We have too many publishers publishing Christmas-themed specials. Some are publishing two and more. While I understand that publishers see this as an opportunity to extend the reach of their brand, we retailers need space to do the titles justice.
Our shelves are overflowing with Christmas themed titles.
I doubt we will see a net increase in sales of Christmas themed magazines. The extra range is driving churn among the titles and not making us any more money.
Check out the magazine display unit at a Coles in downtown Brisbane yesterday – three pockets for their house freebie. Maybe it’s there for storage or maybe it’s part of a plan to attract readers from other titles. I don’t recall seeing this in other Coles’.
Check out how a Woolworths in Brisbane handles being short of magazine space – they turn a pocket into something less and cramp stock in anyway. Recipes+ is one of several titles treated this was in the Woolworths in Brisbane I visited yesterday.
There are some newsagents currently running an ink sale where the sale prices are their regular prices. It’s not a sale. The discount claim is a breach since the ‘discounted’ prices are the everyday prices of the newsagents involved.
The Age today has an article about this behaviour of retailers advertising things being on sale or discounted when they are not. Read the article if you discount.
This photo shows some of the magazines I took off the shelves for early return in one of my newsagencies on Saturday in my weekend cull.
Every Saturday I review all magazines on the shelves, considering the stock on hand, the length of time on the shelves already, the pressure on space and sales history.
The extent of the cull as shown in the photo is average for a Saturday.
Why Saturday? The pace in the shop is different, headspace is different, it’s a management function that for me works best away from everyday.
This is how I manage my magazine accounts – by culling to serve the needs of my business as opposed to the needs of publishers and distributors. The culling is considered, careful – focussing on monthly and longer on-sale titles, not top sellers but second tier and beyond titles.
If I am unsure about early returning a title I check sales history – I don’t want to cut myself out of certain sales.
I take care with publishers who actively support the newsagency channel and are fair in their allocations, publishers like Pacific Magazines.
The weekend cull an opportunity for a fresh eyes view. Being done by the owner of the business clarifies the goal – managing your magazine account.
I trained a newsagent on the weekend cull strategy recently and the result is a 50% cut in their magazine bills and no loss of sales. In their case this has freed up more than $10,000 in working capital, cash that was tied up in the systematic oversupply merry-go-round that is newsagency magazine supply.
If you are not doing this type of cull already and follow my advice, let me low how much cash you free up.
Note: I recommend against early returning the day stock arrives as there is nothing to be gained from this – unless you see gross oversupply.
I don’t want to be in a position to write this blog post. No, I want fair and justified magazine supply. I don’t want unjust treatment that is not based on data facts.
My story plays out in thousands of newsagencies each week, costing our channel millions of dollars. It disadvantages us.
Click on the image – see for yourself evidence of Bauer oversupplying People. For no reason they increased our allocation by 1 copy. Okay 1 copy is not massive. But it is unnecessary, a waste and a cost to my business.
This is another example of the waste of newsagents sending sales data.
Actions like this increase in supply make us look stupid for working hard to send accurate sales data.
Last Friday I wrote about the placement of this Hallmark Christmas snow globe at the counter and how lighting three globes up made it more noticeable. One customer purchased three, others purchased singles. Showing how a product works at the counter pays off.
Yes, we can grow sales in our newsagencies by being smart and engaged with our products!
Long Beach police arrested more than 70 people over the course of three days during a retail theft operation. Read the story here and then talk to nearby retailers and your local police about something similar.
We are seeing more reports of retail theft, by employees and customers, in 2014 than in 2013.
In the context of the discussion of the future of lottery revenue last week, trends are important in your business planning. Newsagents can access data trends in their businesses that can guide wise business decisions. Unfortunately too often newsagents ignore this opportunity.
Look at unit sales for cards, magazines, newspapers and compare the sales volume, not revenue, year on year and see how you are tracking. Break this down by supplier and by category for different views of the data. There is considerable value in looking at the same data set through various angles.
Look for trends good and bad.
The data from your business will not lie. It can be trusted more than your gut feel. It can be trusted more than what suppliers tell you since they go off sell in data and you are looking at sell through data.
Consider the trends to set your short and medium term plans. If sales in a category or segment are down, what can you do about it? If sales are up, how can you leverage that for growth? Your data should guide your actions … use it!
