halloween at Cardeaux and our newsagency is range.  We have five or six times their range.  We are finding that customers buy multiple items at once.

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Newsagency opportunities

Promoting InStyle magazine

fhn_instyle_nov09.JPGWe are promoting InStyle at the front of the newsagency this week. It is a classy looking issue and comes with a free designer bag and deserves the front of shop treatment. This is a display right on our lease line to attract passers-by. We will leave it here until the weekend. We also have a full waterfall display in the body of the shop.

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magazines

Promoting Men’s Health

fhn_menshealth_nov09.JPGWe are promoting the latest issue of Men’s Health magazine next to our main newspaper stand.  We are using the side of a Duracell batteries stand and a small wire magazine stand to hold the stock.  This ‘found’ space works well for the right title – one which appeals to the newspaper customer.  I expect Men’s Health to work well here.

I like this display because it shows what can be done when space is limited.  The proof, of course, will be shown in sales.

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magazines

Free MasterFoods base with New Idea

fhn_new_idea_oct19.JPGMy earlier comments about this week’s chunky New Idea notwithstanding, we have it on display at our main counter, between our two busiest registers.  I expect it to work well for us.  The recipe base is a good value gift.

We will leave New Idea up in this location until Wednesday if we have sufficient stock.

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magazines

Promoting Cleo

fhn_cleo_nov09.JPGWe are promoting the latest issue of Cleo at the entrance to our women’s magazine aisle this week.  We also have the title in its usual location further into the aisle.  Cleo is not a huge seller for us and our supply quantity is small – the length of time of this co-location will be determined by early sales.

On the location itself, this has been working very well recently: Good Food last week and Good Health the week before benefited from the prime position.

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magazines

Chunky New Idea

fhn_fat_newidea.JPGNew Idea is chunky this week with the free sachet from Master Foods recipe base.  While I understand the preference of the advertiser, I’d prefer to give the gift away from behind the counter and thereby not damage the presentation of the magazine.

Like other newsagents I am sure, we have had to store half supplied stock in the back room.

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magazines

Card relay refreshes card offer

fhn_new_cards.JPGWe are two weeks into our new card relay at our newsXpress Forest Hill store and early indications are good.  Hallmark has introduced new product into the mix and adjusted pocket numbers for some segments.

Hallmark has 75% of allocated space.  The total space allocation has not changed but the mix within this certainly has.  We have replaced the remaining 25% allocated to For Arts Sake with counter and lifestyle cards from Henderson Greetings.  The scope of change is significant.

It has been more three years since we made any moved on card range so these changes were long overdue.  That it had been left this long was a mistake we will not repeat.

We will look at performance on a quarterly basis with the card companies and tweak as we go based on their data and ours.

Each card, like every stock item in a newsagency or any retail business, must earn its right to stay.  To break even on real-estate costs, we need a stock turn from the card department of 3.5 times a year.

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Greeting Cards

newsXpress conference wrap up

nx_conf_room.jpgOver two and a half days in Melbourne last week, more than 250 newsagents and newsagent suppliers gathered at the Grand Hyatt for the 2009 National Newsagent Conference hosted by newsXpress.  From the welcome dinner Wednesday night featuring “Fast” Ed Halmagyi from Better Homes and Gardens and the opening speech of the conference by Shane Jacobsen (Kenny, the movie), the event was abuzz with excitement and opportunity.

While I am biased as I am a Director of newsXpress, I am certain that if you asked any attendee, including non newsXpress members, they would say it was an inspirational conference focused on building a healthier business future for newsagents and newsagent suppliers.  The mood was positive and the focus was on the future.  There was no discussion of industry politics.

I have been to many newsagent conferences and none has packed so many speakers genuinely relevant to our channel as happened at this conference.  Shane Jacobsen, while hilarious, gave us an insight into his journey to success on the world stage, business leader Geoff Lord followed with an excellent presentation on determination.  Over the course of the two days, we were treated to excellent presentations including three from key suppliers: Russell Parker, CEO Hallmark Cards, Nick Chan, CEO of Pacific Magazines and James Simades, CEO of Jenlist.  Each presented relevant practical insights into our channel and how we can grow core categories in our businesses.

Eric Beecher, former Fairfax editor and publisher and now publisher of Crikey.com and other online properties talked us through the challenges for print.  James Manning from MediaWeek outlined how publishers are adjusting to change.  Rob Smith CEO of Paper Plus in New Zealand provided an insight into how their group is dominating in key categories, similar to what we have in newsagencies, in New Zealand.

Costa Anastasiadis and Michael Rose from Crust Pizza and Simon Crowe from Grill’d Healthy Burgers talked about competing in traditional channels.   Both businesses have reinvented the offers in their respective channels.

As I said, the conference agenda was packed.  The social events were equally enjoyable and exciting, the food excellent and the positive networking a real treat.

The details of the 2010 National Newsagent Conference hosted by newsXpress were announced: September 8 through 10 in Sydney.  If you want to mix with positive proactive newsagents, mark the dates in your diary now.

