I was thrilled to see the writing on the blow-up trophy used in a display in our newsagency.
No. 1 Newsagency.
I like fun of the statement and the pride behind it. Being a good business starts with everyone involved believing in the business.
The trophy gives us something to live up to. That the team did this without being asked makes me happy.
We have the just-released Christmas ornament Keepsakes at the front of the business, facing shoppers as they enter.
I like these products for several reasons – quality, the Hallmark brand and their appeal to collectors. It’s the appeal to collectors that is most important here. Collectors are valuable shoppers – their purchases over time and their excellent word of mouth promotion of products they like and collect.
We have plenty of other collectibles in-store and they work a treat too.
I like that this Hallmark Christmas ornament Keepsakes range is not available to everyone.
This is another display we have in-sore promoting the FIJI trips on offer thanks to a competition being run by Pacific Magazines in newsagencies.
We are promoting the competition in several locations to make the most of the opportunity – here, next to newspapers and with the magazines themselves in their usual location.
It’s our experience that promoting a major prize in several high-traffic locations in-store at once works better than one big display. This is more likely to deliver the sales uplift we want.
Newsagents should be ready to make the most of coverage of the latest issue of Prevention magazine on Today Tonight tonight. As the flyer from Pacific Magazines says, coverage like this leads to a terrific sales spike.
This is an opportunity for newsagents to embrace.
Place Prevention with your weeklies, at your counter, next to newspapers – where you get the most eyeballs.
Every newsagent has stories of unusual questions asked by customers. This question, can you recommend a gift for a terminally ill male?, was a surprise because of the dark certainty embedded in the question.
It’s the kind of question you remember.
It’s the kind of question more likely to be asked in a newsagency than in a petrol outlet, convenience store, supermarket or some other major retailer. It’s a question shoppers will feel more comfortable asking in their local newsagency.
Having an answer for this question and all manner of tricky and often personal questions is a point of difference many of us live in our newsagencies and while we can’t necessarily bank the results, there is comfort in the comfort customers have in asking us these questions.
Our customer left happy with the magazine we suggested as the ideal gift.
We have a floor display unit promoting the latest issue of Empire magazine and Zoo in the reading area of our men’s magazine area. We did this knowing that the titles targeted different shoppers. Yet we had a customer yesterday purchase both titles – from the stand! We suspect that we would not have got the sale at all had it not been for the floor display unit. Getting magazines out from their usual locations helps drive impulse purchases by browsers, especially guys who visit to pass the time of day.
This issue of Empire, by the way, is one to promote outside of usual locations. It’s a cover set to appeal to people who may not otherwise have the title on their radar.
We are supporting the Pacific magazines FIJI holiday promotion at several points in-store including this floor display unit located near our range of newspapers.
This is an ideal in-store promotion … who wouldn’t want a holiday in FIJI? Tis is why we are making the post of it – it’s easily understood and it is promoting titles that sell well for us.
We will promote the competition in several locations in-store through the course of the promotion.
The free pack of Fisherman’s Friend with the latest issue of Zoo magazine is the perfect reason for giving this magazine time in the spotlight. We have it at our Ticketek counter, a counter also used for around 40% of all other purchases. So, plenty of our shoppers will get to see the magazine and the gift. I guess we are making a judgement in our placement at the Ticketek counter – as it’s AFL finals ticket time. It’s sales we are chasing and this week we have many shoppers only in the first couple of metres of the business.
We are promoting the latest issue of Prevention magazine with newspapers … because of the free Belly melt Diet booklet with the magazine. Putting it next to the newspaper gets the title seen by shoppers would not usually consider Prevention.
Remember, it was this simple tactical placement next to newspapers that led to us selling out of the latest issue of Your Garden magazine. It also helps us drive greater value from newspaper purchases and that’s more important now than ever.
The announcement that ACP Magazines will be sold to Bauer Media Group is expected to be made later tonight or tomorrow. This information is from a couple of people inside the company. The Sydney Morning has just posted a story too. The purchase will be good for the future of the ACP business … hopefully good for newsagents too as the company will be back in control of publishers.
Talking with a couple of newsagents in Brisbane yesterday I was surprised to hear about the emptying offices in the CBD and the impact on newsagents and other nearby small business retailers.
While Campbell Newman was elected on a platform of fiscal responsibility, there are newsagents and other retailers in the CBD wondering if his public service cuts are going too far. With three CBD newsagencies recently closed and some other retailers closed too, I wondered if there were other forces at work.
A couple of examples were shared where the businesses were directly opposite now-shrinking government departments. These were small businesses serving local office workers Monday to Friday. While they were not the biggest retail businesses in town but they were making a living. The state government redundancies have reportedly made the businesses unviable.
I have written here many times that we, all of us, need to pursue traffic from several sources. Even very local businesses need to attract shoppers for more than convenience or being local. The more viable reasons we give shoppers to walk through our doors the stronger we are. We need to be strong in several categories of products, preferably products people seek out and preferably geographically unique to us.
While I accept that the Campbell Newman shrinking of the public service will have been a factor, good retailers would have built businesses that could better withstand the government downsizing.
In the meantime, the Newman government needs to consider the economic impact of emptying the Brisbane CBD.
I am at Sydney airport right now and am surprised at how widely the ACP $5 off a magazine deal is being promoted – the deal I wrote about last week.
Last week I saw it promoted on a lightbox display. Not it’s on screen and at counters with participating retailers promoting it too. On the way into the terminal I saw the ad several times. there is no missing it. It’s the same in Melbourne. On Saturday I saw it four times in Melbourne airport.
This $5 off deal and the ACP three magazines for $10 deal pitches ACP ahead of other publishers at these airports. The campaigns make the purchase about price. I’m not sure that is a good thing for products so defined by content. I don;t want consumers to become educated about this.
