We have reduced space allocate for World Cup magazine titles and given it over to Tour de France titles. With the official guide dominating the space, we are using the lure of this to promote other terrific bike magazines. Everyone entering our sports and guys reading area will see this without fail. We also have the Tour guide placed next to daily newspapers.
Ribs are an in food in Australia – making the latest issue of Time Out Melbourne a magazine we should promote away from the usual place for the title. We have it with newspapers and with food magazines. The word Ribs should get people considering (but not browsing as it’s bagged) the title.
The publisher of Archer magazine reports that some newsagents have pulled the magazine from their shelves. Someone apparently connected with the title also tweeted: Bunch of newsagents being jerks, refusing to stock the amazing new sexual diversity journal, @ArcherMagazine. I responded noting I’d be happy to stock the title.
As magazine specialists we are not censors. If we were we’;d have to stop carrying any daily newspaper with ads promoting prostitutes where their services are illegal. Our job is to offer our customers what they want within the law. Archer looks like a good special interest title.
The poster for Your Knitting & Crochet Collection from Pacific Magazines, published under the Better Homes & Gardens brand, is proving to be a ripper of a success for us. Plenty of the success has come from the poster placed facing into the mall. Customers have come in specifically asking for the title, mentioning this poster. We’ve ordered more stock as we’re close to selling out.
A group of newsagents met in Perth Wednesday night to hear a pitch that they invest money money, rumoured to be $3,000, to fund the importation of pens and some other stationery items from China for their businesses.
The pitch to newsagents is that the imported stationery can be marked up 200% to 300%. The promotional information mentioned the China products as competing with products from Pilot, Papermate, Bic and Uniball. It suggests newsagents consider increasing stationery sales and increasing gross profit.
While increased gross profit is enticing, it is not the only benefit newsagents should consider when assessing supply options. Newsagents are supported by the ilot, Papermate, Bic and Uniball brands with in-store collateral, in-store rep visits, out of store marketing, newsagency channel event support and other activities that support newsagents and drive traffic to their businesses.
The financial support for newsagents by branded pens and stationery is considerable.
This China import strategy seeks to replace the brand name products with unbranded products and give newsagents margin that would otherwise have been used to support their businesses in a variety of ways.
Newsagents considering the cheap China product need to think through the implications.
Newsagents will only grow stationery sales if they promote stationery. In fact, I suspect individual newsagents will need to spend more than the additional margin they will make to achieve the growth claimed that they could make. If this is right, newsagents will be financially worse off.
Some newsagents would not chase gross profit, they would price the China stationery at a lower price, hoping that this will increase sales. Anyone who has been involved in cheap China stationery in the past will know that products are cheap for a reason – poorer quality raw materials, cheaper manufacturing, less quality control, less back-end support for the retailer. this will matter to some newsagents, but maybe too late.
The best place for newsagents to own part of the supply chain is through ANCOL in SA and GNS nationally. It’s a newsagent-owned business with a strong national footprint. Why newsagents would consider importing pens and stationery to cut out GNS(and ANCOL in SA) is beyond me. And why newsagents would think they can do better with an unknown brand against branded products also does not make sense.
Since we’re in a free and competitive marketplace, newsagents can do what they like. This post reflects my opinion. Please, contribute and lets have a good open discussion about this.
Footnote: I have no commercial agreement or arrangement with GNS other than as a newsagent who buys stationery from them.
Bauer sent Connections newsagents an update this week on the reader rewards program:
- In the first 14 days 500 customers have earned Reward Stars in Newsagents
- 23% of Newsagents had customers using the app in week one
- Already 17 Bauer titles have advertised with a combined audience of 8 million consumers
- Facebook posts have directed over 170,000 followers to download the app
- Click here to view a few examples of social media support
- A lucky Queenslander bagged $1000 by promoting Reader Rewards
- A fellow Maroon won a MacBook Air, but will they get up tomorrow night when it really counts?
