National sales manager role vacancy
I’ve been asked to put a call out for candidates for a national sales manager role. Current newsagency sales management experience is essential. Contact me if you’d like details passed on.
Gift pack helps drive InStyle sales
Even though it’s been a challenge to display the latest InStyle magazine is selling well thanks to the free hair products bagged with it. We have placed this issue with the gift in our feature magazine display stand on the lease line at the front of the store as well as the usual location with women’s magazines.
News Limited swings punches at Fairfax
The Media pages of The Australian yesterday led with Fairfax shortens print timetable, a report claiming that Fairfax insiders leaked that the timetable of retreat from print had been shortened. Fairfax management yesterday denied the report.
This report is the type of punch that News Limited swings at their biggest competitor, Fairfax. The frequency of punches has increased recently. That the news report is freely available and not locked behind a subscriber log in says that News wants this story to reach as many eyeballs as possible. Other reports from The Australian yesterday remain hidden behind a subscription login.
It would suit News if Fairfax did make a move on the print days for its capital city dailies so its understandable that then company uses its newspapers to further its own agenda. It’s something News has done for years.
The challenge for Fairfax is that the scope of the turnaround being attempted is enormous and the diversity of the company quite narrow, requiring the benefits of the turnaround to come from diminished operations. The company under Greg Hywood has aggressively cut costs and paid down debt, all good moves from a financial strength perspective. The unknown is where the company will end up and from a newspaper perspective, where print will end up.
The real issue for the future of the print editions is to create products people want to purchase in the printed form. Print sales will determine when the print editions are cut as Hywood has said. If I was in control of the print product I’d take a fresh, left field, look at the content. I’d be looking for ways to make the print product more locally relevant. It’s rare I reach for a newspaper for news. I do, however, reach for a newspaper for perspective and longer form reporting. The challenge is that as I think about that it’s obvious that such content does not need to be and probably cannot be daily.
Pixi Photo in administration
The Pixi Photo group was put into administration yesterday. They operated photography and printing services in major retailers across the country. The administrator said that the use of digital devices for sharing photos had hurt revenue.
Connect this story with the downturn in ink sales reported by ink retailers and the decline in copy paper sales and you get a sense of the shift to digital content being shared in that form more rather than hard copy.
Often here I write about the disruption to print media from digital platforms. We are seeing an equal level of disruption to other print related activities such as printed photos and printed documents.
Newsagents need to take these trends into account in their business planning.
Preparing for the new Smurf movie
I was in Hong Kong on the weekend and saw Smurf products displayed in several stores including the shop in this photo.
What impressed me was the range of products on display from a variety of suppliers. The display presented good ideas for preparing for the launch of the new Smurf movie in Australia later this year.
Newsagents could have sold more copies of Locomotives of the World partwork
The supply of the Locomotives of the World partwork is another example of how the distribution model does not achieve the sales it could. I know of newsagents who could have sold more stock had the allocation more accurately reflected local interest in trains. I know of others who will return their supply because of no interest.
had newsagents been able to control their supply of the first issues of the Locomotives of the World partwork I have no doubt the publisher would have achieved a better outcome.
Magazine distributors prove time and again that they are not expert at what they do.
Just read: Killing Fairfax
Killing Fairfax is an excellent read, I couldn’t put it down over the last couple of days. Beyond telling the story of how successive leaders of the once giant media company missed online opportunities, the book takes us deep into Australian media family rivalries thanks to excellent on the record sources.
Newsagents wondering about the future of newspapers ought to read this book. It’s pages are drenched with insights newsagents could benefit from as they plan their future.
Beyond the question of the future of print, this is an excellent business book and most instructive for businesses facing the challenges of disruption to the model they were founded.
Kudos to author Pamela Williams. I highly recommend Killing Fairfax.
Vogue discounts digital edition 50%
Vogue Australia has announced a 50% discount digital subscription offer until Aug. 1. They pitch the offer as a thank you.
At Vogue, we’re constantly overwhelmed by your ongoing support. To say thank you, we’ve teamed up with Zinio for a very special offer.
But wouldn’t the people they want to thank already have a subscription?
Terrific Hugh Jackman magazine display
I love this Hugh Jackman display created by a team member at one of my newsagencies. It’s in the men’s magazine area toward the rear of the store.
I love the display because of its intensity. It captures the drama of his most famous character. It forces you to stop and notice … and hopefully pick up one or more of the magazines being promoted. That’s what displays like this are all about – getting shoppers engaged with what we sell.
