Check out the post it note type ad stuck on the front of The New York Times Sunday Review insert. What’s interesting about this is that they are promoting subscriptions deep inside the newspaper. I am guessing this is to connect with people who love the newspaper enough to get inside. I don’t mind the ad here. Okay it covers the masthead of the section – but you have already purchased the newspaper at this point.
Theatre is important in retail if you want to separate your store from an online shopping experience. Retailers need to exploit ways to demonstrate the added value of the physical store shopping experience.
Having products on the shelves or racks is not enough. You have to bring these to life.
Beyond being able to touch and smell and item live, every retail store has opportunities to make the shopping experience more personal and physical.
Supermarkets do this all the time with food sampling and demonstrations. They have someone cooking product nearby where the product can be purchased. These in-store demonstrations are done because they work, the drive sales. The smell and the taste guide the senses to encourage the purchase.
You do not need to be selling food for an in-store demonstration to work. Here are some suggestions for other retailers on how they could use in-store demonstrations and other techniques to bring products alive:
Books: book readings, book clubs, author visits, performances from children’s books.
Fashion: Fashion show, a talk by a designer, a talk by a stylist, a dress making demonstration by an expert, a makeup demonstration to go with the clothing you sell, a hairdresser to show the importance of hair to go with what you sell.
Camping: A tent setup competition, tips from a local ranger for safe camping, stories from camping trips – a group discussion sharing ideas, a supplier presentation on new equipment.
Homewares: A dinner party in store showing how a range of dining homewares products look when you have guests over, a stylist speaking about how to style your home, a manufacturer presentation on a new line.
Card shop: A calligrapher to write beautifully on cards purchased in-store, a local writer to help customers with the right words for each card purchased, a card stylist to help shoppers find the perfect card for the occasion, a card maker presenting a talk on what goes into making a card.
Stationery business: Supplier presentations on the latest items for sale, a competition for customers based around clever use of a particular line of items you sell, a recycle class from an environmental expert on how to recycle used stationery items, a presentation on the different brands of printers you sell and how each suits a particular need.
Cosmetics shop: Host a fashion parade showing off how your cosmetics look with the right fashion, run cosmetics classes for different occasions – make up for work, evening wear and weekend fun times, have a manufacturer speak about what makes their products special.
Each of these ideas is about bringing interactivity to your store, going beyond static products on the shelves and bringing them alive. This separates your business from the mass merchants who will have fewer in-store displays and from online retailers as well.
Schedule interactive sessions. Plan them carefully, promote them and make sure that they are covering topics of interest to your shoppers. Ask your shoppers too if they have a presentation idea as they could be a welcome source of new in-store content.
Business Insider has the story about Süderlügum, a German supermarket offering free groceries to the first 100 shoppers who turned up naked. While this is news in the US and elsewhere, Gaslight Records in Melbourne ran a naked shopping promotion for years
Just when I thought freshly cooked food could not get more automated…
As reported in the Financial Times, UK newsagent chain WH Smith experienced a 4% decline in UK high street sales like for like in the latest quarter. While it’s not ideal to compare performance to a UK business and one with hundreds of outlets, it is interesting to see data from theUK in a business selling a similar range of products to what we sell.
Bob Cronis, Group Editor in Chief of Western Australian Newspapers penned an interesting perspective of the events of this week at News and Fairfax and reflected on some of the commentary since. He also chimed in on the issue of engaged proprietors. I share the link here as man newsagents on the eastern seaboard would not get to read content from The West Australian.
I was privileged to have breakfast today at Jamms Restaurant in Las Vegas before heading off to look at a bunch of retail businesses. I wanted to get the team I am here with to Jamms so people could experience the customer service I experienced earlier this year.
While the food at Jamms is delicious, it is the service experience which is truly memorable.
The sign on the table is a good indicator of their commitment to service. (Click on the image for a larger version.) Whereas other restaurants, and businesses including newsagencies, have signs telling shoppers what not to do, Jamms has a sign saying what they will do for you. And they do it.
