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

Party stores big business in New York

party-shopI thought the first party store I visited in New York might have been so big because it was the main destination store. This store, where I took the photo, was – I guess – two thousand square metres.  The fifteen or so aisles – like the one in the photo – were stacked with products that are party related.

Over the course of several days I have seen another five or six party stores and while not as big as this one, they were sizeable.  While these business exist to serve needs, their very range and presentation creates demand by showing people how to create parties and events they otherwise might not have created.

Of course, being in a location with an extraordinary population density such as New York gives retailers opportunities of scale unlike what we see in Australia. That said, my take away from the party shops is that this is a retail category where we can create demand through range and shop floor theatre. The alternative is to serve only as a destination business – this will constrain us to serving only destination shoppers.

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Newsagency opportunities

Smart retro connection at Urban Outfitters

retro-vinyl-recordsUrban Outfitters is a funky fashion, kinda homewares and kinda impulse items chain that always connects well with current trends. Check out the display of vinyl records in the foreground and the players for these in the background.

I’ve been in three Urban Outfitters stores this trip and each has this.  This is a company that knows what it’s doing and would only make such a inventory / floorspace investment if they were certain of a return.

Venturing into an area like this is not only about immediate sales, it is also about appealing to shoppers who like to see that you have the items.

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retail

Another example of colour blocking in visual merchandising

colours-vmFurther to my recent posts  about colour blocking in retail, check of the photo of the window of a storage business in New York. They are showing there is no limit to what can be colour blocked. Coat hangers! Amazing.

I only noticed the window because of the colour blocking. The first goal of visual merchandising is to get a display noticed. The colour of the display makes hangars more appealing.

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Colour blocking

Extraordinary commercialisation of Valentine’s Day

valentines-petsI am amazed of the size of Valentine’s Day across a range of retail businesses in the US. It all starts with the the people you would / could purchase Valentine’s Day cards for. Take the photo – it’s a Valentine’s Day card from your cat (yes it’s in the wrong pocket as the header card says from dog).

A Valentine’s Day card from your cat?! As a retailer, I’d love the season to reach this level in Australia. I’d love to sell Valentines Day cards from your pets, to your pets, to teachers, neighbours, pastors, parents, grandparents, kids. I’ve seen packs of cards for kids to give to fellow students.  The season would grow tremendously for us.

That said, I suspect Australians would not approach the broad range of captions I am seeing here in the US. We’d need to educate them to show that the season is about more than it has been, that it’s about appreciation.

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Greeting Cards

$7.5 million prize drives scratch ticket sales

silver-spectacular-lotteryHere in New York these posters are everywhere on the street promoting the Silver Spectacular scratch lottery ticket game. First prize is US$7.5 million. That’s a nice prize for a scratch ticket game. Tickets cost $25 and I’m told they are selling well.

More generally, buying a lottery or scratch ticket in New York – they are mainly available from c-stores and newsstands. Very little corporate image – a couple of posters and a floor unit listing the current prize values.  I talked to a couple of retailers and they were shocked that Aussie lottery retailers were required to spend money on fixtures, What the retailers have here, and it’s not much, is all provided.

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Lotteries

Whole Foods Market shows hot to promote local connection

shop-localIn today’s uber-connected and mobile-enabled world retailers need to find more ways to promote their local connection. But even more important is that they have a genuine / practical local connection to promote.

Saying you live locally and support local charities will not be enough to some consumers, they want to buy products you have sourced locally and they want you to be transparent about it.

At a Whole Foods Market in New York on the weekend I saw this sign next to the juice made from the fruit grown by the growers promoted in the poster. Here, Whole Foods is saying here is the proof we support these local growers and you should too. This goes considerably further than a simple plaintive shop local.

In a newsagency this is challenging since so much of what we sell is sourced outside our local area by necessity. So, we need to work harder at building a local connection that is not product related.

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Newsagency management

At National Retail Federation Conference in New York

nrf1I am in New York at the National Retail Federation’s Retail’s Big Show. This is a conference and trade show for retailers large and small and on a scale unlike anything in Australia – close to 35,000 attendees and hundreds of technology and retail back end suppliers.

