7:30 on ABC TV last night had an excellent story about security for credit and eftpos card use. The report showed why the move to compulsory pin use is important and how the technology we use here in Australia is more advanced than the US – where significant data breaches have occurred in recent months.
Source: Mumbrella
Sales of Family Circle magazine jumped 26.4% in the July – December 2013 compared to 2012. Women’s Fitness, Australian Property Investor, Australian Home Beautiful, real Living, Diabetic Living, Grand Designs Australia, Russh, Caravan World, Frankie, Belle, Australian handyman, Super Food Ideas and Feast all posted good growth – between 4% and 21%.
Cleo and Cosmopolitan experiences double digit declines of 17% and 14% respectively while Marie Claire experiencd a 1.7% decline. Girlfriend sales fell 23.3% while Dolly sales fell 22.3%. Food titles generally are struggling. Mumbrella has more on the monthly magazine circulation results.
As for weeklies, New Idea performed the best with a decline of 4% and Zoo performed the worst with a decline of 34.9%. See Mumbrella for more.
I’d love to see the sales breakdown by channel – that data would be valuable to newsagents to understand where we sit and to compare ourselves against the whole channel.
Newsagents can grow magazine sales by offering shoppers a unique value proposition and by working the category and individual titles.
Capital city newspapers around Australia experienced double-digit declines in circulation in the October to december 2013 compared to 2012. The Advertiser, The Mercury and The West Australian are the only exceptions. the 17% decline for The Age and 16.6% decline for the SMH continue an awful trend for these titles. The declines of 12% for the Daily Telegraph and 12.3% for the Herald Sun are awful news for News. Mumbrella has the gory details.
These numbers reinforce my view that we will see at least one and maybe more capital city dailies cease daily production this year. The cost of producing and distributing product with lower ad revenue is the issue. the recent price rises announced by News will not fill much of the revenue gap.
Valentine’s Day brings out a range of strong customer reactions from the sweet and romantic to the smokin angry – and everything in between. While people at both extremes are interesting, the angry ones are especially so as I’d love to know drives them to react that way to what I see as a reasonably harmless retail season.
I love the customer who shares anticipation about the card or gift they have bought and about what they may receive. I also love the customers outside the usual who buy a card or gift – especially those 70, 80 and older. It’s sweet. I also love the kids buying cards. In fact that’s a real treat – seeing a teenage boy or girl agonising over a card for young love.
Yes, Valentine’s Day is a commercial season, one we gladly support for all its commercial glory but it is also a season drenched in tradition and expectation and we newsagents play a role in reinforcing the tradition and in helping people find fulfilment from expectation. In our small businesses we get to see people engage more so than in other places where a Valentine’s Day card or gift is just another SKU. Across the newsagency counter, as with much of our interaction, it is more personal.
This is what is special about seasons like Valentine’s Day for small business newsagents, the opportunity for us to watch people as they engage with their feelings, and the opportunity to engage with them. It’s a pleasure not many retailers have, one to cherish.
Fairfax yesterday stuck an ad over the top of the lead image in the front page of the newspaper yesterday, a story about the Closing the Gap report delivered by the Prime Minister in federal parliament on Tuesday. Fairfax took money to advertise the Mexican Fiesta show on SBS TV. I am shocked that people in production didn’t realise the insensitivity of the placement of the ad and I am more shocked that this has not been more widely covered.
While it angers me that Bauer decided they did not have enough stock to supply Take 5 to one of my newsagencies this week – there is no excuse for this commercially harmful action by the publisher – I want to note that this week’s issue looks good. I like the free necklace, how it is placed and the way it is promoted above the masthead. At least they got the production right.
Bauer is trying to drive sales of the new Elle magazine by bundling it with Cosmopolitan and offering the two for $5 off. While discounting can be seen as rewarding people for buying more than they expected, I think it gives the wrong message. The discount voucher approach I use works better as it is a whole of my business push.
We are promoting the INXS one-shot title in three locations for impulse purchase by shoppers: with newspapers, with weeklies and here as shown in the photo at the entrance to the main magazine aisle.
Each location is getting shopper engagement – reflecting the broad appeal of the TV show on the Seven network.
Our supply of Take 5 was cut by Bauer from 30 to 0 due to insufficient stock. The Network Services website advised no stock available for us to order. Thankfully, a nearby supermarket had plenty.
In a newsagency a few days ago I noticed them selling Hallmark 2014 date books at the counter for $2.00. This is an item they got for a few cents to be used as a customer gift to help drive sales. The same newsagency had other items at the counter, also priced at $2.00, such as freebies with magazines – including a craft kit from the cover of Mollie Makes.
While the independence of our businesses is a strength, it is also a weakness. The image of every newsagency can be tarnished by the actions of one newsagency.
Newsagents selling items that should be free disrespect their fellow newsagents, their customers and the suppliers of the products involved. The same is true for newsagents who keep for themselves any item provided by a supplier as a customer prize.
The newsagent selling the date book could have been offering it to customers to drive care sales. Instead, they disconnected from the opportunity in pursuit of a small amount of revenue.
