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

Author: Mark Fletcher

Business misses in the stimulus package

I am disappointed that the Federal Government has not seized the opportunity to stimulate business to business activity with its statement today. I would have liked to see a sizeable investment allowance of, say, 40% for approved capital investment. This would get businesses investing in their businesses and thereby driving a strong flow on through the economy. There are more sectors than housing which could do with government attention.

An investment allowance coupled with accelerated depreciation would stimulate business to business spending, help small business owners reinvent in their businesses and boost the economy including jobs.  It worked in 1976 when Malcolm Fraser introduced the same measures.  They also delayed some tax payments to give businesses cash.  The government could consider this if things get tight.

With an investment allowance and accelerated depreciation in place newsagents could complete a shop fit, but new equipment or undertake other business investment because of the encouragement of the benefits available.

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Newsagency challenges

Herald Sun ad supporting newsagents today

hs_support.JPGThis is photo of the full page ad in today’s Herald Sun promoting newsagents. While I have said this previously, this is tremendous support – they engaged off their own accord in support of newsagents. I am disappointed that VANA is not supporting this campaign. I suspect that small-minded politics stops them.

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newsagency marketing

Studying the ANF

A class at a University in NSW has set a project for its students to research and report on the ANF and, more broadly, the representation of newsagents.  I have been asked questions by several students, some quite insightful.  It will be interesting to see where their research takes them.

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Newsagency challenges

Newsstand on your iPhone

Old rituals wither and die; new rituals crop up and replace the old. Once upon a time, one of my favorite rituals was to stop every morning at a newsstand and load up on reading materials–three or four newspapers and often one or two magazines. The year was 1994.

I kept up the habit for about 18 months. Although I still read a ton of magazines, I almost never touch newsprint. But my daily ritual trip to the newsstand has been replaced by a routine check of my RSS feeds.

Now I can visit the newsstand and check my feeds, thanks to a clever app for the iPhone and iPod Touch called Newsstand.

Read the rest of this Macworld article here. Devices like th iPhone are incredibly disruptive to the print model. Newsagents need to take note and reflect this in their business from the shop fit out.

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Media disruption

Newsagent TVC collateral

support_newsagent.JPGThis is the A4 version of the posters we have created for newsagents to put in their window or elsewhere to display a connection with the TV commercial we are currently running nationally. There is an A3 version as well.

The first of four runs of a full page version of this ad is in today’s Herald Sun on page 76.  This is tremendous support for newsagents from the Herald and Weekly Times.

Advertising agencies tell us that the success of a campaign depends on the number of times a consumer sees the message – hence the importance of newsagents printing the posters and placing their in their windows or elsewhere to promote their businesses.

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newsagency marketing

Print versus online, the latest

A comment here today prompted me to check out some of the latest stories about the challenges of print versus online:

  • MediaWeek has a story about changes at Newsweek.
  • Bloomberg has a story about newspapers axing Monday editions due to falling ad revenue.
  • The New York Times says that newspapers’ online revenue is stalling.
  • BtoB reports about publishers opening retail businesses to promote their brands.
  • Roy Greenslade writes at The Guardian about newspapers that may survive.
  • The Editors Weblog reports that the editor of the Financial Times thinks that there has been a power shift from old media to new media.

This list is by no means complete, not even close. The stories listed above and others similar to them reflect the biggest challenge newsagents face, the challenge which many who claim to represent newsagents have ignored for too long.

I am not afraid of these challenges. No, they present a tremendous opportunity for us to reinvent ourselves – if we are game.

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Media disruption

eziPass serving newsagents well

Close to 1,000 newsagents use eziPass for vending mobile phone recharge, phonecards and other products. It has proven to be reliable and useful software for newsagents, especially since the collapse of Bill Express. Now that Optus is available, eziPass can offer newsagents all the top selling mobile phone products.

eziPass is free for all newsagents including the 1,500 newsagents who use Tower Systems software and the 1,200 newsagents with any of the other six systems on the market.

