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

Ah, Anzac Day…

Anzac Day is like Australia Day from a retail perspective … very quiet. While newsagents will no doubt be busy bringing in the usual last Wednesday of the month spike in magazine stock, the day is one of the weakest in terms of sales.

Frankly, I wish landlords would close centres all day given the traffic we see.  This is where high street newsagents have more control and can therefore better manage costs of a day like today.

That said, if you find yourself in your newsagency today and not much in the way opt shopper traffic, embrace the opportunity:

  1. Do a magazine relay.
  2. Do a stock take.
  3. List stationery items you have not sold in six months and make that difficult decision.
  4. Take everything off your sales counter and rebuild it from scratch with fewer conflicting messages.
  5. Rop everything off the wall behind your counter and use the space to create a compelling single message offer.
  6. Rip everything inn your front window and create a fresh and cleaner image for your newsagency.
  7. Revise your roster with a goal of cutting labour costs by 10%.

We are responsible for what we achieve in our businesses. A quite retail day can provide the time to work on the business.

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Newsagency management

Promoting Mother’s Day at the counter

We are promoting Mother’s Day at the counter with the display in the photo – click on the image to see a large version of the display.

This display is what customers see when we are serving them at the counter. The creative team in-store has done a terrific job, making the Breville food processor, to be won by one lucky Hallmark card customer, the centrepiece.

I much prefer this single-purpose back wall display to the displays I often see in newsagencies.  Here we have a clear and consistent message which connects with promotions on the shop floor and which is promoted through our external marketing.

Too often newsagents use the back wall as a storage place for products they don;t know where to place. This can lead to a confusing message.

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Gifts

Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead to drive AWW sales

The free copy of the Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead DVD which comes with the latest issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly is set to drive extra sales of the magazines for us if we have anything to do with it. This is an excellent free gift, one which will get shoppers looking at the title. The documentary was a hit on TV and it was a hit when recently promoted in Woolworths.

We have our usual aisle end display, as shown in the photo, plus a promotion at the counter as this is an offer which I can see people purchasing on impulse.

We are pushing this issue of AWW as hard as we can because we believe in the gift. I encourage all newsagent to do this.

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magazines

Network Services returns challenges

Network Services is not currently processing regular returns due to an internal IT problem. This affects all newsagents lodging returns through any computer system.  There is an IT issue at their end which is receiving urgent attention. They are hopeful of a resolution today but cannot be certain until it is fixed.

Network has copies of all returns forms sent already and will process these as soon as the problem is fixed.

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magazine distribution

Ancol stationery warehouse trials consignment offer for newsagents

The newsagent-owned Ancol stationery warehouse in Adelaide has started a consignment stock trial. Newsagents can choose stationery and hold this on their shelves for up to 120 days without cost. Ultimately, they pay Ancol for what has sold.

This is an interesting move, maybe a response from Ancol to tough trading conditions.

Smart newsagents will embrace the opportunity and experiment with products they might otherwise have ignored. Hopefully such experimentation helps win more business for newsagents an Ancol.

If I was in South Australia I’d get to the Ancol warehouse and check out the opportunities.

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Stationery

A simple move unlocks magazine sales

At lunchtime on Saturday I moved copies of the My Kitchen Rules Cookbook 2 from our food section and placed them to between our two top selling newspapers. By lunchtime on Sunday we had achieved five sales.

What makes this five copies in twenty four hours amazing is that we had not sold a copy of the title in the previous two weeks. We felt that My Kitchen Rules Cookbook 2 was at the end of its sales run for us and were contemplating returning the remaining stock. Our one simple move on Saturday got us five easy sales.

Talk about feeling stupid. What if we had made the move two weeks ago? What sales would we have achieved in that time?  How had we missed the opportunity?

I want to achieve well above average sales for magazines. Not only for the financial return but, more importantly, the thrill of above average achievement.

Okay, I get that we cannot give every title time between our two top selling newspapers. However, I was frustrated to discover that we had such a terrific opportunity waiting on the shelves for us to make our move.  We did and, as I have written, the sales result was wonderful.

We newsagents need to do this regularly, act outside the average and chase every sales opportunity possible. While convenience stores, petrol outlets, supermarkets and other magazine retailers do just the average – anything extra has a cost – we don’t have the same rules, we are free to be entrepreneurial when it comes to magazines.

This is what we need to do, it’s what we can be: entrepreneurial with magazines. Get it right and incremental sales are yours. Ignore the opportunity and you achieve average.

We each of us have to decide where we stand with magazines – frustrations with distribution notwithstanding – act on this.

As I have shown with My Kitchen Rules Cookbook 2, even the simplest move can get files which might otherwise have passed you by.

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magazines

Gifts for the modern mum for Mother’s Day

I love these traveller coffee mugs we have in-store for Mother’s Day this year.  The mugs are part of a bright range targeting today’s shopper, a nice departure form some of the usual Mother’s Day fare.