This is a truly international event with retailers and suppliers from many countries including China, India, Great Britain, Brazil, Japan, Canada and Germany to name a few.  Australian attendees are few, representing large businesses. Click here for a breakdown of the 2013 demographics.

This is my third year here and even after just the first day I can tell it will be as useful, exciting and motivating as the first two I attended. This challenge is to choose sessions – from a wide variety available. Today, for me, was about retail challenges, online versus bricks and mortar, loyalty, payments and embracing the size of your business.

Parallel to the conference is the opportunity to consider one’s business from afar while soaking up insights from conference speakers and spending time looking at best-practice retail on the streets of Manhattan. In addition to specific conference take-aways, there will be practical take-aways that will lead to changes back home. (No, that’s not code.)

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Newsagency management

How often do you read emails?

If you’re reading your business emails once a day or less frequently it’s not often enough. While already an out of date form of communication for some, email plays an important role in business. Some suppliers have migrated to email away from mail and fax. Checking it less frequently than once a day is not enough.

Twice already this year retailers have told me they check email once a week if that. They were dismissive of the b=medium. Once said that if someone wants him to know something they will call or fax. I don’t think so.

Email replacing mail and fax is one way businesses can cut costs. It takes less time to read emails plus they are in a form to more easily file, pass on or delegate.

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Newsagency management

Newsagency armed robberies a security reminder

The robberies of Victorian newsagencies going back months and now recently being reported is a reminder to newsagents to review physical property security, review security procedures including money transfer, remind employees of best practice for handling a situation like this, checking insurance and ensuring you have some form of camera system to capture any incident.

Victoria Police has a useful security kit available from their website.

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theft

Beware: Ukash fraud could hurt your newsagency

I received this report from someone in the insurance business Friday about a Ukash related scam perpetrated on a Australian business:

A shop employee took a call from a man stating he was a technical manager from our phone Epay and UKASH voucher provider stating they will be upgrading our system the next day at 1pm and will this be convenient please confer with the store owner , the person had store owners names which made it more convincing.

The employee was very busy at the time preparing the shop for closure so did not immediately contact the owners. Some ten minutes later this person called back stating they required some vouchers to be printed off in preparation for the upgrade and gave a reference number and asked for nine vouchers of various amounts totalling $1,800 to the printed off and quote the reference number provided earlier.

In the process of doing so the employee became concerned and went to their mobile to call the owner as the caller had tied up the shop phone line. Once owner was informed he immediately went to the store to discover the vouchers had already been cashed even though the caller was still holding on the shop line.

All staff were aware that they are not to sell vouchers over the phone but this person convinced the employee that things were in order stating both owner and managers names along with other technical references.

Fortunately we were able to settle the claim but we believe this is a timely warning to take extreme care.

Please warn all your staff about this. Not all insurance policies would cover the newsagent.

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Newsagency challenges

Getting your Blackhawk gift card mix right can drive sales

giftcardmixI was talking with a newsagent last week about the larger format gift card stands at Australia Post and other retailers. While I think we need to be in the space, each of us needs to do so in a way that is appropriate to our own business.  For example, this small footprint stand from Blackhawk works for me – I can move it around and it holds enough top-selling cards to cover several demographic needs.

Click on the image to see a larger version – in particular the cards on this side of the stand as we selected them for a younger demographic.

Note: As I noted last year, Blackhawk is not open until feb. 3 for reorders. Newsagency can get pretty much anything they want from Blackhawk through Touch Networks.

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Gifts

Sunday newsagency marketing tip: thank you as a marketing tool

How do you and your team end a sale at your sales counter? Have a nice day? Cheers!? Have a good day? Next!? Yes!? Or if it’s someone you know – see you later?

Try a simple Thank you at the end of each sale.  See how it makes you and your customers feel. You only have brief time with each transaction at the counter and cutting through to make a genuine connection is hard. Breaking free w=from what you do regularly is one way to connect. Saying thank you, if you don’t already, could be a valuable move.

The Harvard Gazette has an excellent article on a study of the power of saying thanks. Entrepreneur magazine takes it further, exploring other opportunities for saying thank you.

