I love this sign I saw in a newsagency earlier this week with umbrellas and gumboots as it is smarter and smoother than a traditional retail sign that says buy me. This is not the type of sign I’d usually see in a newsagency for umbrellas. The products themselves are different too – more higher end, like fashion. Inspirational!
I was helping a newsagent to boost magazine sales recently and trained them on label placement. They were putting labels on titles they did not need to label and they were placing the labels without care. Placing a label over the title masthead – as in the example in the photo – can make it hard for a shopper to understand the title. What are rées anyway?
I’d love to hear what newsagents think about How Busy Women Get Rich a new title released this week by Bauer Media. I find the title jarring but I am not the customer. Despite what I think we have the title placed with business as well as with women’s titles. We will give it a couple of weeks to find customers.
Today is one of those days when customers will talk a bit longer at the newsagency counter following news of the tragic death of Robin Williams. Everyone has a movie, a comedy routine or some other happy memory of the genius of Robin Williams. Dead Poets Society, Good Will Hunting, Good Morning Vietnam, Mrs Doubtfire – the list of mesmerising performances is long.
I wish I was at the shop today the shared memories would be heartwarming.
168 responses to my magazine rely returns survey provide a valuable insight into newsagent thinking on early magazine returns.
167 of the 168 respondents undertake early returns. 100 say they return the day magazines come in and 67 say they early return before the end of the month but not the day they come in.
What is most telling is the reasons newsagents indicate for engaging in early returns. 91.67% of newsagents say they are sent too much stock. This is a damning stat. Every copy of every magazine oversupplied has a cost in space, labour and opportunity to newsagents.
48.81% of respondents say they early return a title because they do not have space to this play it.
The newsagency channel is the only channel selling magazines in Australia where product is sent without regard to the space available for displaying products. Our treatment in this regard disadvantages newsagents and provides our competitors with a competitive advantage.
Magazine publishers ought to study the survey results as should those working for magazine distributors. The results reflect a brokenness that must be fixed if newsagents are to stop retreating from engagement with magazines.
It is in the hands of magazine publishers and magazine distributors to fix this. I am worried that they will realise this too late to save magazines in the newsagency channel.
You can see the survey responses here.
Tomorrow, I’ll look in some detail at the issue of delayed billing covered in the survey and Wednesday I will share newsagent responses to my last question: What can publishers and or distributors to do to stop you early returning?
In Adelaide yesterday I saw plenty of collateral in newsagencies promoting the Attenborough DVDs. We got none of this – reflecting the disconnect between News Corp. and retail only newsagencies in Victoria.
My experience over the years with the ACCC is that they care less about situations that disadvantage small business newsagents and their customers. Despite the ACCC playing a role in the deregulation of print media distribution in Australia, they have been hands off in investigating complaints of anti-competitive of supermarkets and others compared to small business newsagents.
The ACCC does care about dating though if news reports over the last day are accurate. It appears they are investing time and money in helping Australians to avoid dating scams.
Newsagents are disadvantaged in the current magazine distribution model. This benefits the supermarket duopoly and that, in turn, dilutes competition.
The ACCC and those it reports to care less.
OzLotteries is actively promoting the Powerball $50 million jackpot with emails to people on their database. I’m on their database and don’t recall other recent emails from them as the Powerball jackpots grew. I wonder if a $50M jackpot is the trigger for their marketing to kick in.
There is a problem with some data sent by News Corp to some newsagents for the Attenborough DVD promotion. Here it is the end of Monday and the company is yet to make a statement. In the meantime newsagency software companies and others have spent too much time today dealing with the problem created by News – with no compensation.
News has failed. It needs to own the situation, apologise and lay out a rectification path. That’s not too much to ask.
We are excited to be the first newsagency in Australia to offer PayPal as a fully integrated payment method.
Using their new App, PayPal customers will be attracted to the business through the app – this is a key element of PayPal engagement – promoting your business.
The PayPal integration shows how professional app / POS software integrations should be done (note Bauer).
There will be a more formal launch once we’re through this live testing phase. PayPal has some exciting ideas for promoting the business.
Please take my four-question survey for newsagents on early return behaviour and reasons: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KLBV87H
The publisher of Fuel Magazine hit Twitter last week in support of newsagents as the go to retailers for the specialist automotive culture title. I thanked them for their support. They are keen to see more newsagents actively get behind the Aussie title – and Fuel Magazine is the real deal when it comes to being Australian. Check out this from their website:
Fuel Magazine® is a quarterly publication focused on automotive culture, the people who live it, and the machines that they build. Each issue is over 140 pages long, is printed using high quality stocks and binding right here in locally in Melbourne, Australia.
Using good photography, writing and design presentation, Fuel Magazine® is available through our online shop, nationally via the Australian newsagency network, or through our domestic and international independent resellers.
This is a title we should all get behind.
Father’s Day cards have started selling and we are still a month away from the day. While not massive sales, early sales are enough to warrant our initial placement at the front of the newsagency. The photo shows not even a third of what we will have out by the time we are in full swing with the season. We have this stand on the lease line, facing into the mall.
I was disappointed to see the masthead of the latest Men’s Fitness magazine covered with a stuck-on ad for Anytime Fitness. With the Men’s Health and Men’s Fitness mastheads looking similar – red on white – I’d have avoided covering up a key differentiator – the word Fitness. The offer itself is not worth trashing your brand for.
