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

How are you displaying the latest Prevention magazine?

IMG_3427The free gift of a tub of Nivea cellular anti-age day cream with Prevention magazine is terrific. We are displaying the gift with the magazine. But we have deep enough shelves for this to work.  In more regular magazine fixtures and in the magazine wave wall fixtures this issue would not hold up well.

A couple of newsagents contacted me saying they had removed the gift. While I understand their need to do this, it means the gift cannot help drive sales.

This is another example of challenges presented by some gift with purchase campaigns.

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Gifts

Magazine gifts with purchase challenge newsagents

IMG_3425I love the cards packaged with the latest Dolly magazine. They are beautiful and well targeted at the Dolly shopper. They are similar to a line of small format cards we sell in-store … and this is what will challenge some newsagents who don’t want gifts given with magazines that they might otherwise sell. For me it depends on the gift. In this case, the gift is terrific and just like products we have – I can argue both sides.

IMG_3426The gift with the latest Girlfriend is challenging too as it is perfectly targeted yet promoting a brand in fierce competition with newsagents. The notebook is like ones we sell. Typo is hurting our stationery sales. It will gall some newsagents that they are being used to promote Typo. Yet I understand the publisher connecting the Girlfriend brand with the popular Typo brand. We don’t have a single notebook brand the publisher could have used for the gift.

I don’t know what the answer is here. On the one hand we want publishers to offer thoughtfully targeted gifts with purchase that drive purchases of the magazines. However, we do not want this to impact similar priciest we can see for good margin in-store. It is a complex issue I would like to see explored more fully by publishers.

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magazines

Newsagents doing Back To School need to visit Officeworks

IMG_3423I spent time at Officeworks in Richmond  yesterday, looking their approach to Back To School 2016. I decided on the visit having been inundated with BTS advertising on TV, online and in print.

Newsagents tend to love to hate Officeworks – often ignoring strengths that make them a compelling competitor.

If you have an Officeworks nearby, they are the benchmark for Back To School and here is why:

From inside the front door they have excellent value deals that cannot be beaten – like the Cruzer Facet 8GB USB stick for $2.73. The best price I can find elsewhere is $6.00. I go through USB stick like candy so I purchased ten.

It is the six or each dump bin deals like this USB stick that tell you this is a good place to shop – and you are only a few steps inside the front door. They have just as good deals dotted through the business, especially where BTS shoppers are likely to shop.

There were more staff on the floor that I usually see at this Officeworks – customer service attention is heightened because of BTS. The quality of customer service is good too based on answers I got to a couple of questions.

The store is well laid out, well sign posted. There is a consistent BTS message throughout that connects with all their advertising.

At the counter they offer multiple options for donations to The Smith Family BTS campaign helping needy kids and families.

I suspect I could go into almost any Officeworks right now and have a similar experience. This would have to be the case for their national advertising to leverage maximum value for the national chain. From the product mix to pricing to their charity connection, there is a consistency that newsagents are challenged to match.

If you think poorly of Officeworks and if you are doing Back To School this year, I urge you to visit an Officeworks. Look carefully at what they are doing. Pick up ideas you could leverage for your own business. Even their use of dump bins for compelling offers is something newsagents could do through BTS to pitch a value proposition from inside the front door.

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Competition

Sunday newsagency challenge: stop expecting reps to break the rules

Supplier reps are employed by their suppliers to represent them. Each time you get them to break their rules to get an outcome for you there are consequences. For example, if you get a supplier rep to create a card credit to match unsold form sale product it will eventually effect the card supply model for the business.

There are consequences when you are a supplier rep to cut a corner or break a rule. My advice is to not ask – like with the consequences of firm sale product not working. Bending the sale or return rules for firm sale product can only end in tears.

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Newsagency challenges

Sunday newsagency management tip: be clear about your hours

People expect easy access to information about business opening hours now more than ever. Thanks to Facebook, Google and other platforms, people expect to find answers to questions about when you will open and closed. If you are not on top of these and other platforms people will be frustrated in not knowing what your hours are during holidays such as Christmas and New Year.

Sure, it is a bit of extra work – but being open with your customers across a range of platforms is good customer service in 2016.