We have Mother’s Day spread right across our dance floor, taking up most of the space in the front third of the newsagency. Sales are already good.

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Gifts

Promoting WellBeing magazine

Based on our success giving the last issue of WellBeing time in the spotlight, we have gone out early in the on-sale of the latest issue with prime positioning in our women’s health section.  We have allocated this space for two weeks to support the title. We have a feature pocket above our weeklies where we will promote WellBeing for a week as well.

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magazines

News Limited clarifies position on newspaper home delivery

The ANF has published an email with details of a meeting with News Limited CEO Kim Williams late last week. At this meeting, Williams provided newsagents with greater clarity on the position of the company in relating to handling newspaper distribution in the future.

Here is the text of the ANF Newsflash:

Associations met with News Limited CEO to discuss new model

On 20 April, all Newsagents Associations met with News Limited’s CEO Kim Williams, Jerry Harris, Managing Director of Group Newspapers and Digital Products, and Gary McKay, Group Circulation Business Manager.

It was an opportunity for the Associations representatives to meet with Kim Williams and discuss the current state and future opportunities of the newsagency channel, in light of restructuring taking place at News Limited.

Mr Williams was very positive about the value of the channel and said News Limited needed the newsagency channel to be part of its progression into a print and digital future. He said a new process to produce new sales and distribution arrangements for News Limited newspapers will be rolled out starting in June 2012 for Queensland. News Limited has stated that they will also commence the equivalent process for NSW/ACT and Victoria on a voluntary basis for agents that were prepared to meet the criteria of the new model.

This new model will be finalised at a meeting of News Limited Managers in early May.

Jerry Harris did confirm the following:-

• Leaving the model as we know it today was “not negotiable”. A new model will be implemented
• Customers’ details, including management and billing WILL be migrated from the newsagents system into the News Limited system
• Newsagents on the New Distribution Contract will be paid under a fee for service model not commission based
• Newsagents on a New Retail Contract will be paid on a commission basis to incorporate an incentive scheme, rewarding effort.
• All State Associations will be consulted and called on to assist in the implementation of the new model

The message from News Limited was very clear that the current territory system for newsagents was out-dated and not cost effective. Larger, more efficient territories is the major objective of this project.

After News Limited’s meeting in early May a formal explanation of this new model, including the new Contracts, will be made by News Limited.

Having informed Kim Williams of the current state of the industry and the need to put back the certainty and security that is sadly missing today, all Associations will be working hard to work with News Limited to achieve mutually win-win outcomes. Kim Williams was very aware of this need and reconfirmed his company’s commitment to achieve this.

The highlighting is mine – drawing attention to what I see as the most important statement in the release.

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newspaper home delivery

Newsagents need to act on retail theft

Theft is on the rise in newsagencies and other retail businesses. I say this based on information shared with me by newsagents as well as recent reports in the media about increased retail theft.

My experience is that too many newsagents are lazy in some key areas of business management and this can leave theft undetected for too long. Here are the best ways you can combat theft in your newsagency:

  1. Use your Point of Sale software to order tobacco, ink and confectionery products. Being diligent about this will uncover inventory theft and this is a good indicator of wider employee theft.
  2. Balance cash at odd times in the day. Employees stealing cash know how much they have to take from the register before the end of the day. Try and catch them off guard. Set $5 as the maximum amount your register can be out.
  3. Use the theft tracking tools in your Point of Sale software. If you don’t know what they are, find out.
  4. Ask your software supplier to look at your data and advise whether they see activity which could indicate theft. This service should be free.
  5. Ask all potential employees for permission of a police check. You will find that some will become unavailable for the role.
  6. Undertake spot stock takes regularly to gauge possible shopper theft activity. These also show employees that you are serious about theft.

The single most important steps to reducing theft are to use your computer system to manage stock and to be diligent in tracking and managing cash. Do this and you will certainly avoid theft.

I know of several newsagency businesses experiencing theft costing more than $100,000 recently where the crime would have been detected much sooner had just some of the measures noted above have been followed. In two cases, just using stock control on cigarettes would have saved each business many thousands of dollars.

Newsagents: theft is manageable in your newsagency. What it costs you in terms of cash and inventory is a commentary on the professionalism and discipline of your management of the business.

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theft

Preparing for the One Direction concert

Tickets for the 2013 One Direction concert tour of Australia go on sale next Saturday. As a Ticketek outlet we have already received many questions about the concert and the ticketing process. Our team put together a One Direction 2013 concert tour information sheet to ensure that all customers receive the same information. While the information is subject to change, having this sheet enabled us to handle queries this past weekend when more 1D shoppers were in the centre.

We try and manage customer traffic by providing opportunities to take queries which might otherwise take considerable time at the counter offline.

