NEWSPAPERS as we know them will be irrelevant within 12 years, according to futurist Ross Dawson, who said journalism would be largely ‘crowdsourced’. The Australian, Monday August 24.
I participated in a newspaper study recently and was asked the same question. University students researching the newsagency channel often ask the same question. I wonder if this is something newsagents think about. If not, we should.
Not winning any major awards at this year PANPA (Pacific Area Newspaper Association) Awards, News Limited has taken to deriding them in The Australian today. I seem to recall a different approach when a News Limited newspaper won a major award.
Personally, I think the PANPA awards are irrelevant. All that matters in today’s marketplace is genuinely paid for sales.
Australian Property Investor magazine responded well to our weekend promotion. The tactical placement with newspapers did especially well, adding copies of the title to newspaper sales as he hoped it would. I understand that there will be more media support for this issue this week so it is not too late for newsagents to promote the title in high traffic lcoations.
We promoted Australian Muscle Car over the weekend with an in-location display.
With our men’s magazine aisle the most browsed on weekends, we wanted to take an opportunity to draw attention to this popular title.
Given the results achieved by the display, we now plan to leave it up until the end of this week.
I have been contacted by publishers asking how to get this featured treatment across the channel. That is a challenge since I firmly believe that newsagents need to have the capacity to promote titles which work best in their local situation. We only make money off selling magazines after all.
The masthead of the Sydney Sun Herald newspaper today is partially obscured by another of the stuck on ads which you need to peel off if you want to see the editorial content underneath. At the Sydney newsstand where I purchased my copy this afternoon I saw four ads littering the floor. The same stuck on ad is running on the front cover The Sunday Age today.
I know my blogging about this will not change the Fairfax sell-out of their masthead. It does, however, provide a record for those who are tracking how newspaper publishers are treating their brands in this disruptive print world.
No so long ago, tattoo magazines were tucked away in a corner in newsagencies, treated almost as an embarrassment in our range. Today, thanks to the love of ink by celebrities such as Angelina Jolie and Harry Kewell and their featuring on covers, tattoo magazines are more mainstream than ever.
We are recognising the broader appeal by giving tattoo titles more time outside their traditional location, chasing impulse purchases. Modern Ink with Angelina on the cover for example, has been given a run away from the tattoo titles – reflecting the more mainstream appeal of the magazine.
Newsagents have an opportunity with tattoo titles to grow sales when a star is on the cover. This is what we are pursuing with some success.
The Age newspaper was five hours late getting to some newsagencies yesterday. Many customers did not receive home delivery copies at all. This made for some very angry customers – especially in retail only newsagencies. In a couple of instances I have heard of, the limited stock which did ultimately arrive was sold out by 2pm. Not a good situation all round.
There is irony in the SOLD OUT signs on the poster promoting our Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott Tattslotto syndicates. It was not lost on some of our customers either – one customer went and found her husband and brought him in for a shared laugh.
For the record, Tony Abbott sold out faster than Julia Gillard but only by a half an hour or so. Just over half of our customers bought a share in each syndicate.
We plan to do more of these smaller basket building syndicates with news of the day themes as appropriate.
newsXpress has announced a one day travelling newsagent conference to be held in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth next month. The conference is open to all newsagents regardless of marketing group affiliation.
Six expert speakers will present on topics of vital importance to newsagents. Each session will share practical ideas which can be taken and used right away in any size newsagency without needing to spend money on changes.
The goal of the one day conference is provide genuine value advice and insight to help build stronger and more valuable newsagencies.
The one day conference starts at 10am and runs to 4pm. There will be a trade show representing a small selection of suppliers with special deals for all newsagents. Lunch and other refreshments will also be provided. Participation costs just $50.00.
This one day conference format was created understanding that it was challenging for many newsagents to leave their businesses for more than a day at a time let alone travel interstate to a conference.
Click here for a one page brochure and registration form. Click here to book online.
Disclosure: I am a Director of newsXpress.
I have had my iPad for a while now and find myself making good use of it for business as well as for pleasure. I have just finished reading my first novel on the device and am very happy with the experience. I am also using the iPad for email and web access when on the road.
