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

Author: Mark Fletcher

Magazine predictions for 2009

Dylan Stableford at Folio magazine in the US has brought together 117 predictions for magazines next year.  Some are thought provoking others are lazy.  I am about to sign off on a new shop fit for our Frankston store.  The plans include a good allocation of prime space for magazines – using UK designed and made fixturing.

While I am sure 2009 will present challenges for magazines, I expect that newsagents who embrace being a specialist will end the year with good results.  Our new shop fit seeks to position us to improve retail efficiency with the category and offer flexibility to roll with challenges which present.

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magazines

Exclusivity for carols

hscarols.JPGKudos to the folks at the Herald Sun for distributing the program for Carols by Candlelight excusively through newsagents. 

Beyond the extra traffic, it lets us show we are supporting the Melbourne based Carols event and not just chasing a buck for Christmas.

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Social responsibility

Devaluing the Vogue brand

voguedamage.JPGVogue does not look like a premium title when the promotional material shoved into each copy is so easily damaged in transit.  All of the cards promoting the bonus with the latest issue were damaged in our shipment.  We are contemplating removing them because they mage the magazine look damaged.  I appreciate that the publisher wants to promote the bonus – they need to do this in a way which respects their excellent brand.

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magazines

Weekend Christmas trade

I was fortunate to get to five shops I am connected with yesterday – three newsagencies and two card and gift shops.  Cards are strong all over – now is where I would love a card full of backup stock.  Calendars are doing very well.  Nothing is discounted except for the remaining small range of Advent calendars.  Magazines are strong in economically weaker areas. 

What surprised me was the number of other stores discounting – 50% off Christmas cards, gifts and calendars.  But they are not screaming discount.  It is a more passive approach and in one case something you know hear about only when you are in the store.

In one centre Calendar Club is discounting calendars at 25% off and in another centre Calendar Club is selling the same calendars at full price.

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Newsagency challenges

Great customer Christmas gift

fhn_pads.JPGWe took up the newsXpress Christmas gift offer and have these personalized pads to give to regular customers.  They promote our contact details and act as a nice Things To Do Today pad for placement next to the phone or elsewhere in the home or office. 

Customers react well when you give them something for nothing like this.  I’ll take any opportunity I can to promote my newsagency and the brand under which I operate because this is my point of difference. 

Gifts such as these pads are common in other national retail chains.

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newsagency marketing

The last weekend

Here we are, the big weekend before Christmas.  If today and tomorrow are anything like the last two weeks we will see cracker sales.  All stores in which I am directly involved and in a variety of demographics are trading well.  The only items we are discounting are Advent Calendars.  Year on year, where we have such data, we are in great shape.  But all that can change at Christmas based on one or two days trade.  Hence my interest in this weekend.  Rain would be nice – people flock to shopping centres when it rains.

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retail

Promoting Christmas

The photo below shows the Christmas product display customers walk past as they approach our lottery counter right at the front of our newsagency.  As you will see from other posts today, this is one of several in-store offering Christmas products.

mainpitchchristmas1.JPG

We are not as into gifts in this shop yet as other newsagencies so our Christmas pitch is more about the season and celebrating this than gifts in general.

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retail

Christmas at the counter

counterchristmas.JPGAfter an amazing three week run we have replaced our counter Australian Women’s Weekly display with Christmas gifts – as shown in the photo.  We have gone for easy to sell Christmas items here.  The mugs are selling especially well from this position as are small Christmas decorations.  It is great seeing people come to their counter with a newspaper, magazine or other items and then add a $9.95 mug to the basket. 

AWW will sell out this month as a result of the display we left in place at the counter.

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Gifts

Baby’s First Christmas

babyfirst.JPGGiven our sales of new baby, christening and similar baby cards, it’s a no-brainer to have Baby’s First Christmas gifts as part of our Christmas gift story. 

This display at the front of our newsagency is at the corner of the counter.  The range covers a broad price spectrum and as such suits various budgets.

While we have bigger Christmas displays elsewhere, we have found it useful to also have smaller themed displays such as this.

