Our live in-store newsagency specific radio station is 100% committed to Australia Day today with a smorgasbord of Australian music. Today’s programming is perfect for the day, providing an excellent soundscape for us, showing we’re connected with the day by supporting Aussie talent.
From Ad News Australia comes this terrific report and video about a trial using heads of key brands in Europe, testing their newspaper interaction. Watch the video.
Makes me feel good. Also helps me look at newspapers in a different light for a moment.
It’s easy to be lulled into a sense of saturation when you consider the number of mobile phones per capita in Australia and other first world countries – thinking that more retail space selling the devices is not needed.
The reality is that telcos and others are expanding the retail footprint selling mobile phones. This is helped by churn – people switching telcos, new devices – the continued rise of the Android and additional purpose need – the desire to separate work and personal use and therefor have additional devices.
I’ve been looking at the UK market this morning and see that Phone 4U is rolling out 100 new retail locations this year. I understand that a couple of Australian telcos are also targeting retail footprint growth this year.
I mention this for consideration by newsagents looking for changes in-store this year and for additional traffic drivers. becoming a telco specialist will work well in some situations, especially high street and regional and rural situations. I know several newsagency businesses that are local telco destinations and they appreciate the new traffic this brings.
I helped a customer Thursday who could not seem to find what they wanted. The cake decorating magazine, the supermarket doesn’t have it. I showed her our range – the last three issues and explained that newsagents are the best businesses for magazines. We had a chat about this, she agreed but explained that sometimes it was easier to add a magazine to the weekly shop than make a special trip to the newsagency. Why come to you when it’s only for a magazine? Gee that stung.
As we parted, the shopper said you need more magazines like this, holding the latest copy of Cake Decorating above her head. Yes we do. We need more special interest titles that people will go out of their way to find and purchase, regularly.
It is fringe and special interest titles that provide the channel with its best point of difference.
We’re pitching the 2013 AFL Prospectus at the counter as this is where it worked a treat for us last year.
For some reason, Network cut our supplies back. We only checked when they sent out their email a couple of days ago – too late to get stock for this weekend when the issue launched. Frustrating.
It’s terrific seeing someone add a $39.95 purchase to the basket on impulse even if the margin is only 25%.
I’d urge newsagents to get this title on the counter right away. It works in each of my newsagencies more so than with sports titles. AFL fans are not necessarily watching for the release.
If only Office spent as much money delivering lowest prices as they do in claiming that they offer lowest prices. Check out a price comparison published in the Adelaide Advertiser yesterday. The difference between Officeworks and Newspower is extraordinary.
I am surprised that with evidence like this that someone does not challenge the Officeworks claim. of course, they will say they are lower through their price guarantee. the ACCC should reject this as it’s a con as consumers only get Officeworks to be lower by shopping around themselves – most will not do this, they will believe the Officeworks advertising spin.
The message here for Australian and small businesses families is simple – for back to school, back to uni, back to work – shop at your local newsagent. besides competitive prices, you are leaving more money in the local community.
Check your sales for new food title good chef bad chef. We have sold four of our five copies in a few days and ordered more. I have heard from another newsagent who sold all five copies in two days. They have ordered more stock.
At $17.95 a copy, a sale of good chef bad chef is good business.
This is an excellent Australian cookbook connected with the popular Australian TV show of the same name. It’s an easy sell for us.
Our own experience is that placing it with weeklies works best. Yes, shoppers are prepared to spend $17.95 on impulse!
Food titles continue to do very well.
I like the look of the My Animal Farm partwork series coming from DeAgostini through Gordon and Gotch launching February 11. It’s appealing to an important demographic for us. Newsagents will be tagged in the TV commercial which commences February 13.
We promote partworks aggressively and they are currently tracking at 9.22% of our overall magazine sales. We promote them because they are a valuable point of difference for us occasional supply issues notwithstanding.
These biker bears sold very well for us last Valentine’s Day and we wondered if they had run their course – but we took them on anyway. It turns out they have not run their course.
