Feast magazine is a true special interest magazine. It’s the kind of title that is likely to drive shopper returns to the business. I say this based on direct customer feedback. Once they know you have the title you will be their Feast outlet.
This is why I liken it to frankie a title with similar customer loyalty, an equally valuable title for us. While Feast is in supermarkets, it’s our featuring of the title that makes it work better for us.
Check out the Darrell Lea Australia Day floor display unit on show at my local Woolworths supermarket yesterday.
I like the striking design of the unit, excellent for visual cut-through and perfect for placement next to the Australia Day display as it was. I also like the pitch: AUSSIE, AUSSIE, AUSSIE! YUM, YUM, YUM! Very nice.
The Proudly Australian owned and operated pitch is also a strong message.
I’d be interested to know if newsagents selling darrell Lea have this display unit or were offered it.
I like the Australia Day themed cover and giveaway with the current issue of Take 5 magazine. This is a nice connection with the day. We gave it a push with additional pockets for display, ensuring that the free bag was on show for shoppers to see.
We are promoting the latest issue of Men’s Health magazine with this aisle-end display in the men’s area of our magazine department.
With summer in full swing and attention focused, for the Men’s Health target customer, on looking good and getting fitter for the year ahead, promotion of this issue is most timely.
Some newsagents reported that they have not received all of their electronic invoices form Gordon and Gotch for tomorrow. I alerted the company and their Head of IT has just advised that Gotch has re-sent DD2 files to newsagents who had the problem. They should be available now. This applies to all newsagents who had not received all their files regardless of computer system.
Pubs and bars have happy hours, when they discount some products to attract patrons at certain times, why not newsagents?
I know there are some newsagents who do deals on a quiet day of the week, usually Tuesday, but I am not aware of anyone running a genuine happy hour. If you are please share here.
We don’t run a happy hour in any of my stores but I am thinking about it. As I see it, we’d need: a compelling deal, collateral to promote the happy hour, a flashing light or some other device to draw attention and shop floor staff engagement.
For the compelling deal I am thinking about offers like:
Given traffic in the centres in which my stores are located I’d probably run Happy Hour between 1pm and 3pm on a Tuesday. I’d try it for a month and then assess performance.
Training is vital to improving the value of employees to a business and the business to them. One way to show your commitment is to post details of training completed in a noticeboard in the back room or office.
You could list formal education undertaken as well as less formal training such as workshops hosted by suppliers and your software company. Such a public display could encourage others to seek out training.
My Tower Systems newsagency software company hosts regular training workshops every week. Plus, the company has an extensive video training library that can be accessed from anywhere. This type of training could be a star – it’s free and accessible.
Here is a list of the upcoming one hour online live training workshops. More will be added as most are booked out:
This is part of the food-to-go offering in a Duane Reade ‘drug store’ (convenience store) in Manhattan, near Times Square. I’m posting it because I know of many newsagents with convenience models and others with plans in this retail niche.
While the daily foot traffic in front of this particular location is more than most of us see in a week or two, the range is nevertheless interesting. I like the variety from fruit to sandwiches to salads to water. The food looks delicious. It is packaged and displayed to drive sales. I have seen that a lot with food in the US. Whereas in Australia prepackaged sandwiches are often displayed to fit in a refrigerated unit, displays I have seen in the last two weeks follow more professional visual merchandising display principles.
Outside of the shot of the photo is a terrific range of sushi.
Click on the image for a larger version.
What we are seeing here is a big business approach that any c-store small business could copy in the context of their space and situation.
With the move of OK! magazine from a Friday to a Monday for Eastern Seaboard newsagents begs the question of the future of Friday deliveries.
I wish we received more of our weeklies on Fridays as this would help drive weekend traffic. Weekends bring us new and often non-local shoppers. That said, I understand the importance of the Monday traffic for so many other newsagents.
In WA, SA/NT & Far North Queensland the move is from a Monday delivery to a Wednesday delivery.
I thought this display of lower volume newspaper products was interesting. While not as efficient as the acrylic floor unit we use, the masthead is on show and accessing the titles is easy. The only downside is that it’s a permanent fixture, not easily moved or changed.
Godiva has a terrific Valentine’s Day window in each of its retail outlets. I have seen it several times. The window display acts as a billboard not only for each store but for the brand overall. Once you have seen it several times it is well registered in your mind.
Imagine the shopper connection we could drive if every newsagency had exactly the same window display setup for a major season. Yes, I understand this is not what small business is about. However, our national spread is an asset we are not leveraging to our advantage.
Check out the window display at one of the Swatch shops in New York pitching watches as a Valentine’s Day gifts.
In many retail outlets this trip I have seen items promoted as Valentine’s Day gifts that I would not think of for this occasion. The same for cards with captions targeting more than a traditional love recipient, driving the giving of multiple Valentine’s Day cards. From a retail business perspective this is good to see.
Here is permanent outpost located in a shopping mall promoting electronic cigarettes. I am posting this not to promote the product but to show how mainstream e-cigarettes are becoming in the US. Some people I spoke with told me that patrons in bars and other indoors venues were permitted to smoke these.
