Convenience Store News has a story today about the increased traction in retail being achieved by electronic cigarettes. The shopper data is particularly interesting. While I know some newsagents playing in the category here it is yet ton take off in a mass way. I suspect that is because it does not have major brand awareness yet.
Check out the premium floor display unit promoting a range of magazines in Woolworths supermarkets at the moment. It’s a stunning unit promoting the bonus gift with purchase – a much better unit than this publisher provides newsagents …very frustrating.
I be the publisher is paying for floorspace.
The federal government has introduced legislation to end the Mineral Resources Rent Tax (MRRT). Included in that legislation is an end to the small business instant asset write-off.
The legislation ends the instant asset write-off for equipment installed after January 1, 2014.
Newsagents planning on purchasing assets such as new computers or other new equipment for the business in the next year or two should act now to get the instant asset write-off.
You have six weeks to act and lock in your instant-asset write off.
You can finance the purchase or pay COD. There are finance broker businesses that support newsagents and through which finance can be arranged.
I was in a newsagency late morning on a Saturday weeks back and from the lottery counter back the store was roped off and the lights turned off. All I could access was around 50 magazine titles, newspapers, a small range of cards and the lottery counter.
The roped off area was not under construction. To confirm this I’ve been back twice on a Saturday.
This business is in a high-street situation with fifteen shops on their side of the street and another twelve on the opposite side of the street. All were open each time I visited.
The first time I went in there were four people in line to buy lottery products. Because of most of the shop being roped off and dark, this felt and looked like a business in decline – certainly not a business to revisit or remember for good reasons.
Some newsagency businesses in decline are being helped by their owners, they give others trading under the newsagency shingle a bad name.
We’re seeing excellent Australian Women’s Health Diary sales from our stand placed directly above our weekly magazines. This location is working the best for us – even better than stock placed with diaries. We chose the weekly magazine location to pitch the diary to people who are likely to purchase it on impulse.
The nail art kit packaged with the latest issue of Dolly is getting trashed when customers put it bcd into magazine pockets since the box containing the kit is quite flimsy. We don’t have a flat-stack shelf in our magazine fixturing, pockets are the only option. Some of the returns of this issue will be because of damage to the nail art gift.
The Age today has a wrap-around four-page ad promoting subscriptions as christmas gifts. as a retail-only newsagent I’m not keen for a product to be hidden by a promotion seeking to reduce my foot traffic.
The inside two pages of the wrap-around contain the details of the digital-only and print and digital offers for access to the newspaper. Digital is clearly the pitch here. tellingly, there is no print only offer being promoted.
The results from the survey I ran last week on the busiest and quietest day in your newsagency are interesting. The responses to the two questions from the 86 participants indicate differences between shopping centre businesses and others, especially when looking at the busiest day of the week.
In terms of the quietest day of the week, it’s interesting to see Sunday being nominated by 26.74% of all participants. Given the cost of labour on this day you’d be hoping for it to be the busiest – only 2.3% of all respondents nominate Sunday as the busiest.
Click here to download the survey results in a PDF.
The busiest day is an opportunity to drive a deeper basket while the quietest day is a challenge to meet.
Gordon and Gotch sent these Christmas card packs with magazines yesterday morning. They look cheap.
Why a newsagent would want to sell this pack at 25% GP is beyond me. What are those responsible at Gotch thinking? The supply of this product is an abuse of newsagents.
NANA recently commenced a CTTT claim on behalf of a newsagent against Tower Systems. NANA prepared the claim, paid to lodge it and provided resources to manage the matter.
This began when Chiang Lim, NANA CEO, called me a couple of weeks prior to lodging the CTTT claim to ask about a then recently installed Tower Systems newsagency site. I explained that after the first day of the installation, after all hardware had been installed and use commenced, and following an argument between husband and wife, the husband advised they could not proceed with the computer system. The story as to why they didn’t want to proceed changed several times that day and in the time since. At no time did they say they had not received what the ordered or that the software was not appropriate to their needs.
I explained to Chiang that the newsagent signed a contract to purchase the system after two meetings to look at and discuss the software and that there was no pressure on them to proceed. I also explained that since they did not honour the COD terms and had not done so for weeks, Tower had commenced recovery action.I also advised Chiang about the argument between the owners about the system. Chiang said he would look into it and get back to me.
The next I heard was the CTTT notice to appear at a hearing.
I’ve not heard from Chiang since. He didn’t show at the CTTT hearing – where the matter was dismissed because lo lack of appearance. Tower had challenged CTTT jurisdiction since legal action had reluctantly been commenced for payment prior.
