We have seen excellent sales of the Hallmark Signature range of greeting cards for Mother’s Day. This range is separately branded, thereby helping draw attention to Signature cards we have in-store as part of our everyday card range.
So far we’re on a par with Mother’s Day last year for cards and way ahead with gifts. This is in part due to a broader range of gists for the season this year. We’re aiming for a strong finish to the season.
We are tapping into the competition (faux or real) between One Direction an,d The Wanted with placement of magazines with the boy bands on the covers. We;re yet to see sales of any boy band related titles kick off this year to even close to the volumes of last year with One Direction.
I was in Queenstown in New Zealand recently and used taxis several times. Just abut every time, the taxi driver gave me their card and told be how much they or their partner would love to take me back to the hotel out of town. By the end of the couple of days I had a collection of cards. The experience reminded me of the importance of business cards and of asking for business.
One way to check your progress on promoting your business by handing out business cards is by counting them. Set a weekly goal and engage your whole team to have out the cards. You could even have an offer or at least a pitch for your business on the cards. Tell people why you’d like them to shop at your shop.
The Queenstown taxi drivers hand out cards because they know it works. it could work as well for newsagencies.
Use your newsagency software to compare suppliers. This is easy to create a report. I do it for my newsagencies, especially for magazines and gifts.
For magazines I compare like for like titles: Woman’s Day and New Idea, Take 5 and That’s Life etc. This quickly identifies if one title is performing differently to a direct competitor.
For gifts I compare everything from one supplier with everything from another. I look at space allocation and investment in inventory. The comparison can help me decide which supplier to focus on.
Retail only newsagents expressed frustration and anger yesterday at the lack of notice on the price change to the Herald Sun and the Daily Telegraph. I heard from half a dozen retail only agents who had not been told.
At one of my shops one customer said this was the last time they’s buy the Herald Sun on a Saturday because of the price rise. It won’t be. This is the same customer who complains if they have to wait behind even one customer to pay for the paper and says they’ll never be back.
This latest issue of Better Homes and Gardens is selling very well so we’re pushing even harder with it the only title between our two major daily newspapers. Usually, we’d have two titles here but we stripped it back in the hope of even better sales for BHG.
Check out the story from the ABC two days ago about Woolworths a decision to give a local school supplies to the value of $2,700 as a reward for diving spending of $460,000 by people connected with the school community.
Woolworths was not going to reward the school because of an issue with the claim by the school.
I m shocked that Woolworths is so stingy. I am sure that had local independent retailers been delivered more $460,000 in sales by people connected with the school these businesses would have rewarded the school to a much higher value.
The newsagent who brought this to my attention is offering a reward of $1 for each $20 spent. The Woolworths reward equals $1 for each $170 spent.
This is the difference between big business and small business. To me it looks like the Woolworths campaign is a promotion for them more so than a fund raiser for the school whereas in small business, campaigns connected with local schools and community groups are usually more about them than the retailer.
Schools and community groups should support small business newsagents and other retailers and expect to do better than the paltry sum from Woolworths.
It frustrates me that we in small business do more as a percentage of revenue for our local communities than big business yet are recognised less. Do we do it for recognition? Ultimately, yes for it is this recognition that drives sales and its sales that are vital to supporting local groups.
On a hunch we sourced an extensive range of doorstops, more than twenty styles / designs, for Mother’s Day and for our gift department through winter. On the shop floor for less that a week, the doorstops are selling a treat. We have traditional styles like the two in the photo as well as owls and other animals.
We’ve had success with doorstops before and, curiously, that was during the colder months too.
What I’ve found is having a broad range is key. The choice is appreciated. It can also lead to a second purchase or a word of mouth recommendation to a friend. We have also found that offering doorstops themed in other interests – cats, dogs, retro – also works.
We’re promoting Simply Too Good To be True 7, the latest cookbook and health guide from Annette Sym with this aisle end display as well as a range of all the titles in with our food titles.
The Symply brand is strong in newsagencies and it responds well to promotion like this. I’d urge newsagents to get behind issue #7 as publicity is in full swing.
The Union Jack is an excellent retail brand right now and we’re embracing it with this counter located display and displays elsewhere for shoppers to discover.
By tapping into products from several suppliers based around a single brand we are able to tell a deeper story and drive a more efficient basket – more items per sale.
Here’s a reason I don’t want to lose the Friday magazine delivery. As I mentioned yesterday we experienced a surge in sales of Take 5 and That’s Life Wednesday. We ordered extra stock and this arrived today. I’m confident we will end the seven days on-sale with an excellent sales up-lift result, a result we could not have achieved had we not had a Friday magazine delivery.
We have been supporting this issue of Take 5 with an off-location display facing all shoppers as they approach our main sales counter – successfully chasing impulse purchases.