Another sign they have says you will leave as a friend. It feels like that … without being forced. It truly is a wonderful customer service experience, inspirational.
While Jamms is off the beaten track, far away from where Las Vegas tourists usually get to, the visit is well worth it. It’s one of the best breakfast experiences you could have in the US.
We do not use a merchandiser from our card company to put our cards our. each team member has been trained in how to do this and it’s a task which is done in quieter hours of the day.
There is a structured process followed from the moment the boxes carrying inventory is opened to when the cards are put out.
We check what we have received against the invoices and then carefully place the cards in the correct pockets.
I’ve written here previously about the process of receiving, checking and putting out cards. From when we brought this work in house we learnt more about the stock we sold, found occasional errors and became more engaged in the high-value card department.
I’d encourage all newsagents to do this. The more we touch and engage with the stock we sell the more we will sell.
This is an odd title. How to publish your own eBOOK. In print! The best guides for e-book publishing I have seen have been, well, e-books … i.e. not print. But since I am not my customer we are promoting this new title here with our iPad titles as well as next to Smith Journal, The Monthly and Dumbo Feather.
I want to find more titles which connect with digital platforms (iPhone, iPad, Android and the like) and this new magbook does do that.
We are promoting the latest issue of Better Homes and Gardens in multiple locations this weekend to make the most of the opportunity of the free Mills and Boon book which comes with this issue.
This is an excellent value promotion and an opportunity to pick up purchases by those who don’t purchase the magazine every month.
Click on the image to see a larger version of the photo showing our main display which faces shoppers as they entree the business. We also have a stack next to newspapers and a half waterfall in the usual location for the title – between food and home & living.
We have been promoting the latest issue of Take 5 magazine with this display near the usual position for the title. Our thinking is to draw additional attention to the title near where the shopper can usually find it. The free lotto games make for a good prize opportunity.
We have been promoting the latest issue of That’s Life magazine with this display near newspapers. The free cookbook is a nice bonus with the magazine, a terrific value-add which should see us pass our sales target. We use the sales target tools from Pacific magazines to track our performance by title and compare ourselves. It’s a real incentive to have such easy access to this data.
News Corp. is shutting down the print edition of SmartMoney magazine which has a circulation of 800,000 copies. With ad sales dropping dramatically and a strong digital alternative to engage wit readers, the masthead had clearly reached a place where the economics worked for a shutdown. PaidContent has the story.
While this move is not uncommon in newspaper and magazine circles in the US, I wanted to share it here to illustrate that publishers are looking at the sweet spot when online traffic is at a point that a digital-only model works for a masthead even though it may have strong paid circulation.
I acted on a suggestion made here a few days ago and added a like button for comments. The immediate engagement with the buttons encouraged me to add a like button for posts themselves. These too are being used.
It’s terrific to see engagement with these. There is no control other than one like per computer per post or comment.
Your likes help inform suppliers and others who visit here to find out what news agents think.
I’ll happily talk to anyone about anything to do with newsagencies, newsagency suppliers or business specific issues.
A colleague told me a couple of days ago that a newsagent who read my blog every day and was experiencing tough times wanted to speak with me but wouldn’t because they had no commercial connection with me.
I’ll happily talk to anyone about anything to do with newsagencies, newsagency suppliers or business specific issues.
Commercial connections are not relevant. I’ll help any newsagent in any I can.
CONTACT POINTS
M | 0418 321 338
E | mark@towersystems.com.au
Here is some feedback and advice I sent to a two new newsagents last week who asked me to look at the data for their business as gathered through the Tower newsagency software. I have their permission to share my feedback here.
A bit of background first. The current owners purchased this newsagency just on a year ago. It is their first newsagency, indeed, their first retail business. They have spent much of the last year learning to be newsagents – we all know what that’s like. Right?!
