I love the way the Fisher Price brand owns this fixture housing its products.
This stand has more impact than if the products were on the same fixture without the Fisher price branding on the aisle end and on the shelves themselves.
I think a shopper looking at this stand will be more confident as it shows Fisher Price supporting the retailer – kind of like encouraging you to transfer your trust in the Fisher Price brand to the retailer.
I’m not sure what data Network Services has to justify sending us Asiana Wedding. It’s a new title for us and to fit in with wedding magazines we have to take a pocket away from another title. Landlords fine retailers who take more than their allocated space. Maybe we should fine magazine distributors who do this.
Any magazine publisher who feels their titles are unreasonably early-returned by newsagents should look at what Network has done here. They have supplied a new title based on evidence that Asian themed titles are strong for us and applied into an already full segment. Any newsagent with an eye to cash-flow will either early return this new title or early return another title to balance the account.
The free write band with Prevention and the free training socks with Women’s Health have hit the mark – driving good interest for both titles. We have them next to each other in our women’s health section plus we have them located elsewhere to attract shoppers to looking for a health title as this is where the gifts will work best for us. My advice to newsagents is to ensure that the full cover is on show.
Newsagents and other retailers selling e-cigarettes will want to listen to The Law Report on ABC radio National today at 5:30PM as that’s the topic this week. The promo indicates that the show will cover the recent court case in Western Australia as well as look at the legalist of selling e-cigarettes elsewhere in Australia. After the show is aired you can listen online via the program website.
UPDATE: click here to hear the program.
Typo is a chain of homewares and stationery shops owned by the Cotton On group. They compete successfully with newsagents in what we call the social stationery space. Indeed, they do this well.
I think we can learn a lot from Typo – from their effective front of store displays to their ranging to their price pitch.
To the shopper their products look like good value and maybe they are compared to similar products elsewhere. Having looked at prices for some similar lines sourced from China, I suspect that the margin being achieved in Typo stores is excellent.
Typo stores are a good place for newsagents to visit for retail inspiration. Their fixturing, product ranging, victual merchandising and tactical product placement can teach us a lot. We ought to look carefully at their stores as they are taking business from our channel.
I noticed this magazine, Online Privacy, on the shelves of another newsagency and was surprised it had not been widely scaled out. With the many stories about online security breaches and data hacking hitting international companies, this title would sell. Fear drives sales. Online Privacy is a title I am sure many newsagents would have selected had it been offered to us through a pull model.
The first Slow Cooker title from Bauer (then called ACP) was a ripper of a success. We sold around 300 copies. The publisher responded well – they reprinted and airfreighted stock to Australia to keep up with demand. It was a wonderful and unexpected success. Now, a few years on, Slow Cooker 4 is out. It its a challenged space because of other slow cooker titles and because of a warmer winter. Nevertheless, we are supporting Slow Cooker 4 with good placement and co-location.
The decision last week by the Fairwork Commission to lift the minimum wages by 3% is reasonable in my view. When considered against the annual 5% increase in rent and increases in many business costs, a 3% increase in the base cost of labour is not the bad news some are saying.
Sure no business owners wants costs to increase, especially in a business like a newsagency where a decent chunk of what you sell is sold at prices over which you have no control. However, 3% is within the band of what I’d expect a well run newsagency to be growing each year.
I don’t understand commentators, business group spokespeople and Treasurer Joe Hockey who say the 3% increase will cost jobs. Shopping centre landlords increase rent 5% a year, more than Fairwork increases, yet they don’t face the same attention. It feels like business looking after business and them ganging up on the weakest – the employees.
Good employees are valuable in any retail business. Quibbling over less than $20 a week is nuts since a good employee could easily make that much extra each week.
Our challenge as retailers has to be to partner with our employees to ensure we get the best value and can therefor pay them better value.
The cover shot of Debbie Harry on the cover of Renegade Collective magazine is stunning – offering us an excellent opportunity to get this title in front of people who are currently not purchasing it. We have it at the front of our thinking women’s titles. Plus we have it with our music magazines – next to the latest Mojo magazine which also features Debbie Harry on the cover.
It pays to check magazine covers for opportunities like this. We can sell more magazines.
I am fortunate to have been sent a preview copy of the launch issue of Military Watches by the artworks team at Gordon and Gotch. Military Watches launches on June 23 with the Australian Naval Diver watch – in an excellent salute to the Australian market.
I know watch people. I am certain they will like this series. The regular issue price, after part 2, will be $19.99 – good value given that you get a watch with each issue.
This is an excellent collectors opportunity. While allocations are controlled by the UK, the Gotch partworks team is committed to supporting newsagents who support the title through the 80 parts.
We have an excellent opportunity in our newsagencies to achieve incremental sales of Bride To Be with the Bride To Be Wedding Planner looking perfectly paired when placed next to Bride To Be. The blue and pink covers look terrific and when together they look like a pair.
These two magazines together are the beacon brand for our bride titles.
Show don’t tell. Use that as your motto for changes you make in your newsagency to market the business from within.
Take party goods – does your party department feel like a party? If is fun to shop? Can your customers see what you have on offer? Or, are your products all in their packs with your customers needing to read to understand what you offer.
Show don’t tell. Get products out and on display. Make some visual noise from your party department and get more traffic there as a result. Do it right and kids will bring their parents.
I was at newsagency and gift supplier Artwrap during the week – included in their extensive range products is a party goods section. In their showroom they have done what newsagents should do – they had product hanging just in that section, separating it from other sections and bringing a party feel to this part of the showroom.
Marketing inside your shop is as important as marking outside. Your success at engaging shoppers is up to you.
Poor data is in my top three causes for a newsagency struggling or failing.
If you do not use accurate current data in business planning then your business decisions are more likely to be either wrong or less effective.
