Our Julia Gillard lottery syndicate sold out early today while the Tony Abbott syndicate is slowly selling. Customers have been enjoying the fun and making some good comments. Using people or news topics for syndicates is an interesting way of engaging with customers. I like it.
These cufflinks are an ideal add-on to a card purchase. The pair on the left are an ideal graduation gift for a male while the pair on the right make a nice Father’s Day gift. Some newsagents in major shopping centres are facing a challenge from their landlord when they try and add items like cufflinks to their gift range since their leases do not explicitly state that they can sell gifts.
All it takes is a complaint from another tenant to get the landlord interested. In my experience, the landlord tends to side with the more valuable tenant.
I have see situations where the extent of gifts is the store is explicitly limited to a percentage of turnover or floor space. I have seen the same restriction on confectionery and even books – all traditional lines for newsagents.
A permitted use clause which states that you can carry traditional newsagency lines could be problematic at some point as it is open to interpretation as to what constitutes traditional newsagency lines. In one case recently, the landlord said that books were not a traditional newsagency line. The cost of mounting a case to prove otherwise was considerable.
In today’s rapidly changing marketplace, newsagents need to negotiate an appropriately flexible permitted use clause in their lease. That said, landlords need to be fairer in managing permitted use. I bet Australia Post did not have greeting cards, gifts, books and even BBQ sets covered in their permitted use clauses yet there was probably no push back.
The latest issue of Wealth magazine offers up more evidence against the publisher argument that bagging a current issue of a magazine with an old issue boosts sales. Yesterday, after more than a month with zero sales, I took Wealth off the shelves and returned all stock. Clearly, the pitch of BONUS MAGAZINE INSIDE did nothing to drive sales.
Until I see irrefutable proof I will not accept that bagging an old issue of a magazine with a current issue drives a sales boost.
I was surprised to see a significant dip in our supply for the latest issue of The Monthly. While our sales data indicates a cut is warranted, the extent of the cut is odd, especially when considering that this month features Melbourne’s own Minogue sisters. They alone should help drive additional sales.
Despite the cutback, we are promoting The Monthly with an in-location display placed so that everyone entering men’s magazine aisle, where The Monthly usually rests, sees the title as well as around 50% of women entering the women’s magazine aisle. With Kylie and Dannii Minogue on the cover the magazine has significantly broader appeal this month. Someone appears to have missed that.
Hopefully, we sell out and make a point to someone about a missed opportunity.
Based on sales of our Tony Abbott and Juulia Gillard lottery syndicates for tomorrow night’s lottery draw, Julia Gillard will win by two seats.
Click on the image to see a copy of a fax sent to a school by Fairfax inviting them to sell The Sydney Morning Herald on election day last month as a fundraiser. While I am not sure, I expect that other schools which were polling places received similar faxes.
The local newsagent was not party to the offer and only found it about it from the school. There was no plan regarding compensation for sales. As they note shows, they were expected to pick up unsold stock.
The more newspaper publishers promote sales outside the newsagency channel the greater the opportunity newsagencies fade as the go to retail outlet for newspapers. While the election day is a one off offer, I would have preferred to see Fairfax work with newsagents on a joint election day promotion.
As a retail newsagent I would like proactive engagement from publishers and fair business rewards for achieving incremental business. The current approach offers no incentive to grow newspaper sales. They appear to be investing little attention into driving newsagency over the counter sales.
I know of some newsagents who early returned issue 1 of the Art of Crochet part series, deciding to not sell this title. Some soon realised the mistake they made once customers came in asking for the title.
Art of Crochet is delivering excellent traffic to newsagencies – thanks to the TV campaign. In our own case, we are finding that many customers also purchase other items.
Indeed, my newsagency shopping basket research shows that partworks customers are 33% more likely to purchase something in addition to the partwork when they visit the store than a regular magazine customer. 33% more likely! That is a bankable statistic. It is one reason I love partworks.
Some newsagents have said that they didn’t know it would be so successful and this is why they returned the stock. While the distributor and importer did a lousy job presenting the opportunity to newsagents I think that newsagents ought to have been more proactive in researching the title. It would have been easy to do some quick research before deciding to early return the stock.
While both Star Trader and Trader Tag are similar publications my preference is for Star Trader because it is supplied direct to my business and this provides me with a double the margin compared with that for Trader Tag. Being in a shopping centre you have to focus on margin. Unless a title is generating considerably more foot traffic than another title, margin is the most important factor.
The only way to fix this for retail only newsagents is to look at an alternative distribution channel.
While I complained about the packaging of the latest issue of Vogue yesterday, we did manage to create a waterfall display which actually looks quite compelling. The large bag just fits into a magazine pocket. Stacked in as column, as we have them, the display breaks up the women’s magazine aisle quite nicely – it is noticeable from the entrance to the aisle.