Here are my comments after looking at your business data. I’d love your permission to publish this on the newsagency blog without identifying your newsagency location:
It appears from the Ranked Sales Report that you are not scanning everything you sell. 362 stationery items were sold as MISC STATIONERY. This is a concern. In my own newsagencies we scan everything.
I have looked at your data comparing March 1, 2012 through May 31, 2012 with the same period for 2011. I can see that you increased the number of sales by 2% across the period. While this is good, sales revenue is down 16%. Lotto revenue was up 41% but other departments are in concerning decline.
I have broken down my comments and advice by key departments. Please don’t be offended by the direct nature of my comments.
1. BALLOONS. Sales are down 67%. Is this by choice or lack of attention. I have found that balloons need constant work and that the rewards are excellent for this work. Done well, balloons can be an excellent traffic generator – especially when you have a display at the front of the store.
2. BOOKS. With sales down 16%, this is another challenged department. I can see from the data that you have switched suppliers. I suggest you look carefully at your sales. I can see kids books are delivering 37.31% of your sales. This is good. What are your kids card sales like? The two should go hand in hand.
3. CARDS. While revenue is up 4%, unit sales are down 5%. You have products from seven suppliers in this department with one of these delivering 95% of your revenue. I suggest a cull of suppliers to make your card message clearer. I could be mistaken but you seem to have discount cards in your mix. Is this the right message for you? I am not a fan of discount cards competing with premium cards – I leave the cheap stuff to cheap looking shops. Your card department is turning over around $100,000 a year. This should deliver to you a rebate of around 25% – check what your current rebate is.
4. TOBACCO PRODUCTS. Sales are down 66%. You’re doing less than $500 a week. I suspect that tobacco products are loss making for you once you account for space, labour and inventory holding costs. You can use our software to see what else tobacco shoppers purchase. In other newsagencies I have looked at, tobacco shoppers purchased other products less than 30% of the time.
5. CONFECTIONERY & DRINKS. Sales here seem to be a bit all over the place making me wonder if your message is not clear. How are you merchandising gum, lollies, chocolates and drinks? Are you focused on brands. Are you leading shoppers to purchase from you? Also, you have drinks sales in two departments – get them together to provide clearer reporting.
6. GIFTS AND TOYS. With sales up 294% you’re heading in the right direction. Sales are 20% of cards – I use 33% as the base level so you have room to grow before being above average here. Look at your top selling card categories to see opportunities for growing gift sales. For example, if you sell plenty of new baby and kids cards then grow plush but don’t be cheap about it. People are happy to spend on babies and kids. If card sales are strong for women then look at women’s gifts like frames, glassware and the like. I can see from the list of suppliers you purchase from that you are mainly sticking with traditional newsagency suppliers – break free from this and deal with real gift suppliers.
7. LOTTO. Sales are up 41%. Whatever you are doing keep doing it. You’ll hit $2M in sales in the year – very nice.
8. MAGAZINES. The 14% decline is considerably worse than the industry average. How engaged are you with magazines? When did you last do a magazine relay? With magazines accounting for close to half all shopper traffic you need to own the department and present a genuine point of difference in how you display and manage them. The most concerning decline is with weeklies – sales are down 17% year on year. Something MUST change for you to arrest this. Don’t be like some others and say it is a sign of the rimes. With active engagement you can arrest the decline – relay immediately, create a magazine department which is fresh and reflects the pride you have for your business.
9. STATIONERY. Revenue is down 15%. Given that GNS is your main supplier I suggest you request GNS to work with you on a range review and a relay. make sure that you understand why people purchase stationery from you – range and price your stationery to reflect this. With stationery accounting for 1.82% of revenue it is close to becoming irrelevant to your business. Is this what you want? If you want to lift it then turn to an expert – this is where GNS can help.
You have a sizeable business but don’t appear to be managing this to its potential. I urge you to not be ‘victim newsagents’ – the type of people who say things are happening because of factors outside your control. There are plenty of opportunities for you to take control and own your situation for your benefit.
