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

Where do you place Smith Journal in the newsagency?

I received this note from the circulation manager of Smith Journal with a plea for help from newsagents:

frankie press wants to see Smith Journal, our magazine for those with a curious mind, re-positioned in newsagents. So we are starting a re-positioning campaign on Monday with issue no. 19.

Historically, as the “brother” title of frankie, Smith Journal was positioned with frankie in the Women’s Interest category.

More recently, we are seeing Smith Journal positioned in the Men’s Interest category with GQ, Men’s Style and more muscle magazines like Men’s Health and Men’s Fitness.

From our recent reader surveys we know that Smith Journal has the highest crossover with like-minded titlesMonocle, The Monthly, The Economist and National Geographic. Smith Journal even receives regular editorial endorsement from Monocle.

We also know that 23% of Smith Journal’s readers are female (and growing).

To improve discovery of Smith Journal in newsagents, and in turn grow sales, we want to see Smith Journal re-positioned in newsagents’ General Interest / Current Affairs categories, more appropriate categories for where our current and potential readers are shopping.

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magazines

Excellent opportunity for newsagents with Pacific Magazines promotion

image003The $150,000 magazine promotion from Pacific Magazines starts today, exclusively in newsagencies that are part of the Pacific run nexus marketing program.

Newsagents should get behind this promotion as it offers a point of difference over supermarkets and other retailers.

All participating newsagents should be supporting this in-store and on their various social media outlets for the entire run of the campaign.

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magazines

Sunday newsagency challenge: check your GST

Newsagents control the items for which they collect GST in their businesses. The setting per stock item determine the GST reported as payable when you are preparing your Business Activity Statement. One newsagent recently was shown that they made a mistake in their stock file. They have been overpaying GST to the government for several years.

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Newsagency challenges

Sunday newsagency management tip: tips for efficient Facebook posts

Facebook is an essential marketing and communication platform for any business these days, especially in local retail. Unless you manage your time, it can take too long. Here are my tips for efficient use of Facebook:

  1. Do a week of posts in one sitting.
  2. Plan them. Be sure of what you want to say before you start.
  3. Use the schedule function to post date posts. This helps you do all the posts at once and thereby reduce the time you spend doing your posts. As noted in point 1, do a week of posts in advance.
  4. Write with a theme for a week. This can help you write with a purpose.
  5. Keep posts brief – people will scroll on in a second or two unless you ran their attention.Use one or two photos, no more than four.
  6. Always write in a certain voice. By this I mean write personally so people get to know the business through the posts.
  7. Have fun.
  8. Be yourself.
  9. Check for messages at the very least daily. Respond to all messages.

Being efficient with your time helps you create more efficient posts and this will be reflected in your content and, ultimately, engagement.

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Management tip

News Corp. federal election bundle offer

image[1]News Corp has a bundled shopper offer with capital city titles and The Australian to run from June 13 for three weeks. While I have only heard about about this out of Queensland, the company pitches these nationally.

I like the offer – it is clever and timely. Around elections is when people are more engaged with newspapers. Newsagents can use their newsagency software to manage the offer.

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Newspapers

Off targeting by Fairfax

IMG_0419Clicking on the TMZ app (entertainment news) on my iPhone and this ad for the Australian Financial Review appeared on the full screen. I am surprised Fairfax would target a TMZ user. Also, I have no Australian news or business news apps on my phone so there is nothing suggesting I consume Aussie or business news on the device.

My takeaway is that Fairfax is running a broad online campaign to attract subscribers from anywhere. As for the Fairfax App being free, while it may be, their paywall policy tells me content is not free – unless there has been a change.

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Newspapers

The importance of new traffic drivers for newsagents

One of the most important goals for any newsagent is to attract new traffic into the shop. This is a considerably challenge as it requires you to think outside what is usual for what one would see in a newsagency.

In my work with newsXpress I am regularly engaged in the discussion about finding new traffic. Here is a video I shot in house Friday of last week to try and explain the need for new traffic and how to leverage this for the newsagency business as it transitions.

While the video is part of a suite of training and guidance for newsXpress members, I felt it could be useful to others in the channel.

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Newsagency management

Lunch Lady issue #2

IMG_0375Issue #2 of Lunch Lady looks terrific. I received a copy earlier this week and have had a good look through it. Lunch Lady defies categorisation as it is part food title, part family title, part lifestyle – and much more actually.

For me, Lunch Lady  is a magazine we need to promote outside the usual locations in the newsagency, to draw attention to the unique opportunity it affords. It is also a good title to promote on social media.

