Shopping in the future today
Check out the inspiration for the virtual Woolworths shopping experience launched in Australia last week…
Amazing.
Sunday marketing tip: stop looking like a newsagency
Create a shopfront look for your newsagency that looks nothing like a newsagency and see if your business attracts new traffic and comments from your traditional shopper traffic.
Seriously. Make the front of your shop look nothing like a newsagency.
Such a radical change is about several things:
- A fresh window through which people view your business.
- A fresh look at the stock you sell as you chase non-newsagency lines with which to promote the business.
- A fresh approach to the look you give your business to your public.
- A shock to you and your team which will help you embrace and enjoy change.
Newsagencies are rooted in tradition and this can work against us in many retail situations. Yes, it is nice that we honour tradition y not changing but I think we lose more customers by not changing.
How many of you have magazine posters on the front window or in wire racks at the front of the shop? When I stopped promoting magazines in the window sales were not affected at all. I realised, years ago that I now had space to sue for more creative and profitable use.
So, my challenge to you is to go for a week or a month or more presenting the front of your business looking nothing like a newsagency. If you are not sure where to start, ask the youngest member of your team to undertake the project. Given them some time and a budget to find product with which to promote the business.
If we are to be relevant to today’s shopper we have to continue to evolve our look and appeal. This idea is about experimenting with that and breaking free from what is possibly an inhibiting tradition.
Day one of Sydney gift fair
I was at the gift fair in Sydney yesterday. Well, one of three major venues of the fair. It was excellent seeing such diverse suppliers and even more excellent seeing plenty of newsagents there. I’d expect hundreds of newsagents to have passed through the various venues by the end of day four.
It’s exciting seeing newsagents spending time on stands selling homewares, food, gifts, jewellery and children’s toys. Walls are breaking down and that’s great!
Newsagents – your TO DO list
The more newsagents who engage the stronger our voice:
- Sign up for Twitter and join the newsagent Twitter army. We need at least 100 newsagents on Twitter now!
- Share your thoughts on the News Limited home delivery mess.
- Comment on the Fairfax plans to cut back on print.
- Comment on Bill Shorten’s whack against newsagents.
- Get cracking with your magazine relay. This one is 100% for you. You’ll increase magazine sales for sure.
Now I’m off to Sydney for the gift fair.
Gift fair opportunity for newsagents
Gift Fair and the Home and Giving fairs are on in Sydney starting today. They are an excellent opportunity for newsagents to expand their range and be real retailers – choosing product for local requirements, negotiating prices and making for themselves their own retail success.
Each year I see more and more newsagents at these fairs but it is still not enough. Many newsagents still ignore the gift and homewares opportunity and fail to expand the horizon of their businesses in pursuit of growth.
If you have time over the next four days, get to the events in Sydney and see for yourself many product opportunities that are already working in newsagencies.
Finally the ABC AFL magazine
We finally received the new ABC AFL magazine and have this placed with our newspapers over the last couple of days and for this weekend. The display is not brilliant … we didn’t want to detract from the success with Better Homes and Gardens and Time Out with newspapers so we’d placed it above the papers. We also have stock on our AFL season opener aisle end display as well as with o8r sports titles. We’re covering all bases as they say.
I am often asked why we co-locate titles like this rather than just put them out. Putting magazines out sounds like a chore done by rote. We like to think about what we do with titles, with one goal in mind – maximising sales.
Promoting Kitchen and Bathroom magazines
We like to maintain good positioning for key kitchen and bathroom magazines. They sell. As the photo shows, we have the latest titles placed between popular monthlies. I do this because it’s the monthlies people often look for and then notice the kitchen and bathroom titles and purchase on impulse. Okay, some people come in looking for kitchen and bathroom titles but not as many as, say, Better Homes and Gardens which is on the left. We are always looking for ways go getting shoppers to purchase more than one magazine in a sale. Adjacencies area key to this.
Promoting Virgin Mobile Broadband
We have been promoting the Virgin Mobile Broadband product in my newsagencies as part of an overall growth push for more recharge business – there is a direct correlation between recharge growth and handset sales.