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Management tip

Sunday newsagency marketing tip: demonstrate just about anything

IMG_3255In a Lush soap store the other day I witnessed the perfect in-store product demonstration. The shop assistant gathered people around with a loud voice. Before I realised I was in the crowd watching her demonstration of bath bubbles. The demo was short and the pitch compelling. People purchased as a result.

I think the key to the sales success I saw was the engagement of the shoppers with the product. They say, touched and smelled the bubbles. How could they not purchase?

When was the last time you demonstrated something in your newsagency? The shelves of a typical newsagency are full of products to demonstrate: pens, magazines (food, crossword, heath, craft and more), paper products, sand, glue, glitter, soap, toys … as I said, plenty.

Sure it can be a challenge to demonstrate publicly. Give it a go, lean into your fear and have fun. You could find sales increasing as a result.

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marketing

Driving value from magazine traffic in the newsagency

IMG_2803 (1)While it is easy for newsagents to complain about the falling traffic generated by magazines, oversupply, inefficient supplier processes or the poor margin, we can leverage magazines for greater economic benefit for our businesses. The best way to do this is through product placement decisions – what we put with magazines.

Placing other products with magazines is easier if you have magazine fixtures designed by a smart shop designer rather than the old school designers who tended to not think beyond themselves.

Check out the photo. The shelf at the top of the magazine fixture allows placement of products. Recently, we used this for jigsaws with excellent effect. Jigsaws are a habit-based purchase, as are magazines.n Enough shoppers purchased jigsaws to make destination magazine purchases more valuable than they might otherwise have been.

Yes, there are people who came in for $5.00 magazine purchased who spend over $40.00 on a premium jigsaw on impulse.

The key to success with placement of products with magazines is the selection of the product. You have to think carefully abut your shopper and what they could purchase.  You have to think like them and not like you because what they may purchase on impulse is likely to be different to what you might purchase on impulse.

The next time you find yourself complaining abut magazines, think about what else you could do to drive value from the opportunity of magazine traffic in your business.

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magazines

The decision to not discount Christmas paid off

A large card and gift shop around the corner from my newsagency started discounting Christmas cards ten days before Christmas. As many of their cards are from Hallmark I was concerned if it could hurt us. While there was a slow down, we did well as it turns out. It helped us having a large range of boxed cards this premature discounter did not have. Plus, we had somewhere to go after Christmas with discounting and they did not.

I prefer to not discount until absolutely necessary and to therefore preserve the maximum margin possible for the business. But when I do scout, I want to go hard to quit the stock.

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Newsagency management

New Year resolutions for 2016 for newsagents

Happy New Year!

What are your newsagency business related resolutions for 2016? Here are mine:

  1. To introduce more new traffic generating product categories.
  2. To increase stock-turn.
  3. To improve floorspace efficiency.
  4. To grow the gross profit percentage by at least four percentage points.

Goals matter as they provide a target for the path ahead and a measure for when we look back.

Happy New Year everyone.

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newsagency marketing

Great post-Christmas sales in the newsagency

Boxed Christmas card sales have been fantastic in the newsagency in the five days since Christmas: $10K+. We are at 50% off and achieving more than 50% GP with these traffic generating products. We have them on the lease line to attract shoppers – who easily purchase other items on sale.

We have run this type of post Christmas sale for boxed Christmas cards for years and each year we have seen growth – rejecting the concern that discounting boxed Christmas card sales this year hurts Christmas card sales next year.

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Greeting Cards

Never eat alone – what you can learn having lunch with your employees

Sitting in the lunch room or a cafe or on a park bench with employees in your business can be enlightening, especially you are busy eating and listening.

In this situation of being part of an everyday lunch you have an opportunity to hear opinions that could be more enlightening than you would hear in the business environment. And that is what you want – more honest an useful opinions.

The more you eat lunch with them the more you learn, the more lunch makes you one of them and not the boss.

Lunch discussions are more likely to be off-guard and beneficial to you and the business. Off-guard for you and for them. Yes, this is a two way opportunity, one to be embraced with joy and openness. At the very least you will get to know your team members better … and they you. That has to be good.

Try it. It may take a while to win trust. It will be worth it if you can gain insights that otherwise may not be shared with you.