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magazines

Questions about Bitcoin in the newsagency

Many newsagents have asked me about the pitch from Blueshyft to bring Bitcoin transactions to newsagencies. This is on top of their Ladbrokes betting account offering.

Neither is for me in my own newsagencies as they are agency offerings and I see no future in agency related activity. Commission is small. People are giving you money but not for good margin product. Counter space is taken and time too. I think both are distracting for the goals I have for my newsagencies.

Everyone has to reach their own conclusion as to what is right for their own circumstances. I know of newsagents who are keen for agency related business. All power to them, sincerely.

My newsagency software company has done everything necessary for the software to work with Blueshyft, at no cost to newsagents or Blueshyft – I am not allowing my personal view to get in the way what newsagents might want. I never have and never will.

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Newsagency management

Suncorp fails a newsagent on customer service

A newsagent has had internet issues causing them to not have access to Suncorp EFTPOS for many days. They were sent a new router and while this got one terminal working, the support people at PC EFTPOS, the service provider for Suncorp, could not get the other working. They fobbed the issue off, telling the newsagent to call their software company. That was my software company Tower Systems.

Even though Tower did not supply the router nor the PC EFTPOS software and given Suncorp and PC EFTPOS had done, in my opinion, such a useless job, a Tower IT guru fixed the problem in a couple of minutes, for free.

It frustrates me that Suncorp makes a lot of noise about their amazing rates. Those rates count for nought in their terminal is down and they cannot provide even basic customer service to get it up and running.

You are welcome Suncorp.

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Customer Service

Launching Groom and Guy gay wedding magazine in the newsagency

IMG_4457I love the display created by our team for launching Groom and Guy magazine in the newsagency yesterday. It is celebratory, respectful and stylish, in keeping with the magazine itself.

In addition to this display in-store, we have promoted the title on social media as it speaks to our commitment to being a magazine specialist.

This is a perfect title to promote outside the business as to pitches point of difference.

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magazines

Prince with the weeklies

13323976_1013460748761300_2012510169_oWe have Rolling Stone magazine co-located with the weeklies to leverage the continuing strong interest in Prince. The full cover being on show is essential to leveraging this opportunity in the newsagency.

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magazines

If you are running Windows XP

Tyro today issues this important warning for the few newsagents still running Windows XP:

Summary
During a routine security upgrade here at Tyro on the 26th of May, related to our payments integration system, we discovered (much to our surprise) that there are Tyro merchants that are using out of date and unsupported operating systems. Specifically, Windows PCs that run XP Service Pack 2 or earlier (of which support was retired in July, 2010) and some other versions of Windows are not able to support newer security certificates.

The certificate that we use to secure our integration system expires on the 6th of June, 2016 and the new certificate cannot be accepted by POSs that run on Windows XP Service pack 2 or earlier.

Actions
If you have customers that are on an outdated release levels, you need to request those that use Tyro integration to update their system as a matter of urgency. Please contact them and assist them to upgrade their PCs to a currently supported version of Windows or if that is not possible, to at least Windows XP Service Pack 3.

Want to know more?
You can learn more about the problem with SHA-1 vs SHA-2 here:
https://www.digicert.com/sha-2-faq.htm

If you are not the right person for this message within your organisation, can you please forward it onto to the right person.

Let us know through ur help desk, if we can help in any way.

Here is how to check your version FYI:

XP Service Pack 2

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newsagent software

A new gay wedding magazine

CoverGroom and Guy magazine is a welcome addition to the wedding titles and is set to shake up what is to me a boring magazine category. Groom and Guy is Australia’s and maybe the world’s first gay wedding magazine. It is out today and distributed by Gordon and Gotch.

If you are stocking Groom and Guy I encourage you to leverage the strong media interest. Place it outside the wedding section. Even contemplate a window display or aisle end as this magazine could attract new shoppers. Talk about it on social media. Embrace the opportunity and, maybe along the way, help bring Australia out of the dark ages on the issue of gay marriage.

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magazines

When considering the future of cigarettes in your newsagency

Newsagents contemplating the value of carrying cigarettes need to carefully analyse what they sell to cigarette shoppers.

Take a look at our newsagency software for a basket analysis report and detail the items selling with each of the top cigarette products. In the Tower Systems newsagency software the report is called the 10×10 report.

Look at how many times cigarettes are sold alone. Looking at the data for one newsagency this week I saw an efficiency for cigarettes that is unusual. Whereas in most newsagencies cigarettes are sold alone 60% and more of the time, in this business the single sale percentage is considerably lower. In fact, for the department, the percentage is 26%. This indicates greater efficiency, above average efficiency, and thereby challenges thoughts of getting out of cigarettes for the value of the shopper goes beyond the cigarette sales.