If you’re Sydney based and a follower of Rupert Murdoch’s businesses and career you may want to see the David Williamson play Rupert. It’s on at the Theatre Royal in the city from late November. Rupert received good reviews when it first opened last year. Maybe we could rustle up a newsagent theatre night?
Please take my four-question survey for newsagents on early return behaviour and reasons: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KLBV87H
This is a marketing tip for a high street newsagency, a business with a footpath in front. Invite a local artist or local artists to create a locally themed footpath mural.
Plan in advance: get Council permission, send out flyers and turn the creation of the meal into an event. If getting an artist is a challenge, try the local school.
The goal is to create activity in front of your shop, show your sport for local artists and have fun. It makes your newsagent relevant to those who care about the local community.
The local newspaper and radio station should pick up on the event, especially with the art being of a local feature or event.
I am not suggesting you try and fur this into a commercial event as that should happen naturally with traffic generated. Sometimes, the most commercially effective events are those you do not set out to be commercial events.
The back room of a modern newsagency is not an ideal place of work. It’s away from the heart of the business, the shop floor.
Smart newsagents have reduced their use of a back room, transferring previous back room work to the shop floor and the shop counter, they have adjusted their buying so that stock needed arrives just in time to go straight onto the shop floor.
Using a back room less will often reduce the labour cost in the business and this is where real savings can be achieved. In your average newsagency business, an hour of adult rostered time saved is the same as selling $92.00 worth of magazines or $46.00 worth of gifts.
An better value of reducing back room focused work could be to not reduce rostered hours and instead focus the saved time on the shop floor. Good retail staff on the shop floor will drive sales and this is even more money in there bank.
Merely having a back room where work is done is an invitation to you and your employees to not be doing the one thing that makes the business most of its money – selling.
Use your back room as little as possible – if at all.
This photo shows half of the front of the newsagents as it is set for this weekend. On the left we have part of our Father’s day card range for early shoppers, next is sand that attracts kids and parents, next is the new line of scarves that started selling when we put them out Friday, next is beanie Boos that attract young girls and finally is a display of Pacific Magazines titles promoting the $5000 shopping spree competition.
It’s a little cramped but it is working, delivering good sales off each of the units yesterday and attracting terrific traffic from the mall into the newsagency during the course of the day.
Setting the front of the newsagency shop needs to be seen as a management responsibility and a key marketing activity.
A customer today told me that we charge too much for Yours and that they just paid $2. They bought the Australian Women’s Weekly and Yours at a Coles Express and got Yours for $2.00. They went back later and returned AWW using the refund to buy another title they actually wanted – meaning they got Yours for $2.00. They left reminding me that we charge too much for Yours. Thanks for that Coles & Bauer.
I have created a four question anonymous survey for newsagents on early return behaviour and reasons: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KLBV87H The results will be published here. You can see responses so far when you complete the survey.
Bauer Media is running another exclusive promotion in Woolworths. Over 28 days they are giving away a 28 Samsung TVs, one a day for the competition running period.
The total prize pool as noted in the rules is $83,972.00.
This is a lucrative competition to run in a single retail channel. Woolworths would have to be happy with the value it pitches to their customers.
While I wish Women’s Health was not bagged this month as it’s an often browsed title and because the gift covers the cover, the free make up bag should drive sales. We have it placed so the gift is easily seen. We have it is two locations for the first week – with health titles and with weeklies.
Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey sounded pathetic earlier this week when he moaned about poor support from business for the government’s budget.
Hockey has been reported as complaining that businesses and business groups need to support the budget more.
I own several small businesses and I do not support the budget. Here’s why:
The budget is based on a lie. There is deficit calamity. When you compare Australia to other OECD nations – indeed any developed world comparison – our budget, including its deficit – is healthy. Indeed, external assessments by respected commentators and authorities rate the fiscal health of Australia as handed over to the new government as excellent.
The budget argues against itself. Giving a quarter of a billion dollars to religious education and millions to free marriage counselling is the government interfering where it should not, engaging is exactly what it said governments should not do.
The budget does not fix what the government claims it fixes. The budget and the forward estimates do nothing to address the deficit.
The budget is unfair. Reducing money for those most vulnerable and increasing money for those least vulnerable is unfair. The GP co-payment is a dog-whistle in my view. The argument abut medical research is nonsense.
The budget continues our wasteful fear campaign. The billions spent by Labour and the even higher abounds spent by the conservatives on offshore processing and ‘protecting’ our borders bakes the worldwide refugee problem worse and not better in my view.
The politicians are out of touch. Preparedness to spend billing on paid parental leave is proof of this as is the spending under Liberal and Labour on VIP jets shows how little they want to connect with common folk.
I see next to nothing in the budget for small business and nothing whatsoever to encourage optimism in Australia.
Small businesses benefit most from spending by everyday Australians. I can;t see anything in this budget that will encourage everyday Australians to spend more.
We elect governments to lead and sure they will pick policies and spending priorities that suit them. Leadership, however, is about representing the whole country. I don’t see that in this budget. That’s why this business owner does not support it.
A rare apology from News Corp. for reprehensible behaviour in the Daily Telegraph where the newspaper used an image of a Boston booming victim a to accompany a juvenile attack on Mike Carlton and Fairfax and in doing so disrespecting all sides of the Middle East crisis.
I am surprised that anyone buys the Daily Telegraph as it’s not a good newspaper in my view.