As the audits continue to show, frankie is an important magazine for newsagents. We promote it several times through the on-sale and for the rest of the time we have three pockets of the title in our women’s magazine aisle as shown in the photo. Below this we have four more pockets of frankie. It’s very noticeable to anyone entering the aisle.
When we promote the magazine we do it in a billboard fashion on the aisle end as well as tactically at the counter or elsewhere.
Check out the display the creative team at one of my newsagencies has put up for How Your Body Works. It’s bold, eye catching and sure to help us make the most we can from the launch of this partwork.
I love how the stock has been used to create a background for the poster. This is smart visual merchandising.
It’s at the front of the shop attracting browsers from the mall.
Bringing multiple Moshi Moster products together like this continues to be a smart move, driving purchases of multiple products. We are finding this small Moshi Monster display working well at the ticket sales counter. I’d urge newsagents to group Moshi products together.
We are promoting the just released Internet Security magbook with newspapers as well as with our tech magazines.
I suspect the newspaper location will work well as it’s the type of title people with an interest in online security will purchase on impulse. This is not a title people will visit seeking out – hence our placement in a high traffic impulse location.
We need more titles like this, titles that reinforce magazine range as a point of difference. Newsagents will reject special interest titles like this at their peril.
The Newsagency of the Future video has been up at YouTube for 7 days and it has been viewed more than 370 times. This is way more than I expected. I am thrilled with the feedback from people – newsagents, suppliers and others. There have been plenty of questions from newsagents about their specific situations. I have also received suggestions on other areas to cover.
I have to say I was unsure about taping the the Newsagency of the Future as each session is different, an evolution from the one before. This time I have to stay more on script. But it appears to work. I am thinking about breaking the discussion of the future up into action points and making a video about each.
To see the Newsagency of the Future video click on this link.
Newsagents need to develop a position on the issue of magazine subscriptions.
Of particular concern to me is subscriptions of fringe titles on which we rely to reflect our key point of difference and subscriptions at 40% or more off cover price.
Check out the latest promotion through Groupon to Australians earlier this week pitching magazine titles available through the Zinio digital platform.
Newsagents invest considerably in promoting mastheads and making magazines browsable by shoppers. This investment on our part helps make it possible for publishers to promote subscription offers and in particular digital subscription offers.
As the market changes, especially for titles with a strong digital subscription push, we need to consider our pricing model. I’d see this applying to titles offering steep (>40%) discounts for subscription and digital subscription commitments.
Our shelves and our labour are our resources to manage and price.
Check out the latest issue of Sound+Image magazine and see how one publisher is making the case for independent retailers. Nice!
The full page headed with 10 reasons to buy hi fi at a hi fi shop is a passionate pitch for shopping at a hi fi shop over a chain store and over online shopping. It’s social responsibility in action.
Support from for local, small and independent retailers is welcome. The support in Sound+Image is a reason for newsagents to give the title some time in the spotlight.
Click on the image to see the ad in detail.
This is how we are promoting the latest issue of InStyle magazine from Pacific Magazines.
As the only magazine being promoted in this way in this section – InStyle stands out. You can see shoppers notice it.
These in-location displays work well for us and for the title being features. Okay, it’s not an aisle end but they don’t always drive the sales you want.
This type of in-location display achieves sales and that is what matters.
One way a business can show off its commitment to customer service is by referring to customers by their names. Newsagents should urge their team members to do this, to make the personal connection by name when interacting with customers. It subtly reinforces a personal level of service the shoppers will not experience in other shops selling what you sell: supermarkets, convenience stores and petrol outlets.
K-Mart sucks as a retailer in my view. They are not alone, Big-W, Target and a couple of others are as bad. They can’t, don’t and won’t compete on service (despite sometimes advertising they do), the most important differentiator in retail, so they fall back and play on price. They use loss-leaders to pull in shoppers, hoping they purchase other items.
People buying on price are not loyal. If you are cheap today they will shop with you today. If someone else is cheaper tomorrow they will shop with them tomorrow. Discount shoppers are of little genuine value to retailers. They are expensive to attract and easy to lose.