We were lucky to get access to a scooter for the promotional display. The scooter is a prize in the promotion running at the moment. It makes for a bold in-store display, not something shoppers are used to seeing in a newsagency.
As I have noted previously, we chase opportunities presented by promotions and competitions – to reinforce the locky shopper idea and add value to the experience of shopping with us.
Come and join the newsagent Twitter army
I am building a register of newsagents on Twitter. If you are on Twitter, please email me at mark@towersystems.com.au so I can add your email address. This will enable us to communicate about how we might use Twitter to get our message out. Twitter is free. It is an easy way to voice your opinions. You can tag those you write about – bringing to their attention your opinion. I urge newsagents to join Twitter and then email me. The more newsagents who are part of the Twitter army the better. If you need help to get on call me on 0418 321 338.
Fairfax to reduce newspaper distribution to regional and remote communities
In with the Fairfax half year results announcement yesterday was news that the company is continuing to cut costs and pursue digital over print.
Fairfax of the Future recognises that many parts of our business were built at a time when the newspaper was king and print classified advertising was the biggest driver of our business success. Large parts of our current operating model are still geared to supporting the old business model.
ABC Online reports that Fairfax will reduce distribution of newspapers to regional and remote communities:
And regional and remote communities are set to lose access to Fairfax newspapers under the plan.
“How and where we distribute newspapers has a great impact on our costs. It does not make sense to lose money by delivering small numbers of printed newspapers to remote locations,” Mr Hywood said.
Check out the Fairfax take at the Brisbane Times on this story about itself, especially this…
The parallel pressure, however, is to manage the transition to digital in way that also reconfigures operating costs and sunk capital.
While newsagents are waiting for News and Fairfax to tell them what to do next, they should actually be making moves of their own. Okay, some are, but not enough. The future of newsagency distribution and retail business is up to newsagents alone. No supplier will provide your business plan for you, not any more.
A question being asked among some in the newspaper publishing game is which capital city daily will be the first to go digital only? The follow up question is when? Yesterday’s announcement by Fairfax plays to the reality of the impact of tablets and other devices for accessing news and information content and monetisation opportunities which publishers are more and more successfully leveraging.
Newsagents need to read and understand these moves in the context of marketplace demands. Fairfax is making the right decisions for its business. Yes, some customers and newsagents will suffer. Watch this space as there is more of this to come from all newspaper publishers.
I don’t see any bad news here, just opportunities.
Michigan newspaper switches from seven days to three days
Check out the Feb. 3 article from WoodTV in Grand Rapids Michigan in the US:
Less newspaper home delivery begins
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) – For the first time since about anybody can remember, many West Michigan residents will not have a newspaper on their doorsteps or boxes Friday.
It’s all part of some big changes for the Grand Rapids Press, Kalamazoo Gazette and Muskegon Chronicle.
To generations the news experience includes the smell of the ink and the feel of the paper.
But for another generation, it’s all about the digital delivery — mobile phones, laptops and tablets — which has brought us to today.
The three newspapers will now do home delivery just three days a week — Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday.
The papers are shifting their focus to the Internet.
You can still get the paper versions seven days a week but you have to find a place that sells it or at a box.
The announcement came in November 2011.
The change also brought job cuts to those papers — 223 employees lost employment — from officer managers and clerks, to press operators and technicians, to sales people and editors.
The Grand Rapids Press is moving out of its building on Michigan Street to new offices near Monroe Avenue and Pearl Street.
Be sure to click on the announcement link for details including subscription pricing. This story has already played out in other US cities. Indeed, some capital city newspapers have shut their print editions altogether and on the back of healthy sales.
The factors feeding decisions reflected in this report are factoring into the consideration of News Limited and Fairfax and their future plans for print editions in Australia. But this is not new. We have known about the pressures and factors for years and have discussed it here many times. This will come. All that is in dispute is timing.
Pacific Magazines launches Newsagent Premium Partnership Program
Pacific Magazines (New Idea, Who, That’s Life, Better Homes and Hardens, Women’s health, Marie Claire to name a few of their titles) announced Nexus, a new business development package for newsagents.