Shoppers love these bears. They’re a fun break from the more traditional Valentine’s Day plush. They also open Valentine’s Day gift buying up to other shoppers and this is important. One of our goals with each season this year is to get more people buying for the season, people who would not usually buy for it.
We have the biker bears displayed together as this looks more impressive than scattering them through the Valentine’s Day plush table.
Valentine’s Day is working a treat already!
We have been promoting the latest issue of Donna Hay magazine with this in-location display in our food section.
I love the photo on the cover and in the poster – perfect for a food title. We have the full cover on show next to our daily newspapers.
These in-location displays work well for us. We usually only have one per aisle – so that shoppers more easily notice the title being featured.
It’s been a tough couple of weeks in various parts of Australia weather-wise. No, I’m not talking about Sydney last Friday – at least regular services kept functioning. I am thinking about newsagents in more remote locations where the weather can almost bring regular business to a stop. Here’s an email to a newsagents discussion group just now from Carol at Cooktown newsagency:
No mags, no papers no BTS tops ups . Next delivery probably next week. A bit hard to balance the books this time of year.
Some newsagents are doing it tough outside of retail and channel-specific issues.
Several newsagent suppliers have expressed serious concerns about the move by For Arts Sake to syphon off all sales data for use by the company outside the participating newsagency.
My understanding is that FAS is saying it will provide business analysis. I think that is a ruse since good newsagency software provides this to newsagents today and has done for many years.
The real value for FAS from what I can see is that they themselves could monetise this commercially sensitive business data. Newsagents considering engaging need to be very careful.
The question remains about the contractual obligations of newsagents to not share data relating to some suppliers. The terms and conditions invite such questions.
FAS is working hard to grab a bigger share of the greeting card space in newsagencies. My view is it should work on its brand. The most valuable shoppers are those committed to a brand. Ask customers which card brand they recognise the most.
I’ve heard from Pacific magazines that the latest issue of Women’s Health magazine is selling very well. The Michelle Bridges cover story – 12 week body transformation – is working a treat and driving an excellent lift in sales.
Michelle Bridges last night was promoting Women’s Health in her live web chat and encouraging people to go out buy a copy of the magazine. In addition to the aisle end display in the photo, today we have stock placed at the main sales counter and several copies with our weekly magazines.
The success of the cover story is also driving an increase in social media engagement for the Women’s Health title with excellent growth in Facebook likes and comments. This tells us that this latest issue is ideal for newsagents to promote using social media.
The excellent, early in the on-sale, sales growth is a perfect reason for newsagents to act now and get part of the excellent additional interest in Women’s Health.
We’re promoting the latest issue of Zoo magazine with this aisle end display facing into our men’s reading area.
I like the simplicity of the collateral and the pitch for the value proposition – it makes for an attention-grabbing display.
We also have the title in the usual location.
I like this tongue-in-cheek TV commercial produced to promote Disk Smith Foods. According to Crikey, the Advertising Board won’t allow TV networks won’t play it.
I like how he’s having a go and wearing his support for Australia on his sleeve.
I am disappointed that the Victorian Government is promoting 7-Eleven in their latest Myki TV commercials. 7-Eleven is the retail brand they name yet the vision is of the side wall of an old newsagency. This TVC was an excellent opportunity for the state government to show that it is serious about supporting small business.
Plenty of newsagents were among the tobacco retailers protesting in Brussels yesterday about the Tobacco Products Directive.
It is interesting to see the public protect approach by the aggrieved retailers. The health issues aside, it’s good to see the retailers making their complaints public.
Check out where I noticed the Darrell Lea Australia Day Rock Lea Road product at one Woolworths yesterday … yeah, the sale rack at the back of the shop. I though of this given the comments on my earlier post on this.
This store had a big Australia Day display on fixtures elsewhere in-store. Maybe the DL stock moved quickly and this was all they had left. Either way, it’s not a good look given that Australia day is a few days off yet.
Following my post last week about OK! moving to a Monday on-sale, a couple of people who I’d expect to know about such things have advised that they expect Friday magazine deliveries to have ceased altogether within six months.
