The Australian is reporting this morning that supermarket chain Woolworths is reducing space for magazines at the checkout counter. It will be interesting to see if they follow the Coles trend of creating a newsagency-like store within a store.
I am glad that Woolworths is making this move. The tougher they are on magazines the better. This will tell publishers something about that channel versus the newsagency channel.
A couple of newsagents contacted me last week about a “Yellow Pages” scam. They con you into thinking they are from the real Yellow Pages and that you owe money. It soon escalates and some business people feel enough pressure to send payment to make it go away. The scan is usually operated by people working overseas. Spam Laws has a bit to say about the Yellow Pages Scam. The BBC also published a report earlier this year.
Good basic advice: don’t sign anything without being sure of its authenticity, if something sounds too good to be true it probably is, the Yellow Pages operates in Australia and would never ask you to send money overseas, tell employees to be wary of scams – even from people offering to help the business for free.
A recent report, Million Dollar Strategies For Newspaper Companies, by the World Association of Newspapers shows some interesting numbers of electronic edition subscriptions achieved by US publishers.
The numbers do need to be read with some caution as some publishers bundle all editions of a masthead together. Go to Business Insider for their helpful take on the report.
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Amanda Blair on Adelaide radio station 5AA. It was one of the most enjoyable radio interviews I have ever experienced.
Amanda loves magazines and she loves newsagencies! For half an hour we talked about magazines from the top selling titles to the obscure. We discussed what is unique about our newsagencies and why people love to shop with us.
We also talked about the magazine experience versus reading on a device like the iPad. Talkback callers joined in to, talking about the magazines they love. It was a warm and positive experience.
For half an hour yesterday on South Australian radio, newsagencies were the subject of a love in. There should be more of this!
Warrick Hosking at newsXpress Gympie had a slow cooker cooking Mexican slow roasted lamb shanks on Thursday as part of the Women’s Weekly Slow Cooker in-store promotion. He sold out of the slow cooker cookbooks. Now that is retail theatre working!
If you are on Facebook, and you should be, search for newsXpress Gympie and follow the other initiatives Warrick runs in his newsagency.
On the back of what I blogged here a couple of days ago about the new Women’s Weekly Moroccan cookbook, Warrick went our and bought a tagine and is planning the next in-store cooking experience.
We are pitching Money magazine in an air stand at the counter, next to our current ACP cookbook display.
This is a different approach for Money magazine, we have recently been relying on in-location displays. On seeing the cover yesterday morning I thought it was worth trying near the counter, especially on the weekend when we have more males shopping than during the week – it seems that way at least.
The display itself is nothing really, a couple of colour copies of the cover. The trick is the stand itself – it places the magazine at a level which can be easily reached and which will be noticed by shoppers at the counter.
We are giving Melbourne Wedding & Bride a double waterfall space allocation in our women’s magazine aisle for the next couple of weeks.
Based on previous experience with the title, investing additional space will drive a good sales outcome for us early in the sales cycle.
We will also co-locate a flat stack of the title next to the Australian Women’s Weekly for a week or two as mums sometimes buy wedding magazines for daughters.
Newsagents need to be on their guard in Melbourne at the moment. There is someone using credit card numbers to buy mobile phone recharge and to load prepaid debit cards.
They are very smooth and can have employees believing that what they are doing is legitimate. Here are some tips to protect your business.
You could also:
The most recent incident involved a male. Another a couple of months ago involved a female.
We are promoting the Australian Women’s Weekly at our main counter this weekend – in what will be seen by some as an unusual move.
While sales for this issue of AWW have been okay, I want to see what we can do to drive a boost in this second week of the on-sale. The prime counter position with a focused display should do the trick. We kept collateral from last week for a second crack display – we always do this.
I figured that since it is the last weekend of the school holidays mums and grandmums may have time to start to think of themselves again and may like to treat themselves by buying AWW. My reasoning may be wrong, who knows. It’s worth a shot.
As note here with regularity, change is important in our businesses. We should not be afraid to promote monthly magazines in their second and third week of the on-sale. My own experience is that with the right title and the right cover you can drive good incremental business.