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Greeting Cards

Andre Rieu in Holland Focus

hollandfocus.JPGWe are promoting the latest issue of Holland Focus at the counter as it has Andre Rieu on the cover.  We should sell out all 12 copies we received.   Some of those will be Christmas gifts, this has arrived just in time.  We are seeing plenty of magazines bought as Christmas gifts this year. 

The counter promotion also reinforces our depth of range of magazines.

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magazines

Too big to sell

weliketosurf.JPGThe We Like to Surf book is too big for us to sell.  Way too big!  In our magazine fixtures it takes three pockets.  So, in addition to magazine KPIs around supply, return and shelf life we need to add product size and the definition of a magazine.  While sure to be of interest to some of our customers, this book is too big for us.

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magazines

Learning to trust (or not) a supplier

frillpen.JPGThe rep for these bright fluffy pens said they were selling well.  Since this was a new relationship for us we trusted them and placed an order.  A few weeks later we found the same product in a discount shop for what we paid the wholesaler.  Ours are not selling and I doubt they would in any store buying from this wholesaler.  The buy price is not good.   Based on our experience, we are less likely to trust this rep.

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Suppliers

Newsagents could leverage the Detroit situation

Some diesel fumes must have leaked into the executive suite at Detroit Newspapers and driven the bosses mad. The decision-makers announced Tuesday that the daily newspaper reading habit was as dead at the domestic auto industry. I call it Motor City Madness.

Read the rest of the assessment here by John K. Hartman, professor of journalism at Central Michigan University, of the announcement this week to cut newspaper home delivery in Detroit.

While there is certainly robust criticism in newspaper circles globally, that the shift is happening puts home delivery onto the agenda – as if it was not already.

If I were a distribution newsagent I would be calling for a summit ASAP, in the next couple of weeks (not after summer) to look at the Detroit move from an Australia perspective.  Such a newsagent only summit could also develop strategies around pursuing a fair return for home delivery effort. 

Something has to hapen because those representing newsagents on this have failed for decades – up to an including last week.  Use Detroit as a reason to come together and roll up the sleeves and decide what is best for newsagents and their families.  Then pursue that with vigour.

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newspaper home delivery

Newspaper subscriptions offer churns from good margin to bad

The Border Mail / Age offer from Fairfax is churning newspaper home delivery customers from good margin business to discount business.  This is not what these offers ought to be about, they should deliver incremental business.  I have now seen evidence of the Border Mail / Age joint subscription offer converting a customer for no increase in delivered days but delivering less margin to the publisher and to the newsagent.  Newsagents should not have to pay for publisher folly.  I hope that the newsagents involved make complaints direct to the ACCC.

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Newsagency challenges

Kudos to Whitcoulls

whitcoulls.JPGI visited the Whitcoulls store in Manukau yesterday and was most impressed with what I saw.  The store layout, signage and ranging is excellent, far better than their Australian counterpart Supanews and better than what I have seen from Whitcoulls before.  While Supanews and Whitcoulls operate in different markets I am surprised at the considerable difference in their retail offers.  This Whitcoulls store looked corporate yet the service was very personal.  Staff I noticed were knowledgeable and friendly.

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newsagency marketing

Interesting Newspaper subs offer in NZ

nz_herald.JPGIf you subscribe to the New Zealand Herald for six months you get to choose a free six week subscription to New Zealand Listener or New Zealand Women’s Weekly.  If you take a one year newspaper subscription you get to a twelve week magazine subscription.   I like that this offer combines newspapers and magazines and is pitched as a Christmas gift.  The twenty six week price is NZ$119.60 and the one year price is $239.20.  I don’t know the NZ market well enough to comment on the financial value to the consumer or the cost to the distribution business.

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marketing

Great newspaper Christmas gift

momentsinhist.JPGAt Auckland airport this afternoon I saw this in one of the newsstands – Great Moments in History.  It’s a collection of New Zealand newspaper front pages.  It’s a great Christmas gift which I am sure we could sell in Australian newsagencies.  I’d certainly give it a crack at Christmas or for Father’s Day.  It should be cheap to produce and therefore have a better margin than newspapers.