This display is a good example of promoting multiple titles. While publishers want us to promote their title separately, often we get more value as retailers by promoting more than one with a unifying theme.
One Direction interest on the rise
I’ve noticed a reawakening of interest in One Direction products. This is probably due to the proximity of their tour of Australia. We have adjusted placement to cash in on what feels like stronger interest.
UK newsagency immigration raid results in deportations
The Hull Daily Mail reports that an immigration raid on a newsagency resulted in the deportation of three Sri Lankan employees who had overstayed their visas. When I hire people I require evidence of their visa status if I’m in doubt. BTW … Click on the link and see out the good branding of the newsagency.
Sunday newsagency management tip: planning for 2020
A few months ago I shot a video for newsXpress members about planning for 2020. It looks specifically at challenges categories and growth categories in the context of my Newsagency of the Future series. I am sharing the video here as today’s newsagency management tip to encourage newsagents to work on their future. No one else will do this for you.
Of course, there is much more to say about the categories in decline and the growth opportunities. That’s a discussion more to be had on a more confidential basis and considering the situation of each business. This video is intended to open a discussion and to do this with an insight into the thinking of what might happen between now and 2020.
My work in this area predates the News Limited T2020 project by several years.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: show off your knowledge with an in-store training event
Newsagents regularly tell me that they have better product knowledge than their competitors. This is usually mentioned in relation to stationery, ink, cards and magazines.
My tip today is in the form of a question: if you think your product knowledge is better that your competitors how are you leveraging that leadership? Being more knowledgeable is only useful if you use it.
One way to leverage knowledge is to host a training event. get support from a key supplier, offer some prizes basic catering and promise to deliver valuable knowledge on products you sell. In the stationery area, for example, you could share insights into how to save money or knowledge about choosing the best pen. The topic of the training is not the key here – that you offer training to leverage your knowledge is the key.
This is an excellent way to promote your business, by showing off something unique to your business, your product knowledge.
Can we use newspapers to sell greeting cards and plush?
Okay this may be a flippant but I’m wondering whether we place newspapers with a front page story about the Essendon AFL drug scandal next to our range of Hallmark AFL team greeting cards and our AFL team Beanie Kids.
Onesies show up the innovative newsagents
Onesies have featured on Facebook and Pinterest this week with office pyjama days raising money for charity and last night on TV with them being worn on the Living Room show on Network Ten.
Newsagents who have had onesies in stock leading up to and during Winter need to be congratulated – you;’re the early adopters. Newsagents reading this and thinking whether they should get into this popular and good-margin fad need to spend more time thinking about what you could sell by being an early adopter.
Whereas in the past what was sold under the shingle of Newsagency was defined and rarely varied from, today’s retail landscape and the challenges newsagents face mean that what we can sell is only limited by our imagination. Onesies are a perfect example of this. I know of newsagents who did several thousand dollars in sales before Winter got going. Well done to them!
The onesies phenomenon is an excellent example of the diversity of ‘gifts’ we can sell.
Evidence N is irrelevant branding for newsagents
The version of the N displayed in front of a newsagency I passed recently is the original version from when it all started, when the N was created as a logo for distribution newsagents. It’s visually out of date. That it can be used reflects a lack of discipline around the logo. This is just one reason the N in irrelevant today.
The ATO continues to do nothing to address appalling treatment of newsagents
The questions from customers about the tax packs keep coming and we keep answering them and the ATO does nothing but talk. While many newsagents have written to their members of parliament and the issue has received considerable media attention, nothing has been done. Newsagents continue to provide a valuable public service for free.
As I wrote two weeks ago, this move by the ATO is, in my view, a breach of their charter. That they continue to ignore newsagents at the coal-face is evidence of how out of touch the ATO is with the real world. Shame on them.
Moderate interest in the royal baby magazines
We saw a sales bump for the royal baby special editions of magazines in my newsagencies. No mad rush, just a bump. hence my labelling interest moderate.
As the photo shows, in one of my stores we promoted several of the magazines with newspapers – as well as their usual location.
In another of my newsagencies we promoted the magazines on the lease line, facing into the mall, to generate traffic. We got a bit of that but they sold equally well from the usual location for the weeklies.
If I had to call it after a day I’d say Who is benefiting the most. Certainly that is what I am seeing in my businesses.
There seems to have been a blip with OK! supply. We did not get the full allocation making co-location challenging.
21st Century Australia party uses newsagents to distribute election propaganda in the form of a ‘magazine’
Yesterday some newsagents received 21st Century Australia from magazine distributor Gordon & Gotch. Retail price is $9.95 and the on sale period is around three months.