It’s like when you are on a train or a plane and chatting with someone you just met about business. The talking can lead you to insights you might have otherwise missed. It is a thrill when this happens.

Sometimes the most valuable insights in business come when you are not looking for them. This is never having lunch along is good advice as is having lunch with co-orkers in your newsagency business.

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Newsagency management

Smart supermarket magazine department

This is one of the best magazine departments I have seen in a major supermarket this year. It feels more newsagency-like what what we see in Coles and Woolworths. Hopefully those two continue to do a mediocre job in 2016, displaying poorly and only promoting when paid extra to do so.

IMG_3144

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magazines

Poor marketing execution by News Corp.

20151230_072234Newsagents in Queensland received The House of Wellness launch issue with their papers today. News Corp sent out the notice to explain the free magazine hours after the papers arrived. This is appalling communication.

‘What is even worse is that the launch issue is from last year. This freebie to be given away with The Sunday Mail on January 17 is of questionable value as it is old content.

News Corp. is paying newsagents 20 cents a copy to hand the freebie out, store it in the meantime, put up posters and other collateral and manage this promotion. Given what is expected of newsagents, News Corp. should be paying at least a living wage – five times the 20 cents paltry fee.

This looks like lazy marketing to me. Someone found spare stock in the warehouse and thought lest send this to newsagents for a promotion. They have the stock because they could not move the stock the first time around. Newsagents provide them a low cost distribution channel, unfortunately.

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Ethics

Why points based loyalty programs are a thing of the past for small business retailers like newsagents

Recent moves by the Woolworths supermarket chain in Australia have highlighted the sham that is major retailer loyalty programs.

Having to spend $300 and more on very specific products to get the right to request a $10 voucher that you have to spend in-store is cumbersome and not good value. It is not a reward for loyalty.

It has resulted in plenty of news stories about the Woolworths and other programs that work off points and that are more about basket analysis by the retailers than genuine shopper loyalty rewards.

Some reports have labelled points based programs old-school, yesterday’s loyalty. I agree with this assessment. That would not be a surprise to regulars here. In February 2013 I started using discount vouchers in my newsagency and I have not looked back since. Double digit growth year on year. I can track the start of it to the implementation of the discount vouchers.

Some newsagents have been late to realise this while the early adopters on of new loyalty have been benefiting for a while.

The points based programs look and feel like big business programs. Me too marketing rarely works for small business. Small business retailers need something different, more immediate, more easily understood. This is why I think the discount vouchers work well. They are simple and effective. From a  business perspective the cost and the liability are easily managed.

A well structured and professionally implemented discount voucher program can pitch your newsagency business differently to those with whom you compete. It offers genuine reward for loyalty and this is what drives shopper engagement and delivers the growth I write about.

I was talking with a retailer last week who is transitioning off a points based program because they have realised that their offer is not that different to the big retailers. Having a point of difference when it comes to loyalty is vital.

Footnote: I was talking to the new owner of a newsagency recently who had not allowed for rewarding loyalty accused while the business was under the previous owner. The previous owner refuses to fund the liability that had accused under their watch. They did not disclose the liability to the purchasers. The matter looks set to go to court as the new owner is quite aggrieved – and rightly so.

Regardless of the loyalty program you use, it is vital you track it as an asset and a liability of the business. The data must form part of what is sold with the business.

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Leadership

Tobacco lunchtime habit?

The Lunchtime habit caption on the wall in the c-store I visited today is uncomfortably close to the locked tobacco cabinets. It looks like they are promoting a habit, unfortunately.

IMG_3145

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retail

Double load of magazines gets newsagents thinking more about magazine distribution

The double load of magazines newsagents received yesterday raised discussion, again, about unfairness in the magazine destitution model.

Rather than two days of delivery this week, the magazine distributors cut back to one day, a public holiday, and in doing so presented newsagents with more resourcing challenges for managing the load on a day with more than double the labour cost.

The move looks inconsiderate, ignorant and selfish.

Four newsagents I heard from told me their December 2015 magazine bill is equal to or more than December 2014 while their sales year on year are down between 9% and 13%. It does not take much to work out why they are angry.