I know of a supplier some years ago that retreated from proactive engagement with the channel to barely active engagement on the back of evidence of some newsagents behaving poorly.
Following comments from my post yesterday about the Officeworks price comparison and guarantee I thought I’d post one of the ways we promote on price at my newsagency.
This simple yet clear flyer is in a couple of high traffic locations in store. The same pitch has been emailed to close to 1,000 of our customers, a more thorough flyer goes with each customer purchase and we have delivered 15,000 to homes around the shop.
Ink sales are up 35% year on year off a good base. We’re in a centre with several major ink competitors including a new format Dick Smith which has opened right next door.
Helping out a newsagent this week I suggested they take more care when placing labels on magazine covers. They were placing big labels over magazine mastheads, potentially making it harder for customers to find the titles they want. I also suggested they consider a slimmer more discrete label.
At a Coles supermarket yesterday I noticed two pockets of AWW Meals in Minutes at $19.95 each. This is a large-format title, the same size as the new superfoods title we have for $10 more. These price inconsistencies can’t be good for anyone, especially the retailer with the higher price.
In this era of reality TV (it’s not real, in fact it is more fake than non-reality TV) and social media enabled instant celebrity, it’s worth pausing to reflect on the passing overnight of Shirley Temple Black, a real celebrity with real talent and who did real things outside her celebrity life. Reading about Shirley Temple Black would be, I suspect, more interesting to many than reading about a convicted drug smuggler just released in Bali or a Kardashian who is famous for nothing of substance.
At an Officeworks in Sydney’s CBD Monday I noticed this Check our prices noticeboard near the entrance. This is another strategy they use for pitching their prices and their price guarantee. If I was a newsagent nearby with lower prices in, say, ink, and if my lease permitted I promote in my window a comparison of my prices and theirs. I’d take it to them. But I’d use a twist: my promotion would be for last week’s prices and I’d note that we’re doing this comparison to show that our customers were the winners.
Officeworks spends a considerable sum of money promoting that their prices are lower and their LOWEST PRICE GUARANTEE. I would not be surprised to discover that the amount they spend on this price pitch compared to other businesses is inverse to where they actually sit in a price comparison.
Newsagents are often cheaper than Officeworks yet we do not tell the world about this. In some cases our leases do not permit in-store comparative promotion. But for the rest, why not? Some newsagents do but not enough. I suspect it is too hard. This is something a switched on industry association could do.
Several suppliers have conducted research over the years that indicates shoppers consider newsagencies to be expensive when price research indicates we are not. I was at a newsagency conference ten years ago where this was presented. Given the perception, why not a national campaign that helps newsagents promote their price position, a campaign showing the small business fighting back and competing with Officeworks and others. This would be good work for an industry association like the ANF to undertake – there’s no money in it for them but members would like it.
The Officeworks noticeboard reeks of ignorance but the average person entering their store would not know that. Newsagents nearby who do offer better prices need to engage. Yes, a fight with Officeworks could be challenging but, hey, what’s the alternative?
South Australian newsagents are not being supplied enough volume of the Mr Men books to satisfy demand generated by promotion in The Advertiser and through TV and other advertising.
The circulation manager at News in Adelaide wrote to newsagents saying that they, newsagents, should direct customers to News and the company will endeavour to assist. Note the line written by someone who has not spent enough time serving customers at a newsagency counter:
I must stress that you should make no commitment to the customer that they will definitely be supplied their order.
News is heavily promoting the Mr Men books in its newspapers and on national TV. It would / should have known the success the campaign could achieve and should have ensured sufficient supply in South Australia. Thankfully, I am not experiencing short supply in Victoria.
The window display promoting Valentine’s Day in Kikki.K stores is creative and inspiring, perfectly targeting the Kikki.K shopper. notice how it’s not about price? Their focus is on connecting with people looking at the window, triggering emotions and offering inspirations. This is good visual merchandising.
It’s five months since Australia elected a new government and more than ten percent into their term we are yet to be presented a business narrative, especially a narrative that speaks to small business owners, the group that employs more Australians than any other.
The narrative is vital to encouraging optimism and optimism feed into hiring, stocking and other business planning decisions.
Even in tough economic circumstances where a government is chasing a sizeable defect and finds itself in a global economic challenge a narrative that encourages and supports small business is possible. It all comes down to leadership.
In this climate is an extraordinary manufacturing downturn, we in small business and the whole country need leadership in the from of a narrative we can believe, a narrative on which we can build a future.
Who says card sales are down because of texting and social media?
Our sales of Valentine’s Day cards are up 65% on the same period last year. This is data up to Friday last week and it’s off of good numbers for 2013.
With our card sales up 15% for the first five weeks of this year compared to 2013, the Valentine’s Day result is even better. We are promoting the season on the lease line with a good range facing out into the mall. It’s checked and refreshed every couple of hours.
It’s for major seasons like Valentine’s Day that shopping centre based newsagents have an excellent opportunity to attract infrequent or first-time shoppers. Tis is where placement of an excellent range on the lease line and laid out to facilitate easy browsing are the keys.
