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

What do consumers think about bagged magazines?

Check out this post at a caravan forum from someone who bought a bagged caravan magazine:

Just purchased a caravan review magazine (it doesn’t matter what name) and I feel badly ripped off, the magazine was sold as a new issue and included two bonus mags.

But wait there is more, it turned out the review magazine was over twelve months old, I brought it to get details and prices on new vans, if a publisher wants to re issue a magazine it should be stated on the wrapping.

It has made my decision easy, I will not be buying any magazines from that publisher in future as there are other caravan mags

My feelings on bagged magazines, especially those with “bonus” issues is well covered at this blog.  I think they are a rip off and a drain on newsagents and the environment.

It is only our returning of unsold stock which enables publishers to do this.  As canvassed here recently, maybe we should stop returning unsold stock for some of these titles.

Despite claims from publishers that bagged magazine sell, many bagged issues contain old recycled junk.  Some as old as four and five years.  As they say at the caravan forum – caveat emptor, let the buyer beware.

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magazine distribution

Canadian magazine distributor enters app buisness

Check out the report about Canadian magazine distributor, Disticor, and their move into the app business offering digital editions of the physical product they distribute.  What is especially interesting is the availability of back issues.  Back issues used to be a ood market for newsagents and a point of difference for us.  That point of difference is all but lost today thanks to our distributors.

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magazine distribution

Promoting Melbourne Wedding & Bride

weddingandbride.JPGWe are promoting the latest issue of Melbourne Wedding & Bride with this aisle end display in one of my stores.  Indeed, we have the title in prominent locations in all of my newsagencies.  My experience is that Melbourne Wedding & Bride responds well to promotion in high-traffic location.  While some sales are to customers seeking out the title, most purchases are on impulse.  We are driving the impulse opportunity by promoting the $6.95 price tag – this is particularly good value in the wedding magazine space.

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magazines

Recycling merchandise units

val-choc.JPGWith the Darrell Lea Valentine’s Day merchandise unit late in arriving, our team has improvised by recycling a desk calendar stand and plaving it next to Valentine’s Day cards.  It’s working a treat – especially having it next to our Valentine’s Day card display.  While most of the Valentine’s Day business is done in the last week, sales in these early weeks are well worth getting. Also, a good display today lets people know where to come when they do want to purchase.

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confectionary

ASIC bans Bill Express related director for 4 years

ASIC last week based Sandro DiDonato from being a director for four years because of matters relating to the collapse of Bill Express and OnQ.  Check out the report in The Sydney Morning Herald.

I June 2008 I blogged about Sandro DiDonato and his role in a web of companies related to Bill Express.

It will be interesting to see if any of the Bill Express directors are ever held accountable.

Newsagents lost millions of dollars from Bill Express,  They were led into the bill payment business by the ANF without any due diligence and buckled in the face of high pressure selling techniques – locking them into five year contracts.

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Bill Express

Two points about the latest HELLO! magazine

hello-bag.JPGThe latest issue of HELLO! magazine sold out in under 24 hours at my newsXpress Forest Hill store.  The free thongs with the title did the trick.  We helped sales along with a full face display next to the weeklies.

My second point about this issue of HELLO! is a note for publishers.  They bagged the title but in a premium way.  See the use of colour on the strip at the top of the bag – promoting the thongs.   Also, their representation of the magazine name.  This is much better than for most other bagged titles.

While this strip at the top of the bag encroaches on the magazine title in the pocket above, the quality of the strip itself, is key to success for this issue of the magazine.

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magazine distribution

Amazon windfall from online coupon campaign

Amazon offered a $20 gift card for sale through LivingSocial, a 1-day deal website, for $10. 1.35 million people grabbed the deal.  People grabbed it too: more than 1.35 million of them.  Analysts are saying that while the discount was steep, Amazon got more value from the buzz of the deal than it cost in the discount given.  Then there is the breakage – the gift cards which are not used.Finally, Amazon recently invested in LivingSoial so they are boosting their investment.