Reader Rewards is only just beginning and is starting to pick up pace into Week 3. We continue to deliver MORE CUSTOMERS, create MORE LOYALTY and drive MORE SALES, it’s vital that we have your support to take this all the way.
A colleague sent me this photo from a Woolworths store of an exclusive AWW cookbook offer. The pitch of a $25 discount for the AWW cookbooks gives Woolworths an opportunity to pitch its value proposition ahead of other retailers selling AWW cookbooks at full price.
While I understand publishers need to run different promotions in different channels, it feels sometimes like newsagents, who sell around 50% of all magazines in Australia, don’t get 50% worth of the deals.
At some point, promoting more value propositions in the two major supermarket chains will play out by making the participating publishers more reliant on these supermarkets just when they flex their muscles seeking better deals from the publishers. That won’t go well.
Several news outlets are reporting widespread outages affecting Optus and Vodafone networks. A few minutes ago Optus took to Twitter to advise:
We are aware of an issue affecting some Optus customers at the moment. We’re currently investigating the problem and will keep you updated.
I was fortunate last night to experience first-hand the help Lotterywest provides to its retail partners. In their Perth head office last night, Lotterywest hosted a workshop on newsagency management for a small group of their retailers.
This session covered loss prevention, supplier management, newsagency management and a range of other topics. It was 100% about how to run a more successful business and not about selling more lottery products.
Lotterywest are to be commended for their support of their retail network in organising and hosting sessions like this and other business management sessions through they year.
At the Christchurch Gift and Homeware Fair at the start of this week I saw another excellent example of effective colour blocking that is as relevant to a retail newsagent as it is at a Gift Fair trade display.
This gift / homewares supplier laid out their stand by colour, taking care to place colours next to each other that enhanced the impact – following a chart. The result was a series of stunning displays that many stopped and looked at.
Taking time with product placement and placing items which complement each other enhances impact. By compliment, I mean the two colours are on the opposed of the colour spectrum. This is why the orange and the blue in the photo work so well when placed next to each other – far more effectively than blue and green together or orange and yellow.
Colour blocking for impact and drive shopper engagement and this can attract new shoppers to your newsagency as well as getting existing shoppers engaging more with what you sell.
If you have lottery and newspaper customers who purchase nothing else, could it be that you are not doing anything stunning with your displays to drive their engagement?
If you don’t get lottery shoppers purchasing anything else stand at your lottery counter and follow with your eyes their exit from the business. What are you doing to grab their attention – tactically or visually through, for example, a colour blocking strategy.
What we achieve in our newsagency businesses comes back to us. The more actively and thoughtfully we engage the better the outcomes for us and for our customers.
It would be easy to dismiss this blog post as being about homewares and not relevant to us. Rather, it is completely about how we manage our newsagency businesses and the current-day professionalism we bring to the retail stories we tell through our displays.
I love this idea I saw of a small rack of business cards for local businesses. A newsagent keen to better connect with local businesses and better serve the local community should find a place for a rack – with newspapers, near the entrance – somewhere shoppers can see the cards. The support back to the businesses by the businesses should make this a valuable marketing step by the newsagency.
I counted more than thirty card pockets in a newsagency with ten cards or more in each. Some pockets were so full that the product looked stuffed in rather than well-presented. Newsagents need to actively engage with their card suppliers to ensure commercially appropriate supply. Pockets like the one shown in the photo do the business and the product a disservice.
Issue 151 of Wellbeing magazine, on sale tomorrow, marks the 30th anniversary of the launch of this terrific Australian title.
Wellbeing is a beacon brand title in the health section, a title we place to draw attention to a section because the brand itself is so well known.
The 30th anniversary issue has a stunning gold-foil cover. The publisher sent me a pre-release copy and it looks better in person than in this photo.
The anniversary is an excellent reason to place this issue of Wellbeing in prime position in your health section as well as in a secondary location – showing it off to shoppers who would otherwise not browse the title.
I have received calls in the last 24 hours from several people who have received an anonymous note in the mail attacking me. Here is how this note opens:
Mark Timothy Fletcher – this is a message for you but since I don’t own a blog, this was my next best way to get my opinion out there for comment.