Last week, some eziPass users experienced challenges when POS Solutions updated their software without warning. Their update included an untested interface to PC TAFMO, technology used in the current version of eziPass. POS had not tested the software in-house.  It had not passed testing with the folks at TAFMO.  Had they followed basic testing requirements they would have found that the software had a bug and therefore not released it.  The TAFMO testing is crucial since they would know the environment into which POS was about to install its software.  POS knew they yet rushed the update out.

We alerted POS to their problem and they sound found the bug released an update to their software.  POS Solutions has blamed  Tower Systems for the problem. They have done this because they are about to announce their TAFMO interface and they want to switch people away from eziPass. This will be easier if they can discredit us.

There are other reasons POS has falsely accused us of causing the problem with their software but I will leave that discussion for another day.

The eziPass software continues to work well on POS Solutions installations and many hundreds of other locations. No update has been released. None was necessary. The problem which affected a small group of POS users was caused by them and fixed by them.

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newsagent software

Pitching the BOPO replacement

frank_visa.JPGWhile we have been offering prepaid Visa debit cards for some time, we have only recently installed the counter display unit. This has boosted sales. Customers can see the four products available and understand each. These are sold and recharged directly through our software. They are a great replacement for the BOPO product from the recently collapsed Bill Express, especially the Canvas card. The margin is good. Selling the card and starting an account connects the business with the recharge opportunity.

I like this type of recharge business because of the habit basis – this is something newsagents are good at.  Also, there is good research suggesting that selling the card means you are more likely to be used for recharge in the future.

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Financial services

Promoting the Bathurst winner

bathurstwinner.JPGWe have placed Men’s Health with Craig Lowndes on the cover with the Herald Sun to connect with his Bathurst race win at the weekend.

Even though this Men’s Health issue is close to coming off the shelf we figured it is worth a pitch.

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magazines

Lay By now for Christmas

With credit so much in the news, now is a good time for newsagents to promote a lay by service for Christmas purchases. Promoted well, this should attract sales which might otherwise have gone to a larger business more known for Lay By. Ure to take care of record keeping.

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retail

This is an open conversation

The comments made here recently have attracted the attention of respected Australian blogger Trevor Cook. This attention ought to serve as a reminder that this is a public place and that any comments posted reflect on the community as well as the person making the comments.

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Blogging

OFIS opens in Melbourne

hnofis.JPGOFIS, the new stationery model from Harvey Norman, opened in the Melbourne suburb of Mentone yesterday. It is easy to say that OFIS offers nothing new, that it is a clone of Officeworks and therefore dismiss it. What is new is that stationery has been flogged hard on Melbourne radio this past week. The arrival OFIS puts stationery on the radar and lets people know there are other outlets and that price is an issue.

Newsagents heavily into stationery and located near to the OFIS business will be affected. Newsagents who focus on stationery as a convenience service are less likely to be affected.  This distinction will become more important to us over time.
The Melbourne incarnation of OFIS is an advancement on the first stores of this new group.  The layout has been refined as has the core product pitch.  They have some categories which I did not see in the Sydney store, categories which newsagents could play with.

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Newsagency challenges

The value of discount vouchers

The Sunday Age today has a story (page 4 in the print edition) about the importance of discount vouchers in tough times.  Smart newsagents will make sure that every customer leaving their shop has an offer which aims to lure them back.  The voucher could be something printed on the copier in-store or printed using your point of sale software.  While I can’t speak for others, I know that our Tower Systems software prints vouchers – based on what has been purchased for for all sales.  I like this because the voucher becomes automatic.

I plan to take a careful look at the vouchers being issued by other businesses with a view to developing a strategic plan for the next three months.  This is something we need to be consistent with. The article in The Age is right – it is times like this that customers will be drawn to businesses offering deals.  For newsagents that has always been a challenge.

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newsagency marketing

Tattersalls copies Intralot again

hs_tatts.JPGI was interested to see the ad in the Herald Sun today for the new Tattersalls Monday and Wednesday games.  In addition to their use of the cloud art, which is a feature of Intralot marketing, Tattersalls is using an orange background – orange is the corporate colour of Intralot.  I do not recall Tattersalls using cloud artwork or orange as a key colour prior to their use by Intralot.

