We are promoting the latest issue of Uncensored in the newsagency in time with the US Presidential election campaign. While the magazine content is not for me we didn’t want to get in the way of Donald Trump selling some extra magazines.
Click here to see the story on ABC TV’s Media Watch last night about women’s magazines. Fascinating.
I am currently on a flight from Melbourne to Manchester via Dubai for a quick business trip. Thanks to in-flight internet access, I will not land at the other end to emails and messages. While it is important to turn off occasionally, it is even more important to be connected so business can continue regardless of where in the world you are.
At the AFTA trade show for fishing and outdoors retailers on the Gold Coast on Sunday, my software company’s stand was next to the stand for Gibson, a gift supplier to newsagencies. The adjacency was a reminder of the blurring borders between retail channels.
Gibson has ranges of eyewear that are ideal for fishing and outdoor businesses. They work equally well in newsagencies in some location.
The experience was a reminder of why we are seeing products previously only in one channel appearing in other channels. The same is true for newsagencies as we carry products today that even last year had never been sold in a newsagency business.
I think the blurring of lines between retail businesses is good. It diversifies those businesses engaged and that strengthens them.
I certainly picked up some newsagency-relevant ideas from the AFTA show on the weekend.
I expect strong interest in Draw The Marvel Way that launched yesterday. We have a ton of Marvel licenced gift, collectible and other product in-store plus there is the News Corp. promotion – so, between all this now is the time to do anything Marvel in the newsagency.
I like the Treasures From The Archives title under the AWW brand from Bauer.
I like it because I know nostalgia / vintage sells. I also like it because it connects with serval ranges in other departments in-store.
I’d love to see more one-shots like this one from several publishers – but not all at once. Exclusive to newsagencies though as only we have access to products to pitch with these opportunities.
Launching Monday August 1, newsagents will be able to offer the first two of four Official Australian Olympic Pins. The pins will be available for $1 each with the purchase of New Idea, Who or That’s Life.
This is a newsagency channel exclusive promotion from Pacific Magazines.
I have a set of the pins. They are terrific quality. They are based on the boxing kangaroo character.
Newsagents need to support this promotion 100%. All newsagents. Blanket support by our channel will demonstrate to Pacific Magazines and other suppliers the value of our channel.
I will have more to say in a few days about practical ways we can support this opportunity outside what is usual for newsagency businesses. However, start today by teasing the opportunity on Facebook. As this is exclusive it is a perfect opportunity to pitch the pins and the magazines they are purchased with.
I am grateful to Pacific Magazines for providing a set of pins and background information.
On the Gold Coast yesterday I got to see how The Sunday Mail was using the front page of the newspaper to launch the Marvel promotion. The extraordinary coverage in this and other News Corp. papers for the promotion is is being greeted with cynicism by plenty of customers according to newsagents who contacted me over the weekend. One newsagent quoted a customer: Does Rupert really think a comic promotion will stop us noticing the price hike? Tell him he’s dreaming.
If this feedback is a common experience in newsagencies, News Corp. might be best advised to not time promotions such as this with cover price rises as the two separate activities. Promotions and price rises need not be linked in my view.
Here is the display I saw in one newsagency on the Gold Coast on the weekend. This space commitment is common in newsagencies, considerably more that you see in supermarkets that are part of the promotion.
In addition to this newspaper stand display, there is this unit outside the entrance to the shop.
There is no missing the promotion. Prime space out the front of the shop, on the front of store newspaper stand plus at the counter. This promotion is everywhere.
While I think the promotion is terrific in driving incremental newspaper purchases, I do not see how newsagents can make money out of it, not based on the margin from newspapers, not considering the value of the space allocated, the labour involved, the capital invested and the cost of shrinkage.
Considering all I saw in Queensland on the weekend – the freestanding unit out the front of the shop, the dressed up newspaper displays and the counter display – I think the stand outside the front of the store is the most important as this is the traffic driver for the business. Plus it is easily moved and it can take space that is otherwise not used.
But back to the key point I want to make – frustration newsagents are hearing from some customers about the cover price rise. This, tom me, is a challenge to be addressed as price rises will continue.
Take a moment and give the backup of your main business computer to an IT professional to check whether they can restore the backup and to see if it contains everything you need to get up and running. Check with your software company – they should offer this backup check service for free.
Almost once a week I hear of a newsagent losing days, weeks or even months of business data because they did not have a backup or their process was faulty.