21st Century Australia is not a magazine. It’s election propaganda from a political party: 21st Century Australia. Go to their website and see for yourself.
Indeed, go to their website and download the whole magazine for free. Seriously.
The leader of the 21st Century Australia Party is Jamie McIntyre. He calls himself an educator, author and mentor. Reading through the website he comes across to me as someone peddling a familiar rags to riches story. There is little in the way of substance. From what I can see, his businesses don’t appear to create real value or engagement for those connected with them. Maybe my suspicions are on alert because he has Max Markson as his publicist.
If he uses people the way newsagents are being used for this ‘magazine’ no wonder he’s done okay for himself.
Check out the report by Mark Hawthorne in The Age about an allegation that Jamie McIntyre is faking Twitter follower numbers. Also check out The Sydney Morning Herald report from 2011 and issues with ASIC. While you’re researching him you might want to check out this.
This ‘magazine’, 21st Century Australia, should never have been sent to newsagents. It’s not a magazine. Someone in Gotch should have stopped it getting on the trucks. If not for the election propaganda nature of the content then for the design. It’s dreadful.
Our glorious magazine distribution model is such that we have to pay to send this junk back. Gotch has declared it a full copy return. So even if newsagents early return this title they have to pay freight as well as the labour handling costs.
This is another example of what’s wrong with the newsagent magazine distribution model. We get sent this junk and have to pay ourselves to handle it. None of our magazine competitors get this junk. It makes us less competitive. It’s this stuff that is driving more newsagents to shrink engagement with magazines and some to exit the category altogether.
The magazine distributors say the sale or return model protects newsagents. This is nonsense. Labour, freight and storage costs for junk like this ‘magazine’ are a cost of business newsagents face that our major competitor magazine retailers do not face.
Gordon & Gotch has ethical social responsibilities to newsagents, responsibilities they have failed to fulfil with the distribution of 21st Century Australia.
Travel agents hit back at US Woman’s Day magazine
The response to 9 Things Travel Agents Won’t Tell You in the US Woman’s Day magazine has been ferocious in social media. Twitter and Facebook are alight with travel agents striking back at the magazine, seeking to hurt it commercially for an article they claim will commercially hurt them.
Not only do publishers have to create a sustainable model in a mobile and digitally enabled world, they need to be able to handle the fast assembling of a crowd baying for blood of what they publish.
Good gift but no help with magazine sales
The free bamboo kitchen utensil with the latest issue of Cook Vegetarian is good value in my view but it’s done nothing for sales. We’ve had the full cover on show at eye level – showing off the gift. We’ve seen no uplift. We’re in gift with a magazine season right now with plenty of titles bagged with gifts from umbrellas to cosmetics to beanies. While I get that the gifts usually help drive sales, flooding the market all at once does make shoppers a bit gift-shy, it takes away the specialness of the gifts.
Come on magazine publishers where’s your support for newsagents?
Both Bauer and Pacific have been using social media to promote their special issues out early with coverage of the royal baby. Their engagement was a perfect opportunity to remind shoppers to pick up the magazine at their local newsagency. I’ve not seen them do this. Why should they promote us? … because they say we are important and because we will do more to support these issues than supermarkets, petrol outlets and convenience stores. They only do extra when they are paid extra to do it.
Newsagents sell more magazines than all other retail channels combined.
Updating the royal baby poster
With the announcement of a name for the royal baby we updated the poster. We were tempted to go with boy george in the headline but baby worked better.
Early indications are that interest will be strong. My feeling, however, is that interest will fade faster than it would have for this content five or ten years ago. That’s the nature of the market today for short shelf-life news.
Promoting Friday’s royal baby special issues
We have an A3 poster out promoting the special issues of magazines out tomorrow with royal baby coverage.
We’re currently the only magazine outlet in the shopping centre promoting this. The supermarkets won’t. To me it’s a good way to promote a point of difference – by giving shoppers a heads up and doing it with a professional looking poster.
This promotion is about our newsagency more than about individual mastheads.
Is the Tatts training requirement turning people off buying a newsagency?
I’ve had three calls from newsagents in the last ten days saying the sale of their business is at risk because of the Tatts requirement that all directors of a purchasor attend the full Tatts training requirements. In one case I’m told a director has been told they need to return from overseas to do the training even though they will never work in the business. In their case they now appear unlikely to proceed with the purchase of the business.
While I understand the importance of proper training, the tatts approach appears to be heavy handed. I am certain I could find some excellent lottery products sales people in newsagencies who have never undertaken any training. It’s all about the person, their retail skills and their motivation.