An AFL tipping competition is more important that the lead news stories of the day accounting to The Age newspaper this morning. Half the front page of the newspaper is covered with a wrap around advertisement for the Pro-Tipping competition for this year’s AFL season.
We had our last day of trading at Forest Hill yesterday and it was a real treat. The shop was crazy busy, busier than Christmas, thanks to the deals we ran, the lottery superdraw and it being our last day.
Customers came in to say goodbye, some bearing gifts. It was bittersweet in many respects … keen for the next experiences we will encounter yet thoughtful of the wonderful memories and good times from the last fifteen years in what I am told is Victoria’s oldest shopping centre.
Forest Hill is surrounded by retirement villages, nursing homes, assisted living and plenty of residential areas. Like any newsagency, we, all of us who worked in the shop, established connections and even friendships as much as you can serving the same customers once or twice a week for years.
We had some putaway customers tell us that they travelled 30 minutes by car to get to us because of our putaway service. Some of special interest magazine customers – model railroad, aviation, crafts, music, old cars – told us that they looked forward to shopping with us because of our coverage of their particular interest.
The well wishers were wonderful as were the jokes.
Yes, there was the odd customer angry that we did not have the stationery item they wanted and demanded to know what sort of newsagency is this? Our explanation that we were running down stock at the request of the purchaser was not enough. It was as if they wanted something to be rude about. It was sweet hearing another customer put them in their place.
The day was a reminder of the difference we newsagents can make in our communities and in the lives of those we serve. It felt as if we did make a difference for many people … compared to major retailers … as if some really did depend on us. Indeed some made the point of saying that they would never buy their magazines in Coles or Woolworths and that they loved out kind of shop.
Yep, made us feel pretty good. Newsagencies do matter! What a delight for the last day.
I’ll blog with some observations about how shoppers reacted to some of our deals later in the week.
After a sizable advertising campaign, media interviews, plenty of commentary and a ton of hype, The Saturday Age newspaper finally launched last weekend. The new design, the new masthead and other changes were going to staunch the financial bleeding of the newspaper. Victorians were told this was a new newspaper, a newspaper we had to try. They want to get old readers back.
This week, a week later, the new newspaper is so important to the folks at Fairfax that they were prepared to take money from an advertiser to cover up their new masthead. Yes, some bucks promoting Coon cheese is more important than the new name, The Saturday Age. I was shocked to see this, even for Fairfax and their penchant for these nasty post-it type ads which are all too often stuck on the front page of the newspaper, over editorial coverage or over the newspaper masthead itself – as they did yesterday.
Where is the pride and trust in their rebranding of the newspaper? Given their treatment of the new name yesterday I wonder at the money spent promoting it all around Melbourne in the weeks leading up to the launch.
We enjoy good sales with That’s Life Reader Recipes by not treating this as a food title. Sure it contains recipes. However, it is targeted at That’s Life and would-be That’s Life readers. While we do have some stock of this title in with food magazines, the bulk of the stock is placed next to and near That’s Life. This is where I find that it works best – in all of my newsagencies. We try and leave a pocket below the title free for the first couple of weeks of the on sale so that the delicious food can be seen and hopefully entice more sales.
I’d encourage newsagents to take a look at where this title is placed in their stores. If it is not adjacent to That’s Life, at least move some stock there. You want sales right?!
Yesterday I saw an excellent example of the Trivial Pursuit promoting driving Herald Sun sales. Several customers purchased multiple copies of the newspaper, saying it was for the Trivial Pursuit card.
If I had more time I would have asked whether the copies were for friends of themselves. If themselves then the copies purchased will drive audit numbers but not advertiser results.
We received a call yesterday from a customer asking if we had a specific certain magazine which came with a free gift. They wanted this specific gift. They were chasing a free pack of makeup and wanted a certain colour. When I advised that we had sold out they said that I was the twentieth newsagent they had spoken to.
Weird. Twenty phone calls and all that time chasing some free make-up. I imagine that my caller was not the only one interested in the gift. Maybe her call was an example of much bigger word of mouth.
I started to wonder if there is something I am missing about these free gifts that people would spend an hour on the phone chasing and then be prepared to drive 10 or 15 kilometers to pick up (as my caller would have had to do).
Are the deals really worth it. Some can be I know but make up?
I guess that sometimes the desirability of a gift can go beyond the counter value of the gift itself. It all depends on how the gift is promoted and maybe a celebrity connected with the promotion.