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Newsagency management

Making the most of magazine publisher competitions

We have been promoting the Win a Barina Spark! campaign at the front of the newsagency facing into the mall with terrific success.

The opportunity to win a car is proving to be an excellent lure of browsers and plenty of these turn into customers, picking up a title or two from the stand and bringing this into the shop.

It is terrific seeing these shoppers then purchase other items. Suppliers of other products we sell are benefiting from this promotion – as happens with other high profile promotions in newsagencies.

Further inside the shop we are promoting the competition with each Pacific Magazines title, to engage our regulars shoppers in the competition opportunity.

Here’s what I like about this promotion: it’s easy to understand, comes with compelling collateral which is driving traffic, is newsagent only and offers newsagents an opportunity at a terrific prize. Hence our prime space commitment.

Each week we adjust our support, to combat store blindness and make as much as we can from the opportunity.

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magazines

Promoting Frankie magazine

We have been promoting the latest issue of Frankie magazine in a couple of locations in-syore including this in-location display in the usual home of the magazine. In each location we have the full cover on show – this is vital with Frankie, especially for the infrequent shopper.

It’s important newsagents with Frankie actively promote that they have the title. The publisher supports us with Facebook and Twitter posts, retailer location facilities at their websites and a range of other traffic driving activity. Their promotion usually features the cover – so showing off the cover in-store is more important than just the masthead.

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magazines

The Jen Aniston section

When we have magazines with the same person on the cover we like to place them next to each other. We figure that editors choose cover subjects for their ability to sell magazines so why not try and sell multiple titles with the same person on the cover. We have done this with the Jennifer Aniston featuring Marie Claire and Shop Til You Drop. While these titles may not usually be situated next to each other, it makes sense when you see the covers … we think so at least.

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magazines

Sunday marketing tip: check yourself out newsagents!

Newsagents should regularly research how their business is found and seen online. Given the sales traffic involving some form of online research, having multiple presences is vital.

The best place to start with finding out where you sit online is with Google searches. Let’s say you are in Hobart, do the following searches and see if you come up and where:

  1. Hobart newsagency
  2. Hobart newsagent
  3. Magazines Hobart
  4. Greeting cards Hobart
  5. Gifts Hobart
  6. Ink Hobart
  7. Printer ink Hobart
  8. Stationery Hobart
  9. Photocopying Hobart
  10. Pens Hobart
  11. Lottery Hobart

These searches and just the beginning. Do them from a computer as well as from an iPhone. Google handles searches differently from these two devices.

Think about what people looking for anything you sell might enter into Google. If you are not sure ask your employees and your customers. Try all sorts of searches.

Flip to the map tab with Google and see how you show with the searches.

If you have done the work and engaged with a bunch of free listing services then you will be well positioned, ideally at the top of the search. This will be generating good customer traffic for you. You have control over how people find you online. Most of this can be exercised without cost.

Some newsagents think having a website is all they need. Sadly, that is old school and just a small part of an online presence.

If you are not sure where to start, ask your newsagency marketing group, this is advice they can provide. They should have training available to help you make the most of the online opportunity. They can also help you access tools which show what people are searching for.

Having multiple digital presences is vital to retail success today. Newsagents need to do this themselves, for their individual businesses. This is not the work of an association. Own your online presences and you can expect to see good traffic as a result.

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marketing tip

Shane Warne and Liz Hurley not working for Woman’s Day?

Publishing Woman’s Day three days early to leverage the exclusive Shane Warne / Liz Hurley has not worked for me. We have sold a couple of extra copies over Friday and Saturday. We have supported the title with excellent placement with our weeklies as well as placement at our busiest counter position to leverage impulse purchase opportunities – that support will continue today.

If my experience plays across all retailers, ACP will certainly be unhappy at the performance of their considerable investment.

Covers for weekly magazines are a challenge at the best of times. That challenge is magnified when you go out early and take on the additional costs associated with that.

My feeling is that Australian’s don’t care about Shane Warne and Liz Hurley. Customers often comment on covers – to us and to each bother. I’ve not heard it with this cover.

If I was the publisher of one of the weeklies this week I would have gone out early with a special: One Direction down under, a photo special of their tour of Australia. If this had come out Friday under the Woman’s Day or New Idea mastheads I am certain I could have sold between 100 and 200 copies over the last two days and ended with a 30% or more sales increase on regular issues of the title. Yes, you may think that 1D is not necessarily on the radar of the typical reader of either title. Sales are sales. Right now, and I’m not sure for how long, they can sell anything.

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magazines

Thanks for Taylor Square Newsagency a lesson on Word of Mouth in the era of Twitter

Kudos to John and Mark Piggott and the team at Taylor Square Newsagency on Oxford Street in Sydney for being open at 10am. Check out the tweet from a happy crepe paper shopper.