If you’re still with me – GREAT STUFF! Many newsagents would have clicked on by now as a call to use business data to guide business decisions is a boring topic many would fall asleep to.
The truth about newsagency business data is – the newsagents achieving the best growth are more likely to be making decisions based on their own trend data while those in declining businesses are more likely to never look at trend data. Which one are you?
I’d be happy to help anyone on this.
Picking up on my post yesterday about the new customers I attracted when I put Henry in the front seat of my car to drive him from the shop to the office here is my newsagency marketing tip for today …
Grab a products and take it for a proud walk outside your shop. Of course, the product needs to be big and noticeable. It also needs to be something you would not usually be seen carrying. Plus it should be something that makes people feel good.
A nice big plush item works well – as I found with Henry. A collection of Doctor Who memorabilia could work as could a large Frozen doll or a stack of calendars with a cute dog calendar facing out for people to see.
The point here is fort you or a team member to become a walking billboard without you being seen to be a billboard. Subtlety is the key here. The more real your action in walking the product the better chance of someone engaging with you.
As I found with my time with Henry, people who otherwise might not see you notice, they talk to you.
This is an easy to try marketing idea that costs nothing but a bit of time outside your shop enjoying the sunshine.
Here’s a video of a large Christmas music box playing in a retro TV case at the entrance to our newsagency. We have it for sale but we also have it playing to attract shoppers – it’s doing this with terrific success.
xmas from mark fletcher on Vimeo.
It’s a thrill watching people walk tower the newsagency to see what it is. Their faces light up when they hear the music and see the actions play.
I relayed the magazines at one of my newsagencies today – for the first time in six months. The photo shows the new back wall after the relay. This wall targets our male shoppers – it is on the back wall of the shop, to lure them down to the back and past cards and gifts.
If you look at the photo you can see how I have segmented categories and how I have used some titles as a beacon for those segments. While most titles are full face displayed, there is some covering for small volume titles.
I’m using the flat stack area for some impulse lines.
In doing this relay I followed my own How to do a magazine relay advice.
yes, magazines are an important traffic driver. Regular relays and co-location work are vital to being seen as the magazine specialist in the area.
Click on the image for a large version.
In the car park at Westfield Knox City on Thursday I was watched by an old couple as I put Henry in the passenger seat or my car and buckled him if for the ride to the office.
I felt they were judging me as I buckled Henry in rather than tossing him on the back seat with other items from the newsagency.
It turns out they weren’t judging me. They are collectors and knew the collection Henry is part of. They were happy to see me treat Henry as I would a person. We chatted for a bit and they were happy to find out that we have more of Henry’s family available at the newsagency.
The experience was a reminder of how our behaviour outside our shops can be a reflection on the business. In this case I now have a couple, collectors of high-end plush, who could become regulars as a result something they saw me do in the shopping centre car park.
This car park contact could be worth easily $1,000 a year based on their annual collection investment.
It is easy to see what we sell as barcodes (SKUs the majors call them) when, often, they are more real and more emotionally valuable to our customers. It was a trill to see what Henry meant to this couple, to see they joy they have for others like him.
We’re having terrific success with Disney products from a range of categories including these books. This stand in the photo is one of several pitching Disney products including Frozen licenced products.
Frozen is an excellent way we can connect magazine, gift, toy and card sales and thereby maximise the basket opportunity.
While some everyday suppliers to newsagents have frozen products, you need to engage outside the usual mix of suppliers to our channel to make the most of these opportunities. This is an area where proactive marketing groups can make a difference for newsagents – by curating ranges and opportunities around popular licences.
I’m in a centre competing with majors who are well established in this space and while competition is tough, that we are able to pitch into their space is working well for us.
The Great War under branding of The People’s Friend is timely not only for commemorating the war but also because it makes for a wonderful Christmas gift for those who love The People’s Friend brand.
We have this one-shot title placed next to The People’s Friend as you can see in the photo. The full face display is vital for this title.
There have been plenty of stories this week about looming sunset of the five year moratorium that protects lottery agents in NSW. Much has been written about the fear of Coles and Woolworths getting lottery products. Here are some of the stories:
While I applaud newsagents getting media coverage and fighting about this, I urge them to plan for a business with diminished lottery revenue as that is what will give them a better future.