Pacific Magazines has launched Nexus: The Newsagent Premium Partnership Program (Nexus), a free-of-charge, invitation only business development package custom-designed to support the Newsagency channel.
Nexus provides a range of sophisticated resources and customer loyalty initiatives that help drive foot traffic into store, push sales across a variety of categories, deliver strong marketing collateral and enable cohesive retailer and supplier communication.
Mrs Vicki Rossi, Retail Sales and Circulation Director, Pacific Magazines comments: “Nexus has been developed in response to the challenges the newsagency faces in today’s retail environment.
“As the result of two year’s research and investment, the world-class Nexus program seeks to provide tangible business tools that encourage sales growth and customer loyalty, ease day-to- day operational burdens and promote a stronger relationship and partnership approach between Pacific and the newsagency.
“In doing so, we believe we can deliver a better result for all parties.”
Newsagents access the free Nexus communication platform online, with users offered access to a unique reporting suite, sales incentive details, downloadable point-of-sale collateral, key diary date reminders and title-specific positioning advice and ideas.
Disclosure: my newsagencies have been part of Nexus through the trial phase. It is working a treat at driving excellent sales growth. The marketing tools are excellent, showing that you can grow sales buy marketing to existing customers through the use of professional tools.
Easter 2012 front and centre
Here is how we are promoting Easter cards and gifts at the front of our newsagency – facing into the shopping mall. We have Cadbury eggs and easter treats mixed in with Beanie Kids, a colouring competition and an excellent range of Easter cards. I like the display a lot, the team creating it has done an excellent job connecting with a bright and appealing look for what is too often a soft season. We’re chasing double digit growth on 2011.
How far behind are mainstream magazine publishers in exploiting the iPad moment?
Ashley Norris, CEO of Sutro Digital and director of Anorak Publishing has written a fascinating article about the competitive situation between mainstream magazine publishers and independent and start up magazine publishers creating products for the iPad. The article is a fascinating price on how publishers are approaching the iPad moment and considers whether the opportunity is passing some by.
The nightmare scenario for publishers with big media brands is if a new wave of indie publishers emerges who offer their iPad magazines for free. Dennis Publishing already offers its iGizmo iPad magazine for nothing (and it has been very successful), which makes it less likely that mainstream publishers will be able to charge £4-£5 for users to download them.
For those interested in growth in digital content this is a must-read piece. For newsagents it is a reminder that print publishers need to maintain our interest and engagement until they see a clear magnetised road ahead.
Invitation to newsagents in the Brisbane area
My newsagency software company Tower Systems has been running user meetings around Australia over the last three weeks. It’s been terrific to meet with many newsagents and talk about business and share some retail insights from my recent travels and ideas for sales growth in 2012. The last session of the current round is in Brisbane next Tuesday at 11am at the River View Hotel. I’d welcome any newsagent who would like to come along next Tuesday- regardless of whether you use the Tower newsagency software. Click here to book. Bookings are essential for catering etc. The session runs for two hours depending on questions. This is not a sales meeting.
News Limited responds on newspaper home delivery changes
News Limited head office responded (sort of) to Mediaweek and to Crikey about my blog post News Limited in crisis on newspaper home delivery yesterday.
It is curious that News Limited would respond to the two media outlets which published my blog post in full but not to me or here at the blog. I guess that I understand why not – to do so would have legitimised this blog and that’s the last thing they would want to do. News people have told me that they are not to engage here. This in itself is interesting because News people have sought me out on this issue.
News corporately has sought me out to brief me previously so that at least one blog post was written with the knowledge of their position on a development.
What News does not understand is that a response here would have been respected by newsagents, especially a response form the states where most newsagent relationships have been managed for years.
Now to the response. Here is the statement News Limited provided to Mediaweek:
News Limited has responded to comments made by Mark Fletcher on his Newsagency Blog earlier this week.
Mediaweek received this statement this morning:
Contrary to reports, there is not a crisis at News Limited on the future of home delivery of newspapers.
