A blog on issues affecting Australia's newsagents, media and small business generally. More ...

Promoting marie claire and L’Occtaine gift with purchase

magsmcfrontWe are promoting the latest issue of marie claire on this floor display unit at the entrance to our main women’s magazine aisle.

We also have this title in a half-waterfall display and featured at the counter as magazine of the week – supporting the premium value L’Occtaine hand cream gift with purchase.

This small footprint display unit continues to work well for us, generating excellent incremental business beyond what more traditional displays tend to achieve. The keys to success for the star are: product selection, stand location placement and that it’s a compelling offer worth inter upping the shopper for.

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magazines

News Corp. heavily promoting digital subscriptions

herald-sun-subscriptionThe relentless full-page and double-page ads in News Corp. capital city newspapers promoting digital access with one or two day home delivery are an indicator of the plans of the company. The marketing reads as if the print product is the gift with purchase for the main item – the digital subscription.

If you look at what some newspaper publishers have done overseas, the apparent News Corp. ought not be unexpected. Newspapers are more profitable some days than others. Focusing on the most profitable days makes sense.

I think the ads speak volumes about the focus of News. While the company has not turned its back on print, it is investing considerably in looking beyond the medium.

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Media disruption

Celebrating the 100th issue of Australian Healthy Food Guide

HFG 0214_Cover finalThe 100th issue of Australian Healthy Food Guide magazine goes on sale today. I’ve written about this magazine before – I like it, – it sits in an important place among food and health related titles.

This issue of Australian Healthy Food Guide is timely because of its coverage of back to school lunch options – promote this with back to school.

Take a moment to ensure you have this magazine in a high profile location. We will have the full cover on show in the usual location as well as pocket placed with our weekly magazines – featuring content from inside.

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magazines

How to make your newsagency business worth more

Regulars here will know that in addition to owning newsagencies, I also own Tower Systems, the supplier of the software used by 1,850+ newsagents. Tower also serves in other retail channels. I recently shot a video to put into context an important goal for 2014 for newsagents and other independent small retailers:

The video can be accessed from a special landing page at the Tower website.

While I am promoting Tower here, I am more importantly focusing on the need to work on our businesses, to chase growth and chase efficiency – for ourselves and to better compete.

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newsagency marketing

Sunday newsagency management tip: beware category dependence

Given the history of today’s retail newsagency business and the regulation surrounding the supply of several core categories, it is not unexpected that we see some businesses heavily dependent on a small range of product. I think this is unhealthy.  I know newsagents who like this, that half or more of their sales come from a single category like magazines, cards or lotteries.

With the changes we are seeing with print media, how where and when people purchase lottery products and with retail in general, now more than any time in the history of our channel we need to be less dependent on core categories.

As a guide, I would suggest that a single product category should generate no more than 25% of revenue. If we were to use this benchmark, it could guide us to expand what we sell to thereby drive the efficiency of our business and make it less dependent on a smaller range of categories.

I am suggesting a glass is half full approach, not a glass is half empty. By that I mean: say 40% of your sales are magazines – don’t cut magazine sales. Introduce new product categories which will sell to magazine shoppers so in terms of percentage of overall revenue magazines account for less. This is a win win. Yes, it’s hard work – but it’s what smart retailers do.

Newsagents who address the category mix will create for themselves a business that is less buffeted by changes impacting these large for categories. Here are other categories you could consider if you are not in these already: gifts, plush, toys, hardware, garden products, coffee / cafe, party, furniture, pool supplies, specialist printing, locally grown fruit. As this list shows, there are no rules – certainly don’t be bound by the shingle above your door.

I know of newsagencies that closed last year in Australia that relied too much on one or two categories and when those were hit, it was too late for them.  A business closing because of a decline in just one or two product categories is a weak business. You can plan to not be as impacted by this.

I urge newsagents to act on their product mix now, with urgency. Your first steps can be guided by your existing business data.

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Management tip

Sunday newsagency marketing tip: use social media for a conversation

Social media – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and others – can be powerful and free or low cost tools for small business retailers like newsagents to reach your existing customers and to reach out to a wider audience.

Success with social media, however, depends on how the various platforms are used. Importantly, it comes down to how you pitch your voice.

It is important to not look at social media as a means for advertising – unless you are running a paid ad. No, it ought to be viewed more as you having a conversation, actively engaging with your customers. By conversation, I mean two way with you getting as much out of the interaction as your customers.

For example, let’s say you want to promote a magazine. One way would be to put up a photo of the magazine and say come and buy it while stocks last. An alternative approach would be to comment on an article on a topic that you know will have broad interest with your community and invite your others to share their thoughts. This engages your customers in a conversation, it better connects them with your business.

