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

Author: Mark Fletcher

The rotting Bill Express carcass

I continue to hear stories of suffering relating to Bill Express.  The latest is from a supplier who has found charges levied to their business which relate to a business closely associated with Bill Express.  The six figure sum charges have been back dated by a supplier without any contract being in place.  They are for services not provided.  Documents I have seen show them to be charges which were originally levied to the entity associated with Bill Express. I’m told that a person representing that entity advised the supplier to invoice the non Bill Express related party.

The resolution is requiring legal action and engagement with the Bill Express related entity but the latter is a challenge because they are expert at smoke and mirrors.

Meanwhile, in thousands of newsagencies, Bill Express equipment sits in back rooms and elsewhere waiting for someone to claim ownership and newsagents wonder about the status of their lease agreements.

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Bill Express

Welcome Dick Smith

fhn_dick.JPGA new Dick Smith store opened opposite our newsXpress Forest Hill store (next to Australia Post) on Monday.  We are thrilled to have a national retail brand open so close to us.  With Australia Post, the other national brand tenant at our end, closed at key times (evenings, Saturday afternoon and Sunday) it will be good to have someone else drawing customers to our end of the centre.

Dick Smith features ink, an important category for us.  While we are comfortable with or competitive position on price, they will keep us on our toes in this category.  I suspect they will drive a response from our Australia Post store on ink prices and positioning.

On the Dick Smith store itself, it is an excellent design – very open, bright, welcoming and nicely zoned.  Each department is clearly identified.  The Dick Smith brand frames the entire offer inside and out.

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Competition

Darwin newsagencies do the shingle proud

nightcliff.JPGI got to visit several newsagencies in Darwin yesterday.  Each had evidence of pursuing new opportunities.  Each was keen to talk about ideas they have for their business.  It was motivating to see their excitement, especially in gifts and in managing magazines.  Magazines present a special problem here because of the distance.  Besides the difficulty in getting replacement stock, they only get two magazine deliveries a week, meaning busir mornings on the days of deliveries and greater competition for retail space.

While I have been to darwin plenty of times, the trip and visits to other cities over the last few weeks are a reminder of the importance to make an effort to understand the differences in newsagencies around Australia.  While we say we’re one channel, we are very different businesses because of local situations – and because we’re each our own boss.

The photo shows Nightcliff Newsagency.  This and other newsagencies could easily locate to Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane.  Indeed, the retailers I met with here could give many in the more populous states a run for their money.

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retail

ACA beats up scratch tickets

A Current Affair beat up scratchie tickets tonight, saying it is not fair that a customer may be sold a ticket for a game in which the major prize has already been claimed.  It was like they had discovered some new rip off.  Given the nature of the scratch ticket product the story was a beat up.  Sure the main prize may have been won.  Other prizes are available until the last few tickets are sold.  My experience is that most customers do not buy these tickets for the main price.  It’s a bit of loose change fun.

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Lotteries

November sales benchmark update

Further to my post Monday calling for sales data for November 2008 and 2007, I have received responses from ninety three newsagents.  I’d like to close this off tomorrow so if you are able to participate please send your sales figures by lunchtime.

Analysis of the sales data will provide a health check for our channel.  My analysis will focus primarily on Cards, Magazines, Stationer and Newspapers.  I will also look at Diaries, calendars, Ink and Confectionery but not is as much detail given the differences in newsagencies for these categories.

While the analysis looks set to reveal some concerning indications, it is better that we are aware of our individual and network wide performance year on year so that we can adjust our businesses accordingly.

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Newsagency challenges

VANA announces its marketing group

Click here to see a copy of the letter sent to Victorian Newsagents on Monday announcing The Futures Project, the new business management and marketing group established by VANA. As I blogged last week, this group is not the work an association should engage in, especially not VANA when their record on member representation has not been good.

The Futures Project cuts across what some marketing groups already do. It also cuts across some of what newsagent GNS does for newsagents. Curiously, VANA has developed this new commercial activity without involving either group.

The then VANA Chairman, CEO and another Director presented this project to the ANF six months ago. My understanding is that the ANF passed on supporting the project.