Good stuff.  The tweet is an excellent example of word of mouth today – it reaches more people faster. All of Kitya’s 575 followers received this tweet.

Newsagents mentioned in this way on Twitter need to respond on the platform and appreciate the mention.  BTW, Taylor Square Newsagency has the best magazine range in Australia. This and their long opening hours are their point of difference.

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Newspaper marketing

The cookbook of the future…

The US cable TV network, The Food Network, has released Food Network Cupcakes! an app which sells for US$2.99 and is packed with delicious cupcake recipes.

The Food Network has been successful in extending the reach of its successful TV brand into print, in magazines. Digitally, they have focused mainly on their website. This is their first App, the first in what I expect to be a big range as the iPad and other tablets and smart phones lend themselves to cookbook and related apps.

Am I saying cookbooks are dead?  No. However, they are certainly challenged like all print products.

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Media disruption

UK newsagent to introduce e-reader store within a store

UK newsagent chain WH Smith has announced it will roll out a shop within a shop concept for the Kobo e-reader. Kobo has enjoyed considerable success around the world and the WH Smith move is on the back of a successful trial.

I was in a WH Smith store in London a few weeks ago and noticed the Kobo units in-store, an the entrance to the book department. They were promoting them as a Mother’s Day gift. My first reaction was what about theft. But a look around showed the shop as being pretty secure.

The roll out of the Kobo store within a store is a good indication of the sales success they have had already not only with the devices but with e-book downloads.

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Media disruption

Mother’s Day driving traffic

We have had Mother’s Day products on display at of each of my newsagencies since right after Easter. Going out early has been good for sales already even though sales increase significantly as the day approaches.

The gift range of the Mother’s Day season is a good opportunity to get shoppers seeing our business in a different light, that we do have a good range of gifts. Our range is broad as the photo from one of the stores shows.

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visual merchandising

Say it with a flower a heartfelt gift

I like the Blooming Expressions flower from Hallmark.  It’s a new and quite unique way for someone to share their feelings. It’s something people can give where they want the sentiment shared over and over, beyond when cut flowers would wilt and die.

I first saw this in the US at the start of this year.  The stands I saw were almost empty, meaning sales had been good.

Hallmark has made carrying the new product easy with a good display unit that comes with a sampler … this is vital to driving sales.

While Blooming Expressions is a year-round offer, I expect good sales in the lead up to Mother’s Day.

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Gifts

One Direction generates more than $4,000 in sales in two weeks

By the time April is done we will have generated sales in excess of $4,000 of One Direction product. Seriously. The Girlfriend one-shot, the IT Girl one shot, One Direction posters. That’s it. It will spike again when tickets for their 2013 concert go on sale next Saturday.

One Direction is a traffic generating sales bonanza.

Thanks boys.

What makes it more special is the the hit product of the One Direction phenomenon is the Girlfriend One Direction one-shot from Pacific Magazines. Newsagents received this two weeks before supermarkets. Regulars here would know how we milked that opportunity.

This 1D phenomenon ought to show an opportunity for newsagents. I see the 1D products as collector products. Plenty of what we sell could be loosely considered to be collector products. Thinking back on the last year or so we have had success with plenty of collector items.

While some newsagents complain that they ‘don’t get the One Direction thing’ I am happy for the passion and money of the fans. What a terrific April!  We have had fun while we tested our retail skills and got to bank some excellent results.

What is really interesting to me is that for all the doom and gloom, including some from me, about print, the results I have banked have been thanks to print products.

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Newsagency opportunities

How is that magazine relay going?

I am surprised at the number of newsagents who say they read this blog every day yet have not undertaken a magazine relay in the last year. Gob-smacked actually.

Undertaking a complete magazine relay is the single most important action a newsagent can take for the benefit of their business right now. It plays to the key point of difference we have – magazine range.

Why would you not do a relay? If can’t be because you don’t know where to start – check out my advice on how to do a magazine relay.

Come on people. If you consider yourself to be a newsagent get cracking. The only risk is that you could increase your magazine sales.

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magazines

Promoting One Direction posters

Our range of One Direction posters has been selling very well in the few days we have had them in stock. While fans are the main customers, parents and grandparents are customers too for birthday and other gifts.

I love the small footprint of the unit and the timeliness of the posters. I can see us easily selling this range twice over.

In a pure commercial sense, One Direction is gold right now.

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Newsagency opportunities

Promoting books with magazines

We have reconfigured the entrance to our magazine aisle and brought in a table of remainder books. This change is part of a series of changes we have made this week to accommodate Mother’s Day products and to generally change up the shopping experience in the newsagency.

The book table has a lower profile than the magazine unit it has temporarily replaced and this in itself provides quite a different feel to the space.

Our book sales are up year on year. this sales growth and the good margin makes books a valuable impulse add-on to a magazine purchase.

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Book retailing
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