Another example could be you sharing a story about a customer who came in looking for the perfect pen be used with a condolence book at a funeral. Share how it made you feel serving the customer. Take people beyond the transaction and into you as a person.  This type of personal story can help you love your business more and help you better with the community in which you serve.

In another example let’s say you have just got a new range of jewellery in-store. You could publish photos of some of the jewellery pieces and say that the team in the business can’t decide which they like best. Ask a question:  what do you think? This, too, brings your customers into a conversation. The more you can do this the better – as long as the conversation is authentic.

If you look around at what smart corporate businesses are doing on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram you will see them doing this – engaging in conversations with their customers. It works.

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marketing

Target data breach to have implications for everyone involved in card payments

Just as we see insurance rates rise on the back oif a huge natural disaster such as bushfires or floods, retailers and other businesses receiving payments online or over the counter by card will be forced to shoulder some of the costs associated with the extraordinary data breach reported by US retail giant Target.

While there is talk about fines and other costs for target and its partners, a knock-on effect for even retailers in Australia is something we should anticipate as card issuers, consumers and, yes, retailers, seek a more secure card processing environment. In saying this, I am well aware of the difference between the card processing platform in Australia and the US. That does not mean regulators and or card issues won’t use this extraordinary data breach to increase security. I am certain retails will bear some costs associated with this either in infrastructure changes or an increase in fees we pay.

Given that authorities are saying the Target breach is part of a broader attack, there are bound to be worldwide implications. This will be a cost of being part of a connected always-on world, a cost that will continue to rise.

My concern is that small business retailers will end up paying a higher price as a percentage of turnover than companies like Target that are, in my view, more vulnerable to attack.

Forbes has published an article documenting the timeline of the breach which is good reading. The Chicago Tribune has a good backgrounder on the breach.

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theft

Chinese New Year cards working at counter

chinese-new-yearWe are finding the placement of Hallmark Chinese New Year cards at the counter is working for us.

Chinese New Year cards are more of an impulse purchase than a destination purchase – hence the ideal location for customers to add a card or a red packet to their basket – it’s important we offer both options.

These cards can sell to a range of nationalities.

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Greeting Cards

Australia Day selling well

australia-dayWe’ve had good sales of Australia Day themed merchandise: stubby holders, hats, small footballs and other products. All we have left is on the lease line to attract customers in this last week of possible sales. While not a massive season, it’s worth it and a reminder to our customers that for celebrating anything seasonal we are a place to shop.

We also used the original display to attract shoppers from the mall.

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Newsagency opportunities

More online retailers embracing the high street

The first moves a year back of pure online retailers embracing high street physical store situations is continuing. More online retailers and supplementing online business by opening pop-up (an over used and misunderstood term) shops and more permanent shops.

In the US there is a noticeable trend of online retailers embracing shop trucks – like a food truck but selling other goods.

While some pure online retailers are opening physical stores, the bigger trend is physical stores embracing the true omnichannel (another overused and misunderstood term) model. here in Australia, the David Jones department store group is the best example of an omnichannel retailer. They have gone from being a physical store retailer to a model where they will be where, when and how their customer wants. Reports suggest this is working for them. I am not talking here about a website and a shop. No, What David Jones has started doing is far more involved. It’s built on the new paradigm for retail – that people are shopping 24/7 and that they are in charge.

With some of what we sell the omnichannel approach is not as key, especially dated product such as newspapers and magazines and emotion-centric product like greeting cards. However, how people consume print related products continues to change and this will impact those areas of our businesses. For example, for many today, they consume news through Twitter and reach out beyond that when a story sparks their interest.

These – omnichannel and how people access and consume print related product – are just two opportunities before newsagents today. Good business planning is all about us understanding and leveraging these opportunities. No newsagency supplier will resolve this challenge for us.

More reading: the Financial Times report from a few days ago; BBC News report from November 2013.

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Newsagency challenges

Express Publications in magazine subscriptions push

magstoreExpress Publications sent out an email yesterday promoting heavily discount magazine subscription offers that end on Monday for many of their titles. In this promotion, Live To Ride, for example, is being offered at $79 for 20 issues instead of the usual price of $170 for this many.

While I understand that subscriptions play an important role for magazine publishers in their business mix, they must understand that it is galling for newsagents to on the one hand see publishers offering a 53% discount for subscriptions that will be expensive to fulfil while on the other hand refusing to provide more equitable terms that reflect the cost of supporting and selling magazines in retail.

