A blog on issues affecting Australia's newsagents, media and small business generally. More ...

Are transport tickets worth it for newsagents?

We don’t sell transport tickets in two of my current newsagencies.  I have done for many years but in the businesses I have today I am not so sure about signing up for the two stores without them.

Sure, transport tickets (Myki in Victoria) attract traffic. Basket data I have seen from many newsagencies indicates that in only 15% of situations do transport ticket sales include other items.

I question the value of transport tickets.

The risk of such an analysis is that we lose sight of what someone who purchased a transport ticket today might buy tomorrow on a separate visit. Even where I can see this, the data is not showing value for newsagencies form selling transport tickets.

State governments around Australia has disrespected our channel and cost us significant margin dollars by cutting our margin on transport tickets. This makes them loss-making for many newsagents. Factor in the labour, counter-space and opportunity cost of how we might spend the time released I question the value of transport tickets in our channel.

I think we need to move away from looking at ourselves as agents. This makes some of us think of ourselves differently to being professional and accountable retailers. gents are at the end of the food chain and do what they are told for a few cents. Professional retailers are accountable for their situation and build value-based businesses.

I’d be interested in what others think.

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Newsagency management

Promoting Street Machine magazine

We are promoting the latest issue of Street Machine magazine with this aisle end display in our men’s magazine area.

This is a great magazine to promote as a Christmas gift for guys which is what we are doing in one of my stores.   We will leave the display up through to Christmas Day.

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magazines

And the article breaks free

The announcement overnight by The New York Times of their partnerships with Byliner and Vook are a move toward monetisation of the article. This is where we could see considerable disruption, through the sale or articles rather than aggregated content such as under a newspaper or magazine banner.

While the NYT move remains associated with their masthead, it will put the opportunity of monetisation of the article in more open play. I see it as an excellent opportunity for the digital platforms. Think about it – we chase stories that interest us. Being able to use a service to bid, say, a couple of dollars for quality stories about a topic of interest to us could have more take up than a subscription to a masthead.

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Media disruption

The different Christmas window

In one of my newsagencies we are using our main display window facing into a busy Westfield mall to promote a hero product rather than a more traditional Christmas display.

We have made a conscious choice that this business will compete with the majors in the centre for major seasons – in a way that respects the core focus of the business. This means sourcing unique products with which generate traffic, deliver good margin and fit with core offers of cards, magazines and stationery.  hence the focus on a water canon – a family item.

Newsagents in major shopping centres who do not present competitive offers and who do not play outside the traditional newsagency model will struggle. Rent being what it is, landlord disciplines and the highly competitive retail environment make for a situation not for the feint hearted.

I think that it’s in major shopping centres where we are more likely to see the significant commercial innovation leading to bigger changes to the traditional newsagency model. That is not to say that shopping centre newsagents are better, they are not. It’s that the highly competitive and expensive environment itself forces change upon us. Shopping centre newsagents were first to reduce magazine space years ago for example.

While there is excellent innovation being embraced in high street, regional and rural newsagencies, I think 2013 will see faster and more bold innovation in shopping centres. I know this is something landlords will drive – some have are already.

In a small way, this display is about changing the perception shoppers in this centre have about a newsagency. It’s working. The mix of products being purchased and the overall GP shows this.

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Gifts

Great initiative by Scottish newsagent

Read the story of how a newsagent in Glasgow created a pop-up shop and sold 10,000 copies of the last issue of Dandy magazine in a few days.

A TINY newsagent sold more than 10,000 copies of the last ever Dandy comic within days.

The final editions are being snapped up for £50 on eBay. But Des Barr is delighted to be offering them for their £3.99 cover price at his pop-up shop in the Braehead centre near Glasgow.

Des said: “I’m the only shop in the country that has copies of the last ever Dandy for sale.

“The response has been amazing. We’ve had orders from all over the world, including Canada, America, Germany, Australia and New Zealand.”

Read the whole article. Inspirational!

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Newsagency management

Encroaching on other magazine space

While I admire the approach of the publisher of The World of Cross Stitch is promoting what comes with this issue, the challenge is the additional space this issue takes above and to the side of the magazine itself. Also, the flimsy plastic looked somewhat tattered for plenty of our copies.

We were able to make some extra space to promote this issue but many newsagents would not have been able to give them tight space situation.

It’s a challenge: publishers want to promote their special issues and we need to manage a finite amount of retail space.