We have for some time been working on a plan to improve our distribution system which delivers our newspapers to retail and homes.
We have consulted newsagents and their associations throughout this process and welcomed feedback through meetings, focus groups and via a dedicated email address we set up. Using information newsagents have been helping us collect we are doing the hard task of understanding the pros and cons of the current system and how best to improve it.
We want to get this right and so are working methodically and diligently. Newsagents may feel frustrated that this is a long process, but it is difficult one. It is taking longer than anticipated but the project has not been put on hold.
We will be discussing our next steps with newsagents within the next month.
I stand by what I wrote yesterday – that there is significant disagreement within the News Limited organisation about how the company is handling and should handle the future of newspaper home deliveries.
What I see in the response from News is, with respect, spin. The company has been at this for more than two years and they want more meetings. They know that the numbers currently do not work because of the controls they have placed on then.
Newsagents need certainty. News can provide this by allowing newsagents to charge commercial fees for delivering newspapers and by encoding their relationship with distribution newsagents in a contract on which newsagents can rely for entering into leases and negotiating with their banks.
Nurses in Victoria are facing a similar situation on pay. They are acting. Other essential services in Victoria faced this over a year ago and they acted. When will newsagents go beyond their bleating and act? I think that News thinks newsagents will not act and this is one of the reasons the company has, after two years, not provided the certainty sought.
Melbourne Observer promotes newsagents
Check out the tweet a couple of days ago from the Melbourne Observer promoting newsagents as the go to place for the latest issue of the weekly newspaper. I love seeing our suppliers promoting our channel to their followers in this way. Every mention of our channel as a go to place for a product helps.
Morrison Media opens 2012 newsagent survey
Morrison Media, the publisher of successful magazine titles like frankie, has announced the start of their 2012 newsagent survey. Click here to find out more.
Their pitch to newsagents is compelling:
We truly value your input. This is your platform to have your thoughts and opinions heard. Be part of something that truly shapes the relationships and future of publishers, distributors and newsagents.
I’d encourage newsagents to engage with this. You need to register by April 30, 2012.
Segueing from Valentine’s Day with Cooper from Hallmark
We had a great success with Cooper from Hallmark for Valentine’s Day and so we have segued from a Valentine’s Day display featuring Cooper – the large plush bear – to a display featuring Cooper, the interactive story book created around the Cooper character and other interactive story books from Hallmark. Sales this week have been excellent from this front of store display.
I have been fortunate to see sales data for these story books – they have been and continue to be an extraordinary sales success. They are driving new traffic and guiding excellent impulse purchases from existing shopper traffic.
Cooper helps newsagents play outside greeting cards but with a brand which is the best known greeting card brand in Australia. The interactive books provide us with perfect gifts for families with young children – a very popular gift target.
Promoting La La Land cards
We are promoting indie card company La La Land with this behind the counter display at one of me newsagencies. We have had the cards for a few months and they are selling very well. They are attracting a different card shopper to the business when we have them at the front of the newsagency. They are a very different looking card, very indie. I love what the team has done with the behind the counter display as it plays to the uniqueness of the cards. Very creative and very different for a behind the counter newsagency display.
Promoting Cleo magazine
We have been promoting Cleo magazine this week with this aisle end display facing shoppers as they enter our magazine aisle.
We’re giving the magazine a shot here for a week as well as good positioning in-location. Personally, I think it’s the in-location display which works best as this is where shoppers are actually shopping for titles like Cleo.
Bill Shorten is wrong to target newsagents on demarcation
Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Bill Shorten on Q&A on ABC1 on Monday night made a passing remark about newsagencies – that they could learn something about demarcation, as if we are doing something wrong in this area. He was talking about having done four workplace agreements at Alcoa and was lauding the flexibility of the Alcoa workforce demonstrated in the negotiation. Then, immediately after the Alcoa example about resolving demarcation issues, direct to camera, with a tone laden with accusation, he said:
There’s something for the old newsagencies and pharmacies and doctors to think about.