I am surprised with the Mother’s Day Promotion at Kenny’s Cardiology outlets. The poster doesn’t connect with the warmth of the season. It also puts a fictional mum in a semi crime type look whereas Mother’s Day is all about our mums and mums we know.
The Kenny’s pitch feels too masculine / butch for what is a feminine season. Has anyone else see this and if so what did you think?
In my newsagencies we are 100% focused on mums of our customers for Mother’s Day. We’re connected with fund raising. We have products we know our shoppers will want for their mums and we are using our Mother’s day cards themselves as the focus of our shop floor displays.
I have been in three different Officeworks stores recently and each showed that this group is on the move. They are making a personal pitch around local management, providing better in-store service and they are strongly promoting their kids club: Ollie kids’ club.
One store I went to provided we with an excellent customer service experience. In fact, it was this experience that made we take more careful note about how much the Officeworks offer had changed.
Newsagents who have not been into an Officeworks store in six months should make the trip to check out the competition. This retail chain has lifted their game, they are even tougher competition for newsagents.
We are promoting the new look Homespun with prime positioning in our craft titles section.
I urge newsagents to check where they have Homespun placed. Make sure it is in prime position.
The new look is terrific – the quality matt paper gives the magazine a higher quality feel. Seeing this for yourself is important so you can talk with customers about it.
Our placement next to Mollie Makes will get Homespun browsed by more shoppers. Adjacencies are everything in driving magazine sales growth.
We’re promoting the latest issue of Girlfriend magazine and the free novel – The Immortal Rules – bagged with this issue.
The in-location display will work a treat I’m sure. It’s the only one in our women’s magazine aisle.
There is a newsagency in a small northern NSW town on the market for stock value only. If you know someone looking for a small country town newsagency, a good business for a couple to run, then let me know and I’ll connect you. The business is on the market urgently for personal reasons.
The free Newsagency of the Future workshop series starts next week. Over 2 hours I’ll outline options as I see them, explain why newsagents must act today and share insights from those who are acting. The locations are:
Click here to book online or email bookings@towersystems.com.au. This session is open to all newsagents and suppliers.
I received an email earlier this week from the publisher of Australian Property Investor with good news about their plans for subscriptions and newsagency sales.
Remember, this is the magazine I have written about several times – their cover stories get positive coverage on TV shows – most recently Today Tonight – driving sales.
Here’s the good news from the publisher:
As part of API’s growth strategy for 2013 and beyond, we’re moving our focus away from subscription-building and are putting our major marketing efforts into growing our newsagent sales channel. A few ways we’re doing this include:
— In the past, like nearly all magazines, we’ve had in-house magazine ads promoting subscriptions. As of a few issues ago these ads have been completely phased out. The only remaining sub offer in the magazine now is the small tear-off subscription card that all magazines have. While we don’t want to neglect our subscriber base, our goal now is to strengthen and build up our newsagent distribution.
— We have over 7,700 Twitter followers, and regularly tweet comments advising people to “grab a copy of API at their local newsagent.” An example is http://www.twitter.com/apimagazine
— We’ve increased our marketing spend with our distributor Gordon & Gotch in terms of merchandising and POS promotions in newsagents.
These are good reasons for us to support Australian Property Investor.
We experienced a surge in sales of Take 5 and That’s Life yesterday with both titles surging ahead of recent average Wednesday sales. You can see the surge reflected on the Sales decay report I produced for Take 5 yesterday mid afternoon – well ahead of the average of sales for the last four weeks. We’ve not done anything different for each of the titles – this surge is all their own work!
I received this photo from a newsagent in SA of a gift they received to be given away with Good Health magazine from Bauer. The label on the box says Australian Women’s Weekly February 2013 Coles promotion. The gift itself has the AWW logo. Make newsagents feel special.
Any business operating under a franchise agreement – as do most newsagency marketing groups – has certain rights and opportunities for the handling of any dispute.
The office of the franchise mediation advisor is in place to assist with the navigation of disputes. It provides a mediation service between franchisors and franchisees in dispute and makes sure that the dispute resolution procedures under the Franchising Code of Conduct are followed.
The office can provide information over the telephone but applications for mediation assistance need to be in writing. http://transition.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/287395
However, you must follow processes. Letters that do not follow the process will be a waste of time as will meetings and phone calls. You MUST follow the pricess as doing this sets in place the timeline from which the franchisor cannot resile.
From their website – http://www.franchisingmediationadviser.com.au – here are the steps involved in navigating a dispute with your franchisor:
You may wish to use the Notice of Dispute form. Click here to download a copy.
I was at the American Restaurant in Hong Kong a couple of night ago and noticed on their menu that all dishes came in three sizes. This is good customer service, much better than restaurants that give you one size.
I’ve eaten in plenty of restaurants in Asia and this size offering is not common.
More and more all businesses need to play outside what is usual for their type of business, outside of what customers expect. Delivering them unexpected makes them memorable.