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Newspapers

Confusion around Fairfax bumper editions

Circulation departments at Fairfax are confused about the company’s plans for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age over Christmas / New Year.   People from Tower Systems have made eight calls to Fairfax in pursuit of consistent advice on their plans.  The original advice supplied to newsagents indicated that there were several bumper editions for the SMH and The Age.  Several Fairfaax circulation people we spoke with did not know anything about the plans.   

The Tower Systems research has uncovered that there are no bumper editions – in the sense of what bumper editions have come to mean in Australia.  The only change is a temporary price increase to the price of the Friday paper, to the Saturday paper price.  This will lead to anger from both home delivery customer and full freight home delivery customer who will be forced to pay the higher price on the Friday.

Fairfax will complain about this blog post saying here I am criticising them unfairly again.  The reality is that Fairfax had it is its capacity to resolve these issues through consistent professional advice provided weeks in advance of any change. 

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Newsagency challenges

Magazine reading banned

no_reading.JPGI heard about the sign before I read it.  A staff member called out to a browser from behind the counter.  No reading, look at the sign she barked. I looked up from across the aisle as did several others.  Sure ,the sign was there.  Two customers put down magazines and walked out, others muttered about customer service. 

Browsing is important for magazine sales.  Sure, there are people who abuse this.  Many do not and end up buying magazines they have browsed.  I don’t want any barriers between browsers and a purchase.  Signs like the one in the photo turn people off.

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magazines

Music with greeting cards

The new Cardplai offer which is being launched exclusively to newsagents through our Tower Systems eziPass software is ready for newsagents to sign up in advance of the February 2009 launch.  Go to their website to see the details.  The Cardplai cards is exclusive to newsagents and launched with a solid advertising campaign promoting newsagents.

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Greeting Cards

Promoting phonecards as Christmas gifts

aussie_register.JPGWe are promoting the Aussie and Earlybird phonecards as Christmas gifts at each of our registers with this small sign.  Giving someone conversations with family and friends overseas or interstate is a good gift.  For the customer it is a different gift and easy to wrap.  For us there is no stock cost and good margin.  The artwork for these signs can be downloaded free here.

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phone recharge

Last chance promotion

street_mach.JPGThe photo shows the display browsers at our newsXpress Forest Hill store see as they leave our men’s magazines aisle. 

This week we feature a Street Machine promotion.  The stand is from ACP – the front is their basket builder – so we always promote ACP titles here.  We are having good success using this as an aisle exit display – a last chance to buy display. If we move the magazine to another place we will choose titles based the type of customer most likely to walk past.

In the middle of the display is a shelf with product for easy purchase.

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magazines

Magazine gifts

magazine_gifts.JPGThankfully, not all magazine publishers think the best gift to entice customers is an old copy of the same magazine.  Right now on newsagent shelves we a good range of gifts available – sunglasses, a belt, a calendar, a bag, lipstick, a camping planner and, the best value gift of them all, a t-shirt.  While the gifts are a challenge to display sometimes, they are an important part of the fix for the titles which carry them and for us.  In our own stores we actively promote the gifts, as we should.

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magazines

N-Stock USB deal duds newsagents

N-Stock, the VANA / ANF stationery business, is promoting 2GB USB Wrist Bracelets for $10.25 on a buy three and get your fourth for free deal.  As one savvy newsagent emailed me – you can find 4GB USB Wrist Bracelets for $5.90 retail.  Associations have no role in running a stationery business.  VANA should not have gone into this business using member funds without member approval.  This latest offer is proof of why buying should be left to professionals.

The credibility of VANA and the ANF in representing newsagents to suppliers on matters of price are compromised by this evidence of their lack of commercial skill.

I know this blog post will frustrate Directors of VANA and the ANF.  If they had stuck with running their respective associations as associations then the problem I have described would not exist.  Their decision to go into this N-Stock stationery business is what has caused the problem here, not me.

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Newsagency challenges
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