I am surprised to see the Annabel Karmel cookbook in newsagencies in Australia. Our food section is full. Now we need space for Annabel. While I respect Annabel’s work, I question the need for another British cookbook here – we have good Australian titles which struggle. The price point is high as is the quantity we received.
Newsagents need the opportunity to say no to new titles and know that their decision is respected.
The pink camera we have as our Hallmark Mother’s Day Giveaway is a great promotion. I like that it is a local prize – one of our customers will definitely win. This is important given that we are pitching local shopping at every opportunity. A national prize does not have the same local appeal.The camera connects back to the Hallmark Card for Cure campaign. Hallmark has been recognised for their contribution to the workd of National Breast Cancer Foundation.
Often prizes for competitions are impractical. The Sony camera is practical, just about anyone will have a good use for it.
I was at the announcement at Crown Casino today where Intralot was announced as a sponsor of Melbourne Victory. This sponsorship will raise the Intralot profile. Leo Watling, head of Intralot in Australia, drew a good analogy between the Victory’s launch in AFL crazy Melbourne and Intralot’s launch eight months ago in the face of very tough competition. The launch was well attended including good media representation.
The one controversial comment at the announcement was when Victory Chairman Geoff Lord answered a question about the AFL and their planned move to Western Sydney. He said the AFL would never get off the ground in Western Sydney. He then corrected himself and made it clear it was his personal opinion.
After careful consideration, we have decided to quit the Crayola range after two years of trying to make what we need to justify the capital and labour investment. The decision is in part due to challenges the company presents to newsagents who want to carry a broad Crayola range.
If I could buy direct and on competitive terms I’d reconsider since I could then more effectively compete with the majors.
Zoo Weekly is half price this week, at $1.95. We are promoting it in a counter unit in prime position at our main lottery counter.
While I’d prefer to make regular cover price margin, I’m happy to use the offer to find new regular customers.
I have heard Warren Buffett referred to by newspaper publishers as supporting of the print medium. In at least two presentations over the last few years I have heard that Buffett and his business partner, Charlie Munger, read five newspapers a day. This was presented as support for the future of newspapers. Newspaper publishers are unlikely to refer to Buffett again thanks to comments he made a few days ago at the annual shareholders meeting of his Berkshire Hathaway business where he told his shareholders that US newspapers face “unending losses” and that they are no longer “essential”.
What does this mean for us here in Australia? Publishers will tell us it is business as usual. They would want us to ignore what is happening in the US. Some newsagents will believe that. My view is that the crash of US newspapers we are witnessing this year is an early warning of what will happen here in the future. Our excellent home delivery system is delaying the impact because small business newsagents carry the more of the high cost of distribution than delivery contractors in the US. We are also insulated because debt levels of publishers are different here – although Fairfax does appear to be more challenged in this area than News.
Rather than focusing on the gloomy news, we need to embrace the opportunity.
Newsagents need to make business decisions with the full knowledge of what is happening to newspapers in the US. We cannot rely on newspaper generated traffic to our businesses forever, not even for five years. We need to build new traffic urgently. In-store, we need to be flexible in our offer, expand our range and focus on categories which generate their own traffic and do not rely on newspaper traffic to drive sales.
While it is sad to see US newspapers crash, we have a once in a lifetime opportunity to reengineer our businesses before we loose newspaper traffic here. We need to focus on that opportunity and embrace it for our own future.
UPDATE: Fox Business has the full quotes re newspapers.
BusinessWeek.com has published an article by reader Gregg Mizuno in which we makes the case for US newspapers going weekly or biweekly to compete with breaking news online and the other challenges being experienced in that part of the world by newspapers. It’s good reading for those contemplating opportunities for newspaper brands.
A florist in Frankston gives us a nice flower arrangement in the lead up to Mother’s Day to promote their business and provide one lucky customer with a fresh arrangement for their mum. I like that this promotion supports a business in our centre, gives our customers a winning opportunity and brightens the shop for a couple of weeks.
I’d note that this is not our initiative, it started long before we bought the business. We’re happy to maintain the tradition.
Your Garden magazine is selling well in my newsagencies. The latest issue has achieved a 95% sell-through. We achieve good sales in the first month through placement at the top of a column of gardening titles, next to Burke’s Backyard or Gardening Australia – our two top-selling gardening monthlies.
We move Your Garden a couple of times through the on-sale (as we do many magazines) to combat store-blind customers shopping the category. We try and do this with our top selling longer on-sale titles.
We sell more copies of Your Garden than the other two titles.
I saw this sign in a shop window over the weekend. It speaks for itself.
We will probably sell out of the Catherine Martin guest edited edition of Vogue Living in our Frankston store. Yes, Frankston! The sell-out will occur because of the excellent collateral provided to support the title – as the photo shows. I know of newsagencies where this issue will not sell out because the marketing support is not equal to that which we received in Frankston. As comments on another post have shown here recently, newsagents would appreciate an opt-in situation for marketing collateral for magazines. While there would be some work involved in making this happen, the resulting in-store effort by proactive newsagents is bound to drive sales … as we are seeing in Frankston for Vogue Living.
Further to my post on Thursday, US stationery group Office Max overnight reported a 17% fall in sales – within one point of the fall experienced by Office Depot.
I suspect that the majors in Australia in stationery are experiencing similar falls, Officeworks, Corporate Express and others. This is where newsagents can benefit. While people will not go to Officeworks to do a $500 stationery shop, they will come to a newsagency for the incidental items and, hopefully, pick up other stationery items. Whether they do, however, is entirely up to us.
