PaidContent has an excellent report about e-book buyers, claiming that as many as 18% of people buying e-books are what are called power e-book buyers, buying at least one e-book a week. The PaidContent report relies on data from the respected Book Industry Study Group.
What is happening in the book space will interest anyone operating print, including newsagents.
The latest issue of GQ Magazine UK (air freight) give glimpse of the new Condé Nast Worldwide News. Opening in february, Condé Nast Worldwide News is concept store, gallery like, where people can browse style magazines and books.
While we don’t have the space or resources to head down this road with magazine displays, what they are doing is certainly interesting, especially in terms of promoting the print product.
Condé Nast Worldwide News is open to the public.
The U.S. Postal Service Nears Collapse
Delivery of first-class mail is falling at a staggering rate. Facing insolvency, can the USPS reinvent itself like European services have—or will it implode?
The Boomlberg article has a headline which gets one’s attention.While the USPS operates a different model to what we have here, the decisions they make on the future of the public face of their mail service will certainly interest Australia Post.
Many countries closed as many of their brick-and-mortar post offices as possible, moving these services into gas stations and convenience stores, which then take them over—just as the USPS is trying to do now, only far more aggressively. Today, Sweden’s Posten runs only 12 percent of its post offices. The rest are in the hands of third parties. Deutsche Post is now a private company and runs just 2 percent of the post offices in Germany. In contrast, the USPS operates all of its post offices.
I’d like to see this here, Australia Post get out of retail entirely by divesting retail to locally owned independent businesses with a cap on how many post offices a person or corporation can own.
Completing national unity of newsagent associations, NANA and the ANF this week made this announcement:
Thursday 26th May, 2011
ANF and NANA Unity Agreement
On Tuesday 24th May, the Australian Newsagents’ Federation (ANF) and the Newsagents Association of NSW & ACT (NANA) signed an historic agreement that cements national and state representations and advocacy for their Member Newsagents. This agreement is the culmination of six months of strategic efforts by both boards and executives.
Beginning 1 July 2011, all Member Newsagents in NSW and the ACT will be offered joint benefits and services provided by the ANF and NANA.
ANF CEO Alf Maccioni said now that there are arrangements with all states the ANF can represent the entire industry on a national basis facilitating a strong united front to address industry issues.
NANA President Andrew Packham said, “this is the representative structure that gives member Newsagents a real voice. In NSW and the ACT, Member Newsagents will experience even more effective and broader spectrum advocacies from this union, whether it is dealing with suppliers or government. NANA and ANF will continue to single-mindedly focus on producing business results for our Members. Now is the time to be a Member and have your say.”
Well done to everyone involved in what has been a long journey.
We have been running with this collection of three display units at the front of the newsagents to attract shoppers from within the mall this week.
Without wanting to put down the two columns of titles on the left, the real hooks are Better Homes and Gardens and MasterChef – each new issues out this week and each good weekend titles in newsagencies.
Note to publishers: the BHG display unit is the best display unit I have ever seen in a newsagency for a volume title. It is easy to assemble, easy to move, strong, a good height and holds a good stock weight.
A newsagent in Western Australia received a lively and engaged response from Dr Mal Washer, federal member for Moore. Kudos to Dr Washer as this is a personal response and not a regurgitation of the spin from EPAL – the company controlled by the banks, Coles and Woolworths which is responsible for the soon to start new EFTPOS fee regime.
Dr Washer joins a small group of members of parliament who have taken time to listen, research and provide such a personal response. Read what Dr Washer wrote yesterday to a newsagent:
Further to your recent correspondence regarding changes to EFTPOS that will affect your small business.
The big banks and big retailers will gouge another $40 million out of small businesses and family enterprises unless bank charges are reduced to offset new EFTPOS transaction fees sanctioned by the Gillard Labor Government.
Australia’s big banks continue to promote EFTPOS as a convenient way for account holders to access their funds.
But changes approved by the Reserve Bank will see this convenience come with new merchant transaction fees to fund the new standalone business that now runs the popular EFTPOS debit payment system.
The Coalition has called on the big banks to reduce small business banking costs and fees by an amount equivalent to the new revenues created by ‘spinning off’ EFTPOS to ensure that the creation of the new business is not simply a ‘cost shift and double dip’.