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Magazine subscriptions

Obsessing about magazine placement can drive impulse purchases

magazine-placementAn observant team member in my newsagency placed the latest issue of New Scientist far away from its usual location, next to People’s Friend and we sold it in 24 hours. They made the move in response to the cover story on New Scientist – Defeating Dementia. A terrific initiative and the kind of initiative newsagents who grow magazine sales need to take.

With all our major magazine competitors operating planagrams that do not allow for this type of shop floor response to magazine cover stories, we in newsagencies have an opportunity to drive impulse purchases based on cover stories. We should all embrace these opportunities. Good choices will result in impulse purchases as we are seeing.

Every week we have magazines outside their usual locations – responding to cover story opportunities. It’s working for us with our year on year magazine unit sales performing considerably ahead of the newsagency channel trend.

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magazines

You never know someone

george-bushWhile I am not a supporter of George W. Bush’s politics and feel that he let down his country and the world as president, I appreciated and learnt from his talk at the NRF retail’s Big Ideas Show conference a few days ago. He was there to talk about leadership. In fact he said: I don’t need you to agree with me or what I did but to just understand what got me to that point. I found him compelling to listen to – but I was not expecting to. This is a takeaway for me – people when you hear them speak for themselves or away from a 15 second sound bite on TV news pr not being represented by others who gossip about you or tell others what you have said on a topic can be more interesting and more understood.

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Newsagency management

E-cigs gaining more traction with US retailers

ecigsIn convenience stores and some supermarkets I have seen e-cigarettes being offered in more locations than my last trip to the US six months ago. Then, at the Retail’s Big Shop conference and trade show there was strong representation. This is where I picked up the Convenience Store News guide (pictured). The guide was bagged with the magazine. It’s packed with excellent information on what is clearly a growing category for tobacco retailers. It will be interesting to see the brands develop.

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Tobacco sales

Finding the right way to tell the community you are serving them

wholefoodsnycAt each check out point at the Whole Foods Market at Union Square in New york they have a sign which reads: It’s only fair to let you know our New York City stores donated $275.000 to local nonprofits through our quarterly 5% days in 2013.

While it feels like marketing for Whole Foods, I can’t see any easy way for them to share the good news of what they donated. Click on the image to see a larger version of the sign.

I checked the Whole Foods website for details of how the 5% days work at raising funds. This money really does come out of their pocket:

Our Community 5% Days are one meaningful way we give back to our community. On designated days throughout the year a total of 5% of the day’s net sales are donated to local non-profit organizations. Customers help support our selected organizations just by shopping on these 5% Days. Contact us directly if your organization is interested in applying for this program.

Good for them. I like this program a lot – the money it raises, their transparency, the community good.

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Newsagency opportunities

Brands matter in retail and for newsagents

barbieNo matter where I turned in New York in shops closest to what a newsagency is, brands were in full shop, used as traffic drivers. In toy shops, stationery shops, card shops and gift shops, they were featuring brands front of store and rear of store (as shown in the photo from FAo Schwartz where the Barbie wall is at the rear) to engage shoppers.

Regulars here would know that I think brands are vital and that we newsagents ignore them at our peril. This latest trip has reinforced this view.

The other aspects of well-known consumer brands is that they usually support us with marketing and collateral.

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retail

Drones as toys are huge

orbitor Drones as toys makes sense with them being in the news for killing people and doing others things less expensively than manned planes or other methods.

Every toy shop I went into this trip – at least six or seven – they had drones on sale. The most popular were around the US$100 mark and they had stacks of them close to the front of the shop.

While there are regulatory issues they are selling like hot-cakes.

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Newsagency opportunities

Cookie party adds to the theatre of retail

coopiepartyWhen I was at FAO Schwartz on Fifth Avenue a few days ago there was a cookie party running in, where else, the cookie party room. The kids appears to be having a great time.

The lighting for this space was different to the rest of the store, giving it a feeling of being it’s own space.

This is an excellent example of retail theatre and while we can;t run a cookie party in a newsagency (or can we??!)  there are plenty of other interactive events we can run. Depending on our specialisation, we could have space set aside and offer regular events as a practical demonstration of and commitment to our key point of difference.

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retail

Staples redefines the stationery store

soda-streamIn New York this week I visited several Staples stores – large and small format stores. This business continues to play with their model and with what they can sell in a stationery business. Take the aisle-end I saw in a Staples store on 3rd Avenue – they were promoting Soda Stream products – do it yourself flavoured carbonated water.

This Soda Stream display begs the question: what can be sold to a stationery customer?

Okay, so plenty of people shopping Staples are not looking for traditional stationery. I get that. However, this Soda Stream display is at odds with most of what else was being offered in this location.

