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

Promoting Chinese New Year 2011

chinesenewyear-2011.JPGIt is Chinese New Year this coming Wednesday and we have had a range of cards and red packets (for giving money) available for some weeks.  Our Asian customers appreciate the service.  It taps in well with lottery sales too.  Chinese New Year is a good seasonal opportunity for retailers, newsagents especially, since it is all about luck and hope.  In past years, when we have had more space, we have dressed the store with traditional Chinese lanterns and other items.  The customer engagement demonstrated the value of retail theatre.  This year, with limited space we have cards, red packets and some news and coverage in our customer newsletter … and a greeting for this Year of the Rabbit.

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newsagency marketing

Biggest Loser Calorie Counter a great promotion

caloriecounter.JPGThe Biggest Loser Calorie Counter which is free with today’ Herald Sun is an excellent promotion and is set to drive sales – based on comments made yesterday by customers.  We hope that we have the quantities right, thanks to help from the publisher,  in each of our stores so that our customers and home delivery customers can collect the freebie from us.

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Newspapers

Promoting MasterChef magazine

masterchef-feb2011.JPGWe are promoting the latest issue of the MasterChef magazine with our newspapers this weekend as well with a half waterfall in our food section and two pockets in with weeklies.  It is the weeklies pocket which is working best for us so far with this issue.  With weekend sales strong for this title, the additional placement with newspapers should work a treat.  For major monthlies, like MasterChef, I think it’s important that newsagents do not take a set and forget approach.  Customers become store blind – just as we do.  Moving titles around and co-locating can drive valuable incremental business, especially with magazines.

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magazines

Promoting the freebies in kids magazines

waterg-kz1.jpgOur team at Watergardens does a wonderful job promoting value in magazines, especially kids magazines.  Click on the image to see a better version of a photo of a display near the counter at the front of the store, facing into the mall, which is promoting the latest issue of K-Zone magazine and the freebies which come with this.  The display not only shows the value of the title but also promotes to the target audience at their height.  As well as driving sales of the title, the display also shows our business off as having products aimed at kids.

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magazines

When the newspaper tries to direct policy

heraldsun-jan28.JPGI am disappointed with the cover of today’s Herald Sun newspaper.  It is not reporting the news as a newspaper should.

This cover seeks to tell readers what to think on the issue of the flood levy announced by the federal government yesterday.  They have carefully selected a photo, doctored it and surrounded it with text designed to get people angry.

It is newspaper covers like this which are making the flood levy one of the most unpopular levies in recent memory.

The Herald Sun cover is the shrill I expect to see or hear from the ultra conservative FOX ‘News’ network. I say ‘News’ because FOX is less of a news network and more a lobby arm of ultra conservative forces in the US.  Both the Herald Sun and FOX News are published by the same business – News Corp.

I prefer newspapers to report news in a balanced and professional way and not seek to blatantly drive the political agenda of their owners.

Any concerns about the levy and the track record of the federal government could have been addressed in a far more professional way.  That they focus on the PM is odd given that the spending decisions will be made in Queensland by the Bligh government.

Sorry for being so far off topic in this blog post.  Seeing the cover of today’s Herald Sun go across the counter is frustrating.

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Newspapers

Farewell Forest Hill

farewell-foresthill.jpgA few months ago we signed an agreement for the sale of our newsXpress Forest Hill business.  This came at the same time we had been temporarily relocated by the landlord due to construction impacting our level 2 location.  The construction dragged on as did the negotiations for a new lease.  The timing is such that we have to be out of our temporary location on Saturday February 12.  The couple purchasing the business will not be ready to trade from the new location until early April as they can only get access at the end of this month and have a full shop-fit to undertake.

Given that we have been at Forest Hill for fifteen years, we wanted to give our customers fair notice of the changes.  Yesterday, we started handing out a letter explaining the moves.  I publish it here to show our approach to sharing the news with our customers, to demonstrate our transparency and to publish the facts to our gossip loving channel.

We have a busy two weeks at this store while also keeping the finger on the pulse of our three other newsagencies.