We maximise the stationery opportunity by presenting professionally, adopting an enticing pricing policy, focusing on brands and backing all this will brilliant customer service.
Right now, our stationery sales ought to be growing. I know from the recent benchmark study that they are growing in half the newsagencies. It is the other half I am concerned about.
On a rainy day last week, our team at Forest Hill setup this display near our photocopier. I like it because it guides customers to a purchase for a purpose, especially if it is raining outside. It also brings together products from several categories: kids magazines, craft products and activity books. In most cases, the items promoted are usually located further away from the main traffic area of the shop. The only item I’d add if we carried them would be an umbrella.
Finding space to promote Wheels magazine near where the guys browse at Frankston was a challenge. By using the back of the ACP magazine basket builder stand the display in the photo was created and located adjacent to our men’s magazine section. Sometimes this stand is placed against a wall and used from one side and other times it is used on both sides.
While I am biased, the Wheels display looks stunning. It has been selling magazines too.
Someone who stole several items from one of our shops last week visited us again on Tuesday. One of our staff members identified him from the photo we have from our security system. I am surprised that this chap would have the gall to come back in. He was clearly preparing to steal again. Our staff member approached him and he left. They followed policy and called centre management. What bothered me was that this thief was shopping for specific items. Talking with someone in centre security, they say that theft is on the increase based on their call-outs.
The marketing collateral from Intralot promoting scratch tickets as gifts for Mother’s Day looks enticing when placed with greeting cards. While this is not how it was intended to be used, I saw it at our Frankston newsagency today – in with Mother’s Day cards. Enterprising! I’d love a camera trained on this and see how people react.
Talking with customers at our Epping Sophie Randall store we discovered that bushfire victims were buying calendars to replace those which were lost in the fires. Through the relief centre at Kinglake, we have donated calendar stock we had left for distribution as they see a need. I am sure that newsagents with spare calendar stock would find welcome homes through the Kinglake or other relief centres.
Christine’s BIG Crossword from Lovatts which went on-sale today is a special issue for Mother’s Day. In addition to the usual location for BIG, we have it on display in the stand (as shown in the photo) next to our newspaper stand as well as part of our Mother’s day display in our card and gift department. We know that promoting seasonally connected issues of magazines can achieve a lift in sales when the promotion is outside their usual location.
The Swine flu cover story in New Scientist which went on-sale today is timely. We have placed this issue above in a display unit The Age in our newspaper stand. This location has a successful history in boosting sales of magazines which connect with the day’s news. The Swine flu coverage is a great opportunity to bring New Scientist out into our mainstream customer traffic.
NANA, the Association representing newsagents in NSW and the ACT has announced its intent to participate in the sale of NSW Lotteries. While short on details, the plan appears to be that NANA will join with other parties to bid. It will be interesting to see if newsagents stump up the cash to be a stakeholder.
I was surprised to see the Adelaide Advertiser make noise the other day about their online subscription offer. Smart Edition, as it is called, costs $2 for a single copy – less per copy for a longer commitment. News Ltd has offered this for some time for titles like the Herald Sun and The Australian. So, I am not sure what is new about this.
They are using the Newspaper Direct platform. This is used by over 1,000 newspapers.
While I have doubts about the consumer interest in accessing newspapers in this way, newsagents ought to be across this pitch from News and the challenge it presents to our retail channel.
We are using the empty space below one of our Tattersalls screens to promote the new Mince cookbook from ACP this week. I picked up the idea from one of the comments made by another newsagent here a week back – they sold out. The greater value we extract from high traffic areas like Tattersalls counters the better for us and all of our suppliers. We will change the offer weekly – essential given the frequency of visits by regulars.
With most Australians $900 better off this month thanks to the hand out from the Federal Government, I am surprised that newspaper publishers have not pitched a stimulus bonus subscription offer. They could have easily and cheaply promoted an offer which chased some of the $900. A well pitched offer would have helped their businesses as well as thousands of small business newsagencies. Perfect use of the stimulus payment I’d say.
The treatment of newsagents by News magazines over Alpha magazine is, in my view appalling. We built this title on a promise of partnership with a significant financial carrot as our return. News magazines has taken that carrot away and handed the title to NDD, a magazine distributor with a less than clean track record for equitable supply of magazines and with a history of refusing to cut titles – that it my experience at least.
So, here we are, shafted. My question for newsagents is what are we doing about this in our businesses? Are newsagents writing to NDD to cancel the title and copying the correspondence to News Magazines? Are we complaining here and in other places but putting Alpha on the shelves as usual and thereby saying to suppliers that it is okay to whack us again and again? Or, are we doing nothing? Traditionally, newsagents have done nothing when suppliers have changed commercial arrangements to the detriment of newsagents.
One day, newsagents will stand up for themselves. I wonder if that day is now.
Mother’s Day is the second biggest season for greeting cards on the newsagent seasonal calendar. It is beaten only by Christmas and is around 50% ahead of Valentine’s Day. While card sales equal only 20% of Christmas, is a very important season, generating considerable additional traffic in newsagencies.
Like most newsagents, we are pursuing every opportunity to maximise sales. We have had our Mother’s Day gifts in display for several weeks. The photo shows only part of our range. Going out early with key seasons like Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Father’s Day is an important strategy. It shows off our range to browsers and provides a selling opportunity for those who like to get in early.
We grew Mother’s Day card sales by 22% in 2008 over 2007. We are chasing double digit growth this year.