In Chiang’s letter accompanying the CTTT application he claimed there was a language barrier. What Chiang did not research was whether Tower offered training in Mandarin and Cantonese. Both offers were made an the newsagent advised they were not necessary. The language Chiang indicated the newsagent preferred is not the language they actually preferred. Chiang also said a trial period of the software was not adequately offered yet he took no steps to determine if that was the case.
I expect there would be NANA members who would be disappointed that NANA has spent newsagent funds on this. While the association should support members wronged by suppliers, it should thoroughly investigate any claim to ensure that wrongdoing has actually occurred.
It appears that NANA rushed to take legal action and then let the matter drop once they realised they had acted in haste. They were quick to call with an allegation and then went missing once the evidence stacked up against them.
As for the newsagency, the matter has been resolved by agreement, system has been paid for and installation is proceeding.
Dannii Minogue promoted Aussie newsagents in a tweet to her 1M+ Twitter followers promoting the latest issue of Who magazines.
Every promotion of our channel by a celebrity or a company with a decent number of Twitter and or Facebook followers helps promote our channel and reinforce our relevance – especially if we’re the only outlet mention as in Dannii Minogue’s tweet.
if you go to Twitter you can see the engagement that followed the Tweet.
Zendesk, developers of excellent help desk software, recently released an excellent report on customer service from Clickfox. It’s relevant to any business with a customer-facing component – like newsagencies. Of particular interest is what people do, how they react, to perceived poor service.
The one thing successful newsagency businesses have in common is good business data management. Good business data management starts with meaningful product departments and categories.
Don’t fall asleep! Too often newsagents and other small retailers I speak with roll their eyes at this point and say it’s too hard. Nonsense. You’re lazy if you do not setup and maintain a good department and category structure in your newsagency software.
Departments should be high level: stationery, gifts, cards, plush, magazines, newspapers. No, newspapers and magazines don;t go together. No, art products should not be in stationery. No, gifts should not be part of cards.
Categories – these sit within each department – should be meaningful to you. Do not use suppliers as a category as newsagency software can report separately on suppliers. Use categories to help you understand what is selling. here are two examples:
Come up with your own, that are meaningful to you. The goal here is to help you easily see in reports from your software what is working. departments and categories report at a high level. Once you see something of interest you can dig deeper in detailed reports.
get this right and you have a foundation in place to grow your business.
We achieved a 71% sell-though in four weeks for the Complete Guide to Home Workouts magbook. We supported the title by placing it next to Men’s Health and ensuring the full cover was on show. It’s in the niche space, where we have a difference from the submarket magazine range, that we can most easily drive magazine sales.
Our Movember products have been selling well. We needed the prime display space for Christmas so moved Movember to the counter. I love the signage by one of our team members – professional and fun. Product left at the end of the month will revert to our funky gifts display.
Footnote: Allan Wickham from newsXpress Eli Waters is going a mo as part of a Movember fundraiser. Click here to support Allan. I’ll happily promote any other Movember fundraisers here.
Basic branding of your newsagency is the best way to let people know who you are, what you offer and what you stand for. Here is the bare-minimum branding a newsagency needs just to be recognised and remembered:
Every use of your branding must be consistent and it must connect back to the business, what it stands for and what it offers.
Shopping basket analysis from newsagencies indicates that newspapers and lottery products continue to be inefficient for newsagency businesses. Between 70% and 90% of purchases with either is for that category only: a newspaper alone or a lottery ticket or two and nothing else.
Too often newsagents blame customers and or suppliers for the inefficiency. This is a mistake. The reason for inefficiency lies in the business itself.
If your sales of your top selling (volume) items are inefficient embrace responsibility. Complaining will not change the situation. Act.
Here is one tip that I have found works. When you are closed for the day, run masking or gaffer tape on the floor from the door to where customers go to get their newspaper. Next, run tape from there to the counter. Finally, run tape from the counter to the door.
Walk along the tape. Look at what’s along that route. Look at what customers see, if their eyes are open. Look at what you are promoting along the way and at each destination point: papers, counter, doorway.
Look at the floor, how are you using that?
If your lottery sales are inefficient do the same thing.
Don’t remove the tape and go home until you have an action plan of things to do to make newspapers and or lottery product sales more efficient. Next, act on the plan first thing in the morning.
