Through a Facebook page and other campaigns, newsagents in the Uk are being encouraged to not sell The Sun newspaper from News International. My interest is that newsagents, not the majority but enough to make a point, are engaging with the campaign and this is getting noticed – I saw it through a Tweet on Twitter.
My newsagency software company, Tower Systems, has emailed its customers reminding them of a free theft check service. It’s this service that has helped uncover hundreds of thousands of dollars in employee theft in the last six months. The processes followed result in evidence that is police, court and insurance company ready.
Newsagents tend to not want to check on employee theft because they are worried about what they will find. Ignorance is bliss I guess. It’s not when theft is discovered – often after the cost to the business is almost unbearable.
Here’s the reminder sent to newsagents this week:
We consider ourselves experts at helping our customers eliminate employee theft within their businesses. Employee theft can cripple a business and is often perpetrated by those you least suspect. We have found numerous instances of employee theft costing the businesses involved tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
With our assistance, businesses have been able to prevent further theft and, in certain cases, recover some of the money lost. We will gather evidence from your data and provide you with facts you can use.
Theft checks are available at no cost to supported users. They provide piece of mind.
We understand the importance of discretion in matters like these and will do our utmost to protect you data and deliver information to the relevant parties.
All newsagents should speak with their software company about what they can do to help uncover employee theft and act on this.
I like these local magazine titles, with Melbourne in the title. They allow us a point of difference, a local point of difference, in magazine range.
As magazine titles navigate challenging times for print and retail more generally, having a point of difference in a title and in our magazine range is vital.
In the case of these titles, from Melbourne based United Media, we have home town product, priced keenly and with content targeting local consumers. This is ideal for local small business newsagencies. It’s a reason to feature and promote the titles.
Experience has shown that displaying these titles together drives sales.
We need to embrace opportunities to show our magazine range as different to, deeper than, what shoppers see in supermarkets, petrol and convenience outlets.
We are promoting the latest New Idea Jumbo Puzzler next to New Idea, where it should always be but also becaiuse of the Ellen DeGeneres cover shot. Ellen’s TV show is popular in Australia and this is set top rise when she broadcasts from here as part of a tourism push. The Ellen cover should help drive sales – as long as the full cover is on show.
I have been running some data tonight and love seeing the average basket value for Valentine’s Day related purchases. There is a measurable jump in basket size after 4pm each day this week.
These 4pm and beyond shoppers purchase two or more items whereas up to 4pm, the majority of customers purchase a card. While we don’t currently tag gender, we feel we see far more male shoppers for Valentine’s Day after 4pm.
Last minute Valentine’s Day shoppers are the best.
We are currently tracking plush sales equal to more than 50% of card sales.
Check out the report of growing success for US magazine publisher Hearst in the digital publishing space. Some of these digital content readers will have been print product readers. It’s important we understand these trends.
Valentine's Day at a US Hallmark.
I am hearing mixed reports from newsagents about Valentine’s Day this year. Those with lower than expected numbers say it’s because it’s in the middle of the week. I disagree – the day of the week should not affect sales except in rare circumstances.
From what I see, newsagencies which went out early, (4 weeks ago) with a broadly appealing Valentine’s Day display tend to be doing better.
In my own stores we have tried to create an offer that appeals across the age groups. This is what I saw in the US recently. Over there, they chase customers to purchase multiple Valentine’s Day cards.
How’s Valentine’s Day doing for you?
We have the new partwork, My Animal Farm, at the front of the newsagency, facing into the shopping mall. You can see it’s next to the start of our plush department. This adjacency makes sense given both products appeal to the same shopper.
National TV advertising starts today. I urge newsagents to make sure they have the title in prime position – to leverage the TV campaign for maximum benefit.
The latest issue of triple j magazine is the one you need to promote as it has bropader appeal than most issues. The hottens 100 is the hottest promotion by triple j, it receives excellent media coverage. So, we have taken the opportunity to reconfigure our small music magazine display to promote this as the hero product while still respecting the important Rolling Stone.
We are promoting the season launch issue of the AFL record at the counter with this display. It’s the best position for impulse purchases across the range of shoppers we see.
This and other AFL product need to be placed together to make the most of the AFL opportunity.