Please act, to choose to not be the fool who loses business data.
The sign I saw at the counter of the coffee shop I was in was simple and to the point.
The message was a challenge and opportunity. If you are not given a receipt, your order is free.
While this is not new marketing, the language they use is more fun than similar signs I have seen.
Dear coffee lover. Look over here. Can you see me? Awesome.
The sign has fun with an important goal for this business – to give a receipt for every transaction. This goal is important where the receipt is used for more than is traditional for a receipt. If the receipt has another marketing message you’d want to get it into the hands of as many as possible – as is the case with this business I visited last week.
I love their approach and that they have turned a business objective into a cool marketing engagement.
I saw a shop a few days ago that used wine and champagne boxes as floorboards, bringing character and warmth to the shop. The feel was different to what you usually see in retail with real or fake wood planks or carpet. These flattened boxes looked terrific and created a memorable business.
Labor has maintained its election campaign commitment to small business with the shadow minister for small business taking a position in the shadow cabinet. This is an important move as it makes a statement, it reflects action beyond the words of the election campaign. This is a difference to the downgrading of small business focus by the government.
More newsagency businesses have been attacked by ransomware this week – where computers were located out and a demand for payment made to unlock access.
The fastest way to recover from this situation is if you are using a professional cloud backup service that maintains a perpetually up to date backup without the business running and end of shift backup.
An end of shift backup will see you lose too much data.
No backup is plain stupid.
I urge newsagents to review their backup arrangements, to ensure their business data is protected in a way that reflects the value they place on their business data.
A pen that conducts electricity. Amazing!
Changing the definition of stationery.
I love this range of stationery that is part of a broad and colourful range of stationery being pitched to retailers at the moment in the UK.
Suppliers of stationery in Australia need to pitch more ranges like this to newsagents. With more WH Smith stores offering these products in Australia newsagents have to quickly catch up to play in this colourful stationery space.
Re my earlier post about XchangeIT claiming newsagents are incorrectly sending sales data to the new closed Network Services. There is evidence the Bauer Reader Rewards barcodes that are required to be sold when redeeming magazines are resulting in sales data being sent to Network.
Lotterywest sent this email to retailers earlier this week. While the contents will be welcome, I suspect retailers would have likes Lotterywest to make this pitch long ago because the pressure of the refit and before online competition became so challenging.
A colleague newsagent yesterday was this week asked to supply a local business with ink. The opportunity hit a barrier when the newsagent discovered they could not source the ink they needed for the printer in use in the local business as the ink was only available from Officeworks.
It is frustrating when printer manufacturers launch new printers with an exclusive ink cartridge supply deal that forces shoppers to go back to the seller of the printer for a period of time.
This type of move cannot be good for competition as it provides the printer retailer, Officeworks maybe, a guarantee flow of shopper traffic. Where is the incentive to be competitive on price? Where is the Officeworks price guarantee in this?
Manufacturers and retailers committed to the best service and price for shoppers would ensure a genuinely open marketplace based on the principles of open competition.
Deals between printer manufacturers and retailers do not serve the customer, they do not serve an open and competitive marketplace.
Deals between printer manufacturers and retailers ought to be disclosed at the point of sale along the lines of:
CUSTOMER SERVICE NOTICE.
Buying this printer here locks you in to purchase ink from us for xxx months. You will not be able to purchase ink elsewhere. As we will be the only supplier of the ink, it will not be subject to our price guarantee. Indeed, price comparison will be impossible.
Thank you for shopping with us.
Click here to access to report by Boston Analytics into the magazine distribution trial established by the MPA and run in selected newsagencies earlier this year to trial possible changes to the magazine supply model.
As I have written here, here and here (and more – search MPA at this blog) previously, the trial was flawed. It did not test a model that would serve the needs of newsagents and the majority of Australian magazine publishers.
A big challenge faced by publishers is the reduction in floorspace allocation for magazines in newsagencies. The MPA trial did not test any measures that would arrest floorspace allocation moves by newsagents. Further, everything changes when Network Services was closed earlier this year.
The solution as I see it for a bright future for magazines in newsagencies was outlined here in October last year where I urged magazine publishers to respect newsagencies as magazine specialists.
My proposal is simple – make newsagents the magazine specialists by only supplying them.
This single move, of choosing to place titles exclusively in the newsagency channel, would encourage newsagent support. I am not talking here about one or two titles. No, I am talking about hundreds of titles, popular titles, titles in the top 200 even. Place these exclusively in the newsagency channel and you change the game, you get the attention of newsagents, you push back against the supermarkets and you respect your product.