Most of our stock is in a dump bin on the dance floor as we feel that this issue will appeal to people who are infrequent purchasers of the title.
We move out of our current location at Forest Hill Chase Shopping Centre on September 13 and the shop will be gutted the next day to make way for construction by the landlord as part of the extension of the shopping centre. If anyone wants newsagency fixtures they would be welcome to take whatever they want the next day. However, you would need to arrange this with us in advance.
We are moving to a temporary location for six months before building a new shop in the centre.
Newsagents are being invited by the ANF to participate in a trial selling magazine subscriptions. I am told they are trying to get in before Australia Post rolls out iSubscribe subscriptions in Post Offices.
I am frustrated that ACP Magazines and Pacific Magazines have been slow to engage with newsagents on the subscription opportunity. We should have had this running five years ago or more. The technology was ready then without the need for middlemen.
Any offer ought to be generous and either based on a chunky payment for a one year sub or slightly lower if we opt to participate in trail. I really like the idea of tail revenue.
WARNING: The last time I wrote about this topic a merchandiser responsible for the placement of a backing card unfairly got into trouble. This blog post is not about merchandisers. It is about deals magazine distributors do selling access to my space without compensating me.
The distributor for M2 magazine arranged Iand probably paid) for this header card to be placed behind the stock for M2. I doubt that the magazine distributors are organising this for free. If I am right then I ought to be paid a fee for allowing this to be done in my store.
Publishers need to realise that while they pay distributors a fee to place header cards, create displays and use newsagent space in a range of ways, newsagents are not compensated.
While some will say that our compensation comes in the form of sales, this is not always the case.
We are promoting Better Basics with an in-location display above the Australian Women’s Weekly in the busiest location of our magazine department. We also have it located in with our food tiles plus one pocket of the title in the column of food titles in with our other weeklies.
We plan a weekend counter promotion from Friday as well. Better Basics is very popular, especially after a push on the Better Homes & Gardens TV show – which I hope they do this week!
Better Basics is a perfect impulse item for newsagents since it is not as frequent as most magazines – we know that it responds well to our co-location strategy and from allocating prime counter space for the weekend.
The bag with this month’s Vogue magazine is a good cut through promotion. It stands out on the shelves. The problem is the plastic bag the magazine and the free bag gift and packaged in. It is thin. More than a third of our stock was damaged. Some of the gift bags were damaged or dirtied as a result. Size is also a problem – This requires a double width pocket and you can only fit one magazine in the double width. While we have half a waterfall of stock displayed this way, we have more stock displayed in the dump bin in the photo on the dance floor.
Attention to execution is key for a successful premium promotion. This latest promotion damages the Vogue brand in my eyes – I say that after having to try and repair packaging for many of the units we received yesterday morning.
A bit late recordding this. The Age two days ago had an ad stuck right over the crest on the masthead of the newspaper. As I have blogged previously – remove the ccrest and sell the space on the page if it means that little to you.
My newsagency software company is getting calls from newsagents encountering issues following changing some system settings under the direction of XchangeIT. While the XchangeIT support people have the best intentions at heart, some changes are best left to the people who know more about specific system settings.
Newsagents who are advised to change settings on their computer system by XchangeIT ought to check first that the advice is approved by their software company.
This situation is quite recent and I am hopeful that it will be addressed quickly.
Politicians concerned about the climate change and the environment ought to take a look at the Australian magazine distribution model.
Every week we remove several trolley loads of unsold magazines from our shelves and either dump them for recycling or create more carbon emissions by returning unsold stock to the supplier warehouse. I am sure that this process is repeated in newsagencies across the country.
Beyond the labour, real-estate and opportunity cost to newsagents of magazines which fail to sell, there is a significant cost to the environment of the current magazine distribution model:
If you take the top 200 magazines out of the mix you soon see a serious level of paper and carbon waste in the magazine distribution model. There are titles which consistently sell under 50% of what are sent to many newsagencies. While complaints always bring out excuses, there is no excuse which justifies such waste and damage to the environment.
There is no penalty on magazine distributors for supplying more magazines than they know will sell. Some publishers operate under a model where underperforming titles do not harm their bottom line. This lack of a penalty could be a factor in the environmental laziness of the model.
I would welcome politicians (the Greens with the balance of power in the Senate from next year?) to look at the magazine model from the perspective of its impact on the environment for this would bring issues of concern to newsagents into focus.
There ought to be an acceptable return percentage agreed and a penalty imposed, to be paid to newsagents, for titles which do not meet this minimum standard. Further, such titles ought to be able to be recycled locally rather than returned as full copy returns.