Newsagents need to approach their roster with care since labour can account for between 30% and 50% of all gross profit earned in the business. Too often I see newsagents staff for comfort and out of fear of shopper theft and thereby cost the business more than if shopper theft had occured.
It’s a calculation you need to make on your situation. I’d say saving money off the roster will deliver a more beneficial outcome than paying more in labour and reducing theft – if your shop layout is good and if you have good theft management and mitigation processes in place.
This is on my mind today as I have been in a couple of newsagencies where the roster carried extra hours because of fear of theft. The roster cost several hundred dollars a week more than necessary in my view.
The other note I’d make is that the more employees the greater the risk of employee theft.
Some newsagents have yet to ensure that their AUSTRAC documentation is up to date and to code. this has resulted in some locations being shut out of Western Union. I engaged the ANF for an update. here it is:
The Australian Government mandated re enrolment process which commenced in February 2012. The ANF WU Team have been working with the newsagency network to undertake this process; we have assisted a number of agents to complete the mandatory AUSTRAC re-enrolment documentation by the 31 October 2012 Government Imposed Deadline.
After only receiving 50% of the re enrolment forms by the original deadline the ANF sought an extension which was granted to all Western Union agents by AUSTRAC to 31 January 2013. We understand leading up to the January 2013 extended deadline that several hundred last minute re-enrolment packs from all Western Union network agents across the country including ANF agents were submitted to Western Union. These are now being processed. This has resulted in some agents being temporarily suspended due to the large volume. The ANF is in contact with western union numerous times daily chasing all relevant paper work to ensure our newsagents are back operating as soon as possible. The ANF is pushing for all newsagents to be fast tracked through this process.
We are re enforcing to Western Union that all of the goodwill you have created for the WU Brand is being eroded every day you’re not transacting. If you know of any agents that are experiencing difficulty please free to pass on my details.
Regards
Jerome Jones | Western Union – General Manager
Australian Newsagents’ Federation Ltd
Level 3, 33-35 Atchison Street, St Leonards NSW 2065
D 61 2 8425 9617 | F 61 2 8425 9699
jerome@anf.net.au | www.anf.net.au
We are tracking the sales of each issue of Mollie Makes, having discovered strong interest in the title in our store. Six copies sold in a week is good going for a special interest monthly. We will increase our order again to make sure that we leverage this title for all its worth. Word of mouth is solid, driving traffic from destination shoppers. Nice.
We have put the remaining stock of the last issue of Burke’s Backyard at the front, showing off the full cover to give it a chance to sell out. Note: we have more garden titles than those in the photo – this is the top tier of the section. We use this positioning for titles we feature. Better Homes and Gardens is the beacon product for then section.
This aisle end display promoting the special 15th birthday edition of Harper’s Bazaar features the terrific collateral provided by Bauer for the occasion, collateral that works especially well on our fixtures. I like that we have different material to work with here. PS. This is the issue I mentioned yesterday.
We’re promoting the latest issue of Men’s health magazine with this display facing into our men’s reading area – it’s a cave we have for guys so they can browse away from the main traffic of the business. We’ve kept Coach in the display as it’s a nice fit with Men’s Health.
Our EDI data for Harper’s Bazaar today has it selling for $8.50 yet the stock we have is the $12.95 special issue – the magazine plus the 150 page runway report. We have asked network and Bauer what to do and as yet are to receive an answer. The note from Network with the magazine this morning was not as clear as it could have been.
Newsagents should check their stock and their computer system.
We ran out of The Age (again!) before lunch on Saturday. Our supplying newsagent, also a retailer in the shopping centre, refused us extra stock so we purchased most of what they had left, at retail. They were itching for a fight but our team member making the purchase stood their ground.
Given either their inability to ensure they can meet demand or a failure of Fairfax to ensure reasonable supply to the area, we will continue to do this – buy stock from our supplying newsagent leaving them with nothing if necessary. Eventually the message will get through.
We refuse to be without newspapers at lunchtime on a busy Saturday.
Our preparedness to take this action shows that we see newspapers as playing an important role, still, in today’s retail newsagency publisher disinterest notwithstanding.