The decision by the big banks and big retailers to move its jointly operated EFTPOS payment system into a separate business with new annual revenues in excess of $40 million, will add to small business and consumer costs while relieving the current owners of operating expenses.
Having decided that EFTPOS is now less a banking and payment channel created out of self interest and more a separate service others should pay to utilize, spinning off this activity should be accompanied by a cutting out of the banking costs that had previously underwritten its operation.
Unless the planned new transaction fees are fully offset by reductions in business banking fees, the creation of EFTPOS as a separate business will amount to an audacious cost shift and double dip.
A change to EFTPOS from an embedded business banking facility bundled into the banking service paid for by small businesses, to an explicit standalone service with its own transaction charges should rightly be accompanied by reductions in business banking fees and charges.
To not see a commensurate cost saving that offsets the new per-transaction EFTPOS fees will amount to a gouge on small businesses and consumers.
The Coalition understands the need for EFTPOS to be restructured to ensure that an Australian domestic, PIN debit product remains competitive and viable against the more expensive US-owned and more expensive MasterCard and Visa debit cards.
But clearly, the Gillard Labor Government has once again overlooked the impact of its decisions on small businesses and consumers. Under Labor small businesses are doing it tough. 300,000 jobs small business jobs have been lost under the Labor Government and the number of small business enterprises has actually declined by 18,500, particularly in the category of businesses employing 1 to 4 people, according to the latest ABS figures.
Without guaranteed offsets and savings to business banking fees and charges, setting up EFTPOS as a separate business will simply be a Gillard government endorsed further boost banking profits via another slug on cash-strapped small business and a further cost of living increase on consumers and households.
The Opposition has written to the Reserve Bank and banking regulator to seek assurances that transaction charge off-set conditions are a part of the EFTPOS licence approval and that small business banking fees will come down as a result of this popular payment channel being established as a separate business with its own merchant fee revenue.
Thank you for bringing this important issue to my attention.
Kind regards
Dr Mal Washer MP
Federal Member for Moore
I don;t quite see it as he writes. Both sides of parliament are responsible for the regime we have with EFTPOS. Both are responsible for delivering a fairer solution and demonstrating that they do care abut small business.
Click here for a copy of the briefing paper which the ANF has given permission to publish.
Click here for a copy of a letter developed by the ANF and which which you can personalise and send to your local member of parliament and senators for your state or territory.
Click here for a list of house of representatives members and here for a list of senators. With this information you can easily, call, email or write to your local parliamentarians and get them engaged on this issue.
Tower Systems has an End of Financial Year Offer for newsagents not currently using the Tower newsagency software.
With more than 1,700 newsagents already using Tower Systems software, the company is the respected leader in the marketplace. The closest competitor is POS Solutions with an estimated 600 newsagents using its software. More than 230 POS Solutions users have switched to Tower in recent years.
Newsagents using the Tower software have access to newsagent specific software with excellent time saving and business building tools – backed by friendly and on time support and delivered with a commitment to ensure that the software up maintained to industry standards. Tower is often first to meet new industry standards. the company works closely with key newsagent suppliers to facilitate business efficiency.
Tower Systems is the only software company supporting newsagents consistently through sponsorship of key industry events such as Newsagent of the Year Awards in various states.
The End of Financial Year Offer is available to June 30 2011.
Disclosure: I am the owner of Tower Systems as well as a newsagent.
We are promoting the latest Good Taste magazine with an in-location display, making it a hero title in our food section for the next week. This simple display is driving sales … food is such an easy category to promote. With in-location displays we have one on each side of each aisle.
We are promoting financial year diaries with this simple display facing onto the dance floor. There is nothing glamorous about this display. It is all about being seen, making sure that the majority of shoppers entering the store can see that we have financial year diaries.
Diaries overall are proving to be a hero category for us – double digit year on year growth for regular diaries. Even as recent as this month. We are planning on leveraging this with a bigger order for the 2012 season.
June 27 is the target go live date for EDI files from Integrated Publication Solutions (Fairfax). Thereb is plento to be done between now and then including testing with the various software packages and engaging in field testing.