To the many sceptics about this and similar devices from earlier this year, I’d say that the iPad and similar devices can only get better with time.
I am not currently subscribing to any Australian newspapers. The best newspaper app is that for the New Zealand Herald. The best magazine app is that for Popular Mechanics. My biggest complaint is the restrictions on books available through Apple for the Australian market.
The iPad is a game changer for print media, maybe not being felt today but certainly in the near medium term. Newspaper publishers here are rushing new app offers as are magazine publishers – now that they have seen the economic value of the iPad app channel.
My understanding is that News is recasting the app for The Australian. Someone told me this was due to the drop off of first time app subscriptions.
Here is another example where bagging a magazine with an old issue has not delivered the growth publishers talk of for bagged product. The new issue of Golf Magazine went on sale yesterday so I checked sales for the old issue (pictured) which was bagged with a previous issue … no sales lift for us. I doubt publisher claims that bagging a magazine with an old issue lifts sales – show me sales data and I may change my mind but in my store I am not seeing it.
We have copied the brilliant election themed lottery syndicate pitch from newsXpress Riverlink and created two syndicates for tonight. They have been on sale for a day and sales have been good. We have priced these at five dollars a share with the view that existing syndicate and lottery customers will add these to their basket.
Just having the syndicate offer up is creating some good counter conversation.
Newsagents are being urged by XchangeIT to ensure that they have the absolute latest software from the various newsagency software companies. This is essential to ensure accurate data flow back to the magazine distributors and thereby protects newsagents from an XchangeIT fee penalty. If you are not sure, check with your software company.
Having the latest software is vital for compliance today and to prepare you for the next round of enhancements to the EDI platform.
Tower Systems has the latest XchangeIT ready software update available from the website.
The latest issue of Australian Property Investor went on sale on Wednesday. It has a stunning gold cover – promoting the HOT 100 feature. Today Tonight has filmed a story which is expected to be on air tonight. There will be extensive press coverage of the cover story in national, metro and regional newspapers this weekend and into next week. We are promoting Australian Property Investor with our newspaper stand to leverage this media coverage.
Scandal, joy and misery connected with famous people sell magazines. While I am happy for the sales, it is not an appealing part of being a newsagent. We have put such thoughts aside today and placed the special edition of New Idea next to our main newspaper stand as well as at the counter and in the usual weekly magazines section.
Magazine theft is costing newsagents between 3% and 5% of total magazine sales. Publishers and magazine distributors accept no responsibility even though they control the range and volume or magazine stock we receive. Worse, still, most newsagents do not take basic steps to understand the problem.
Newsagents need to ask themselves if they really have a handle on the cost of theft relating to magazines. My experience is that few newsagents actually do – they ignore tools available to them to understand the financial cost of magazine related theft.
Think about it, magazines are one of the most tightly controlled parts of our business. We know exactly what we receive, what we sell and what we return.
Using the Magazine Discrepancy Report (actually called the Magazine Issue Performance Report) in the Tower Systems newsagency software, newsagents are able to immediately see discrepancies between supply and sale and return numbers. This discrepancy reflects either customer theft or employee theft.
The report is produced as part of the returns process. Once magazine returns are scanned, the report indicates the difference between what is being returned and what should be returns based on supply and sales data.
Here you have a report which documents exactly what has been stolen by staff and customers yet all too often newsagents ignore the opportunity in the report.
We ought to hunt down every single title which the discrepancy report says is missing. But we don’t. We are either too lazy, too ignorant or too scared to look at the Discrepancy Report and face the reality that we have been stolen from by employees or customers.
The first lesson of good theft management in a newsagency is to understand the problem. The Discrepancy Report helps newsagents do this in the context of magazines – without any extra work involved. Just by doing what you need to do each day you are tracking theft.
I was talking with a newsagent late last week about magazine theft and once we dug into his data we saw that magazine theft was costing 3% of magazine revenue. In this particular instance, two thirds of the magazine theft was employee theft. Kaching … yes that is cash bleeding from the business which can now be avoided.