One shot magazine titles can be tremendously successful in driving traffic and leveraging basket-building. INXS Commemorative Edition is a title achieving both. We have people asking for it and purchasing on impulse.
The INXS telemovie was a hit Sunday night – 1.97 million viewers versus the 1.02 for the Schapelle Corby telemovie. These ratings indicate public interest that we should be able to leverage into unexpected magazine revenue.
To make the most of the one-shot we have it places with music titles, weeklies and on the counter. I figure we have a week, maybe two, to leverage the opportunity.
We have been promoting Girlfriend Guide to Life next to Girlfriend magazine as well as with the weeklies where mum could pick up the title for a daughter. I took a look at Guide to Life and discovered a respectable publication I’d be happy to give my daughter. I mention this because magazine publishers are often accused of taking a sensationalist approach. This title is not sensationalist. It’s a good guidebook parents can use and it’s out at the right time of the year for this promotion.
From Mediaweek this morning the rating numbers for TV last night:
Mediaweek @MediaweekAUS SunTV:Seven#1 33.1% #INXS 1.97m SNight 1.79m #MKR 1.64m 7News 1.29m #TheBlock 1.27m 9News 1.22m #Schapelle 1.02m #Sochi2014 996k 60Mins 866k
I was thrilled to discover that Australians appear to be less interested in the reports about convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby and more interested in the music of INXS and the genius of Michael Hutchence.
I’ve read Fairfax journalist Eamon Duff’s book, Sins of the Father and felt it made a compelling case. After I read the book I felt done, that I didn’t need any more news or spin from, by or about the Corbys and their associates. One thing the family has been good at is making drama to sell stories to media outlets. The ratings last night indicate that interest may be waning. I hope so.
The drug smuggler has got parole. So what? If I see a Schapelle story I’ll look the other way – she and the family have nothing to say that I am interested in or would be likely to believe.
In our newsagencies today we have a commemorative one-shot from Pacific Magazines on INXS. This is well worth focusing attention based on the ratings for the telemovie last night.
Several moves in recent weeks suggest that magazine distributors Gordon & Gotch and Network services are reviewing small accounts with a view to cutting accounts that to not meet minimum sales criteria. While they have had thresholds for new accounts and in the past have review performance, I anticipate the review this year will be felt more widely.
Call it a conspiracy theory but I wonder if any such review and plan to reduce the number of smaller accounts related to the withdrawal of support and requirement for the previously mandated five day training course for new newsagents.
While there is active discussion among newsagents and their suppliers about the closure of newsagency businesses and what this means for the future of the channel, there has been little discussion about the support for the channel by core suppliers such as magazine distributors.
Magazine distributors continue to treat newsagents unfairly. They supply us using rules and processes established in the days of regulation yet our competitors are treated differently, in a de-regulated way. This creates an unfair playing field that newsagents have failed to have addressed.
While the ANF invests in a struggling bill payment platform, its member newsagents are facing more challenges from an old magazine distribution model that leaves their businesses uncompetitive in this slim-margin product category. And while on the ANF – any distribution account review should see newsagents treated the same as another direct drop account.
I’d encourage newsagents to share here if their account is being reviewed or has been cut.
I’ve received a couple of reports today from newsagents saying that Gotch increased supply of a range of titles by 1 or 2 copies each without any justification in the sales data. Anyone else experience this today specifically?
There was a time not so long ago when we could rely on remainder book sales three or four times a year to deliver excellent good-margin revenue. Those days are gone with landlords signing up deep discounters for outposts. Whereas newsagents would tend to run catalogues with prices delivering healthy margins, today’s book discounters pitch a price that only works with a sales volume far greater than newsagents could achieve with an in-store promotion.
I took the photo yesterday in a regional mall in Queensland. Everything was $6. Looking at the stock on offer, it only works if they achieve volume. The space would be costing around $3,000 for seven days. Labour would be at least $1,700 a week and this needs to be factored in even for an owner-operator. Round it up to $6,000 in operating costs for a week once you allow for freight, storage, insurance and other items and you’d need to sell at least $12,000 in books in seven days to justify the outpost.
There is no point in pining for opportunities of years past. If we want to be in books in 2014 we need to work with suppliers keen to do it differently and suppliers prepared to commit and not succumb to the discounters who do deals with landlords that harm the businesses of their long-term tenants – these outposts from non-tenants are a blight in shopping centres, they hurt many businesses.
These outpost operators who pitch on price can do so because they are here today and gone tomorrow. Retailers with long term leases can’t pitch on price unless we are prepared to forever pitch on price and that is a losing game. People who purchase on price are the most fickle shoppers. The only way to retain them is to forever pitch on price.
As for books, if we want to be in the space we have to do it in a way that represents a value proposition, one that works for us in terms of the investment needed and one that pop-up retailers will struggle to match. One newsagent I know in country Victoria has done this well by focussing on kids books and creating a section of the store beautifully decked out for this.