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About us

Promoting crosswords for Valentine’s Day

val-crosswords.JPGWe are promoting the Valentine’s Day themed BIG crossword from Lovatts with our Valentine’s Day range.  Regulars here will know that we do this every year.  It’s a successful move!  While most of the stock is split between our weeklies section and the crossword section, this small placement always drives incremental business.  It is especially appealing to some of our older customers.  I have seen them pick up the crossword book and then a card.  Who knows, if the crossword book was not next to the display they may have never purchased a Valentine’s Day card.

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crosswords

Check your business insurance

In the light of experiences newsagents have had and are having with insurance as a result of the floods and some experiences from Victoria following the bushfires two years ago, now is a good time for newsagents to check their insurance coverage.

Ensure that you have coverage for all of the events appropriate to your business.  Ensure that your stock value is accurate.  Ensure that your fixtures value for replacement is at the level it ought be.

The last thing you want is to find that you do not have enough coverage when you need it.

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Newsagency management

Hoyts stops newsagents selling discount movie tickets

Hoyts has complained to our movie ticket supplier (C-Direct) about our good sales of their movie tickets.  They are apparently unhappy that our sales of discount tickets are reducing their margin.  The upshot is that we will no longer be supplied Hoyts tickets.  We have been told that Hoyts objects to tickets being sold by newsagents in a centre with a Hoyts cinema.

If this is true, Hoyts should have allowed for this when they decided to agree to sell discount tickets outside of their own box offices.  To allow us to promote and grow ticket sales and then take the product away is poor form.

I’d be interested to know if other newsagents, particularly those supplied by C-Direct, are affected by this.

We are letting our customers know that this is a Hoyts decision, to deny our customers the opportunity of conveniently saving money on tickets.  This move by Hoyts is sure to damage their brand.

Way to go Hoyts.

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Newsagency challenges

Promoting Dymo labellers

dymo-labeller.JPGWith Dymo advertising on radio at the moment it’s appropriate that we promote their products in a more prominent position – to leverage their advertising spend into sales.  I started doing this in my stores as soon as I heard their ads a couple of times on the radio.  While I wish they had given us a heads up, we responded to the ads with action.  It made me wish that there was a central register of all advertising of products newsagencies typically carry.  We could sure use this.

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Stationery

Promoting Take 5 and the chocolate bar

t5-choc.JPGThe latest issue of Take 5, out yesterday, comes bagged with a free Celebrity Slim chocolate bar as part of a Connections promotion.  We are leveraging the opportunity with an in location display plus an impulse display at the counter.  The counter position worked a treat yesterday with good sales.  It’s nice to see a newspaper customer impulse purchase a magazine.  This is the kind of magazine promotion I like (yes, even though the magazine is bagged).  It is easily understood, well pitched at the Take 5 consumer and taps into a topic of real interest – weight loss.

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magazines

Promoting Campertrailer Australia

campertrailer-aust.JPGOur supply of the latest issue of Campertrailer Australia is double what we expected based on past supply and sales.  I suspect it is because of the bagged issue.  We will give it a god but boy I wish I had a say in supply rather than just receiving a surprise when unpacking magazines in the morning.  It’s my money at risk after all.  My money in labour, retail real estate and theft.  We are supporting the title with a half waterfall.  the rest of the stock is in storage.

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magazines

James Murdoch speaks about the iPad and The Daily

Check out this interview with James Murdoch recorded recently at the 2011 DLD (Digital – Life – Design) Conference held earlier this week in Munich.  The interview is a fascinating insight into the person some say will run News Corp in the future.  It is also offers an insight into the company’s plans for and thinking around its iPad newspaper offering, The Daily.

It is great to have an opportunity to access interviews like this without having to be at the event.

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Media disruption

Barnes & Noble sells 650,000 magazines and subs

min online is reporting that Barnes & Noble has sold 650,000 magazine subscriptions and single copies for its NOOK dihital reader so far.  Whiiile the iPad has been getting the attention, the NOOK has been slowly but surely building a strong following.  650,000 single copy and subs sales is good business.

Check out the NOOK digital newsstand here.

Borders here in Australia is emulating the Barnes and Noble move.