While I am confident that a bold move such as I outline here would benefit publishers and newsagents it would need careful negotiating, involving many titles and requiring thoughtful newsagent engagement. And, yes, there would need to be a discussion on margin. Rent and labour in retail are considerable expenses and titles not paying their way serve no purpose in any retail business. However, margin can be considered in various forms. For example, there could be a base stocking fee or some other levy to support the category.
If sought after product is only available in one channel then the two main parties to such a relationship, the publisher and newsagents, ought to benefit. We would have a shared commercial objective, far more so than exists today.
This call by me was published by industry journal Mumbrella. No publisher contacted me to discuss it.
I was involved in a discussion with several people on Twitter and directly last night as a result of my comment on a Tweet about Andrew Bolt’s book that had been sent to newsagents. It was an opportunity to let more know about the low margin for us from magazines and newspapers.
Sharing this information is vital as it provides context for some of what people see in newsagencies.
The discussion started because of my response online. I have not seen the ANF engage in such public representation of our channel. That’s another opportunity they miss.
Here is the latest Tweet from Mollie Makes supporting newsagents:
I love seeing publishers of popular special interest magazines mention our channel.
Newsagents using the Tower newsagency software were provided coupons for auto-serving on customer receipts to help drive shopper engagement with the Pacific Magazines shopper promotion.
Tower worked with Pacific Magazines on the production of coupons and provided advice to 1,750+ newsagent customers on how to include the coupons on receipts.
Receipts provide a free to use marketing platform that can work well away from the business, when a customer is at home and unpacking their purchase.
This is another example of the Tower AdvantageTM.
This Friday a range of limited-edition collectible products will launch in association with San Diego Comic-Con. Connected retailers in Australia, including some newsagents, have purchased, sight unseen, close to $3,000.00 worth of limited-edition product. They have been promoting their participation and this has led to calls, emails and store drop-ins with people prepared to pay in full, in advance, to get something, anything from the ‘blind-box, that is available from Friday.
I expect most of the $6,000+ worth of stock, at retail value, will be gone in days. I also expect that by participating we will have attracted some new shoppers who might otherwise not have considered our business.
th whole thing doesn’t feel like traditional newsagency business activity – being part of a worldwide launch, connecting with a demographic not usual for a newsagency, people paying in advance for products they don’t even know about and being part of a community abuzz with excitement.
The whole experience has been enlightening. It gives me excitement for the next opportunity and the one after that. While it is hard work to learn the men processes and deal with such non-traditional activity, it is exciting as it shifts the business forward and that is vital in today’s world.
It is opportunities like this that make me excited for the future of the newsagency business.
And, yes, there isa connection between the shoppers this launch attracts and core product categories we have in the business. We make sure of that.
Tatts Group has updated their App, expanding the games now available with this announcement to those with the App yesterday:
The way App updates are handled, the additional games will be available once the App is auto or manually updated by users.
My opinion remains that online is the biggest threat to in-store lottery ticket purchases. Online is the reason small business retailers with Tatts ought to be careful about the capital investment they make in support of Tatts products.
Given how Tatts responds to retailer concerns, I doubt newsagents could achieve much in complaining about this mobile and online expansion.
XchangeIT sent an email yesterday to 607 newsagents using various computer systems advising they have been making the mistake of sending data to the now closed magazine distributor Network Services. Note: click on the image to see the email.
Some time fter emailing newsagents, XchangeIT advised the software companies. Of course that was too late as newsagents had swamped help desks asking what to do.
XchangeIT should have contacted the software companies first as this would have led to a discussion about the possible causes and guided XchangeIT to provide more useful and respectful communication. Instead, the email shifted the blame to newsagents and their software provider – when, in fact, the problem could be brought on by neither.
The XchangeIT email should have been tailored for each newsagent, advising them of the title(s) involved as this is the first step to understanding the issue(s) and understanding is vital for resolution.
If XchangeIT understood and cared about customer service of newsagents and its relationship with the software companies it would have taken a more helpful approach rather than sending a vague email to 607 newsagents yesterday.
One way software companies and newsagents can hide this problem is to turn off sending sales data to Network. At Tower Systems, the newsagency software company I own, we chose to not do this automatically as our view was and is that newsagents need to know if they have a data issue. Hiding it achieves nothing.