What I am noticing with electronic cigarettes is the names. Like Brilliant Smoke. Fascinating.
This a-frame sign is out the front of a tobacco shop on Seventh Avenue in New York. It shows that electronic cigarettes are just another product to them, reinforcing my recent observations that they are becoming mainstream.
It will be interesting watch moves in Australia over the next few months as several manufacturers have told me they are working on Australian distribution.
TechCrunch is reporting that Apple will provide access to digital editional of Hearst magazine titles days before the print editions are out.
This is a big move, one that makes the print edition a second class citizen to the digital edition. It is a move that makes sense for Apple, the publisher and the digital consumer yet one I wish was not being made.
After a relatively quiet year on the digital front for magazines maybe 2013 will see more activity.
This move will, no doubt, be considered by some newsagents as they consider space allocation for magazines.
I was fortunate to see and hear Bill Simon, President and CEO of retail behemoth Walmart, deliver a keynote speech at the NRF Big Show 2013 in New York earlier this week.
While the majority of representatives in the 27,000 attending this conference were big business connected, small business numbers were significant. For Simon, almost every other retailer is small given the size of Walmart.
I found Simon’s presentation compelling. It made me question the time and energy we in small business spend worrying about, talking about and complaining about big business. Walmart is serving its shareholders. To do that it needs to make more money. The key ways it can do that is to get bigger, to buy better and to be more loved by shoppers. If we in small business want to grow we have to do the same things.
Simon announced some initiatives, initiatives we could announce. The size of is company got his announcements noticed. We in small business and in channels like newsagencies need to do a better job at getting noticed for good initiatives. This is our biggest challenge – getting known and trusted for the value we bring to our communities. What Simon announced was not all that great but it got excellent press the next day because it was an announcement from Walmart. We need to be perceived y journalists, editors and publishers to be as important.
Here are some unedited notes I took (with the wonderful Evernote on my iPad FYI) during the presentation:
There is a national paralysis waiting for someone to do something. i.e. private sector waiting for the government to report on how many jobs the private sector has created.
Can we create a bigger pie, a bigger pie from which we can attract sales. This starts with us reaching outside what we are in business.
Three initiatives from Walmart.
- Support good retail jobs. Stand up for the jobs. Bring structure to the role of the jobs. To create a reason, a strength and happiness. This is where Tower can play a role and fit through our training program.
- Supporting US veterans. Identifying that veterans can be a terrific group to tap into to drive country and business prosperity. Calls on retailers to hire veterans. Walmart offering a job to any honourably discharged veteran within a year of their discharge.
- Supporting American manufacturing. Items made, sourced and grown in the US account for around two thirds of their products. Labour costs in Asia are rising, transport costs high. Tipping points indicate that bringing more jobs home can work. Walmart to buy $50B more US products over next ten years.
Got all veterans in the room to stand. Loud applause.
The tyranny of average. Average is not good enough. Average is below average. We have to act with passion, excitement and convistion. We have to do good. This is what differentiates us. This is what differentiates success.
It’s not about big or small. It’s about having a vision for your business and pursuing this to success.
Committed to working hard every day to get better and be more successful. This is a big business versus small business lesson – big business is not standing still.
This was a compelling presentation with plenty of takeaways even for this small business person. The breakout was Simon’s passion for business and retail.
Check out the placement of an impulse display unit featuring weekly magazines situated between two permanent magazine displays targeting guys. This is at a Hudson News at JFK airport this afternoon.
I’ve written of the value of this before, of placing a second display of magazines outside the usual placement for the titles. Seeing a corporate operator like Hudson News do it is good reinforcement of the practice.
If you love chocolate, a visit to New York is not complete without a visit to Li-Lac Chocolates. This is chocolate at its best. All made by them from chocolate bars to works of art like high heel shoes to the chocolate party platter in the photo. Indeed, it’s the party platter that interested me to most this visit as it put chocolate in a different light. Whereas I’d think of Li-Lac as a place to shop for a gift or guilt pleasure, here is an excellent packaged product for an office or a party, a product I’d never thought of before. Brilliant.
Another reason to love this business is their tag line, their USP, Stubbornly old fashioned since 1923.
They have remained relevant by creating new designs and adding new flavours.
I love chocolate.
I love the passion in the text on this sign I saw on the street a couple of days ago. They are targeting people who like aquariums as a hobby and then pitch: Come on in, you’ll LOVE IT!.
Passion is important to special interest businesses. If builds trust for people who share the interest and with those open to considering taking it up.
In a city like New York with many businesses and extraordinary foot traffic, grabbing attention is a challenge. The key is to express yourself clearly and with volume. This sign does that for me.
Something else impressive about Whole Foods Market is their placement of products outside their usual location. In several of their stores I noticed these ice-packed dump-bins with cheese … next to fruit and next to vegetables. This is an excellent idea for driving impulse purchases, something we could do more of in our busy newsagencies.
Whole Foods don’t follow the Australian tradition of wide aisles and keeping products in designated areas.