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Ethics

Newsagency suppliers can’t have it both ways: what we can learn from the Pandora story

The report in The Age yesterday about Pandora acting on their retailers taking on a competitor product is relevant to newsagents with several of our suppliers asking / demanding / pressuring us or some of us to be exclusive with them.

I have spoken with plenty of retailers who have or have had Pandora products. The complaints are similar – exclusivity is demanded yet the company opens other outlets nearby that impact sales.

Any supplier asking for an exclusive relationship needs to be as prepared to commit as they expect the retailers to commit. I think this is what could have frustrated some Pandora retailers.

This issue goes the other way too. Newsagents ask for exclusivity but too often do not respect it with full support for a supplier or a brand. One order does not cut it. Nor done a few small orders.

The exclusive relationship needs to work commercially for supplier and retailer. Demanding it is not enough just as getting it is not enough. Exclusivity needs mutual respect, mutual nurturing and mutual trust. It also needs honesty to acknowledge when it is time to move on.

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Ethics

Magazine publishers should seize this quiet time

Social media is quiet right now between Christmas and New Year. This is when publishers ought pitch new issues and newsagents as their go-to retailers. Tweets, facebook posts, Instagram and other social media posts are more likely to be noticed in this less busy time.

Magazine publisher marketing being on a break is a missed opportunity. the last magazine to promote newsagents was Ride Cycling Review on December 23.

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magazines

If traffic slows for your newsagency between Christmas and the New Year – 8 tips for attracting shoppers

If these days between christmas and New Year are quite and if you have not planned anything to kick start sales, here are eight tips that require little planning that you could use right away:

  1. Reset. Use the lower traffic opportunity to make considerable changes in the business for you and for your customers.
  2. Market stall sale. Clear from the front door in as far as you can go. Setup trestle tables. create a market stall feel with products on the tables from the back of the shop that people would not usually see.
  3. Do a magazine relay. This is the single easiest way to increase magazine sales.
  4. Run a card sale. For every card someone buys, offer them a Thank You card at 30% off or more. Post Christmas is a perfect time for people to send Thank You cards.
  5. Reconfigure your messages. Stand out the front of the business and change the messages that people see as they walk past. Go for something completely different. i.e. no magazine posters, no newspaper posters. Tell a completely different story.
  6. Promote something unique on Facebook. Something people will travel for. Boost the post. Have some fun. Use the post or posts, to redefine how people think about your business.
  7. Put up a road block. Think about the most common product or service people purchase from you that they purchase nothing else with. As there will be no reps checking up on you – put up a massive road block so these destination shoppers are confronted by something else likely to appeal to them.
  8. Don’t be average. Ask your staff what average looks like and what they think you could do in the business to not be average. Get them to challenge you.

Don’t be bound by these seven suggestions. Challenge yourself. Do something.

It is easy to do nothing and say these days are quiet. Make it not so. Make your own noise. Have some fun. Change your business.

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Newsagency management

Are newspaper prices set to fall?

While the UK newspaper marketplace is very different to here in Australia, some trends are followed here. I am watching with interest the move by some UK newspaper publishers to cut cover prices. With many newspapers available, price as a differentiator is important to them. here, not so much.

I feel for UK newsagents confronting these falling prices as it impacts gross profit. If sales do not spike sufficiently, the return on floor space, return on labour and return on inventory will be down, making one question the value of the product.

The best way for any newspaper in any marketplace to increase sales is for it to provide relevant content unavailable elsewhere. A lower price for content that is not interesting, current or relevant will not result in an increase in sales. Indeed, dropping the price looks like you are giving up on differentiating your product.

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Newspapers

Sunday newsagency challenge: touch every item you sell

I bought an item from a newsagency last week that had a price abel that had to be at least five years old. It made me wonder what the policy in the business was about old stock.

My challenge today is for you to touch everything you sell. I expect that through the process you will touch items you throw away rather than put back on the shelves.

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Management tip

Sunday newsagency management tip: offer to work with a local school

Talk to your local high school, tertiary college or university to see if they need businesses to work with for case studies, IT development, marketing planning or other areas from which your business could benefit. Being a business case-study partner for students as they work on a project could bring valuable fresh ideas through which you can grow your business.

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Management tip
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