I know plenty of newsagents will be happy that there is finally progress on EDI files from IPS (Fairfax).
Imagine that you have a year to go on your shopping centre newsagency lease, that you want to continue in a business you have successfully operated for the last, say, eleven years and that you have been a good tenant – paying on time, participating in promotions and running a professional shop.
Now, imagine how you would feel when your landlord advises that your rent is to increase 40% and that if you don;t accept they have another party prepared to pay this increase to operate the newsagency in the centre.
Alternatively, imaging how you would feel when this other party which has convinced the landlord that a newsagency can generate greater rent for them comes to you and tells you to join with them otherwise you lose the business.
Newsagents in shopping centres are at risk of being priced out of their businesses. This is a challenge not only for these victims of secret negotiations between landlords and other parties but also for the newsagency channel more widely.
One of the reason newsagents go broke and newsagencies close doors in shopping malls is that the base rent is too high. The people negotiating are sometimes removed from actual responsibility for paying the rent.
Obscuring part of the story about Gina Rinehart topping the BRW Rich List on the front page of today’s Australian Financial Review is a stuck on ad for the Bank of Cypress.
I noticed the stuck on ad because I watched as a person behind the counter at a convenience store in Sydney removed the ad from their copies of the newspaper this morning. I silently cheered their protest.
I bought my copy from a nearby newsagency where the stickers were in tact, covering news on the front page of the newspaper.
It is good to see the price of some imported magazine drop finally. While the drop is not on par with the high Australian dollar, it has been significant. This has taken too long to happen – leading to newsagents having to deal with frustrated shoppers.
We are promoting Collectors magazine in the usual back of the shop location plus this placement on our impulse purchase display stand. While this is a special interest title, it is also a title which can be easily purchased on impulse by those who would not go looking for it. I figured that this prime location placement was worth it since one of the stars of the TV show is on the cover. I know that the cover will set some shoppers quivering and that’s good for sales.
A flat stack next to newspapers continues to be the best location for driving impulse purchases of magazines. This is where we have the latest issue of Better Homes and Gardens. We will leave it here until early next week. While sales are strong for us right trough the month, the first weekend is the best. In addition to this placement is the usual location, we also have BHG on show at the front of the newsagency, facing into the mall.
We are promoting the latest issue of recipes+ magazine with this aisle end display. Sales are not huge for us for this title so we will give is three or four days, probably changing on Friday for a weekend promotion – given current space demands. It’s not all bad news with this short display. We will move the title to a goo impulse location with weekly titles as well as a pocket in with food titles.
I was discussing the magazine supply model with a representative of a magazine distribution business recently who was arguing that full retail real estate costs should not be apportioned to the magazine department as if it were a profit centre of thee business.
The argument was that magazines pulled in traffic and that this presented newsagents with an excellent opportunity for other sales. It was put that the full rent for the magazine space should not be applied to the magazine department cost centre because of this traffic pull.
Maybe, just maybe, prior to deregulation and the direct supply to petrol, convenience and other outlets this argument about traffic may have had some merit to at least consider. Today, definitely not.
More than 50% of magazines are sold outside newsagencies. While they do generate traffic, this has declined considerably since deregulation.
My newsagent sales benchmark data shows that magazines are sold alone around 50% of the time. That is, around 50% of people purchasing a magazine purchase other products at the same time.
While I accept that the efficiency of magazines is very much up to newsagents and their retail skills, there is no case to argue that magazines are effectively a loss leader for newsagents. Rent and labour costs are too high.
It is entirely appropriate that the magazine department operates as a cost centre. This is why it must stand or fall on its results. It is why I will continue to factor in retail real estate costs when I undertake magazine title cash flow analysis.
To magazine distributors and publishers who say that an assessment of the profitability of a title should not include the cost of retail space occupied by the title – I say you are wrong. Walk in my shoes for a year, pay the rent, labour and other costs. You will soon see that while magazines are important, they MUST pay their way … every title must pay their way.
In too many Australian newsagencies, there are magazines which are not paying their way – they are riding off the coattails of top selling and profitable titles.