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newsagency marketing

Selling the Michael Jackson calendar

fhn_jackson_cal09.JPGWe are displaying the Official 2010 Michael Jackson Calendar in a display unit separate from our main calendar stands to drive early sales.  While pre-sales have been exceptional, we want to drive equally good impulse purchases.  The calendar is stunning – its bold red cover stands out in the sea of colour in the newsagency.  We are using the display as a beacon to draw attention not only to this calendar but the broad range of calendars we have next to it.

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Calendars

Bulk Halloween sales

In one of my newsagencies we sold over thirty pitchforks to one customer from our halloween range.  Another customer wiped our our stock of skulls on a stick.  These were excellent bulk sales in a season not known for bulk sales.

Great business with good margin.

Halloween 2010 2009 is already the best ever based on our experience.   It will be bigger for us than Father’s Day.

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Newsagency opportunities

Let’s talk about the challenge tobacco retailing

Newsagents selling tobacco products face some tough decisions over the next few months with new legislation coming into affect, in some states sooner than others, which will place considerable restrictions on the display and sale of tobacco.  A newsagent emailed me recently with their concerns about this:

Just interested to get your thoughts on what to do in june 2010 when in NSW we are not alowed to have tobacco or related producs visable.

Currently in my newsagency (and im sure alot of others also) we have the cigarette cabinet in the prime position on the wall behind the counter, it is in the most secure area of the store, and the most visable at point of sale.

In June the cabinets will have to be covered, and i am assuming that they might not look great, but will have less sales impact than they do now.

My thoughts at the moment are to invest in a flat screen TV and run a slide show of promos for all things in the store. NDD and NSW lotteries have powerpoint files that can be downloaded from their websites, and with a few more store/town specific images im hoping it will fill the void and promote products throughout the store.

The cigarette stock i will then put in drawers behind the counter.

These concerns and questions reflect those of newsagents who have called to discuss the same issue.

I am not in a position to comment from a personal perspective as I got out of this category years ago because sales were not strong and I did not like the reduction in control over the category.

I am publishing this topic here to provide a place where newsagents can publicly discuss the challenges they face with changes in tobacco retailing.

As I have blogged recently, this is an challenging issue for newsagents in the UK.

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Newsagency challenges

The stock movement strategy

fhn_new_books.JPGOur team at Forest Hill has a well-considered strategy for moving stock from the prime (initial) position to the second and, sometimes, third location in the life of a product with us.  This is on display with our handing of books.  Our book sale did very well but we have some stock left which we would like to try and move before considering returning.  Given that we need the sale tables for other categories, we have moved the books to above magazines.  Our team has sought, where possible, to locate books which fit with the magazine categories below.

We have used this approach as the second resting place for books before and have achieved sales as a result. The product is neat,easy to access and often purchased in addition to a magazine purchase or by someone who only visited to browse magazines.

Too often I think newsagents quit a range when a sale ends when there are opportunities to get additional business before considering returning.

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Book retailing

Expanding the boxed Christmas card range

fhn_cards_selective.JPGEarlier this week we expanded our boxed Christmas card range with the European designed Selective range from Hallmark.  This is phase two of our boxed Christmas card strategy.  The moment we started putting the cards out they were selling.  They are a good variation of the more traditional boxed cards we see here in Australia.  The margin is good too.

Our boxed Christmas card story has more elements yet to be implemented.  We have foudn that phasing the offer in is better given space constraints and that Halloween is such an excellent season for us.

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Greeting Cards

End of the week

It is the end of a long week.  I have been at the newsXpress conference in Melbourne for the last two and a half days – I’ll blog about some of the presentations over the weekend – working on plans for a new newsagency location I will have a share in, met with six newsagent suppliers on a range of subjects, participated in several key meetings relating to my newsagency software company, put out magazines at Forest Hill Monday and Wednesday, hosted two workshops for newsagents on how to create business turnarounds, released the latest benchmark numbers in a presentation to the newsXpress conference, talked to a ton of newsagents (on the phone, by email and face to face) about a range of issues, met five or six new newsagents and been involved in an excellent discussion about the future of the channel.

I am fortunate to have this variety and while the week has been exhausting, it has been exhilarating and exciting.  We have some excellent forward thinking newsagents and suppliers who chase change and innovation,  These are our future.  These are the people I enjoy talking and working with the most.  They are channelling, demanding and exciting.  They make weeks like this inspiring.

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Newsagency opportunities

The double standards of 7-ELEVEN

In the 1990s, 7-ELEVEN challenged the newspaper and magazine distribution system.  They succeeded in breaking the monopoly newsagents had on distribution.

Today, I am aware of 7-ELEVEN, (a franchisee or the company itself I am not sure) demonstrating double standards.  They are pressuring a state government authority into not allowing a newsagent two hundred metres away to sell transport tickets.

So much for their pitch years ago for competition.  Those trying to block a local newsagent selling transport tickets are showing themselves up as protectionists.

If 7-ELEVEN were true to their pitch to the ACCC and its predecessors on competition, they would stop the putting of an argument for protection as it appears is being put today.  They would not try and block the newsagent nearby getting transit tickets. After all, they got magazines and newspapers in their shops.