I approached the VANA CEO when I heard about this project two months ago. I expressed concerns that VANA was ignoring association work in pursuit of commercial activity. He assured me it was not what I thought. The announcement this week suggests otherwise. For the record, I note that I have had no other discussion with VANA about the project nor have I been I invited to any such discussion by VANA.

Newsagent Associations have an appalling track record on commercial activity. They would we well advised to focus on association services.

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Newsagency challenges

Great margin Christmas gifts

fhn_chirscds.JPGThe selection of ABC branded Christmas CDs we have in our newsagencies is selling well. Our price is $4.95 while the usual retail is $12.95. Our margin is 68%. Smart buying like this is crucial to building a deeper shopping basket and delivering a healthier overall GP for the business. At $4.95, this is an easy purchase decision for our customers – crucial since they have not entered our shop expecting to purchase a CD. The ABC brand is trusted – also crucial in making the purchase easy.

Building a healthy newsagency is made up of many small steps and a smaller number of bigger steps. Our approach to the small steps is evident in our selection, pricing and display of Christmas gift lines. We have a broad selection from a variety of suppliers which speaks to the demographic we serve.

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newsagency marketing

Managing customers at the counter

qmanage.JPGHigh traffic newsagencies and convenience stores in the UK have more options for managing customer than we have here in Australia. Take the fixture in the photo, this has been developed for UK newsagents and convenience stores around the magazine category. The same fixture can easily handle confectionery. The other use which is absolutely brilliant is for greeting cards. Each category – magazines, confectionery and cards – would work at the counter. There are two challenges for a unit like this in Australian newsagencies: would be feel it is too impersonal and what would our customers think?

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retail

Access to the newsagency channel

An ad on page 42 of yesterday’s Australian Financial Review claimed to be able to help suppliers achieve distribution in newsagencies and other channels. Having never heard of Future Markets Australia, I did some digging and found their website, the Shanghai Charlie website – about the person who registered the website and a weird document about health service issues.

Newsagents have GNS, other wholesalers and marketing groups to facilitate access to the network. The last thing we need is a middleman taking a cut for what others already cover.

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newsagency marketing

Dumpster divers find treasure in trash

dumster.JPGWhile we are not fans of spinners, two of our team at Forest Hill could not pass up this stand which they found at a dumpster. The stand is in excellent condition. It helps us resolve a Christmas space issue and provides welcome flexibility.  The deep shelves allow us to efficiently display a range of items we want to promote away from our traditional gift display. 

Dumpster diving can be rewarding – it’s certainly good for the environment.

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Newsagency challenges

The adult Christmas gift

xxx_christmas.JPGSome gifts are a challenge to display. Take this pack of adult magazines. It would offend many customers to make a feature of the offer so we rely on prospects finding it in the adult section of our magazine display. The challenge is that in traditional magazine fixturing the details of the offer are lost. That said, at least they have gone to some effort to create the gift pack.

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magazines

Promoting Christmas Gifts

fhn_ctree.JPGWe have extended the reach of Christmas gifts beyond our dance floor into the magazine and stationery areas of the business.  We have a selection of our range on display on what is usually a magazine power end for us.  We are compensating by promoting Christmas magazines at the front of the shop in another display.  This Christmas gifts display has been up for more than a week and sales are good.  Each of the items has been selected to be an easy (impulse) decision.  We did this knowing that people were not visiting our newsagency looking for gifts – we are not well established in that category yet.

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retail

Digital magazines hot

The ABCe, a publishing industry owned audience measurement and research body in the UK, is reporting readership for Monkey with 283,541 readers a week; iGizmo has 101,785; and iMotor, 108,622.  These are extraordinary numbers for new digital only titles.  These are all from Dennis Publishing.

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Media disruption

Lonely Planet magazine launches in the UK

BBC Magazines launched Lonely Planet magazines last week in the UK. It will be interesting to see if this joins other BBC megabrands such as Top Gear and Good Food and pursues an Australian edition – the BBC took control of Lonely Planet last year. The launch of the Australian edition of Top Gear has brought welcome interest to the motoring category. Th travel magazine category could do with some help.