This is good an avenue of investigation for newsagents – pursuing the magazine model as an environmental issue rather than purely a newsagent economics issue.
I raised this with Bob Brown’s office during the election and plan to raise it again once the current dust storm settles.
An article in the Australian Financial Review on Monday foreshadowed major changes at Fairfax, especially for The Age and the The Sydney Morning Herald. While the next announcements are expected to be more about editorial than distribution, it has been suggested to me that a distribution review could lead to a shake up in the model.
The issue, as always, is about cost. The cost of landing a newspaper on a subscriber’s lawn is considerable. It is natural that publishers are looking for ways to cut distribution costs.
Tower Systems is in the process of getting final artwork approval on two posters for newsagents selling Blackhawk gift cards. Developed in-house by the Tower marketing team for exclusive use by the Tower Newsagent network, the posters are designed to encourage sales of gift cards along with greeting cards in newsagencies offering the Blackhawk range. Once Blackhawk approval is obtained, the artwork will be made available.
I have heard from a couple of people that government owned Australia Post outlets, as opposed to privately owned Licenced Post Offices, are introducing selected confectionery and convenience lines to their business. If these reports are true, I would ask on what basis can Australia Post further move into areaswell served by private enterprise, newsagents especailly.
Paragraphs 14 through 16 of Division 1 or Part 2 of the Australian Postal Corporation Act 1989 document the functions of The Australian Postal Corporation, better known as Australia Post:
14 Functions – the principal function
The principal function of Australia Post is to supply postal services
within Australia and between Australia and places outside Australia.15 Functions – subsidiary function
A subsidiary function of Australia Post is to carry on, outside Australia, any business or activity relating to postal services.16 Functions – incidental businesses and activities
(1) The functions of Australia Post include the carrying on, within or
outside Australia, of any business or activity that is incidental to:
(a) the supplying of postal services under section 14; or
(b) the carrying on of any business or activity under section 15.
(2) Without limiting subsection (1), the functions of Australia Post
include the carrying on, within or outside Australia, of any
business or activity that is capable of being conveniently carried
on:
(a) by the use of resources that are not immediately required in
carrying out Australia Post’s principal or subsidiary function;
or
(b) in the course of:
(i) supplying postal services under section 14; or
(ii) carrying on any business or activity under section 15.
I am curious how the possible move into confectionery and Australia Post’s aggressive move into the retailing of office products, greeting cards, telco recharge, Western Union money transfer and bill payment fits into the functions provided for under the Act. The only means I can see is if they are using resources “not immediately required in carrying out Australia Post’s principal or subsidiary function”.
This is a Corporation created by the Government to regulate the manufacture, distribution and retail of postal services. Around 80% of what is on the shop fllor of a government owned Australia Post soft is not incidental to the provision of postal services.
I would like to see politicians look at the revenue Australia Post is taking from family run businesses like newsagencies as a policy issue.
In writing about Australia Post I run the risk of alienating the many newsagents who operate Licenced Post Offices. I have no quarrel with them since they run broader businesses of which their Post Office counter is part. No, my quarrel is with the politicians who have turned a blind eye to the expansion of products and services offered through the Australia Post corporate stores.
It is good to see the latest issue of MasterChef magazine out. We are following what has worked well for us – placement in three locations. Besides placement in with food titles, we have a pocket with our weeklies and the display in the photo next to the ACP impulse stand at our main counter.
We have been locating the tall orange stand next to our newspaper stand and felt that a change for this month was warranted – more for the sake of change than anything else. Of course, if we notice any drop off in sales we will go back to the newspaper stand.
With ads on TV already for the Junior MasterChef TV show, the brand is not fading from interest consumer interest any time soon.
MasterChef magazine is number 11 in top selling magazines based on unit sales. Newsagents need to tap into its extraordinary growth by doing more than only placing it with food titles as I saw in a couple of locations with the last issue. This title is being bought by people who do not browse food titles.
Our simple placement of the latest issue of Biblical Archaeology on our newspaper stand last week saw us sell out in four days – a nice addition to any shopping basket.
Look at the photo carefully and you can see that we have having a double crack at promoting the latest issue of Top Gear magazine. There is the in location display (which is now a regular feature of our Top Gear strategy) and a metre or so away a display which is stuck on the back of a couple of impulse units at the main sales counter. guys shopping this aisle will find it hard to miss this month’s Top Gear.
We are back promoting Donna Hay magazine at the counter for a few days.
Our Pregnancy magazine display didn’t generate any sales when it was here so we had to make a move. Donna Hay responds well to this impulse purchase location.
The Connect website is down. A power disruption is affecting Touch (Tafmo) and this is impacting their phone system.