Mark Timothy Fletcher is a highly critical blogger of those who do not share his ‘noble’ views and usually have little scope to reply to his various attacks through his various blog sites.
As such I through a bailout approach was in order to allow you to judge my opinion of this man’s sordid business venture… I don’t think it likely he will put himself out for the judgement he casts on so many of us and our interests.“Those in glass houses should not throw stones!”
(sic)
The little scope to reply comment upsets me in that all comments here are unmoderated except for the first comment someone makes. Commenters here themselves would know that the comments are unmoderated. While it frustrates me that such a false accusation is made, that it has been made speaks to an agenda of the writer.
If you receive this anonymous note please send it to me along with the envelope as it will help identify the source. Send to: Mark Fletcher 3A Lynch Street Hawthorn 3122 or mark@towersystems.com.au.
The note goes on to claim that I am the sole director of a business in Cairns – Head Office CBD. This is true. An ASIC search will confirm it. I have mentioned this before in public forums.
Head Office CBD is an adult shop in Cairns, a retail business serving guys, girls and couples. The anonymous letter makes claims about that business which are false and misleading.
The only reason I own Head Office is to help a friend. They purchased the business a few years ago and for personal health reasons irrelevant here needed to urgently exit the business. At barely a few days notice I took the business on to protect their investment. Over time I paid them out and then put the business on the market – just ask Fritz Herscheid at Barrier Reef Business Brokers, he will confirm that he has been contracted to sell it.
Head Office CBD, in addition to being a regular adult shop, also offers access to a Cairns council approved male-only cinema lounge. The anonymous writer appears to be offended by this. I am not sure why as I’ve not sought to push this on them – they have sought out this information for themselves for their own purposes.
Head Office is a legitimate small retail business providing a lawful service which does more good for the community than if the business did not exist. Neither I nor the people who work in the business do not judge those who shop there or use the cinema lounge just as newsagents don’t judge people who purchase adult magazines or buy cigarettes. Live and let live is good motto.
The writer says they are personally sickened that these types of venues exist in australia (sic) let alone owned by somebody who likes to hold himself in such high moral esteem. I don’t hold myself in high moral esteem. I’m flawed. I’m human. Adult shops and male cinema lounges and other similar venues provide a valuable public service to people of all walks of life.
I am proud to say that under my leadership this has been a good, clean and safe business. It’s also been a profitable business providing work for local Cairns employees.
It’s odd that the note is written from a deeply personal perspective yet they writer refuses to identify themselves – leaving one to wonder about their personal convictions.
I cannot think of why the writer has written and distributed this note. My only guess is that it is a response to my Coming out blog post of May 22. I’d welcome their public comment here about it.
The lack of a comment suggests they do not have the guts to stand by their words.
In the time I have owned Head Office I have learnt things about retail, shopper theft patterns, remote business management and human nature that I had not learnt through other retail businesses I’ve owned.
Check out the colour blocking of stationery that I saw at a newsagency-like Whitcoulls store in New Zealand earning this week. It looks good, very appealing. Their clever buying and in-store colour blocking helps them position paper clips, bulldog clips and rubber bands differently to what we see in the average Australian newsagency. This approach appeals to a broader audience.
Click on the image for a bigger picture.
I like the approach by fashion stationery retailer Typo to censoring greeting cards with words that may offend. The sticker not only censors the worrying word, it draws attention to the card on the card rack, thereby driving shopper interest. It also shows those customers who might be offended that the company respects their views. This is a win win.
Stop Press – The Last Days of Newspapers byRachel Buchannan is a compelling read by a respected journalist and historian. It’s a homage to Australian and New Zealand print newspapers and a call out for for future of journalism. Newsagents come in for a mention as a business channel affected by the declining sales of print newspapers. I recommend the book for those interested in the future of the print product.
I’m told that the ABC is running a report that some copies of today’s Courier Mail has a printing error with some pages – page 2, page 10 and some others – publishing yesterday’s news. Some people are going to have a tough day today.