Two rival UK publishers have complained that the publicly funded BBC is unfairly using its government ownership against competitors. The Press Gazette has more on this. This is not dissimilar to my argument about Government owned Australia Post shops here in Australia.

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magazines

November benchmark project for newsagents

I have decided to benchmark November 2008 against November 2007 to check the health of the newsagency channel. Tower Newsagents can participate by sending a Monthly Sales Comparison report: tick the box to exclude home deliveries, and tick the box to get a category breakdown. Set your first date range (on the left) to November 1, 2008 to November 30, 2008 and the date range of the right to one year earlier. Once the report is on the screen, click the PDF button to save this as a PDF, go into your email software and send a copy of the PDF to me at mark@towersystems.com.au.

I’d like to complete the benchmark by the end of the week so the sooner I receive data the better.

Newsagents not using Tower software wishing to participate should email me if they would like a spreadsheet template to complete.

I’ll publish the benchmark results here and elsewhere so all newsagents can benefit.

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Newsagency challenges

Glamor not proceeding

News Magazines announced today that they are not proceeding with the local edition of Glamour magazine. While rival publishers will be relieved, the competition which would have surrounded the launch will be missed.  It is  challenge to keep the magazine offer fresh and new title launches help in this.

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magazines

Smelling sales success

fhn_fragrant.JPGThese Vintage Traditions sachets are a good reminder of the theatre of retail.  Customers are drawn to their smell and some soon make the $2.50 purchase.  While our newsagencies are visually very noisy, smell wise they are quiet.  This product has the smell senses all to themselves.  Maybe that is why the range has been so successful for us in just a few short days.  We have it displayed with our range of boxed Christmas cards so there should be some flow on sales as a result.

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Gifts

Bonus with New Idea

fhn_ni_cookb.JPGI like the mini cookbook offer with New Idea this week. While there is something else to manage when selling the magazine, I like that provides us with a compact promotion at the counter. With so many magazines on the shelves at the moment with something stuck on the cover, it is good to see a different approach. Smart newsagents will treat this as the bonus gift, a surprise for customers buying New Idea.

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magazines

Newsagents promoted in FHM magazine

fhm_dec08.JPGThe January issue of FHM magazine which came out today has a double page ad promoting newsagencies. ACP Magazines is graciously running the ad without cost. This ad connects to the TV commercial I funded and the ad ACP has already run in TV Week. My creative team at Tower Systems has developed the artwork. You’ll see a broad range of newsagencies and brands represented.

Maybe, one day, newsagent associations will get behind this initiative.

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newsagency marketing

2009 will be a defining year for newsagents

2009 is shaping up as a defining year for newsagents. Besides the disruption caused mobile devices and the Internet and the challenges brought about by the so-called Global Economic Crisis, our channel faces considerable structural change as several key suppliers introduce changes to drive efficiencies for their businesses.

I am fortunate to have be a participant in briefings by several suppliers across different product categories in newsagencies. While I cannot share details of specific briefings, I can say that in 2009 more than ever before newsagent compliance around key business practices across multiple departments will be crucial.

While we can be frustrated that compliance is used by some as a stick, there are smart suppliers who will use it as a carrot. From what I have seen, most of the new compliance regimes in 2009 will be good for individual businesses.

Achieving compliance requires support from all stakeholders – the suppliers, your employees and the providers of any tools such as newsagency software. It is the area of software which has given me a seat at the table in various briefings over the last six weeks.

At these meetings I have robustly represented that newsagents need to gain as much as suppliers stand to gain from mutual compliance. Whether suppliers have listened remains to be seen.

2009 will be a tough year for our channel. The bar will be raised. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution Natural Selection will be evident.

Newsagents can best prepare by reviewing the efficiency of their business inside out. There is less room for wastage, mistakes and ignorance than ever before.

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Newsagency challenges

Magazine sale at Amazon

Amazon is running a massive magazine subscription sale for US published titles for delivery in the US. For example, GQ – $1.00 an issue, Vanity Fair – $1.25 an issue, Marie Claire 62 cents an issue. Click here to see the deals. This is tough competition for magazine retailers in the US.