Just as Staples is not bound by tradition of what a stationery store would / could sell, now should we. Overall, as a channel, we have been constrained. The world has changed. retail has changed. Much relating to our core product categories has changed. Combine these changed and we have no choice but to change as much or more.

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Stationery

A massive trade show for retailers, opportunities for newsagents

microsoftnrfAcross two huge levels at the Javits Centre in New York, Retail’s Big Show has been presenting an extraordinary array of technology, data, management and other solutions for retailers. From the giants of IBM and Microsoft to tiny players, retailers at the trade show and conference have had access to the very latest in innovation to make business more efficient and successful.

It has been a thrill to speak to some visionary experts about opportunities they see in retail generally and, with some, in specialty retail, and how they are preparing for the the opportunities. It has also been exciting to play with some very cool gadgets. What I have really loved, though, is the opportunity of seeing how businesses at the conference, the trade show and on the streets of Manhattan define themselves – how they speak to their point of difference.

In this market that is becoming more crowded and with consumers who are more powerful than ever before, if you do not speak with a clear voice about who you are and what that matters then you will not be heard. Many retailers are not being heard and their numbers speak to that. Some, large and small, are being heard because their values are clear and easily understood.

I wish I could have had a bunch of newsagents with me here here at the trade show, conference and on the streets on New York.

Over the next few weeks I will be gathering my thoughts and considering these in the context of the latest Newsagency sales trends. I am preparing for a fresh look at the Newsagency of the Future and plan to offer a round of workshops shortly with completely fresh content that is relevant to recent innovation and opportunities.

We are in the midst of the most exciting period in the history of the newsagency channel. We have decisions to make, decisions that are for each of us ours alone, decisions we have not had to make previously. Exciting times ahead!

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Newsagency management

Online shopping collection points gaining traction

collectionpointI’ve seen more locations open as online shopping collection points out on the streets and more businesses offering collection point solutions at the NRF Big Show over the last few days than in previous visits. This stands to reason as online shopping grows and with this so does the challenge of the last mile delivery – collection.

I’m not sure about the viability of these lockable collection points for newsagencies, certainly not shopping centre newsagencies where rents are higher and space is limited. Maybe in a high street situation but then with services like Parcel Point and N Parcel newsagents already have it covered and we provide a more personal and focused service.

I know locked collection point boxes are something Australia Post is rolling out. Expect to see stand-alone businesses open up in this area just as they are in the US.

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Newsagency management

Kiosks and retail and retail newsagencies

razor-kioskExperts at the National Retail Federation conference and the Retail’s Big Ideas Show I have spoken with offer no support for in-store kiosks. I think this is because technology has changed so much and much of what a kiosk was used for in the past can either be transacted from home, mobile or on the POS itself.  This is a shift from a few years ago.

While there are kiosks in use, they tend to be out of store and more for lookup like finding a store, checking on for travel or buying event tickets.  Or like buying rasors as shown in the photo I took yesterday.

The other reasons kiosks are not a future is because they disrupt the core of your business – if your business has a core focus.  And, of course, in retail today we must have a core focus. The days of the general store type newsagency are over. retail has evolved quickly where specialisation and core focus are key.

But back to kiosks. Retail is rapidly moving out of store. More and more that a retail business offers is transacted away from the business. Any investment in kiosk needs to be considered against these trends.

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Newsagency challenges

Now this is a St Patrick’s Day range!

stpatsCheck out the range of St Patrick’s Day cards and other products I saw at a Hallmark store yesterday. Quite extensive – beyond what I got in this photo. While you’d expect a strong representation for the day given the Irish families in New York, I’d like to see more of this type of range here.

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Fun

The easy to shop wall of magazines

wallofmagsI made the mistake of installing fixtures like you can see in this photo from a Barnes and Noble store in New York. What they have is better, easier to shop. The only difference is that they have a single wall with space in front. Mine is in an aisle with not enough space.

The single wall of magazines at this Barnes and Noble store is terrific – easy to shop and a bold statement for their range. It’s something that would work well in a newsagency instead of the traditional magazine valley.

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magazines

Selling Pop Tarts to stationery customers at the sales counter

pop-tarts-upsellAt of the Staples stationery stores I visited a couple of days ago had Pop tarts at the counter as an up-sell item. In fact, they had a box at each of the register points.

I’ve noted Pop Tarts as something else to try at the counter in our quest to expand the range of what we offer our customers to purchase on impulse. The most successful counter line we have had is the $24.95 plush dogs and cats … they worked a treat.

We need to keep challenging ourselves to play outside the field in so many parts of our businesses – including counter lines.

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Stationery
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