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Newsagency challenges

Twin magazines?

kitbath_duo.JPGLook at these two magazines.  There is not much different between them.  Just about the same title.  certainly chasing the same market.  We see this every day in newsagencies.  Locally published magazines chasing the same marketplace.  We carry the cost of this because we make accessing our real-estate each and cheap.  It’s frustrating – as it must be for the publishers who probably think they deserve to have space in our shops.

The problem is that the channel does not work that way.  Any title can get out is the publisher pays distribution fees.  This hurts us, puts some poor product out and confuses consumers and, in the long run, the magazine category suffers.

We need to find a way to control access to the newsagency channel.

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magazines

Chasing Halloween lottery sales

fhn_halloween_synd.JPGThe Halloween $20 million superdraw syndicate sales are ticking along well.  They are being helped by our strong Halloween merchandising displays.  We have not gone all out on promoting this because of the $15 million Powerball jackpot.  Now that has gone off, we will focus on the $20 million.  As the price posters show, our key syndicate focus is on lower value tickets.  This is what our customers prefer for the Saturday draws.  We sell tons.  As they sell out, we have new same value syndicates ready to load.

Our syndicate sales board approach works for us.  I have seen others with more professional collateral and higher value tickets.  We have traied that.  The approach shown in the photo works a treat for us.

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Lotteries

Pet porn?

pet_porn.JPGWhen I first saw this cat and dog magazine pack I wondered if it was some kind of porn.  That’s what the packaging reminds me of – plastic bagged, a black and white sign in front.  I was looking for the (R) Restricted logo.   Seriously, who is going to buy this product?  $9.95 is too much for a lucky dip purchase.  There is no indication of the quality of the publications or their age.  Whoever is responsible for putting this out ought to learn a thing or two about how to present product.

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magazines

Ink sales strong, driving good traffic

ink_sales_strong.jpgWe are experiencing double digit growth in ink sales this year – in a year on year in a mooving annual total comparison just undertaken.  We are seeing excellent sales from repeat business as well as new customers visiting as a result of our marketing.  We have been using large posters in the shopping centre as well as flyers distributed to homes in the area.  The double digit growth is excellent given that we have a new style Dick Smith with a great ink office a few metres from us, Australia Post oppposite, Big W pushing hard in this space as well as an Officeworks and Harvey Norman nearby.

Our manager and key architect of the competitive strategy, Jason Schwarten,  outlined how this has been achieved at the newsXpress conference in Melbourne today.  His positioning of the ink offer in the face of significant new competition has seen us do well in the face of tough new competition, proving that small businesses can grow in such circumstances by playing to their key points of difference.

Ink is now used to drive sales of other categories.

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newsagency marketing

Bloomberg: Print is not dead

“I’ve never believed that print is dead. I’ve always believed that there are two problems with print journalism today. One is lack of advertising, some parts of which will come back, and two, when nobody is buying your magazine or your newspaper, it’s because you’re not writing what people want to read.”

This is Michael Bloomberg speaking after the announcement overnight that his publishing company will purchase Business Week.

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magazines

Moving fixtures to freshen the newsagency

fhn_acp_builder_oct14.JPGWe moved our main ACP Basket Builder stand from next to the counter to the side of the newspaper stand facing our stationery department and our copier yesterday.  While not as busy as at the counter, it will be seen by a different mix of people.  I’d expect this to make the stand work for us given that it had been in the old location for more than a year.

The move also opens up the view from the counter across to the broader magazine department.  I’d expect flow-on benefits from this.  The only obvious downside is the loss of the back of the unit for visual merchandising use.

We will monitor the impact of the move over the next few weeks.  If the impact is negative we will take remedial action.

The key with this move is change. We need to pursue this relentlessly in our businesses for ourselves as well as our customers.

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magazines

How advertising can block magazine sales

fhn_alpha_bag_oct09.JPGThe latest issue of Alpha magazine is a good example of how advertising can get in the way of selling a magazine.  Alpha comes with a product catalogue.  This is too big to be inserted so it is bagged.  Alpha is a magazine guys like to browse.  I’d expect sales to fall since it is bagged.  Either that or bags will be opened, the magazine browsed and the product catalogue left for us to clean up. Alpha is not the only magazine doing this.

I wish publishers would watch consumer interaction in-store.  I am certain that if they did this they would realise that some titles should never be bagged.

The other issue here is the use of my space for a catalogue.  Alpha is double the thickness this month.  This means double the retail space.  Yet I am paid no more.  This disrespects newsagents and others who retail this title.

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magazines

Glamour hides the book

fhn_glamour_oct.JPGThe latest issue of the imported Glamour magazine, our yesterday, comes with a free novel.  The only indicator on the cover of the gift is a yellow sticker on the plastic wrap.  I can’t imagine this doing much for sales.  We address this by display the front and the back of the magazine.  We were luck to have the space to fix the publisher caused problem.  I want the incremental sales from the book gift.  The publisher has not thought the presentation through.

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magazines
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