I am sure that other newsagency software programs have similar reports on magazine theft. If they don’t then shame on them. My call to newsagents with this blog post is to USE YOUR SOFTWARE, track magazine theft every week, act on the results and take a zero tolerance approach to any discrepancy between the magazine returns you scan and what you expected to scan.
Remember, it is your money.
We are promoting Pregnancy magazine at the main counter thanks to the free DVD which comes with the latest issue. This is an unusual title for us to promote in this high impact location – we are keen to see how it responds.
While we received other titles on Wednesday which would be a more natural fit for this space, we wanted to run with Pregnancy to promote a rarely promoted title and to tap into the approaching spring season.
I am a fan of promoting magazine titles which are outside the most popular to show off our depth of range and to promote titles other newsagents are not promoting.
We are giving Girlfriend magazine a good run with an in-location display in its usual location. This latest issue has a very stylish cover – replicated on the poster – which beautifully cuts through the visual noise in the magazine aisle. We plan to leave this display up for the next week. Girlfriend responds well to these in-location displays.
Talk about engaging the community! newsXpress Riverlink started offering lottery syndicates based on the leaders of the two major parties in the lead up to the election. Customers could purchase based on their preferred leader. Given the status of the election result, they are continuing with the offer – and sales have been good. This is a terrific idea, leveraging the community connection in a newsagency compared to what does not exist in the national retail chains.
I love that this idea is fun, good for business and good for customer interaction.
I have heard from a couple of newsagents that nearby schools used as polling places for the election wereoffered newspapers for sale on the day by a publisher with the school to make $1.00 per newspaper sold. In the cases I have been told about, the newsagent was not part of the conversation.
I’d be curious if anyone else heard about this promotion.
We are leveraging the early publication of Who today and the exclusive interview with Tiger Woods’ now ex wife by placement at the counter and our main newspaper stand. We want to capture as much impulse business as possible. I’d note that this early publication is for subruban newsagents in New South Wales and Victoria only. The rest of the country will receive Who tomorrow as usual.
Frankie magazine achieved a jump of 43.2% in the latest circulation audit results – the biggest circulation increase of any magazine. I have been a fan of Frankie for ages, thanks to its unique look and growing sales. I love any magazine with a sell through rate of 90% and above.
We are helping push sales for the latest issue of Frankie, which went on sale yesterday, with a simple in-location display – as you can see in the photo. I’d encourage other newsagents to do the same.
The sales growth for Frankie indicates that there are excellent opportunities for the newsagency channel with this title. We plan to leave the display up for at least a week.
While not getting any collateral will be a drawback for some newsagents, a few copies of the cover is enough to create a display. You are better off promoting a title which is enjoying a strong growth curve than a title which is delivering flat or declining sales.
Given the success we had recently with the Is God really Dead? magazine cover, I decided to place the latest issue of Biblical Archaeology Review on our main newspaper stand. I figured the GOD’S REVENGE? cover story may appeal to the same customers. I’ll give it a couple days.
I love a good magazine cover which can help us drive impulse business for a title by placing it outside its usual location.
You can’t miss the latest issue of the Australian Women’s Weekly at our newsXpress Forest Hill store this week. Shoppers entering our business magazine aisle and those having purchased from elsewhere and heading to the counter can see the title in three locations: in the ACP basket builder stand, in a impulse display at the entrance to the aisle and in a double waterfall in-location display.
While our approach may not be the billboard type promotion publishers like to see, I expect it will be more effective than a billboard would have been. We are targeting browsing followed by purchase as well as impulse purchase at the counter.
We plan to maintain this level of coverage until Monday when we will adjust our approach to AWW.
We are promoting Gourmet Traveller to shoppers leaving our main magazine aisle. While not a huge seller for us, the annual Gourmet Traveller restaurant guide with this issue should help drive sales. We also have the title in a couple of pockets in the food section.
This simple display at the exit from the aisle off of which shoppers can purchase the promoted title is working well. It is a simple and effective use of what is often dead space in newsagencies.