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.
We have sold out of some of the Father’s Day gifts we purchased especially for the season. That’s a nice result a few weeks out from the big day and encouraging for expanding the gift department outside of major seasons.
The gifts which have performed best so far are wine related – carry bags, kits, bottle holders.
I was saddened to hear the new that Daryl Fedden, a stalwart of the newspaper and magazine industry in Victoria and nationally for over 30 years passes away on Monday afternoon after a long illness.
Daryl served as Circulation Director of The Age and Herald & Weekly Times and held senior executive roles with Southdown Press and Gordon and Gotch.
I knew Daryl as the magazine expert of the newsagency channel of the day. He was an innovator, encouraging newsagents on range and display. I recall him, many years ago, trying to educate newsagents on the importance of full face displays. Back then, newsagents used to show around half the face of a magazine vertically.
Daryl was a gentleman. He loved newsagencies and worked tirelessly on our behalf even though he was employed by our suppliers. He helped many newsagents get their start and to overcome tough times. He also helped many newsagency suppliers.
Daryl Fedden’s influence can be seen today in our considerable market share of magazine sales in Australia.
Daryl’s passing is sad news.
We are using Your Garden as the anchor title for a spring gardening display out the front of our newsagency this week. We put this display up Monday morning and it is drawing good interest. Our plan is to leave it run through the week and the weekend before assessing sales. You can see from the photo that we have not over cluttered the display – our preference is to promote known titles which have achieved good sales for us in the past.
Publishers will think they can’t take a trick when they read this blog post. The delayed billing introduced by Universal Magazines for some of their titles is doing us no favours. Sure there is a delay for payment but we still have to find the stock. Plus, the way they handle the delay through XchangeIT means that we do not have accurate data on the shop floor indicating when the title came in. Regardless of delayed billing, if a title does not start to sell within the first month I am likely to want to return it. Publishers need to realise that product cost is only one of four factors in the cost equation.
The Darrell Lea Dad’s Bags for Father’s Day have started selling even though the big day is weeks away. We have the display in the photo at the front of the store facing into the mall, near to our three stands of Father’s Day cards. While 80% of Father’s Day purchases are made in the last week of the season, winning those sales happens early in the cycle due to consistent display like we have in the photo.
Our real push for Father’s Day started this week with a big book sale which is being promoted in catalogues delivered to homes around our shopping centre. Our experience is that Father’s Day is in the top three of book buying seasons.
At the trade shows I have attended recently – Melbourne Gift Fair and GNS Market Fairs in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth – conversations with newsagents invariably turn to the anticipated health of retail and newsagencies in particular. I have heard mixed expectations of what Christmas 2010 might bring for our channel.
What are your expectations for Christmas sales this year?
I must say that at the moment I am feeling pessimistic about Christmas 2010. The stimulus money has long gone, consumer credit is tight, jobs are under pressure, other retailers are moving more into the traditional newsagency offer, some traditional newsagency suppliers are focusing attention away from our channel, more shopping centres are opening than warranted by population growth and the magazine distribution model has not adjusted for the double digit decline in magazine sales over the last year.
Newsagent suppliers tell me that Christmas orders are down on last year.
So, what are your expectations for Christmas sales this year?
There has some concern expressed by newsagents about the quantity of issue 1 of The Art of Crochet part series which arrived in-store yesterday. The Art of Crochet is anticipated to be the biggest partwork launch this year. It is being backed by a national TV campaign promoting newsagencies as the go to places for this title.
My understanding is that the publisher and distributor are hoping to sell more than 100,000 copies of issue 1. This would put it within reach of the performance of the Masterchef launch.
I am not that concerned about the quantities of issue 1 sent to newsagents. The scale out was based on sales for The Art of Knitting as I understand it. I sold 235 copies of The Art of Knitting and received 280 copies The Art of Crochet.
I am responding to the opportunity with a display at the front of the newsagency, an impulse display near our newspaper stand and a bold display in our partworks department which is appropriately located with knitting and crochet magazines.
While newsagents need to make their own decisions about early returns, I’d suggest they hang on to The Art of Crochet for the next two weeks, promote the heck out of the title and measure sales before making an early return decision.
As UK newsagent Steve Denham noted in a comment here last month, sales for the first issue were “huge”. Unfortunately, Steve noted about supply challenges. Hopefully, the publisher has used UK learnings in setting the supply model for Australia.
Footnote: The Art of Knitting has been extraordinarily successful for us with customers sustaining putaway orders long after the launch.
We have promoted the latest issue of Health Smart magazine in with our weeklies as well as its usual location over the last few days. We opted for the tactical placement because of the free Biggest Loser branded calorie counter which is stuck to the cover of the magazine. This premium value drove good impulse business for the title for us over the last few days.
We are always looking at magazine covers for opportunities like this. Our magazine department is perfroming well as a result.
We have moved Annette Sym’s Symply Too Good To be True 6 to a small display next to our main newspaper stand – in addition to two other locations. Symply Too Good To be True 6 continues to sell well, making a mockery of the newsagents who early returned stock when the title first came out. Ignorant action like this by some newsagents brings shame on the rest of the newsagency channel. Too much of this action will give publishers reasons to look elsewhere for a distribution channel.
The best approach for this title is to put it in a high traffic location – at the counter, with your weekly magazines, with newspapers. Such tactical placement can be more beneficial than a big bold display for some titles. I have found that to be the case with Symply Too Good 6.
While I am on the record as not linking these magazine discount packages, we are giving the latest – NW and OK! – a run in a dump bin located next to our main newspaper stand. We took this approach for the last discount pack from ACP and it worked well for us. I do not want to place these discount packs in our regular fixturing as I do not want to educate regular customers to not pay full cover price.
We are promoting New Idea at the counter for the next few days because of thier tremendous support of Daffodil Day. 10 cents from every magazine sold goes to the Daffodil Day campaign. We have placed the remaining Daffodil Day merchandise next to the counter display for New Idea.
Pacific Magazines has a good track record for supporting charities by donating money from the sale of each copy of a magazine to an important cause. It is important that we newsagents tap into the spirit of the Pacific commitment and try and drive sales to maximise the donation.
We plan to keep the display up until Wednesday depending on sales.
I have heard recently of a newsagent permanently offering 10% off magazines as their poijt of difference strategy. This is bold step because of the slim margin, 25%, and that they are in a shopping mall with a high floor space cost.
While the magazine club card we run effectively offers a discount, the 1.5% cost is nowhere near as expensive as a 10% across the board discount – plus it requires the customer topurchase anabove average quantity of magazines over 8 weeks.
I would be interested to hear what other newsagents think of a permanent 10% discount off magazines? Is it an appropriate point of difference for a newsagency?
My argument against this is that newsagencies provide an excellent point of difference to other magazine retailers.
Maybe I am wrong but permanently discount magazines is like you are saying you cannot compete on these points and that price is the only unique selling proposition. My view is that price is no USP at all.
I was in Perth yesterday for the GNS Market Fair. It was a good trade show for the newsagency channel. While not as big as those already this year in Melbourne and Sydney, the Perth fair was busy with business … plenty of business in fact. I was surprised at the range of good quality sales leads – there were plenty of newsagents making plans for a strong finish to 2010.
The difference in trading conditions and business management factors across the country is as strong as ever based on what I have see that the three GNS Market Fairs so far.
GNS put on a good event in Perth, plenty of space, well laid out plus free food and drink!