In a newsagency it’s challenging as much of what an average newsagency offers today is defined by others. The more we change that the more flexibility we unlock for ourselves.
Click on the image for a larger version.
Footnote: The American Restaurant is American in name only. They chose the name 50+ years ago to attract Americans. This is really an authentic beijing style eatery.
Check out the report in The Age today about UK retailer ASOS. They’re flying in nearly 4 jumbo jets of product into Australia each week. Free shipping is helping drive this. Many local Australian fashion retailers are paralysed by the extraordinary impact overseas retailers are having on their businesses.
How we shop has changed forever, not just for fashion but for almost everything. Fashion is the category in focus because of far greater perceived value from online.
The front page of The Australian Financial Review yesterday carried a story headlined Plan to help newsagents. It was about the launch of Hubbed, a new business venture backed by Matt Handbury.
From the opening paragraph, Michael Smith’s report reflects, in my view, sloppy reporting.
Former magazine industry chief turned book publisher Matt Handbury is back with a new venture he hopes will breathe like back into the struggling local newsagency.
Matt Handbury hopes to turn a profit. Newsagents provide a network that could be useful to him. He has not invested in Hubbed out of a love for our channel. We serve his need for a retail footprint.
Handbury should tell it like it is and not treat us in such a paternalistic way. We’re more knowing and more independent than back when he last dealt with newsagents.
Smith’s article says there are 4,400 newsagents in Australia. While it is hard to nail an exact figure, I’d put the total number at no more than 3,800.
Smith quotes Handbury about Hubbed:
I thought ‘wow, I like that because it is going to keep the newsagents going’.
If Handbury really thought that then Hubbed must be set to generate $50K or more gross profit a year for each newsagency involved. I don’t see that happening. The numbers quoted in the article don’t make sense.
The article is built around the notion of Handbury saving the channel. More sloppy work by Smith and the AFR. The article says the plan is to install Hubbed in hundreds of newsagencies – even on my numbers it’s a fraction of the overall channel. How will he save the rest? The article has no balance.
Smith makes out that the Hubbed offering is unique. The reality is that more than 1,500 newsagents today offer parcel collection services and have done for close to a year. We also offer gift cards – hundreds of corporate branded cards if we want to carry them. Some of us also offer financial services. And, yes, some of us offer magazine subscriptions.
My point is that Hubbed is not as unique as the AFR article would have us believe.
A Hubbed kiosk will need around one square metre of space including access areas. In a shopping centre, a newsagent will be looking for somewhere between $8,000 and $10,000 a year GP without considering labour, operating and opportunity costs. In a high street and regional situation the return could be less. My estimates blow out the moment a newsagent has to spend any time on Hubbed.
There is also the question of what this looks like to shoppers? Is it at the front of the store? If so, the opportunity cost would be significantly higher.
My other concern is whether Hubbed is a net traffic generator. Will it bring in new traffic or will it rely on our existing traffic. If the latter then it is off less value to newsagents. The last thing we need is a product or service that relies on our existing traffic.
I know from my benchmark studies that there are newsagents doing very well, creating new models, building strong and profitable businesses. Hubbed will not be for them as they have moved away from the agent model on which Hubbed appears to rely.
Now for my back story on Hubbed…
I was approached by them in January this year. They wanted to meet and present the idea. I get approaches like this all the time and have developed some barriers / bullshit metres to stop my time being wasted.
Through a series of emails over five days, they wanted me to sign a confidentiality agreement. I refused. I could see no reason for it. It came across like they wanted some form of support or endorsement from me.
We never met because I refused to sign the confidentiality agreement. In one of the emails they said they were launching this with the ANF. I asked if they had a commercial relationship with the ANF? They refused to answer the question. All communication ceased.
The ANF question is important to me. Associations have no place being involved in commercial enterprises. The ANF track record on due diligence is poor – look at Bill Express … they did no due diligence at all, aggressively promoted it and it cost newsagents tens of millions of dollars.
If there is a commercial relationship between the ANF and Hubbed it needs to be declared from the outset. Also, the ANF would need to be transparent with newsagents on the due diligence it undertook in relation to Hubbed. Has the business plan been professionally reviewed by the ANF for example?
For the record, I don’t have any product or service that competes with Hubbed.
Hubbed could be excellent, only time will tell. Right now there is too much smoke in the way to know. The sloppy AFR article only adds to this. My advice to interested newsagents – approach it with your eyes open. Do your research.
We’re promoting the My Kitchen Rules cookbook with this placement at the front of the newsagency, placement with newspapers and placement next to our weekly magazines. We will assess these space allocations by the end of the week and keep them over the weekend if they are working. We know from previous MKR cookbook sales that the first week is crucial.
The final episode of the TV series (Sunday night) drew close to 3 million viewers so the opportunity for destination and impulse purchases is excellent.