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magazines

Future of e-paper

Editors weblog has published an excellent two part report by Jan Bierhoff, Director for the European Centre For Digital Communications, on the future of e-readers and their possible impact on print media. Click here for part one and here for part two. Bierhoff’s conclusion will comfort some:

The conclusion is obvious, the adoption potential for mobile electronic reading is certainly high, but it is a medium in its own right, not just another print or online edition spin-off.

I agree, electronic devices for reading newspapers and magazines such as the iPhone, Kindle and the long awaited e-paper models are of a medium separate to print.  The question to which we will only discover an answer over quite some time is the number of print consumers who migrate.

From a newsagents perspective, my view is that we need to read widely on this issue of disruption.  It goes to the heart of how we design our shops for the future, how we stock them and the control we assert over our businesses.

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Media disruption

Amazing customer from Sam the Taxi driver

Sam, a Sydney taxi driver, delivered one of the most amazing customer service experiences I have ever had. Yes, a Sydney taxi driver!

Sam, I don’t know his surname, has been driving taxis for nine months. Prior to that he owned a couple of Italian restaurants and had worked in hospitality in Sydney for thirty years.

I met Sam at around 9:30pm Thursday night when I had to catch a cab from Sydney airport back to the city when I had left my laptop at my hotel. This caused me to miss my flight. While I will not bore you with the details, because of Sam I picked up the laptop and made it on a flight to Melbourne, overcoming airline and other obstacles along the way.

Sam made it happen. Just when had resolved to staying the night in Sydney and catching a 6am to Melbourne Friday, Sam made it work out.

I don’t usually talk to taxi drivers. Nothing against them it’s just that when I travel I stay in my own world. Sam made that difficult. The moment I slid into the passenger’s seat next to him he turned and with a big grin said help and introduced himself, “Hi, I’m Sam, welcome to my taxi”.

It was such a different experience to what I experience from the hundreds of taxi rides I take each year that it was a shock. With his greeting Sam set the mood and that was key to resolving the challenges of getting getting to the city, collecting my laptop, getting back to the airport and making a flight I had no booking for.

The experience with Sam was the kind of experience I am sure all newsagents crave to have delivered across the counter in their shops with every transaction. In our 40 minutes together Sam got to the heart of good customer service based on his years in hospitality:

  • Love the customers. If you don’t get out.
  • Enjoy yourself. If you don’t then get out.
  • Be good at what you do. If you can’t, get out.
  • Always do something extra, unexpected. If you don’t then you don’t love your job.

Sam made it clear that by living by these rules we was able to find for himself the life he wanted. I have Sam’s number and will call when I next need a taxi in Sydney.

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Customer Service

The compact magazine challenge

frank_cleo_double.JPGI am undecided about the increased number of compact size magazines we are receiving with their full size parents. Traditional newsagent magazine fixturing is not designed to cope with these yet I can understand that some customers would prefer the smaller size. Beyond the display challenge, which can be fixed with a block of wood, there is the stock issue. When a title introduces a compact version we are often supplier close to double the usual supply until the sales level for the store is reached. Newsagents fund this until the level is found.

I wold like to see us agree terms for new titles and title extensions such as is happening at the moment with Cleo and its compact edition. Bill us once you know what we have sold and not in advance. the technology can handle this easily. It places responsibility appropriately with the publisher for the launch.

Network Services, the distributor handling Cleo, aggressively chases payments on the 20th of each month from newsagents for everything supplied for the month prior. They pursue payment more aggressively than any other newsagent supplier. With some of this money due to titles still being tested in the marketplace, a fairer approach would be for more flexible terms around these titles. The current arrangement sees small business newsagents unfairly funding this testing.

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magazine distribution

Marketing the calendar range

nx_cal.JPGnewsXpress has provided its members with copies of this double sided A2 poster to promote the 2009 Calendar range. Click on the thumbnail for a larger image. The idea behind the poster is to promote range. With most newsagents only selling magazine distributor and card company calendars, the newsXpress approach allows us to promote a key point of difference in the calendar category. With a margin of 60% and more, such promotion is valuable.

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Calendars
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