This will create a challenge for filling missed deliveries and other orders in a timely manner. Friday is a good catch up day for weekend trade opportunities.
This photo shows part of our Valentine’s Day display in one of my newsagencies. The table runs back two and a half metres and is stacked with a broad range of plush for all sorts of Valentine’s Day gift giving occasions.
The display has been up just a few days and already sales are strong. This is in part due to the success we had through Christmas with the large Beanie Balls. We know they sell in our area so we are riding off the back of that knowledge with our choice of the ladybug Beanie Ball as our hero product for Valentine’s Day this year.
I have high hopes for Valentine’s Day for card and gift sales. Right now, our focus is on the gifts. While our cards are out, they are not at the lease line, facing into the mall, as the plush display is.
We have the display unit promoting Puzzler and Bauer crossword titles located just inside the entrance, appropriately next to our glasses unit. While only in place a short time, we are certain this unit is driving sales of the promoted titles.
We are rich in traffic in newsagencies and sometimes the best way to drive sales growth it to promote products outside the usual location for those products. That’s certainly working here for us.
I like the stand. It uses a small footprint, is easy to move and holds a good range of product.
Zinio, the digital magazine newsstand, is offering $50 of free access to magazines to get more people using the platform. This will buy around 18 single issues of magazines. It’s a great (for Zinio and the publishers) way to get consumers trying the platform. Life Hacker has the story.
Jamie Oliver launched his new YouTube food channel Monday. Called Food Tube, the channel provides a platform of direct to consumer contact for Oliver. It’s a move that demonstrates further disruption for the television networks and underscores disruption everyone involved in media production an distribution can expect. Read more here.
1.8 billion servings of Coke beverages are severed every day in more than 200 countries. Beyond being the most widely consumed beverage brand, it is the best known brand, the world over. Beyond the beverages, Coke is a brand that is loved. Indeed, love and happiness are brand goals for Coke the world over.
I was fortunate to hear Melvin Landis, Chief Retail Sales Office for Coca-Cola and Alison Lewis, senior Vice President, North America, for Coca-Cola speak at the National Retail Federation Big Ideas Show in New York last week.
The keynote presentations focused on how Coke positively promotes its various sub brands and connects these with happiness and how Coke helps retailers leverage the message of happiness and drive sales. From large businesses to small, Coke has an integrated campaign from the product through paid advertising, using social media and plenty of in-store activity to help retailers like newsagents drive sales.
Here are some of the (unedited) notes I took during the presentations:
Here are some key points about the value of the Coke brand and its connection with today’s consumer:
Their targeting of millennial consumers was a surprise. I had not seen (realised) this myself and was enthralled by their pitch and their understanding of the millennial consumer.
The Coke message showed the importance of going beyond a one-off in-store offer and developing a long-term fully integrated offer that harvests shopper data, drives long-term impulse purchases and uses the main brand and a host of sub brands to attract shoppers who might otherwise not have visited the business. This is actually massive – using a beverage story to drive traffic.
Too often promotions are run in newsagencies that leech off existing traffic. While that’s okay, it is not good for the long-term growth of our businesses. we need more campaigns, products and supplier relationships that drive new traffic.
The Coke supplier / newsagent relationship is two-way, tapping into the global resources of the company. It is built around growing the newsagency business and not just seeking to drive volume of one or two beverage products over a short / medium term campaign.
To finish, here is a video of a Coke campaign in Singapore. It reflects the type of emotional connection around optimism and happiness that the company so often embraces in its consumer campaigns.
I used to think of Coke as a sugary syrupy drink that was not necessarily good for health. The reality is that in the family of products Coke offers plenty of healthy choices … all promoted through the same prism of optimism and happiness.
The team at one of my stores created a timely back to School themed counter promotion of Australian iPad for Education.
The timely nature of the title and the free iPad cover lead me to expect good impulse purchases at this sales counter location. We also have the title with our technology magazines.
My plan is to move this counter display to weeklies after a week and that’s where plenty of mums spend browsing time.