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magazines

Newspaper covers the main story of the day with a stuck-on ad

The publisher of the Herald Sun is so proud of the PSO attacked in Melbourne a couple of nights ago that they sold ad space to cover their front-page photo of the local hero.

The front page without the ad would have had far more impact but, hey, the newspaper is a vehicle for advertising first and foremost so it makes sense that they put dollars before such an important local story.

This ad for David Jones harms their brand.

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newspaper masthead desecration

Magazine theft problem in Brisbane?

Further to my reports here recently about a magazine theft problem experienced by some newsagents, I have been contacted by a newsagent with a report that some sub agents only want them to supply weeklies, saying that is all they need. Checking in these shops sows a range of monthlies on display – being sourced outside the traditional sub agent relationship.

The question is where these magazines are coming from? If they are being sourced through a newsagent the margin would most likely be the same. It begs the speculation that the monthlies are stolen magazine stock. The sub agents when asked are vague in their answers.

This situation demonstrates that there is leakage somewhere in the supply of monthly magazines in Brisbane.

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magazine distribution

The world has flipped when it comes to paying for content

With newspapers more freely available at no cost today than five years ago and online journalism behind paywalls more today than five years ago the world has flipped, literally. It’s an interesting reversal and one I did not expect – the take up of content behind paywalls at least.

David Carr has a good article at The New York Times about the use of paywalls by media companies.

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Media disruption

Sheldon from Big Bang Theory is our magazine beacon

We have enlisted Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory hit TV show to draw attention to our men’s magazine area right at the rear of the store. This is another of the cardboard cutouts from the range we had success with during Halloween.

We chose Sheldon from the mix of life-size cardboard cut-outs in stock because of the popularity of the show among males and because no other store in or near our centre will have this life-size Sheldon cut out. It’s a perrfect gift for fans of the show and an ideal beacon to draw shoppers, particularly male shoppers, to the back of the store … once there they will see magazines we think they will like.

Playing with products that challenge the traditional newsagency model is important for us for our future.

For any newsagents interested, we sourced the cardboard cut-outs from: Alternative Distribution Pty Ltd in Victoria – 03 9334 5857. FYI, I don’t have a deal with them.

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magazines

Excellent Snowman ornament sales

By the close of business yesterday we had sold more than 450 of these Snowman ornaments from Jacman. That is more than $2,700 in revenue from this one stand in three weeks. Talk about return on investment and return on floor space. Very nice.

We placed the stand on the lease line and used it as one of the christmas products to attract shoppers to our store from the mall out front. This means that the actually economic value of the stand is greater than the value of the products sold. We’re very happy.

Christmas 2012 is working a treat. The growth over Christmas 2011 will be well into the double digits in core product categories.

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Newsagency opportunities

Finding room for Manuscript magazine

This is a story about another new magazine we have just received.  Manuscript is what we’d call a thinking guys magazine in newspaper size. The display challenges aside, we had room in the part bof our magazine department where this title fits so we’re okay giving it a crack.

That we are handling this new allocation to us speaks to the challenges of managing space in newsagencies, especially where segments have defined space. It’s a reason why I want absolute control over the range I carry prior to allocation. I can do a better job that the guesses magazine distributors need to make by the very nature of their model.

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magazine distribution

Promoting Dolly and 1D ticket opportunity

We are promoting the latest issue of Dolly magazine at the entrance to our women’s magazine aisle – as well as the usual location – because of the free PJs as well as the opportunity to win One Direction tickets.

This Dolly package is a nice Christmas gift – that’s what we are hoping parents,grandparents and boyfriends will see in the display.

1 likes
magazines

Hard to display this terrific issue of marie claire

The latest issue of marie claire will sell despite display challenges newsagents face since not even one copy fits into magazine fixturing. The Alex Perry nail polish is the challenge.

I appreciate the challenge all publishers face with gifts. I’m sure their research shows that the gift needs to be placed with the title. This gift is too big to stick on a card inserted with the magazine.

I’m wondering about getting a floor display unit made into which I could place single issues of magazines like this issue of marie claire to professionally display the premium item off location but in a high traffic position. This would help better promote the title and fix a display challenge in a newsagency without any flat stack capability. I’d see the stand as being bale to make use of posters and other collateral.

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magazines

Odd ad pitching newsagents in today’s AFR

I am not a fan of the ad on page 67 of today’s Australian Financial Review promoting newsagents. While I applaud the effort in promoting the channel, the ad is not ideal in my view.