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Media disruption

Giving away a camera for Valentine’s Day

val-camera.JPGOne lucky customer in my stores will win a JVC Picsio pocket camera thanks to the Valentine’s Day promotion from Hallmark Cards.  These seasonal deals help reinforce a point of difference since not all retailers have offers like this for Valentine’s Day. Being known for a great seasonal card range and a place where shoppers win prizes helps bring infrequent card buyers back for the seasons. We are promoting the heck out of the prize for this very reason – we are the only store in each of our centres with such an offer for Valentine’s Day.

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Greeting Cards

Google Australia beefs up

Nick Leeder is leaving his role as Chief Operating Officer at News Digital Media and Deputy CEO at The Australian and joining Google Australia s Managing Director.   This move provides a small insight into the plans Google has for its business … hiring a key executing from Australia’s largest newspaper company.

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Media disruption

Easy cash flow from magazine distribution model

Some magazine publishers have a deal with their magazine distributor which sees them paid an advance of forecasted sales of titles distributed.

This sounds like a money printing arrangement.

Come up with a title, produce it on the cheap by buying in cheap, and I mean really cheap, content from elsewhere, maybe recycled content from another magazine. You then freshen this content up (again, on the cheap), attract a couple of advertisers to fund some of the printing costs, cut a good printing deal and ship the title out to newsagents with a long long on sale period.

The longer the on sale the better for publishers receiving an advance against their forecasted sales.  Such an arrangement could unlock cash for three or four months, enough time for them to get their next money printing title into the newsagency channel.

Newsagents are funding this magazine distribution arrangement.  We pay for stock sometimes within twenty days of it arriving on our shelves.  Some newsagents will not get a credit for a three month on sale title for four months depending on the recall date.

Newsagents are the banker – of the magazine distributor and the magazine publisher in this scenario.  How does it feel to be providing these interest free loans?  How would you feel if you discovered that some magazines are published with the sole purpose of unlocking access to our cash?

I wonder if this is the case with the Google magazine I blogged about recently.

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magazine distribution

Great news – Delicious magazine selling out

delicious-feb2011.JPGWe are one copy away from selling out of the latest issue of Delicious magazine, not even a week into the on-sale.  We did a couple of things differently with this issue: we placed a full cover display at the top of the usual waterfall display and we moved to waterfall deeper into the aisle – so it would not be missed.  While the free tea towel gift with the magazine  may have helped, I suspect that the tactical placement also played a role.  Regardless, a sell out is a sell out and I’ll bank that.

Sometimes, I think that publishers obsess too much about pretty displays and not enough about well thought out tactical placement of magazines in newsagencies.  The sales growth I am seeing today is more likely due to tactical engagement on the shop floor.

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magazines

She magazine sells out in three days

she-feb2011.JPGWe put four copies of the latest issue of She magazine on the shelf on Friday morning.  They sold out in three days.  Nice.  This is another title which responds well to tactical placement.  We did two pockets across directly below two half waterfalls of the latest issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly.  Okay so four copies is not that many.  I’m happy as I bet most of those four were impulse purchases – the best kind of magazine purchases for a newsagency.

Well thought out tactical placement of magazines often pays off.  this is why I prefer to put magazines out myself – there is too much at stake for the business.

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magazines

Taking a different approach with Woman’s Day value offer

womansday-bagged.JPGWe are struggling in one of my stores with the bagged value packs from ACP.  We are taking a different approach with the bagged copies of Woman’s Day and Good Food magazine which arrived yesterday morning.  This time, we have them stacked between our two top selling daily newspapers – away from our women’s weeklies magazine section.  Hopefully, this tactical approach drives incremental business.

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marketing

How some distribution newsagents treat sub agents

I have checked with in a few newsagencies which are sub agents for newspapers to see how they fared with the excellent Herald Sun Australia Day hat offer last Saturday.

If my survey is accurate, distribution newsagents with retail businesses which compete with their sub agents are more likely to have under supplied the hats.  While some of these situations could be due to supply limits, I suspect that some reflect their continued under supply to protect their own competitive position.

Despite extraordinary efforts from some newspaper publishers to ensure enough stock of some giveaways, some distribution newsagents with competing retail outlets seem to find excuses for not stocking their sub agents so that they can reach their full potential.

A most disappointing situation.

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Newsagency challenges
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