What is interesting here is how deals are now promoted.  Companies used to pay for advertising in TV and in newspapers and magazines to promote special offers.  In today’s world, smart companies are using sites like LivingSocial and Groupon and their communities to drive more immediate success for their deals.

Here in Australia, deal a day sites are still in their infancy.  I’d encourage newsagents to check them out.  They can offer a low cost marketing opportunity.

The New York Times has published a piece offering perspective on the Amazon deal.

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Media disruption

Customer owns up to farting in a newsagency

It’s true and happened this week. A customer browsing cards apologised for farting to one of our team members who was also in the card department, putting out new stock.  While there have been many suspicious odors in the newsagency over the years, no one has owned up.  How decent, any funny, is that! The customer was not embarrassed. Card sales slowed for a while.

Every newsagent has their stories of weird experiences with customers.  Here are a couple of other true stories from our fifteen years (next month) at Forest Hill Chase – but only read if you are prepared to be shocked.

  • About fourteen years ago a mother (in her 70s) and daughter came in an asked if we have magazines showing naked guys. The story was that the mum has been widowed for twenty or so years and wanted a reminder of what it looked like.  We were able to satisfy the curiosity.  Unfortunately, they were only browsing and not buying.
  • Not long after the mum incident, we had to stop a teenage boy (we think around fourteen) from accessing too much personal enjoyment from one of our soft core porn titles in the far corner of the shop on a busy Saturday morning. He, too, left without making a purchase.

Yes, we have had our usual run of kids going to the toilet – 1s, 2s and both – and parents walking away and other stories but it is these three stories which will stick in our minds.

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Newsagency challenges

Personalising lottery syndicates drives sales

syndicate-name.JPGWe have changed our approach to naming lottery syndicates and its is helping drive sales.  Whereas in the past we had used aspirational names, we have now linked team member names with the aspiration – as shown in the example in the photo – Jason’s Island.  There is an element of competition – by team members and customers – in the naming.  It’s fun.

There is nothing new in this idea, plenty do it.  I mention it here to reflect the opportunity of change.  This is the third change to how we name our lottery syndicates in three years.  While each change gives a kick, the change this time around has worked particularly well.

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Lotteries

Loving Country Living magazine

country-living.JPGHow great is a monthly magazine which sells 90% of its allocation within a few days of the on-sale?  Great, of course!

The latest issue of Country Living magazine has done just that.  In four days.  Yes, we are chasing extra stock.  We were caught a bit off guard as this is the Christmas issue.  However, we should have known better as all country related titles are selling very well for us.

We have not done anything all that special for the title – except use it as our beacon brand for the country magazines section – meaning we started with a half waterfall and with the full cover of the copy at the top of the waterfall on display.

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magazines

Promoting Wheels Car of the Year issue

wheels-feb2011.JPGWe are promoting the Wheels magazine Car of the Year issue with additional in-location space in the car section of our magazine display.

With the media coverage of this issue over the last couple of days we expect good weekend business for the title.  On the on-sale day we also had product located with newspapers.

The car segment is doing it tough so any opportunity to draw attention to not only a specific title but the whole segment has to be embraced by newsagents.

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magazines

Crikey brings attention to special interest magazine challenge

crikey-blog.jpgIt was good to see Crikey today cover my blog post about Rolling Stone magazine and the importance of traffic to drive special interest magazine sales in Australian newsagencies.  Crikey is sent to 35,000+ subscribers.  Hopefully magazine publishers take note of the importance of traffic in our channel to support the overall health of magazine sales in Australia.

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magazine distribution

Banking flood appeal money

floodmoney.JPGWe banked our first deposit of flood appeal money on Wednesday, $375.  We should have another $300 or so to bank by next Monday.  Customers are being very generous. As we promised our customers, we have the receipt on display, near the collection container.

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Social responsibility

Promoting Back to School

fhnbts.JPGWe are promoting Back to School at the entrance to our tiny 95 sq m temporary location with a table of specials and a help yourself flyer promoting these specials.  This promoting, right at the lease line, has been drawing good traffic from the mall.  As I mentioned a few days ago, it is also driving good, regular margin, ink business.  This year, our BTS campaign is tiny given the limited space in-store.  BTS is an excellent marketing segue from post Christmas sales into Valentine’s Day, no matter how big or small the campaign.