Watch Shorten say this for yourself. Click here. Go 47 minutes in. Do not have anything which could damage your TV in your hand.
Shorten’s comment grossly misrepresents newsagents. He joins News Limited columnist Mark Day to be in the running for the most ignorant comment about newsagency businesses this year.
Seriously Bill? Newsagents and protection and or demarcation? How? What evidence do you have? I am not aware of any at all. You need to apologise to newsagents. As a minister of the crown you should think before you speak and be certain of your facts.
Either Bill Shorten made an off the cuff comment without thinking, is misinformed or deliberately targeted us for some other reason.
Newsagents have been extremely flexible in agreeing terms and accepting change in their relationships with newspaper publishers, magazine distributors and government for many years.
John Howard used the ACCC to guide in complete deregulation of the newsagency channel in 1999. Bill should know that. Maybe he does and maybe he made his comment because it suited part of his constituency. I am not aware of any demarcation dispute. Maybe Bill could enlighten us.
Regardless of why Bill said what he said, he needs to be re-educated. One of us newsagents needs to kidnap Bill Shorten and hold him in one of our businesses for a month. Let him see what life is like on the inside. Let him live the life of a protected newsagent and see whether he can see demarcation disputes or issues in play.
I used to like Bill Shorten. I felt he was someone I could trust. After Q&A I see him as a politician who will say whatever he thinks he needs to say to get votes and or support.
Newsagency businesses in Australia are not protected whatsoever. Nor should we be.
Here are Bill’s contact details for newsagents who would like to educate him:
PO Box 6022
House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Tel: (02) 6277 7320
Fax: (02) 6273 4115
Twitter: @billshortenmp
How one newsagent used space reclaimed from magazines
A newsagent in country Victoria trimmed magazine space recently by 90 pockets following a review of magazine performance and the completion of a magazine relay. They converted the traditional magazine tierage into shelves which are being used for gifts. The photo shows the result of physical changes. Here’s what they had to say about the process when I asked them what they did and why:
We reduced our pockets by 90 spots. The shelves are just veneered and edged 300mm strips of chipboard with timber that has been cut to size, beveled and attached to give a horizontal shelf. The beauty of them is that they can be moved anywhere amongst our magazine fixtures and cost bugger all to do. We initially put them at the front of the magazine rack to show off the new range but have now moved them to the other end closer to the cards display. Giftware sales are up about 95% on last year so it will be interesting to see the effect of this latest move on giftware & card sales (which are up about 10%).
Incidentally, the move came as part of a magazine relay last week which I used your guidelines for – magazine sales were tracking downwards at about 8% p.a. but we are now showing a 14% increase on same time last year and hopefully will see this increase again as the relay kicks in. We have received lots of favorable comment on the relay so I have my fingers crossed!
I am seeing newsagents use reclaimed magazine space for a range of complimentary products. Overall, I am seeing newsagents approach the opportunity with care and in a way which is sensitive to them remaining a newsagency.
While some magazine publishers may be concerned at the moves, overall they should not be. There are plenty of titles at the bottom end of the market which are not selling and just take up valuable retail space. Also, in some newsagencies, more magazines can be displayed in less space. The freed space is all about driving sales.
Sunshine Coast Daily newspaper supporting newsagents
The Sunshine Coast Daily is running an in-store promotion with newsagents offering cash prizes to shoppers. Daily Auction Dollars looks like a good promotion for newsagents and the newspaper and a whole lot of in-store fun based on the report online and the photo.
Brilliant display for new Build Lord Nelson’s Victory partwork
Check out the front-of-store display created by Renee at one of my newsagencies. Facing out into the mall, passers-by can’t miss this promotion for the new partwork Build Lord Nelson’s Victory. It’s a dramatic display in keeping with the ship which participants would build from the part series. The display has been seized by Renee as an opportunity to tap into the marketing around the launch of the part series and present a fresh look for the business for the next week or two. Okay so the dollar margin on issue one is not great, who knows the total value of a new customer this new display might attract … if they are new to the business and sick they could be tremendously valuable.