As I have noted here already, sure Woolworths and Coles getting Tatts products would hurt, however – the migration of the regular lottery customer to online will hurt more. This is the big issue and there is nothing newsagents can do to stop that migration given the ease with which we can make online and mobile purchases of non physical product.
Online will take more lottery revenue out of the newsagency channel over the long term than Coles and Woolworths.
I am concerned that newsagents investing in the supermarket fight are not protecting their businesses from bigger and more challenging issue.
I cringed when I say this Christmas decorated platypus as part of our Christmas pitch. Yes, I am not my customer buy seriously? Talk about mocking an iconic native Australian mammal. My initial cringe intensified when I realised the indigenous style artwork – it clashes with the Santa hat. If they sell I’ll be shocked, I will have to rethink plenty.
I have noticed that Coles supermarkets are stocking more imported lines, especially in parts of the business where local products used to dominate.
Most recently I have noticed biscuits from the UK that are less than half similar style and size biscuits made in Australis. Yesterday I noticed these chocolates – also from the UK and also much cheaper than Aussie made equivalent product.
I don’t know how Coles is doing this, bringing product from around the world, from a country with relatively high labour costs and putting it on the shelves for less than local product.
Part of our job as local newsagents is to spread the shop local story. Key in that story is supporting Aussie businesses wherever possible.
In our case we have sourced several Australian confectionery and chocolate makers to help us pitch local in this space. With two Coles outlets in our centre, understanding the differences we can pitch in this locally-sourced product area will help us as we increase our pitch on this in 2015.
I visit Coles a lot to look for opportunities like this. I think Australians want to support local businesses – as retailers we need to help them do this.
Like every retail newsagency business this time f year we have no spare space. Indeed, our gift area is so full that we have to put this beautiful range of boxed mugs at one counter. The thrill is that they have been selling. Better than expected. Yes, people are purchasing these premium mugs on impulse having come to the counter with other items.
Who said the counter is only for lower cost items people will purchase on impulse.
Sometimes changes are forced to make show us things about what sells where that we had not anticipated.
Showing people a product in use is far more valuable than showing it not in use. Take this terrific light-up snow globe from hallmark that is part of their exclusive North Pole range. Placing it at the counter and lit up works a treat. People notice. They comment. They buy. This is a perfect example of showing. With the lights off these snow globes look okay. With the lights on they looks stunning.
Us having the lights on is a point of difference for us. I guess, that is, until our competitors read this blog.
We have Disney products in store from seven suppliers and it’s all working a treat – including the Christmas themed edition of the Disney Sweets & Cakes partwork. While this is the lowest margin Disney products we have, we are leveraging it as the add-on purchase to other Disney hero products including the excellent Frozen range.
The Taronga Zoo Super Animals promotion running at Woolworths supermarkets appears to be a tremendous success. Super Animals looks at feels like a part series promotion with elements of building a collection.
Super Animals looks like something that would have traditionally been sold through newsagencies. But it’s being sold exclusively through Woolworths, driving impulse purchases and driving traffic for them.
While I have no inside knowledge, I do expect that the success of Super Animals will result is more kid-focussed collectibles like this from Woolworths and something similar from Coles.
Exclusive product is vital to driving traffic, especially in the collectible space. I know as I’ve had success over the last couple of years with a few exclusive lines in the collectible plush space.
Flowing from the discussion yesterday about Tatts, I have been thinking overnight about calls by newsagents for the NSW government to protect them from the Coles and Woolworths supermarket duopoly when it comes to lottery products.
As I noted yesterday, I am against supermarkets and any business associated with supermarkets. getting access to the sale of lottery products. However, I am against it because they are already too big, not because of a desire for legislative protection for newsagents.
Businesses protected by legislation or government policy are lazy – look at the Australia Post government owned outlets for evidence of that.
We are in the middle of extraordinary change on several fronts in our businesses. Retail is changing at a faster pace than many of us realise. Print media is changing. Personal entertainment is changing. These and other changes are merging drive extraordinary challenges for our newsagency businesses and for the businesses of our suppliers.
The best way for us to have suppliers make decisions that serve us well is for us to be more valuable to them than other retailers they deal with.
I have heard newsagents recently say that a supplier should support newsagents because of the history. I don;t agree with that. I have also heard newsagents say there are thousands of our newsagency businesses and suppliers should respect that. I’d agree only in the thousands of newsagency businesses are serving the supplier well.