Labor’s plain packaging fails as cigarette sales rise
This June 8 headline and accompanying article published in The Australian has been shown to be based on specious information as last night’s Media Watch program explained. Relying on respected government sources and tracking back connections between the journalist and the source for data relied upon to big tobacco the Media Watch report destroyed the report by The Australian.
With newspapers challenged for revenue, their best chance at a future comes from fearless and accurate reporting and not doing the bidding of businesses looking for an outlet for their spin.
While I understand big tobacco and those who support them and their spin (in newspapers, blogs and other outlets) the real story that matters is the health outcomes we all hope for of less people getting ill and dying from tobacco related illnesses. This public health issue is why we need fact-based reporting and not spin that serves the tobacco companies.
Newsagencies are visited by males more for cards than other retail outlets – several studies over the years have shown this.
Male card customers tend to appreciate an offer of help to choose a card and or a gift more than female customers.
Are your staff trained to make the most of male card customers?
The right approach on the shop floor can help turn a $2.00 cheap card purchase (if you sell those!) into a $7.95 and more purchase. For a small time investment and some words of encouragement you’ll have a customer walking out with confidence in their purchase rather than the regret of the $2.00 it’s all I could find feeling.
If every newsagent in Australia immediately from today focused on male shoppers looking for cards I have no doubt that we would see a measureable increase in card revenue.
With the card department delivering the best gross profit in our newsagencies why wouldn’t we invest in this activity? Only newsagents who are not retailers would ignore this opportunity.
I love this window display I saw in a home furnishings store Sunday night in Christchurch. I love it because it demonstrates the successful pyramid approach to building a display and because it uses seven tables, chairs and frames for the structure on which the products are placed – providing us with ideas we can easily follow. Click on the picture and see how easy it would be to recreate this type of window display in your newsagency.
The Generation wealth cover story in the latest issue of Australian Property Investor is an opportunity for us to pitch the magazine beyond the property section that’s usually hidden far away from the spotlight. I think it is the kind of cover that could get people browsing this title who would usually not notice it.
Sales of Mollie Makes magazine continue to grow – it is now in our top grouping of monthly magazines. All we have done to achieve this is to understand the opportunity, place the title next to weeklies and continue to order more stock.
This is an example of where being an engaged magazine specialist pays off. Had we treated Mollie Makes in a more traditional way it may not have been placed in the spotlight and may not have found the excellent growth it is achieving.
Mollie Makes is profitable for us and I love it.
Julie Green, National Channel Manager – Newsagents, at Bauer Media has issues a statement about Coles discounting Woman’s Day today in Victoria:
It has been brought to our attention that Coles has made the decision to discount this week’s current edition of Woman’s Day to $2.10 in their Victorian stores.
Bauer Media would like to state categorically that it does not support this decision and is not funding this promotion in any way.
Our extensive research has clearly demonstrated that discount price promotions of this nature do not perform positively both in terms of sale numbers or brand equity. The magazine category within a grocery outlet serves as an impulse sale which in turn builds baskets. They are not discount sensitive. Our strategy for magazines continues to be to add value to the purchase, not discount the product. We have spent considerable time, effort and resourcing to launch the Reader Rewards magazine loyalty program for newsagents that meets this strategy. The investment is substantial and ongoing. To then have this inappropriate activity happen in an alternative channel is extremely disappointing and frustrating.
We strongly urge those newsagents with Reader Rewards to exploit this competitive advantage. An issue of a magazine can be sold only once – claim the sale of Woman’s Day early by leveraging the reward of a free magazine with shoppers. Reader Rewards provides a key point of difference that will build customer traffic, loyalty and repeat purchase that will outlast and outperform this singular promotion.
It’s terrific to see Bauer being so clear on this issue.
I’m at the Winter Gift & Homeware Fair in Christchurch and enjoying looking at gift opportunities from a different perspective. With some common suppliers between Australia and New Zealand this fair is proving to be a good opportunity for catching up away from the business of Australian trade shows.