I know data can be a boring topic. It is better for you to master this boring topic and have a business than it ignore it and not have a business.
Yes, it is that simple.
Accurate current data can help you:
Every newsagent either wants or should want these benefits. It is a weakness for and of our channel is that more newsagents ignore data than embrace it.
So how to you improve the quality of your business data: scan everything you sell, enter into your computer system all stock that comes in, scan out everything (including cards) you return, do a stock take ASAP and then rolling category stock checks through the year.
These tasks can be done in the regular course of running your business. They are not a burden. Newsagents sometimes say they are a burden so they have an excuse to not face up to the truth of their business data.
Your data is your truth. Embrace it and your business will improve.
I know of at least ten newsagencies where an employee was able to steal more than $100,000 because the business did not treat data with respect.
Newsagents should get the current issue of The Monthly in front of more customers to leverage their Big Sugar story. This will be an issue to promote with newspapers as well as weekly and or food magazines. I’ve read the article – it’s fascinating and challenging. It’s an excellent opportunity to pitch The Monthly to people who do not regularly purchase the magazine.
There is a slower pace with shoppers today, the first day of a three-day weekend (everywhere in Australia except for Western Australia). And fewer shoppers too. But they are spending, because there is not the usual Saturday rush that we see. I expect we will end the day ahead in dollars but down in traffic. I’m okay with that.
When I say it’s one of those weekends, I mean it is a holiday weekend without a purpose that retailers can easily tap into … commercialise.
A customer visited the newsagency a couple of days ago, spending in excess of $40. They make a point of telling us that they visited because of this Happy Jackson range from Tinco facing into the mall. They said they had never shopped with us before.
This is an excellent example of a non newsagency product attracting a new shopper into the newsagency.
The feedback from the customer is an encouragement to focus on more opportunities like this.
As part of their Happiness Thursdays promotion a couple of days ago, Meshel & Tommy on Nova has someone live on air in a newsagency in Melbourne buying magazines for customers who called in. A colleague heard this live and send me this:
I was listening to the radio yesterday in the car and the breakfast program Meshel & Tommy was doing a segment called happiness Thursdays. This week there focus was on magazines. The way they pitched it was that buying a magazine was a luxury and it made people happy. They specifically mentioned the smell of a new magazine. They had a radio staffer in Burnley newsagency in the magazine section. People called in and told her what magazines they wanted and she bought them for them. The magazines I remember being bought were Better Homes and Gardens and frankie.
This is a terrific story, one that should warm the hearts of newsagents.
Thanks NOVA and thanks Meshel & Tommy.
We’re giving the new Big Soups soup cook book from Bauer support by placement at the front of food titles and with another popular soup title.
Our goal is to sell the copy we received in the next couple of weeks before we consider returning it. This prime placement is the best support we can give.
We are promoting the Pacific Magazines Win a Tablet opportunity in three locations in store in three locations including this one with weekly titles. Our promotion and placement activity is tactical – i.e. we’re not going for noise but for focused engagement. Our thinking here is that less is more given all the colour in a newsagency. We are also promoting the competition externally as a traffic-driving opportunity.
Some who have been watching the Wild Cards and Gifts shops since the take over of the group by UK Newsagent retailers WH Smith have noticed recent changes to their focus. The gifts they are pitching are more often now gifts you’d see in Australian newsagencies than was the case under the old ownership.
If this is indeed a trend it will blur the lines between newsagencies and the Wild businesses. This will be especially interesting to watch in locations where newsagencies and Wild compete for the same nearby shopper.
This week I am running a series of simple moves you can make in your newsagency to increase sales. None requires you to spend any money, only time. Here is simple move to make more money by moving spinners.
Do you move your spinners? When was the last time you placed spinners in different locations? If you don’t place your spinners in different locations, are your spinners working as well as you need and or expect? If the answer to this question is no then move them.
Moving a spinner can open the products it holds to shoppers who may not have seen the products in your shop previously.
As a rule, no spinner should be in the same location more than two weeks – except in exceptional circumstances where you know that moving the spinner will love sales.
We need to run our newsagencies with a gift shop approach to the shop floor – major changes every two weeks, following a process of continuous movement.
I’d love to hear from newsagents how the million dollar scratchie game is selling. I noticed street level advertising by Golden Casket in the centre of Brisbane. Indeed, it was terrific to see this advertising to see the game. Scratchie tickets are a good over the counter opportunity as they are a retailer focused product as opposed to OzLotto, Powerball and Lotto tickets that can be purchased online and on your phone.
I love the promotion by Men’s Health magazine to Nexus newsagents of a tipping competition for the World Cup.
This is a good bit of fun for the popular sporting event. It’s pure fun too – no displays to setup, no extra stock to display … no this is purely a tipping competition. Terrific!
With newsagents busy running their own small businesses they often do not have time to connect with others. This type of competition by Men’s Health offers newsagents a bit of social fun around what is set to be a very popular event.
Early this week Pacific Magazines the company sent out a text message to consumers promoting newsagents as the retailers to purchase Pacific titles from to get in the running to win a tablet computer. Out of store marketing like this is terrific for newsagents, providing another reason to support Pacific titles.
The Telegraph has reported that a 11,000 consumers in a recent survey voted WH Smith as the worst high street retailer in the UK. Apple was rated #2 and Lush soap #2. The report is pretty damning.
Dissatisfaction with WH Smith is not new, and it has been one of the lowest-rated shops for the last four years.
Retail expert Mary Portas has described it as a “dump” which she “truly hates” shopping in.
This story would not usually rate a mention in Australia but the growing presence of WH Smith here with their own stores, their growing hospital retail network and their ownership of Wild cards and gifts it’s worth knowing about.