Basket analysis is vital for informed management decisions in a newsagency. There is nothing like accurate data to inform good management decisions.

In the business I have been looking at, the feeling was cigarettes could go. However, given the efficiency in terms of product sales outside that category, the indication is that such a decision right now would be premature.

Looking deeper into the data for this business, it is fascinating what people are purchasing. For example, there is one brand of cigarettes with which the most common additional purchase, 13% of the time, is coffee. The thing you can learn about your business from data…

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Newsagency management

Pens at the lottery counter

IMG_0355I love the container of pens at the lottery counter I saw in a central Queensland newsagency. The pens are freebies from suppliers, collected on travels or left by customers. I think this is better than some pen connected with string at the lottery bench. A smart tip.

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Newsagency management

Tatts launches its new brand for lotteries

IMG_0369Tatts yesterday launched The Lott, a new ‘unified brand’ brand for their various lotteries brand. This is an interesting move by the company, one to watch, especially for retailers being required to invest considerably in shop fits that support their local Tatts brand.

The only reason to launch a new brand is because you have a commercial purpose in mind. From what I understand, for Tatts they wanted a brand through which to promote nationally. Ad News has background on the move.

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Lotteries

Gotch needs to change its customer interface

Too many newsagents are losing too much time waiting on the phone for the Gotch call centre. Two newsagents yesterday told me they had been on hold for more than 45 minutes. Three more called me Monday.

Gotch should urgently create a new customer facing website to deal with the calls taking up the most time:

  1. Over supply.
  2. Under supply.
  3. Permanent supply adjustment requests.
  4. Damaged stock.
  5. Basic account queries.

By pushing newsagents to deal with these through a website would bring a structure to the process, ensuring all necessary data is gathered and enabling faster processing by Gotch. Indeed, this structure ought to have been established prior to the closure of Network Services.

I have been patient with Gotch. I thought they would be further ahead by the end of May. Their out of date processes are costing the newsagency channel thousands of dollars in time every day.

I want Gotch to be successful as magazines play an important role in our channel. The current delays (friction) on the Gotch processes are imposing an additional cost on an already margin-challenged category for newsagents.

This post is about the company, Gotch and or its parent PMP, and the resources it is allocating rather than the people doing the work.

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Customer Service

Stationery News should not be sent to newsagents

IMG_0310 (2)I have been thinking about the scaling out of Stationery News to newsagents as a subscription unless we cancel. My opinion is this should not be done as it abuses the magazine supply model.

All other titles we receive are done so on a sale or return basis. Stationery News ought not be supplied unless newsagents explicitly order it.

I would love to know how the current model came about.

While I like reading the magazine. It is not commercially worth the annual subscription fee in my view, not in today’s world with more efficient and access friendly sources of news.

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magazine distribution

News Corp. should improve its accounting systems for small business newsagents

Screen Shot 2016-05-30 at 6.32.24 PMFor a company intent on telling governments how to govern and Australians how to vote, News Corp. should, in my opinion, get its own house in order when it comes to billing small business newsagents for promotions. The image on the left is the description used by News Corp. when billing newsagents for the recent ANZAC coins. Yes, the company billed the coins as The Courier Mail, a newspaper. The charge is a net charge.

News is not providing newsagents with any means of validating the charge. This is inadequate in my view. Newsagents deserve an accurate accounting of what they were supplied line by line and what they were charged for each line item. The accounting also needs to detail the returns for each line item.

The single line on the statement from News is inadequate, so inadequate that an auditor would probably want more information.

The News Corp iServices portal is no help for newsagents either, adding to the frustration.

I am posting this here at the request of several newsagents who have approached News Corp. without success in having the matter even considered by the company.

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Newsagency challenges

What’s with the Stationery News reissue to newsagents

It seems the latest issue of Stationery News has been sent to newsagents, again. This time marked as a firm sale – meaning they are unable to return it.

This appears to be a mistake by Gotch. The challenge is the Gotch communication lines are clogged and emails are delayed in getting a response.

I’ve had at least ten calls plus emails. Here is one that sums up the situation:

This morning on the Gotch distribution they supplied a magazine, more a pamphlet, called “Stationary News” as a firm sale item with a cost of $55 and a retail of $60.50 ! When I rang Gotch , after a 40 minute wait, the helpful customer service office said that he had received a few calls in regard to it and he had lodged a query but they had been unable to work out why or how this had been allocated. He also stated that the more contact that they had from Newsagents the sooner something would be done about it.

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magazine distribution
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