No, I don’t eat peppers but I sure felt like buying them when I saw this display when I visited a Whole Foods Market at Union Square in New York yesterday. From the power to the petter sign to the colourful display with is excellent visual merchandising.
Based on what I have seen this trip, this display is a Whole Foods Market standard for peppers.
Click on the image for a larger version.
Getting good coffee in the US in a challenge. Just about every cup is a reminder that in Australia we are spoilt. Here, the dominant Starbucks model is more about the meeting place and how they can trick a coffee into something beyond the drink I love.
I heard Howard Schultz, CEO os Starbucks, speak at a conference on Monday. He was inspiring. he was also proud of the level of employee ownership of the company and that every employee has access to health care – vital in the US.
Howard Schultz’s speech got me looking at Starbucks in a different light. While their coffee does not taste better, I now take more notice of what goes on inside the business and how their employees engage.
This morning, in a Starbucks on West 53rd and Broadway, I had my best Starbucks experience ever … all because of one employee who clearly loved what they were doing and loved making customers happy.
This young lady helped manage customer traffic – important to keep the wait down – and she had a good banter with shoppers. Then, when a song came on their in-store radio, she sang at full voice and busted some dance b=moves behind the espresso machine.
Here is busy manhattan in one of thousands of cookie-cutter Starbucks outlets across the US, I got an authentic, engaged and enjoyable experience. This is the Starbucks I want to come back to. This is where I felt most welcome. The coffee didn’t matter. This felt real.
Being a customer in a chain store can feel heartless. The employees can appear zombie like and the appreciation bland and meaningless. It’s tough serving in a mass market from a store that is one of thousands under the same shingle.
This morning in Starbucks, the lesson I got was that a great employee can make for a great experience and be key to building a great business.
Often newsagents complain to me about employees. We need to remember we hire them, manage them, motivate them, train them and fire them. We business owners determine how good our employees are.
Footnote: the screen in the photo is updates with each song played. It displays what you can see and other information through the song. Clever. Music is an important part of the Starbucks experience and has been for many years.
Second footnote: In 2008 I read How Starbucks Saved My Life – about a guy down on his lick and being picked up by Starbucks. I recommend it.
More and more retailers are flipping their model and moving from a store designed to help shoppers move through quickly, purchase and leave to a model where the store is a destination for more than for what the store is traditionally known.
The photo (click on the image for a larger version) shows a bar inside the Whole Foods Market store I visited (and wrote about) on the Upper West Side of New York a couple of days ago. Yes, a bar in a supermarket. In fact, we had lunch there and a few drinks … in a supermarket. From where we sat we could see people doing their shopping. Indeed, some came into the supermarket operated bar for a drink mid shop.
The bar and the extraordinary range of many product categories in this store and the over full aisles – yes the store is not the traditional blocked and wide-aisle supermarket – make this a destination supermarket where you could happily spend hours exploring food, shopping , eating and socialising. This is not a supermarket how we think of them. The model has been flipped.
The Australian newsagency model has primarily been about convenience – location, ease of parking and fast shopping. As more retailers have taken on what we offer, convenience is not as important.
This supermarket visit leaves me thinking more about destination opportunities for newsagents that could have shoppers staying longer, making speed of the shop less important. I have written several times in the past about coffee (and some newsagents have run with this). I still think coffee, either take-out or as a destination, works for many newsagent situations. Equally, a cafe or some other food offer works. There are others too which I’ll explore another time.
In this post I wanted to note simply that in this supermarket I have got to see an excellent example of flipping the model and thereby making visiting the store more compelling for shoppers. We should not be bound by the tradition of our model.
Here is another photo from the Whole Foods Market store in New York that I mentioned yesterday. This photo (click on the image for a larger (tastier) version) shows one of the mushroom displays. I say one of as this is not their only range of mushrooms.
I love mushrooms and stood in front of this display in awe of the range they had on offer. If I lived within a reasonable distance I know I’d come to this store for their mushroom range alone. Another shopper nearby commented to me … great range huh? I love their mushrooms.
Whole Foods is like that, I saw evidence of shoppers as evangelists for the business. How valuable is that?!
To me, the display is a message about the value of specialisation. As I mentioned yesterday, the population in New York is quite different to areas we serve but we can cut out cloth accordingly. People will travel for a better range of products they love.
Retailers who represent passion for niche products and areas will benefit from loyalty from shoppers interested in these niche products, like mushrooms.
I love mushrooms.
The Guardian has announced that they will launch an Australian website this year. This is a bold move likely to impact Fairfax more than News given the typical Guardian reader.
Katharine Viner, deputy editor of the Guardian, will be the launch editor of the Australian operation. Paul Chadwick, the outgoing director of editorial policies at the ABC, will become a non-executive director of the Guardian’s Australian entity. Graeme Wood, the entrepreneur founder of travel website ‘wotif’ and chair of the news and features website The Global Mail, will be a founding investor.
This announcement is more pain for Fairfax when the company is in the middle of significant restructuring. It will not be the last such announcement as more news brands reach into new marketplaces chasing revenue to stretch the cost of collecting and publishing news and other content.