Whether we like it or not we are in a free market economy. if our channel wants a supplier to favour us ahead of any other retail channel then it needs to deliver to the supplier commercial outcomes that warrant such treatment.
3,500 (or whatever the number is) newsagents is irrelevant unless we are delivering a valuable commercial outcome.
So, if you are going to fight on the Tatts issue or any other issue, ask yourself what am I doing commercially to drive the outcome I want?
Back to the headline though – I think that more than one hundred years of protection set us up for non commercial behaviour. that suited many suppliers for many years. Today, however, it’s a new world and it is getting newer by the day.
With hindsight, dismantling deregulation in 1999 should have come with support for the proper commercialisation of newsagency businesses, to give them a better footing for a free market unregulated world.
I am against supermarkets and any business associated with supermarkets. getting access to the sale of lottery products.
It’s important I start with that statement as what I say in this blog post will cause some to say that is not my position.
The Daily Telegraph story published yesterday – Survival is a lottery for our newsagents as ticket sales opened up to the big players – has fired newsagents up.
While I say kudos to NANA for getting excellent coverage for the story, I note that the story is not new and that the story as it has been told is not the complete story.
The 2015 sunset for current lottery arrangements in NSW has always been there. The Tatts requirement for shop first has always been there. The Coles Express trial was reported here in October last year to move beyond trial. Smart politicians will challenge newsagent representatives with: nothing new here, why have you not planned knowing there was a sunset? Newsagent representatives ought to have a believable response.
The report is The Daily Telegraph missed what I think is the biggest challenge facing lottery agents, the growth in online sales. This is something I have written about previously. Today, online sales are estimated to account for 10% of Tatts’ revenue.
The migration of the purchase of lottery products from over the counter to online will grow. It is disruption to the over the counter model not unlike the disruption being experienced by newspaper magazine publishers and newsagents in relation print media except that Tatts retains its income. Indeed, it makes more out of online purchases than over the counter purchases. Publishers are not in this position.
So, add online growth to the challenge of a far more competitive market and the infrastructure cost of doing business and it is natural newsagents are concerned. But none of this is new.
Any newsagent in NSW saying they will have to rethink their business plans should the current protection be removed is confronting this issue too late. The time to adjust your plans and your reliance on lottery products for traffic and income was in 2010, when the five-year protection arrangements were put in place. Harsh as it is, it’s the truth.
NANA is doing what any association should do, raising awareness of the issue and calling newsagents to act to maintain the status quo. To achieve that, however, NANA will need to get the State Government to decide for small busies and against Tatts and their own state interests. Successive NSW state governments have put their interests and those of big businesses ahead of the public and small businesses. Look at bus tickets and the cuts to newsagent commission. Many representations by newsagent representatives failed to protect this important stream of revenue for our channel.
Despite all their lip service during election campaigns, we have not has a state or federal government seriously committed to small business for decades.
For NANA to have any hope it needs every newsagent involved, committing time, money and gathering signatures on the petition. I am as skeptical that newsagents will support such a campaign as I am that the State Government will act and protect small business newsagents.
I’d love to be proven wrong. So, that’s my challenge to newsagents: prove me wrong. Put your time and your money where your mouth is on this issue.
However … plan for a business without lottery products because even if a campaign is successful, the success will have a sunset. Plus, online sales will grow and some of your customers will migrate. Good business planning is all about planning for every contingency. The report in The Daily Telegraph today is about a battle. The war is what’s happening online.
The risk to your business if Tatts products do go to supermarkets is a risk for you to own. It’s something you could have insulated your business from between 2010 and now. No matter, you know now – it is time to act.
At the core of your consideration here is the type of newsagency you want to have. I think this comes down to a choice between: being a convenience business or being a destination business. That is a conversation for another day.
One reason I write at this blog is to provoke newsagents to engage more actively in their businesses. Hopefully, this post does just that.
Newsagents close to Sydney should visit Dymocks for inspiration. In the cross over between the two retail locations on Gorge Street in the CBD there is a sizeable area devoted to what I’d call premium novelty products. I say premium as these items are not cheap and nasty.
This section of Dymocks offers excellent inspiration for newsagents who want to get into the novelty space. Go check it out. You’ll see many basket building opportunities that are ideal for any newsagency.