The latest issue of Melbourne Pool + Outdoor Design has been out for two days and is already selling nicely. I put this down to an attractive cover. This was confirmed by a customer yesterday who was browsing the title and made the point of saying this cover was the best magazine cover she had seen. I asked what she liked about it and she said it looked real.
The same is true for sister title Melbourne Kitchen + Bathroom Design – attractive and authentic covers. I blogged a few days ago about our tactical placement of this title. This has worked a treat with a sell through of 90% in a few days. A 90% sell through for a title like this in a few days is excellent. I reckon that almost any newsagent could achieve the same with tactical placement.
The front page of The Age newspaper yesterday was again half covered by an ad, meaning that the lead story of the day was obscured. This is okay for shoppers who purchase the newspaper based on their belief in the masthead. What about those who purchase the newspaper based on the front page. there must be plenty of those as publishers want newsagents to display the front page to drive sales.
The folks behind frankie magazine issued a press release today announcing excellent growth…
frankie magazine’s phenomenal growth spurt continues, with sales up a whopping 32.57%* year on year. This makes frankie the fastest-growing magazine in Australia, a title it’s held for the past three audit periods.
And the result – released today as part of the ABC Aust ANPS Audit Jul-Dec 2010 – has given the frankie team yet another reason to smile. They’ve cracked the 50,000 issue mark and now sit at 50,832*, with a total readership of 199,000 (RMR).
Regulars here would know that I love frankie magazine. The sales growth it is delivering for newsagents is phenomenal and against the trend of so many titles. Well done frankie! We have successfully used frankie to drive sales of other titles by careful placement with the popular title.
As the latest newsagent sales benchmark study indicates, newsagents experienced a difficult Christmas and fourth quarter of 2011. While we each need to reflect the current conditions – economic challenges and structural changes – in our own business plans, there are steps we can take immediately to improve sales.
Here are thirteen simple and low cost steps newsagents can take to arrest declining sales or improve sales if they are not experiencing declining sales:
Share these ideas, discuss them, challenge them, add to them.
This list of ideas is by no means difinitive. Consider it a starting point.
It is easy to complain that sales have dipped. Smart business people see the numbers and act. How about you? Start today.
A Victorian newsagent has had a customer cancel their Herald Sun home delivery citing that they now get the newspaper delivered on their iPad.
This is the first report I have heard of this happening.
Such an occurrence should not be a surprise. It has been inevitable since the Herald Sun iPad app was released. The question for each newsagent is what you doing in your businesses to respond to the disruption of new distribution channels for content which was formerly only distributed via print?
I firmly believe that these are days of opportunity, when we can redefine what we stand for and set for ourselves an adjusted direction.
The challenge is dealing with some suppliers who need us to be the newsagents of old for another three years or so.
The latest issue of Super Food Ideas comes with four chopping mats. Since I bang on here about frustrating and inappropriate cover mounts, I should also acknowledge good congratulate good moves. These chopping mats are a great gift for this title. They are also a great gift from a retailer’s perspective – easy to display and well packaged.
I expect to see excellent sales for this issue as a result of the chopping mats gift.
We are making the most of the opportunity with tactical co-location outside the food section. Gifts like this are designed to get irregular customers buying a title. Hence the importance of co-location.
We have been giving the latest issue of Limelight magazine the full face treatment. We figured that the Anthony Warlow cover shot promoting Doctor Zhivago and the free CD are bound to resonate with some of our Melbourne customers. We have the title in with our weeklies as well as in a feature display nearby – both showing the full cover.
The Age newspaper yesterday had an ad for Coon cheese stuck over editorial content on the front page. Click on the image for a larger version. A couple of years on since they started this type of advertising, customers still complain … as they should.
Greeting card sales in newsagencies dipped 4.3% in December 2010 compared to December 2009 … based on the newsagency sales benchmark study I have just completed. This decline in unit sales in December is steeper than the decline seen for the December quarter.
More than 75% of stores participating in the sales benchmark study recorded a decline in card sales in December. The average increase of the 25% of stores reporting an increase was 2.3%.
I put the greeting card sales decline down to the pre Christmas interest rate rise, consumer uncertainty which was a theme for all of 2010, increased messaging by text and social media and lack of promotion of the greeting card category to educate consumers about the emotion of sending a greeting card as opposed to a text message.
While it is too early to say, my sense is that greeting card publishers and retailers should team up to promote cards to consumers. You do not want to be wishing this had been done when it is too late.