So, try it – at the sales counter. Switch from what you say at the end of a sale today to Thank You – delivered with a genuine smile. If it works for you consider how else you can spread gratitude from your business to those with whom you connect.

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marketing

Sunday newsagency management tip: roster to a budget

When was the last time you looked at the roster for your newsagents? Do you know the total weekly labour cost for the business? What is is the sales revenue per rostered hour that you are achieving?

These are important questions for newsagency businesses. While our bigger competitors roster with fine precision, we often roster our businesses based on emotion or personal need.

If you want a better return from your business, look at your roster: look at it as an overhead and look at it as an opportunity. make your roster decisions based on business performance data. Do more of what is working and less of what is not. Remove emotion from the equation.

Labour should cost no more than 11% of your sales where sales is revenue for non agency lines plus commission on agency lines.

 

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Management tip

Another breach of shopper trust

US retailer Neiman Marcus announced Friday that its IT systems had been hacked and some customer credit card information compromised.  That’s nice corporate-speak.

On Friday also US retailer Target said the credit card details of 70 million shoppers had been affected by their credit card data breach – up from 40 million announced previously.

As a retailer you have an obligation to protect your customer information. They give you credit card and other information in a relationship of trust. Newsagents who store credit card details in their newsagency software ought to review their security.

Footnote: newsagents using Tyro need not worry since the credit card details are not shares between Tyro and their newsagency software.

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Newsagency management

Label issue to impact The Sunday Telegraph

Newsagents in NSW/ACT are being advised by Nationwide News of a label production issue impacting The Sunday Telegraph tomorrow:

Please be advised that NWN has experienced a technical issue within DTI that is impacting our ability to produce newsagent labels for The Sunday Telegraph on 12 January 2014.

NWN has no alternative but to re-run newsagent labels for The Sunday Telegraph newspaper with the quantity’s that were supplied on Sunday 5 January, 2014.

The Sunday Telegraph labels for tomorrow will be dated Sunday 5 January 2014.

Billing for these supplies (on statement dated Sunday 12 January 2014) will reconcile with billing on Sunday 5 January 2014.

Any discrepancies that may appear between copies supplied and billed will be rectified as a miscellaneous adjustment (either debit or credit) of Sunday 19 January 2014.

The bulk size for The Sunday Telegraph will be run in 22’s. The bulks for The Sunday Telegraph will be larger than in previous weeks.

We sincerely apologise for this inconvenience.

I’m posting details here as many newsagents could have left their shops after the fax had been received.

UPDATE: H&WT just advised newsagents The Sunday Herald Sun is affected too.

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Newspapers

Loving print again

Just as people are rediscovering vinyl records, more people are writing about rediscovering print. Read what Brian Sullivan wrote at CNBC earlier this week.

A few months ago I made the decision to reactivate a few of my print subscriptions. Not all of them, but most of my favorites. Soon I realized that what was sitting on the table – right in front of my face – was much more likely to be picked up and (gasp) read.

Then there is a story late last month at The Globe and Mail about publishers discovering print. While sales or many (but not all) mass-market magazines are declining, niche and special interest titles are growing as interest in newspapers we can trust.

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Media disruption

Gross profit more important than ever in 2014

In reviewing the latest newsagency sales benchmark data in advance of releasing the report in a few days I can see some business owners reengineering their businesses in pursuit of a better gross product result.

While the overall newsagency channel average gross profit remains unchanged at 28% to 32%, more newsagents are achieving more than 32%. In fact, this is vitally important for the health of your business.

With wages, rent and other operating costs increasing and the selling price of a chuck of what we sell remaining not keeping up with the cost increases we need to find other ways to grow gross profit.

Improving gross profit starts with buying better and recasting the range of what you sell – redirecting inventory investment from lower GP lines and slower moving lines to higher GP and faster moving lines.

Making these moves requires us to be retailers and not shop keepers. It requires us to think about our businesses strategically and to rely less on being told what to do.

I’d hate for you to get to a point this year where focusing on gross profit is an urgent requirement. Act now, develop a plan, before you are desperate and making decisions with too little time to consider.