Being a newsagent today requires you to be a best practice retailer. It’s hard work. The rewards are money in the bank and a newsagency others will want to buy.
I hope the comments are helpful and provide you with actions which do result in you making more from your newsagency.
The feedback from the newsagents I sent this report to was terrific. I note that they were clear – they are not ‘victim newsagents’. Indeed, they are working proactively on their business and this is why they asked for the assessment of their business as reflected in the data.
In a welcome and smart move, ACP provided newsagents with a template for flyers promoting the launch of The Block magazine on June 25. I love this especially since I can include my details on the flyer to remind shoppers to come back to my store to pick up the title on the 25th.
It is small moves like this that are vital to newsagents. I doubt that any other magazine outlets will have received the artwork for the flyers.
The Block magazine was a runaway success for us last year. We sold more than double our initial allocation. Our goal is to chase 20% growth on last year. We find that setting sales targets is helpful in that it guides us to develop tactics in pursuit of achieving the target. While 20% year on year growth may be optimistic, we have a plan.
The pre release information provided by ACP, in addition to the flyers, has been excellent – helping newsagents to be ready and fully informed for the opportunity. This is vital to the success of one-shot titles like The Block.
The latest issue of MasterChef magazine is out with an appetising cover yet little to connect the magazine with the TV show. I can’t help but feel that this is a missed opportunity. With more than one million people watching the TV show why not leverage that audience into magazine buyers. It feels to me like there is a disconnect between MasterChef on TV and MasterChef the magazine. This means lost sales for us.
We are promoting the magazine by giving it prime positioning with food titles and tile at high traffic points: newspapers (still) and the counter. Our job would be easier in TV show fans were compelled to buy the magazine.
NANA last night advised newsagents in NSW of a delay to the announcement from News Limited on their future newspaper distribution plans. Here is part of the NANA announcement:
Following the announcement by CEO Kim Williams, News Limited’s Director of Retail Circulation, Catrin Thomas, advised the postponement of the anticipated “T2020” announcement originally scheduled for 28 June 2012.
“In light of the announcements across the industry this week, and following a long discussion with the Australian Newsagents Federation (ANF) this afternoon, we have decided that it is prudent to delay the timing of the T2020 announcement.
“This will ensure that we are putting forward a plan that builds in all the latest information. Our concern is that if we do not pause to consider the impact of the week’s announcements, that we could end up with a shorter term solution and be back at the drawing board much sooner than we would like. We are committed to creating a commercially viable and sustainable distribution network for newspapers and we will confirm an announcement date as quickly as possible,” said Ms Thomas.
It is important for us to take care when labelling magazines otherwise we can damage the product we want to sell.
The most common mistake I see is the wrong placement of the label on the cover. The barcode label should not obstruct the masthead. Publishers spend a considerable amount of money developing and promoting their mastheads and each magazine cover. A sticker in the wrong place could make it more difficult for a shopper to see a title and this could deny you a sale.
Place the label below the masthead – as shown in the example for Grand Designs Australia. This is still high enough to be seen from traditional magazine fixturing.
Place the label close to the left spine.
Train your staff to always use the same placement.
Most newsagency software packages provide a range of options for what is included on the label: MPA category, arrival date, return date, distributor, code, quantity in, type of return and more. Talk to your software company about what you can include and set your system to give you the labels you want.
Don’t label every magazine. It’s unnecessary. I don’t label weeklies or high volume monthlies
Label preference? Laser labels without a doubt. In my view laser labels are easier to read, easier to manage, take up less cover space and cost less.
The Facebook page for Inked magazine is now at 40,500+ fans. This is a 33% jump from when I last wrote about it.
The Facebook page is used by the publisher to drive newsagency traffic. I love their promotion of us as the go to place for purchasing the magazine.
Newsagents on Facebook should regularly check out the page to be across promotions that could be leveraged in-store.
The diary market is as strong as ever. Sales of 2012 diaries beat 2011 by more than 10% and sales of FY12/13 financial year diaries will easily beat FY11/12. This is a space newsagents own. Since Officeworks plays here but they do not maintain range like we do. Their prices are not great either – we are being them more than not and we are maintaining a good margin.