Value is what brings people back. Value from information and customer service … an experience of personal value to the shopper.
Customers who shop with you because of the experience or because you have prodeucts others don’t have are more likely to shop with you again. They are more valuable if you price your goods well.
K-Mark is in my sights today because they are using price to disrupt a great Father’s Day opportunity. They have the 400g Toblerone King Dad Father’s Day gift at $5. Even allowing for a bulk purchase this is still a loss leader for them, a traffic generator. The people behind the product would have to be frustrated as the $5 price point devalues the wonderful product. Brand managers should realise this. Toblerone is a premium product people pay a premium price for because it’s worth it. K-Mart has turned it into any other chocolate bar.
We are sticking with our price plan as attract different shoppers to those you get in a K-Mart store. Also, our merchandising makes the product the hero. In K-Mart it’s a half-assed display, almost disrespectful. Shoppers in our store receive service unlike at K-Mart.
What I would love is suppliers to stand up to the disrespectful price tactics of the Coles and Woolworths groups. They damage respected brands and educate shoppers to not pay a fair price for good products.
I can’t get the foreign language newspapers I want in one of my newsagencies. The distribution newsagent refuses to supply me saying it will hurt his retail shop. Who cares? I don’t care that’s for sure. If the newsagent wants to be a distributor he should distribute and not hoard. Some shoppers don’t like going to the shop run by the distributor. Every day we are asked for Chinese newspapers and every day we have to say sorry.
All Day Distribution is a problem here as they continue to reject our request for a direct account.
I don’t like turning away customers.
It’s got to a point where I think we will have to take the matter further about a newspaper distribution system that hinders consumer access to products.
Check out the placement of a newspaper subscription ad stuck over part of the headline on page one of The Daily Telegraph today.
I feel for the editorial team. This is shabby treatment of their work.
I feel for the newsagents selling the cookbook series (with two weeks to go) and share their frustration at now competing for a free offer from News Limited.
I wonder how much thinking goes into these things … competing with newsagent retailers, sending mixed messages on a product (cookbooks), sticking an ad on the front page which will be ripped off by frustrated shoppers.
All very disappointing.
We have copied an idea from a colleague and are promoting a product at each EFTPOS terminal on the counter. With EFTPOS users looking at the terminal, products we promote here are likely to be noticed. The key will be to choose items easily purchased on impulse.
I like this new promotional space and can think of plenty of impulse purchase items I’d like to promote here – for customers to notice when they are processing their credit card.
Promoting products at key customer touch points can drive basket depth.
Right now we are promoting The Blob, a clever iPhone, sat. nav. and iPad stand being sold exclusively through newsXpress.
SA Gardens is selling well from what I am told. It’s a garden magazine for and about South Australian gardens and gardeners.
SA Gardens taps into the interest in local stories. We know from independent local newspapers that people like to read stories about people and happenings closer to home.
I’m told newsagents give it prime positioning because of the local interest and the feeling of supporting the state. Makes sense.
SA Gardens is distributed by IPS.
Following last year’s price hikes in insurance for newsagents, especially in Queensland, you should get in early this year. The best deal I saw last year was from Q-Sure Newsagents Insurance. With premiums due on September 1, 2012, you can contact Peter for a quote by email on peter@qsure.com.au.
I discovered through a Twitter conversation yesterday that a Melbourne newsagent has stopped selling newspapers. The shopper calls the business a newsagent. I am yet to confirm for myself whether this is the case for certain. regardless, if it looks and feels to a customer like a newsagent and it stops selling newspapers because it’s not worth it we need to take note.
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas early this year I saw four or five companies offering electronic cigarettes. They were promoting them as the ‘safe’ alternative to tobacco.
I doubt the ‘safe’ claim.
While they remain a banned product here in Australia, electronic cigarettes are selling in the UK. I purchased a pack of Intellicig from a newsagency in London a few months ago.
In the pack is a cigarette, some nicotine dispensers and a charger to plug into a USB port on your laptop. Odd.
I’d dismissed what I saw in Las Vegas until I saw it on the newsagent counter in London a couple of months later. In the last week, on the back of the High Court decision on plain paper packaging, electronic cigarettes have been in the news again.