Looking at the ad this morning, I wondered if we will get to a point where Tattersalls and Intralot products are marketed in a unified way.  Either co-operatively or through some jointly owned vehicle or one under contract to the other.  There could be some sense in that.  Tattersalls copying Intralot suggests they like the idea of common theme.

For the record I note that Victorian Tattersalls outlets still have no viable use for the scratch ticket bays.  These prime retail position bays, next to each Tattersalls machine, have been useless since July this year. The most logical use for them is the Intralot scratch ticket products. Without Tattersalls agreement that is not possible.  They next alternative is impulse purchase product.  If Tattersalls cared about their retail partners they would open these bays up so we could gain some return on the expensive space.  Using them, as we are supposed to today, for posters is nonsense.

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Lotteries

The value of change

frank_bazaar.JPGA few weeks ago at our Frankston newsagency, we moved the ACP magazine display unit from the front of the shop to next to newspapers. This unit has been provided by ACP as a basket builder – to drive impulse purchases. For it to work it needs to be seen by customers. Leaving it in the one place too long means it becomes invisible to regulars. Our move has worked well for the magazines on display in the unit. It has also worked well for the magazine we feature on the back of the unit.  Harpers Bazaar is the current title benefiting from thisadditional display space.

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magazines

Financial Review cover-up

afroct11.JPGThis weekend’s Australian Financial Review has a post-it type ad for BRW subscriptions stuck on the front page. At least they have not covered a major headline or the masthead. However, it again shows that advertising is more powerful at Fairfax than editorial. I wish that Fairfax would invest as much in helping newsagents grow subscription sales for in-store pickup as they do for these hand delivered subscriptions.

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newspaper masthead desecration

Sony announces new reader

Sony has announced a new reader – a device on which you can read books and other content. This new device is lighter, more stylish and has a touch screen for easier reading. Check our Forbes for the story. Borders will sell this new device in the US. There is a lesson here for newsagents – a bookshop selling devices which could make print obsolete in the book category.

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Media disruption

Hatred and blog comments

It is disappointing that a few commenters at this blog spew hatred instead of rational comment.  The comments posted on Thursday evening by one person using seven different names served to make himself or herself look stupid and for readers to therefore disregard their view.

The purpose of my original post was to open a discussion about the future representation of newsagents on the national stage given the failure of the ANF.  That it deteriorated into the childish drivel it did does not hold much hope for the channel.

With around 1,500 visitors to this place each day including prospective newsagents and suppliers, I’d urge newsagents to take care with comments – unless you want our channel to look like a bunch schoolyard thugs who hate each other.

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About us

A wordle cloud for this blog

I was playing with Wordle yesterday – a website which creates a word cloud based on the content of a website. Here is what it came up with based on the content at this blog:

word_cloud.JPG

Wordle gives greater prominence to words that appear more frequently.

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About us

Collateral for newsagent TV ad

Newsagents wanting to support the TV ad campaign which starts this weekend can click here for an A3 colour poster or click here for an A4 colour poster.

This kind of campaign relies of consumers seeing and hearing the message multple times.  Hence the invitation for newsagents to engage and place the poster in their window or behind the counter.

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newsagency marketing

Smart lottery pack

ilot_triple.JPGIntralot has put together two Triple Pix packs to connect with Melbourne’s Spring Racing Carnival. Each pack is made up three products, providing an opportunity to introduce customers to products they may not usually purchase. I like that it mixes two online games with a scratch ticket game.

I may be mistaken but I cannot recall such a packaged offer in Victoria. The point of sale material is bright and enticing.

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Lotteries

Melbourne Observer supporting newsagents

mo_naad.JPGNewsagents in Victoria should check the inside back cover of the Melbourne Observer on the shelves this week. There, you will see the free ad they are running in support of newsagents. This promotion in the Observer has been co-ordinated to coincide with the national TV commercial which starts on air this Sunday.

It would be terrific if newsagents were to thank Ash Long and the team at the Observer for supporting newsagents.

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newsagency marketing
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