What a terrific Father’s Day season for card sales. Achieving 22.5% growth year on year comparing the same days in the lead up to the day in 2012 with 2011 is an excellent result.
Plenty of the growth came earlier in the season. While the last week of sales is important for Father’s Day, two and three weeks out are now strong for us. I put this down to high-profile displays and our promotion of an excellent prize for one lucky shopper.
Gift sales were up too. Magazines, too. In fact, magazine sales for the season – three weeks to the day – are up double digits. I’d say around a third of this growth is Father’s Day purchases. more publishers need to embrace the Father’s Day opportunity … people do give magazines as gifts – not just subscriptions but single copies!
Newsagents can use their software to compare the years easily. Go and see how good Father’s Day was for you this year.
Check out the photo sent to me over the weekend by a newsagent showing the new Dora partwork on display in their local target store.
Shame on whoever allowed this to happen. Newsagents have been the go-to retailers for partworks in Australia. We have served the category well with prime placement, strong VM support and after sales service unlike any other retailer could deliver.
Those involved owe newsagents an explanation. If they care.
We are promoting the launch of the DC Chess Collection partwork with this display facing the shopping mall for all passers-by to see.
While not expected to be a massive seller – given the specialist interest in chess – we are giving it the usual treatment. we are not our customers after all.
Partworks continue to do well for us, bringing in new shoppers to get to know us.
With all Darrell Lea outlets being closed as part of the sale of the Darrell Lea business, maybe licenced retailers, like many newsagents, will benefit. It all depends on the direction the new owners take the business – to mass or specialist. The press reports indicate they will use the current licenced network. If they stick with newsagents will be among the winners.
My newsagency software company is hosting an online training workshop for newsagents in Mandarin and another in Cantonese tomorrow. I mention this here as there are some newsagents reading content here who may not read the information from Tower Systems.
American greetings, the parent of John Sands cards in Australia, is promoting an iPhone app for the sending of ecard greetings.
More and more suppliers to the newsagency channel are pursuing direct to consumer routes. I’d do the same if I were them. We need to be aware and take these changes into account for our own business planning.
While this American Greetings app is not available in Australia, I am certain it or something like it will come.
Our challenge is to be building retail businesses that encourage shoppers back, often.
I was talking to a retailer last week about a considerable discount they were receiving form a supplier. They were pleased with what they had negotiated. On checking their invoices and comparing them with others it turned out that the base price off of which their discount was calculated was higher than what appeared to be usual.
The extraordinary discount negotiated disappeared once you took into account the inflated base price.
If you are offered a discount, make sure it is off the standard wholesale price quoted to all other customers.
Newsagents should check out the media section of The Australian today. There are several items sure to be of interest including a story about the launch of Women’s Fitness by ACP. This is a new title in an already strong category. While you’re in the Media section check out the report on the sale of ACP.
We have been pitching the latest issue of Australian Traveller magazine in the food section of the magazine department – because it’s the food issue of course.
The cover features of this magazine give us opportunities for co-location with just about every issue. yes, we have to check the cover and find space but, hey, we’re retailers after all and chasing sales in our job.
We experienced a terrific boost in magazine sales in the week leading up to Father’s Day. The boost this year was up on the Father’s Day boost last year. As I have noted here over the last few weeks, we pursued this growth by promoting magazines as part of the Father’s Day offer – including displaying magazines on one of the tables at the front of the business as shown in the photo.
This is interesting. @JonasAUS, a Twitter account for fans of a US group called the Jonas Brothers, tweeted to 27,769 fans that they wanted to see the boys on the cover of Dolly and Girlfriend. The tweet went to Dolly and Girlfriend Twitter followers, 18,886 and 25,004 followers respectively. It was also retweeted by 39 followers, getting it in front of many thousands more.
This interests me on two fronts: 1. Fans going to Twitter to request magazine content. This is fascinating. I’d love it if I were a publisher. It also shows us what great chunks of shoppers want and their passion for this. 2. The opportunity to tap into viral conversations like this as a voyeur and possible contributor to the conversation when there is something to add.
Our sales of teen and tween magazines are up thanks to our better understanding of what these shoppers look for.
I appreciate this is challenging stuff for some of us to get our heads around. It’s the world we are in now. Online is more important to our businesses than we can imagine.
Following on from the discussion yesterday about the article by Stuart Binnie saying the sky is falling for newsagents, I figured this was a timely question to ponder.
Why are some newsagents more successful than others?
The answer is easy. Because they choose to be successful. They plan for success, manage for success and pursue success in every business decision.
I see this every day in my contact with newsagents.
The most successful newsagency businesses I see are those with a point of difference in their community, an offer – product, service of both – that sets their business apart. They are not necessarily big. No, some of the most successful newsagencies I see are the smaller in an area.
Having a successful point of difference starts with understanding your customers and would-be customers.
These are the actions of retailers. This is what we need to be – retailers.
An average newsagency business from yesteryear selling products others select for the business has a tough future ahead. A growing newsagency business will have more products sought out by owners and management, presented professionally and marketed outside the four walls of the business.
Successful newsagents are choosing to be successful and pursuing this relentlessly in their decisions and actions.
This is what we must do. We must be retailers and not agents.
T2020, the News Limited changes, is a wake-up call to all newsagents – even though there have been many wake-up calls in past years.
I was at the GNS Market Fair in Brisbane yesterday and got to catch up with plenty of newsagents. Most I spoke with were happy with business, reporting growth. I also go to speak to several people buying their first newsagency business. They were excited for the opportunities. Suppliers I spoke with too were happy with sales at the fair. The trade show floor itself was buzzing with good deals from professional looking stands. Industry suppliers were putting on a good show. Maybe those who talk the channel down should get out more and talk to proactive newsagents.