While electronic cigarettes have been around for decades, interest in them has grown as government controls over tobacco cigarettes has increased.
It will be interesting to see if regulations here change and the product reached the market.
I liked the look of this mini cookbook stand I saw at Changi Airport on Wednesday night.
I like the small footprint, ease of browsing and that the edges are not sharp.
I am looking for something like this to try mini cookbooks elsewhere in-store to get them to a point where they are profitable. I don’t think it’s smart to leave them in the magazine department.
Clicking on the image will show more detail.
We have replaced the Men’s Health display of a couple of weeks ago with this Women’s Health display – at the entrance to our magazine department.
Note the placement of the current issue of Men’s Health in a floor display unit next to the main display. We also have Women’s Health placed in the women’s aisle as the feature health title.
Women’s Health is a popular title for us.
Network Services has announced to newsagents details of three partworks launches with each being exclusively distributed in the newsagency channel. Click here for the flyer.
The big launch is Cake Decorating with a large marketing budget for in-store and TV promotion. I was concerned that Cake decorating may be distributed to supermarkets. Thankfully, this is not the case.
I like partworks – for the traffic and the easy upsell. I love that these titles are exclusive to our channel.
Click here to hear the interview I did last Saturday morning Geraldine Doogue with Radio National. The original plan was for a broader discussion for around 15 minutes.
While newsagencies have a permanent place for magazines, newspapers, stationery and other products, all too often there is not a permanent home for plush or gifts. This can give the business a feel of not being serious about the department, it can cost sales.
Once you give a department a permanent home you anchor it and provide a place where you can build and show off your point of difference.
Retail today demands that we get serious about all categories in with we trade. There was a time where newsagents could focus on the core – magazines, papers, lottery, stationery and cards – and let the rest fit in where they can.
Today, with gifts accounting for 20% (and more sometimes) in revenue for newsagencies and plush often pushing above 10%, these departments need a home if they are on offer all the time – i.e. not just out for seasons.
The photo shows the plush department in one of my newsagencies. Yes, space is tight, very tight. I bet you think it’s hard to shop based on what you see in the photo.
The numbers tell us that this space is the most profitable floor space we have in the business right now. It is delivering a net profit return, after allowing for cost of goods, floor space and labour, well in excess of other departments. It’s a wonderful success.
One reason for the success is the creation of a space that gives off the feeling that shoppers will be satisfied. This is what allocating space to a department is all about – giving shoppers faith that they will find something to satisfy their need.
If you sell gifts and or plush and do not have a department, consider creating one, a permanent place where you can build your point of difference in these vitally important categories.
Pacific Magazines has released a Father’s Day marketing email template for newsagents who are part of the nexus marketing program. The template has several elements, all connected to the Father’s Day opportunity.
Newsagents can create and send an email in a couple of minutes.
The email platform available through nexus is brilliant. That it is free for newsagents is terrific. I urge newsagents to use this free marketing tool.
Click here to see the email sent form one of my stores yesterday.
Kudos to Senator Nick Xenophon for the private member’s bill he is introducing to reduce the burden of penalty rates on small businesses like newsagents. The Sydney Morning Herald has a good report on this.
Check out Nick Xenophon’s media release on this. The release includes this:
Under Senator Xenophon’s Fair Work Amendment (Small Business – Penalty Rates Exemption) Bill 2012, penalty rates would still be payable, but only where an employee has worked more than 38 hours in a seven day period or worked more than 10 hours each day. This exemption would only apply to businesses which employ fewer than 20 full time equivalent employees.
Inside Retailing published a report about this yesterday with the convenience store association supports the move.
You can email Nick Xenophon at: senator.xenophon@aph.gov.au. If you agree with what he’s doing show your support. I have.
Next, ask if your local politician will support the move. As Michelle Grattan writes in the SMH, this will be a challenge for the coalition parties.
Check out the promotion for News Limited’s perthnow.com.au website on the apron of a petrol station in Western Australia last week.
I wonder if the station owner is being paid more for the ad than they would make from selling The West Australian newspaper through the same period the ad runs.