Our strategy for Financial Year diaries is the same as it is for most products in-store. We focus on brands. Shoppers tell us they trust brands. Brands support us by spending on marketing. It’s a win win. Generic products and cheap brands which are not recognised brands are not investing for our benefit.
News Limited, today announced a major restructure, compressing 19 operating divisions into 5 and cutting a yet to be announced number of jobs along the way. Cleverly, News CEO Kim Williams declared a commitment to print in today’s announcement, giving commentators the headline of the week: Fairfax abandons print for digital, News commits to print. Of course Fairfax has not abandoned print and News is as committed to digital as Fairfax.
While the spin was different ( considerably better), I expect time to reveal the moves by Fairfax and News to be quite similar. Market forces, consumer demand driven by disruption to habit brought on by new technology, will make it so. Print products will remain as long as they make money and serve the commercial needs of the shareholders.
Some in the newsagency channel have jumped on the Williams statement about print as good news for newspapers and newsagents. Kim Williams’ words need to be tempered with an assessment of the considerable investment by News in Apps for its mastheads and the relentless promotion of these. The company is investing considerably to migrate print customers to either move to digital or at the very least include digital in their means of access. Check out this quote from Kim Williams today:
Digital technology and the ever-increasing array of consumer devices and connectivity points represent an important core to the future of our company. To realise the huge opportunities presented we must ensure we have world-class resources supporting our editorial and sales teams.
It would be a mistake for newsagents to be complacent because of the News announcement today. I expect job losses to be right across the company, including some people newsagents work with today. Indeed, some of these positions have been made redundant already this year.
The plans to be announced by News on June 28 for the distribution model of newspapers will further inform newsagents and their plans.
Every newsagent in Australia needs to be working today on their business model where they rely far less on newspapers than they do today. It makes sense.
Based on contact from newsagents since the Fairfax announcement of Monday it is clear there are plenty who had not been planning for the scope of change which is forecast in the Fairfax investor presentation. Yes, print is not dead, but its future is more challenged today than last week.
There are newsagents still running very traditional businesses – retail, distribution and retail and distribution. These folks need to move quickly. They are in a race with a tsunami of change. Yeah, tsunami is the best analogy I can use for what is happening. In fact, multiple tsunamis as I explained in the Newsagency of the Future workshops recently.
For what it’s worth, I think the most important action all newsagents can take today, as a matter of urgency, is to reduce debt. If News Limited makes the announcement some expect, this coupled with the Fairfax announcement would be noticed by banks. Newsagents will be better off if they reduce their debt levels of their own accord than under a plan forced on them by their banks. Less debt will offer more options.
If you are not sure where to start in reducing debt then you are already behind in the race. Here are some tips for immediate attention:
While debt is only part of what newsagents should be working on it is the most important given that you are relying on your bank and their risk assessment. I know of a couple of banks that have changed their position in relation to newsagencies this year – for dumb reasons I would add.
Banks are looking at all business sectors but retail in particular because of what is happening online and what has been happening and is continuing in Europe.
If your debt is under control (less than 30% of the reasonable value of your business today) then the broader business plan can and should be be considered. If you’re in distribution it has to be finding ways to use your infrastructure to generate more income. If you’re in retail it has to focus on broadening the appeal of your shop – bringing people in for more reasons than currently, making the shop floor more successful at driving people to purchase more in each visit and reviewing your pricing to ensure that you are making the maximum gross profit on each item without harming sales.
Newsagents who open their doors each day without a plan to increase traffic, drive sales efficiency and reduce costs face the toughest challenges in this disrupted world.
No one will solve these challenges for us, nor should they. We own our situation … that’s what being the business owner is all about.
Click here to hear the interview I did on ABC 774 in Melbourne yesterday morning before leaving for the US. I’m happy it was a positive pitch for newsagents.