I am concerned that lack of attention by newsagents, publishers and magazine distributors to this will irreparably harm the newsagency channel. We all need the magazine department to be a good profit contributor to newsagents.
Frustrated with your bank? That’s the heading on The Australian newspaper here at Sydney airport this morning. Actually, it is not the headline. It is an ad. A four page wrap around ad which one has to remove and discard to get to the newspaper. So much for the front page of the newspaper selling the news. Those were the days … when news mattered.
Now there are cat lovers and cat haters. Cat lovers make good customers. I know that from my calendar sales. To leverage this interest in cats in my store I’ve sourced this range of cat themed gift items. Tins and the like, all targeting the cat lover. We have them on display, showing the full range this week. Next week, with more space available, they will be placed to drive impulse purchases.
We have refreshed our ACP cookbook offer with this ACP supplied display unit facing on to the dance floor. This feature location display is in addition to an excellent display with food titles in our magazine department. This feature location promotion will remain in place for a week. We will then refresh the range of ACP cookbook titles before using the display unit for another selection of ACP titles.
Card shoppers see this display and this helps drive sales of cookbook titles as birthday and other gifts – something which is less likely to happen if you leave the titles in the magazine aisle.
Every impulse purchase helps.
I have enjoyed tremendous success with boxed Christmas cards over the years. The keys are to get in early (immediately after Father’s Day), to promote cards with a charity connection and to display them on trestle tables.
The suppliers I like and which have worked well for me are: Simson Cards (brilliant design range and excellent charity selection), Cardpac (brilliant range and a Peter Mac Hospital connection), Charity Greeting Cards (good charity support) and Hallmark Cards (not so good charity connection last year but much better this year).
I have had no trouble competing with supermarkets and majors as they take a different approach to boxed Christmas cards. They tend to not go out as early. Also, their range is usually more limited.
The Queensland Newsagents Federation recently published power saving advice which could inadvertently lead to newsagents to causing computer problems for themselves. Do not change power settings on your computer until you check with your computer supplier that doing so will not impact on your use of the system.
While the QNF recommended power saving options for a computer screen, a non computer literate newsagent made setting changes on the computer which caused system challenges.
Any supplier or association providing computer settings advice to newsagents should run this by newsagency software companies first.
Magazine publishers who want to extract cash from old stock which did not see the first time around might want to consider the retro market. Given the interest in all things retro at the moment, go into the warehouse and find your oldest stock (it would need to be ten preferably more, years old) and consider packaging this for newsagents as a retro offer. This would not work with all categories. I’d see it working best with: food, fashion, home and living.
Given that fashions change quickly in some areas, retro items could be just a few years old. Take food. Given the current interest in this category, driven by many new readers, there may be a market for five year old food titles.
Likewise there could be an interest in return visits of other titles.
The way I would do this if I was in a publishing business is that I would create a website of my inventory and invite newsagents to directly order. Proactive newsagents building a point of difference would use the website to help drive their pint of difference.
The current magazine supply push model encourages newsagents to not engage in expanding their range and specialising in certain categories. If only publishers and distributors would realise that there are some proactive newsagents out there who would use a pull model if it was made available to them.
I don’t know if my retro idea would work or even if enough stock is in warehouses to make it work. What I do know is that a radical re-thinking of the magazine push model could deliver a better publisher / newsagent relationship and help newsagents reinstate their position as the local magazine specialists.
Morrison Media, the publishers of frankie magazine has advised their their Morrison News communication blog that stocks of the popular are available to be reordered by newsagents who have sold out. We are certainly reordering for one of my stores.
With a third of all newsagencies stocking frankie regularly selling out, getting extra stock while it is available from the warehouse makes sense. Who knows, you could achieve double digit growth … which would be great news in the magazine sales climate.
If you don’t have the current issue of frankie on your shelves, call Gotch today.
We are following the placement advice of Pacific Magazines and placing Women’s Health magazine in with our women’s interests titles. See the photo from our women’s section. This is a co-location for us as we also support the title at the front of the store – usually either with a feature display or in a pocket placement with our impulse weekly titles. Pacific has completed research which indicates that the title performs well when located next to women’s interest titles, such as marie claire.