My biggest concern is that this advertisement is promoting a brand that is not relevant to newsagents.

What is this N brand?  It’s a nothing brand. There is no brand ownership and no brand discipline.  Just look at how many versions of the N you can see in the community – at least three different N versions from what I can see.

There are many newsagencies that do not promote any of the versions of the N. Mine don’t as it is meaningless to consumers.  Also, there is no value statement associated with the N.

On the ad itself, what have those behind the ad done to ensure that the businesses they are seeking to promote are businesses offering problem solving services, what have they done to ensure that all newsagents consider binders to be a core product. I know of plenty of newsagents would not have this view.

Unless you have structures of discipline around a brand you are advertising there is no point in promoting the brand. The consumer experience will be too varied and the resulting word of mouth will damage the brand.

If the channel is going to be serious about unified branding and marketing it needs to approach this is a professional and well thought-out way. Otherwise, advertising like today’s in the AFR is wasted.

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newsagency marketing

Tyro offers newsagents a more secure solution

A story from BankingDay, a banking industry publication, highlights the importance of security and helps underscore the value of the tyro broadband EFTPOS solution for newsagents.

Tyro has have created a technically better and more secure solution that protects the merchant (the newsagent) from the sort of compromises that out of date banking technology all too often can expose them (you) to.  Tyro security is validated with an independently assessed PCI-PA DSS certification. this is important.

Here is the start of the BankingDay story:

Romanian scam forced thousands to fix systems
07 December 2012 7:00am

The alleged A$30 million Romanian credit card scam caused possibly the largest remediation effort ever undertaken within the Australian consumer payments system in the 18 months before last week’s arrest of the scammers.

Only 46 stores were confirmed to have been hacked in the scam last week, at a cost estimated at $30 million.

But industry sources have told Banking Day that thousands of merchants were required to have their systems “remediated” in the months after the scam came to light in June 2011, to fix their vulnerability. The remediations needed included changes to software, hardware and network configurations needed to prevent access to customer data.

Many of the stores affected were franchisees of Metcash’s IGA grocery chain, sources confirmed. A spate of mid-2011 media reports described unsolved fraud outbreaks centred on IGA stores from as far afield as the Melbourne suburb of Warrandyte to regional Victorian towns like Horsham and Castlemaine and NSW regional towns such as Orange and Junee.

The victims of the Warrandyte fraud wave, which was centred on the Warrandyte SUPA IGA store, reportedly included two police officers.

At publication time, it remains unclear whether sanctions will be applied to anyone in the chain of parties that allowed the system vulnerabilities to be created and to continue for several years.

The scam was enabled by poor store decisions about hardware, software and IT service providers that may have been influenced both by franchisors such as IGA and by the acquiring banks. A Mastercard spokesperson told Banking Day that the acquiring banks were responsible for ensuring that their merchants complied with the industry data security standard, PCI DSS.

Read the rest of the story here.

This is important because not all EFTPOS solutions are equal when it comes to security.

Newsagents wanting to know more about EFTPOS security and Tyro should speak with Chris Ball on 02 8907 1748. Tyro works with a range of newsagency software systems.

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EFTPOS fees

Warning: check shopper bags

I was talking with a retailer yesterday who caught a shopper with $60 worth of stolen stock in their bag. The shopper knocked their bag as they were exiting the store and stolen items spilled onto the floor. The shopper was a long term ‘friend’ of the business.

While it could be considered intrusive by shoppers, right now, in the middle of Christmas, would be the time to check shopper bags on exit. Even doing this just at your busiest times could be well worth it.

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theft

Promoting smith journal

We are promoting the latest smith journal with placement in several locations in-store including this placement in with what we’d call intelligent male magazines.

smith journal is an important title for us, appealing to a category of male shopper not well served by magazines in the newsagency channel today. Our sales are generated evenly through our various placements: as in the photo, with men’s magazines (GQ etc) and with frankie.  We tend to pull back on the co-location through the on-sale.

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magazines

Amazing Beanie Balls sales

We have sold 45 of these large Beanie Balls so far as part of our Christmas promotion. This is considerably more than we budgeted for this item for the season – and we have plenty of shopping time to go.

What is particularly valuable for for us is the traffic these balls are generating. Most sales are to shoppers attracted to us by our display of the balls. The success of the balls is not reliant on traffic generated for newspapers or magazines.

We choose products based on the traffic they will generate. This is a very local opportunity as different newsagencies generate traffic based on different products.

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Gifts
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