I noticed a couple of girls having fun with the cardboard cut out we had of Sheldon from Big Bang Theory on Saturday. There were taking photos. One of them said it would be the perfect Valentine’s Day gift. So I moved Sheldon from the rear of the magazine department to the front. Why not … it’s hard to fail when you listen to customers!
I deliberately placed the barcode on his forehead top show he’s for sale and it kind of fits with his character.
We have had Time magazine next to The Age, believing the cover story on US drones would appeal to these customers. We check the cover of Time to see where it could work best as it’s a title we sell better on impulse.
Commenters writing on my Do newsagencies have a future? post have been discussing average basket size with some publishing their number. Basket size can be measured in dollars or units. Good newsagency software reports this easily for you. There is a considerable difference in basket size, beyond the size and performance of the business, depending on what you include. For example, lotteries, transport tickets and other volume agency lines can skew the results. This is why I recommend not including these high volume low margin items in such analysis.
I check the basket numbers in my own newsagencies every couple of weeks as basket depth – units and value – are a key indicator in what I’d call the small steps strategy for successful newsagency management. These are a range of small steps, measurement points, on which to focus to build a healthier business.
The current channel average basked size is 1.43 items with an average basket value of $3.65.
Easy access to good data is the most common reason I see for newsagency success or failure. There are no excuses. You don’t need to be IT savvy. You don’t need a lot of time. It’s not about business size. All you need is a desire to be successful in your newsagency. Do you check your basket data regularly?
Click on the image to see a a larger version year on year comparison of basket size (dollars and units) as well as a comparison of average item value and total items. This is the final analysis in what’s called the Monthly Sales Comparison report – my favourite report
Depending on how Easter goes for you, the time between this Thursday and early May could be lean – unless you have plans.
After Valentine’s Day is done, what’s next for your newsagency? What do you have planned to bring in traffic and get them spending when they are there?
It’s vital we plan for these things so that we remain relevant between seasons. There is where pure gift shops are vulnerable. Many lurch from season to season, often barely existing in the valleys. This is when we can really hurt them given that we bring traffic in for a range of purposes beyond major seasons.
So, what is your post Valentine’s Day plan?
Having your top selling newspapers in a shelf, display or some other stand by themselves is a missed opportunity for every newsagent. At the very least you need to place at least one magazine next to your top selling newspaper(s) always. We place two. Ever since we started this years ago it has worked a treat for us.
By far the best performing magazine next to newspapers is Better Homes and Gardens. This is especially true Thursdays through Sundays. back in the day we counted what we placed with newspapers, to gather data on what works best. hence our certainty that BHG is the best title here for us. For the entire first two weeks of the on-sale we have BHG between the Herald Sun and The Age. We often hve a second title – but that varies based on what we think will work, changing it at least weekly.
If you don’t have a magazine or two with newspapers at the moment, try it – you are certain to sell more copies of the magazines you place here.
The latest over the counter sales results of magazines in the US are not good for magazine publishers. Once you separate digital and subscription circulation out, you can see that what they call single copy sales are in deep decline for many titles.
Digital circulation more than doubled. It’s the weekly gossip and entertainment titles that suffered steep declines in retail sales:
Some of the weakest numbers in the second half of 2012 belonged to celebrity weeklies.Life & Style saw its total circulation drop 18.4 percent, OK! Weekly fell 14.4 percent, and In Touch fell 14.3 percent. Star and Us Weekly did slightly better, with circulations declining 4.9 and 2.2 percent, respectively. And People, the category leader and typically its strongest, was the only magazine in the category to see its circulation rise, by nearly 2 percent, despite a 12.2 percent decline in newsstand sales.
I don’t know enough about People but maybe it’s focus is similar to Famous which performs against trend here in Australia.
Read about this at AdWeek and AdAge – interesting perspectives.
So, more bad news about magazines. We can allow ourselves to get caught up in this and do our help the decline – by being average – or we can push against it by being engaged magazine specialists. The latter approach works. We do this by being smart about layout, embracing change and being obsessive about titles that perform well in our stores.
Newsagents remain the largest magazine retail channel in Australia. Our market share is something we can leverage better.
Newsagents may want to check out the commentary on News Corp’s latest results at Crikey. Glenn Dyer opulls no punches in comparing the performance of the print business with other parts of the organisation.