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Stationery

UK supermarket brings beauty salon to supermarkets

Giant UK supermarket group Tesco is launching a chain of beauty salons, with reports suggesting up to 70 salons by next year.

This is interesting on a couple of levels: the competition from a major retailer to a previously independent service offer and the extent to which a business like Tesco can and will evolve from its traditional model in order to achieve growth.

The second point is the more interesting from a newsagent perspective since we need to be discovering new revenue and traffic generating opportunities for our businesses.

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Newsagency challenges

New generation ads for the iPad experience

An article in the San Francisco Chronicle about a new partnership between a magazine publisher (Bonnier – Popular Science, Parenting and 53 other titles) and an advertising business (CP+B) highlights the pursuit of innovation by some publishers of new advertising experiences which leverage the differences of the iPad medium compared to the print experience.  Fascinating.  2011 is shaping up as a year of considerable change.

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magazines

ACP launches Magshop iPad app for digital magazines

ACP Magazines has made accessing digital magazines easier with the launch yesterday of an iPad app for its magshop subscription service.  The Australian has a report on this move.

ACP could not ignore the growing digital channel so I understand their move.  Hopefully newsagents take note and realise that the world is changing.

It’s galling seeing media outlets calling this a digital newsstand – it only has a fraction of the range available form a newsstand like your average Australian newsagency.

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magazines

Why is the Greens vote not reflected in magazine sales?

gmagazine.JPGSales of G and other Green issue magazines do not appear to reflect the strong voter support for Green issues as seen in the recent federal election.  Data I have seen indicates little or no sales growth.  I expected to see something given the extraordinary vote surge between federal polls.  It makes me wonder if the voter surge is people wanting others to do the work for them or  whether it is a pity vote – pity the environment.  While it could be argued that magazine sales are not a fair indication of community engagement with an issue, I would have expected that sales G and other green related magazines would provide a fair indication.  I am left wondering, why sales of green titles are not surging.

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Environment

Have you heard of Groupon?

Groupon is being hailed as the next big online ‘thing’. It attracts business from companies which would otherwise have used traditional media to reach consumers.

Groupon launched in 2008. It’s a deal-of-the-day website that is localised to major markets in the US, Canada, Brazil, Germany, France, the UK and a bunch of other countries. It offers one Groupon each day for each of the 150+ locations it serves. Businesses use the service as they would advertising except that with each Groupon there is a clear call to action.

The company just completed another round of funding which has resulted in the business being valued at around US$4.5buillion.  Not bad for a start-up from 2008.  We are going to hear a lot more about Groupon and the look-alike companies in this offer a day space.

I have been signed up for Groupon for a while.  The deals which come through, while not available here, are fascinating.

Zoupon is an Australian site which plays in the same deal a day space.

In a related story, Amazon last week launched an iPhone App which offers daily deals.  This and Groupon are examples of new channels for promoting specials and sales.

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marketing

Promoting The Australian Women’s Weekly

aww-feb2011.JPGWe are promoting the latest issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly with one of our in-location displays.  These work a treat for AWW in our stores.

We will leave the display as shown in the photo in place for two weeks.

AWW is also on display next to the Herald Sun newspaper and this will stay in place for the first week of the on-sale.  Typically, in the first week, we can see 25% or more sales come from stock located next to the newspaper.

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magazines

Ink the Back to School opportunity for newsagents

ink-jan2011.JPGI was talking with a newsagent yesterday who was surprised to hear that I treated ink as part of the Back to School offer.  Given the volume of printing at home for almost all levels of schools, ink is a natural focus for any Back to School campaigns.  Now is the time of the year to help parents stock up.

We are enjoying an excellent boost in ink sales thanks to our price competition with the majors – while still maintaining a good margin.   We are promoting ink by offering a good range of brand name ink on display in an accessible location with easy to see pricing.

I’d encourage every newsagent to include an ink offer as part of their Back to School pitch – but don’t do the usual drop your pants approach to margin.

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Stationery
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