A good action plan will involve a series of small steps. I’d suggest posters on the floor, maybe a game, with one or two stop points where you feature product. I’d have an over the counter promotional offer. I’d also have an offer at the door. Plus, regardless of what suppliers say, I’d have impulse purchase items right next to the popular inefficient products – including at the lottery counter. If what you do doesn’t work. Go through the process again. This is what a retailer would do. A shopkeeper would stay behind the counter and complain.
Product inefficiency is a challenge for the retailer to resolve.
We are actively promoting both issues of Better Homes and Gardens currently on sale: with newspapers, in the regular location for the title and on the shop floor in the promotional display unit. I head of a newsagent this week who took the regular issue off the shelves. I explained this was a mistake as both would sell. We continue to find the placement between newspapers works very well for us.
We’ve lost money on the discount pack of NW and Shop Til You Drop. The GP from the copy sold has not paid for the space. I wish we could permanently stop supply of these discount magazine packs. Instead, we’re forced to lose money.
I heard of a newsagency discounting boxed Christmas cards this week – buy one and get the second pack for 50% off. This is nuts in my view for a couple of reasons: boxed Christmas cards sell easily right now without discounting and if you are trying to drive loyalty then use a whole of business loyalty approach like discount vouchers or, groan, a points-based loyalty program.
Okay giving the second box of cards at half price may drive sales. I know in my own newsagencies it would not be useful since 73% of boxed card purchases are two or more boxes. Why would I discount for a volume purchase I would get regardless?
I suspect the newsagents running this promotion will find themselves discounting sales they would have got anyway.
It’s vitally important that discounting has a business purpose, that it results in purchases you would otherwise not have achieved. Structured discounting, beyond that to move dead stock, needs to be well thought through with justification deep within your business data. Doing it on a whim, based on gut feel or because you’re told to will more likely result in your giving away margin you need not give away.
The discount voucher approach, of a cash off the next purchase via a voucher printed on the receipt, is a whole of business approach. In my newsagency where we have been doing this since February, more than half the vouchers issues for greeting card purchases result in redemption purchases in other departments. It’s important we promote our whole business and not just isolated categories.
I’d encourage newsagents to think carefully before they run a Christmas card discount like the one I have described. Sure they will feel they are getting good sales. I suspect a review of business data will show they are unnecessarily giving away margin dollars. There’s no sense in that.
It used to be that Tuesday was quiet for newsagencies. With OzLotto and Powerball regularly jackpotting and with the change in magazine delivery days it’s time to ask newsagents about their busiest and quietest trading days.
This survey has two quick questions by store location and type. Click here to take the brief survey.
I terminated the employment of someone this week because they deliberately disconnected the security camera located directly above a sales register. Their explanation was that the camera had been faulty and they were trying to fix it. The video evidence shows the camera working days prior to them reaching up and behind the camera and removing the cable that connects it to the recording device.
The wanted the camera off and the only reason could be one that compromises the business.
When it comes to business security we need to take a zero tolerance approach. Yes there are labour laws to respect. When it comes to casual employees we have some more flexibility.
How the Mighty Fall is a good book to read if you want to understand how successful businesses have missed opportunities and ultimately failed. The case studies are quite detailed. You get to the moment of failure, the opportunity lost.
Jim Collins explains why good companies fall and how leaders react. I found it fascinating and relevant.
This book is relevant to newsagents because of its coverage of businesses dealing with disruption to their traditional model – like we are. The big business examples are relevant because the challenges are common to us.
This is the current window display at the Kikki K store in the Qantas terminal at Sydney airport. I love it, especially how they have framed the window and so boldly connected it with Christmas and made the products the hero. This framing draws your attention. Plenty of people stopped to have a look when I was there this week.
Newsagents with glass windows could do something like this, framing the window to focus more attention on what’s being promoted.
Some disappointing news for newsagents selling Optus mobile recharge. Optus is cutting margin while our costs of providing the service is increasing. How Optus can justify cutting margin is beyond me.
If their costs have gone up they should deal with it in call charged and not by clawing margin from small businesses like ours.
I’d also like Optus to be transparent with us on the commission they pay Coles and Woolworths.
Here is what ePay is advising retailers:
epay Australia has received written notification from Optus/Prepaid Services advising that your new margin for all Optus products is 3%.
The new margins will come into effect on Monday 16th December 2013. Please update your internal systems as appropriate to avoid complications in reconciliation.
As an agent of Optus/PPS delivering electronic recharge services, epay Australia is contractually obliged to activate the new margin structure, as advised to us, on the above date.