The team at The Hungry Beast, a program on ABC TV put together this excellent video on the market power of Coles and Woolworths. It should interest newsagents given the increased interest by these two giant retailers in newsagency-like stores within their existing supermarkets.
Nothing like letting the evidence speak for itself.
Newsagents ought to consider establishing a rule that unless the business owner or manager signs for an order, the business will not accept responsibility for the order.
All it takes is one representative from a supplier to order something you did not need or want and you can find yourself in a protracted battle to have the stock which ultimately arrives taken back for a credit or dealt with in some other way.
Since most newsagency businesses do not have agreed order approval policy in place, some supplier representatives can easily place product which might otherwise not have been ordered.
It has happened to me and the runaround process to get to the bottom of $400 worth of stock I did not need, did not want and did not order was almost not worth the hassle. So, I am establishing a policy requiring a signature from myself or the store manager otherwise we accept no responsibility for an order.
It’s my money at risk so I have every right to set the terms.
The best approach, of course, is to place orders only through your Point of Sale software. Some suppliers conveniently do not accept this.
Weight Watchers and Diabetic Living both respond well to co-location. So, in addition to prominent placement in the health section of our magazine department, we give each title two pockets above popular weeklies.
This week, we have started Weight Watchers and Diabetic Living off above That’s Life and Take 5. The placement switches on Monday when we place them above New Idea and Woman’s Day.
In the right situation, tactical co-location like this can result in more sales from the second location than the main location for a title. This is certainly true for us with Diabetic Living. This suggests that in our newsagency it is not as much a destination purchase as an impulse purchase. there is where co-location reaps good rewards.
Co-location needs to be a considered tactic. Considered in terms of the titles you co-locate, where you locate them and the duration of the co-location. I have found that it is important to watch your customers and understand the parts of the magazine department which attracts the target shoppers.
We have been ensuring that our Greek newspapers are in an easily seen and accessible location through the crisis which has brought Greece to a stand still over the last two weeks. While we don’t want to profit from the misery of others, we are providing a valuable service to our Greek speaking community. Foreign newspaper sales continue to grow more than sales of metropolitan dailies. They are an important traffic generator and a valuable product category for us.
No, fganistan is not a new country, despite what this newspaper headline looks like.
For the second time this week, The Age newspaper has covered its page one lead store with an ad, this time a house ad for subscriptions. I feel sorry for the journalists and editors having their good work covered in this way.
A colleague newsagents has alerted me that at least some copies of the latest issue of Bowhunting Downunder have a major print error and pages have been repeated throughout magazine – not all but most. Maybe check your stock.
I have heard from four newsagents this week who are chasing money owed from the now closed NDD magazine distribution business. If you are chasing money, consider contacting IPMG, the parent of NDD. You can reach them on: (02) 9469 5000 or my mail at PO Box 7000 Alexandria NSW 2015.
I have heard from several newsagents who are facing a significantly higher than expected statement value from Network Services this month.
We are still seeing the impact of titles acquired from NDD, more than half of which have an utterly abysmal sell through – considerably below 50% for many of the titles.
We are also seeing an impact from delayed billing.I am told that you can see delay billed invoices as they appear with a Saturday date. While I am sure that newsagents appreciate the small cash flow benefit of delayed billing, there is frustration with challenges over early returning as well as needing to track that we will be billed down the track.
My biggest concern with Network invoices is the high cost of many of the old NDD titles. NDD closed because it was not a viable business. Network picked up plenty of titles from this unviable business and continues to send then through to newsagents. Newsagents are funding Network keeping its trucks full – it is a logistics company after all and full trucks has to be their core goal.
We received Trader Mate yesterday, another classifieds newspaper. No question on whether we wanted, needed or had space for the title. It just turned up. This is a New South Wales publication trying to gain traction in Victoria, a marketplace already well served with free and paid for classifieds titles. I really wish we had control over every new newspaper and magazine title so that we could choose if we wanted to invest our time, space and money into the venture. The current supply model assumes we will be willing investors.
We are promoting the ACP I Love Magazines promotion at the entrance to one of my stores with this display facing into the shopping mall. While we are only two days in, I am tracking incremental business for Women’s Day and TV Week plus Grazia in one store.
I think that prime position placement is a key factor, prime position showing off the full cover, making browsing and the purchase choice easier. While the prizes on offer draw attention, I don’t see them as the key factor in driving sales. However, I am not the customer so who knows.
We will move this I Love Magazines display to the other side of our entrance a couple of weeks in otherwise it will be lost like other displays which do not move. With regular customers visiting several times each week, store blindness is a big challenge.