It starts with you knowing the type of newsagency you want to operate.

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Newsagency management

Promoting magic range of school holiday shoppers

magicfrontWe’re enjoying terrific success by featuring our range of magic products at the front of the shop on the lease line – facing into the mall. The success is in the form of shoppers the display attracts as much as product sales. Being in a shopping mall what we display at the front of the business is vital to attracting people who are in the centre and had not planned to visit a newsagency this visit. Our goal is to present products that challenge their perception of a newsagency.

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Gifts

Massive price disparity in online Tatts ticket prices

I was contacted by someone overseas during the week on the significant price difference between buying lottery tickets in Australia and overseas.  Take a Saturday System 10: the local ticket price is $137.70. Online: OzLotteries and Netlotto – $283.5o. I checked both websites and the system 10 products they offer appear the same. While these licenced sites don’t pose much of a threat to retail, the Tatts site offers a more competitive price.

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Lotteries

Promoting That’s Life at the counter

magstlWe have been promoting That’s Life magazine at the counter with this sign placed above. We made an exception to our policy of not promoting magazines at the counter with That’s Life because of the added value of the Symply Too Good gift during the traditional weight loss season and that Symply is a brand we sell.

We also have the title well-featured in its usual location.

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magazines

Retro raunchy magnets sell out and show a newsagency growth opportunity

mag-funI was in a newsagency the other day and noticed that the range of retro / raunchy magnets they had  in November when I took the photo had sold out. Indeed, they had sold out in a matter of weeks, delivering an excellent return on small inventory and space investments.

They were placed perfectly next to cards, enabling easy leveraging of card purchases into a magnet as a small gift to go with a card.

Retail success in independent retail businesses like newsagencies is all about attention to small steps detail – the many small things you can and should do to attract that extra purchase with a core item like a greeting card.

The key is that each small step, each additional item we carry, must connect with something else we sell of do in our business. This is where the magnets fit. They start to work leveraging card purchases but have the range long enough and they can generate their own traffic if you become known for the niche product.

All of this matters in 2014 as the nature of the traditional Australian newsagencies continues to evolve – but at a faster pace than in 2013.

This post is about the small steps detail we need to focus on as retailers.  Selling sixty magnets in a few weeks at more than 50% gross profit is a good story. Many of these small stories combine make the newsagency business considerably more valuable.

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Fun

Faster drop-off of calendar sales in 2014

cal2014I have noticed a faster drop off in calendar sales in the first days of 2014 compared to last year. I think this is being driven in part by other retailers very heaving discounting in the lead up to Christmas. In one centre where I have a store the calendar outpost was at 50% off for three weeks prior to christmas. In another they got to 75% on some lines in the week before.

We have a small range left and are discounting at 40% and that’s where we will hold it as calendar shoppers now are less likely to be bargain shoppers and more likely to be necessity shoppers. At 40% and with our buying we’re making excellent gross profit.

There is even an opportunity for us to increase prices of 2014 calendars in the coming weeks as desperation rises.

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Calendars

If you have Myth Conceptions …

magsmythconceptionsNewsagents with the Myth Conceptions magbook should place it with Fortean Times magazine as the two titles are related. Myth Conceptions is not a destination title so it’s important we place it where people are likely to purchase on impulse. We have it with Fortean Times as well as some stock with newspapers for the next week.

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magazines

WTF! Crazy allocation by Bauer for Dolly

bauer-media-crazyOn the back of a sell through of well below 50%, the genus allocations people / system at Bauer has increased our Dolly supply by 20%.  I know they hate me but sheesh! This is nuts – gross oversupply with no justification in the accurate sales data we have provided.

I can’t describe what I’d label this. Take your pick: Stupid; wrong; dumb; deliberate; criminal; unprofessional. Whatever, it is another example of Bauer making things worse and not better.

Newsagents: what’s your supply of this issue of Dolly?

Publishers: it is oversupply like this that can cause newsagents to strike against other titles without thinking – you need your colleague suppliers to supply fairly.

It could get to a point that the only way to control supply is to stop dealing with a distributor.

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magazines
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