We are promoting the latest issue of Prevention magazine next to our main newspaper stand. We are still using the display unit provided by Pacific magazines when the magazine launched last year. We also have Prevention located in our women’s health section. But is this newspaper position which works best for us for this title. Right through the month too – we continue to sell copies of Prevention right through the last week of the on-sale. We flip the position from the right to the left side of the newspaper stand – to combat store blindness.
The Associated Press has a story about the impact in Detroit when two newspapers moved from daily to publishing three days a week.
More than a year later, Detroit newspaper executives are convinced they made the right call. If that holds up, other newspapers could follow as they look for ways to save money to offset a three-year slump in advertising, the industry’s main source of revenue. About 100 U.S. newspapers already have reduced the number of days they publish or have shifted exclusively to Web editions, but Detroit is the biggest market to try a version of either move.
Our home delivery model is quite different here, I suspect because newsagents carry more of the distribution cost than do newspaper carriers in the US, so the pressure to cut days from the print schedule is not as great.
Those who seek to lead newsagents should be researching these moves in the US, as I noted at this place a year ago.
We have refreshed the ACP Magazines basket builder stand next to our busiest counter position. We have selected four ACP cookbook titles for promotion here for the next week.
We know that Slow Cooker will work because of past success.
Moroccan food is the new title out yesterday. With the surge in sales of tagines I’d expect this title to work very well for us. I may be wrong but I think this title has the potential to come close to the success of the runaway success Slow Cooker title.
Here is some information which ACP did not tell you which may help you understand the opportunity for the new Moroccan title:
The in-store promotion opportunities for the Moroccan title are as good as for the slow cooker: sell tagines, do some cooking, start a recipe club, sell other Moroccan recipe books. Create a niche, get known for it and watch your sales grow.
If you don’t have room to feature a range of the new titles, focus on the new Moroccan title. It should work in a wide variety of situations.
Based on the questions from customers yesterday, the latest issue of Donna Hay kids magzine (on sale yesterday) looks set to be a huge success. We are pushing the title hard with a great display out the front of the store, facing into the mall. We will run this display for a week. We also have Donna Hay kids magazine displayed in our food section as well as in one pocket in the column of food titles in with our weeklies
I made the decision to run the front of store display as well as our in-store co-location strategy on the basis of the attractive cover and the strong Donna Hay brand. We know from past experience that sales will reward the effort.
We have the new Spiderman partwork, Spiderman Heroes & Villians, out the front of the store facing the mall and hopefully attracting traffic. Our team placed it next to some school holiday supplies – a clever move. We also have limited stock in our partworks section. As usually happens with launch issues, most copies will sell from the front of the store. This is terrific impulse opportunity for the few remaining days of the current school holidays.
We are promoting the latest issue of Marie Claire with an in-location display. We plan to supplement this with a two pocket co-location with weeklies over this coming weekend. Out of the women’s monthlies, Marie Claire is performing ahead of the pack – hence our preparedness to give it a push with extra space and activity.
I am preparing to undertake a newsagent retail sales benchmark study comparing sales for April – June 2010 against April – June 2009.
Tower Newsagents can participate by sending a Monthly Sales Comparison report: tick the box to exclude home deliveries, and tick the box for a category breakdown. Set your first date range (on the left) to April 1, 2010 to June 30, 2010 and the date range of the right to one year earlier.
Once the report is on the screen, click the PDF button to save this as a PDF, go into your email software and send a copy of the PDF to me at mark@towersystems.com.au. I’ll publish the benchmark results here and elsewhere so all newsagents can benefit.
NOTE: If you are running our latest software, you can click on the BENCHMARK icon on your desktop, enter the April through June date range and have the software do the rest. If you have not used our direct email facilities – to email customer accounts or to email Gordon and Gotch supply changes, the software will ask for some email details from you. This takes a few seconds to setup.
Non Tower newsagents can participate by emailing me for a copy of a spreadsheet template I have prepared.
As with past benchmarks, I expect to get data from between 100 and 120 newsagencies in the next week. The results will provide an indication of sales performance year on year and give newsagents something with which to compare their businesses.
Just five days after receiving fresh stock of the Women’s Weekly Slow Cooker cookbook we are close to selling out. There appears to be no end in sight to the success for this title. I know of one newsagency which sold fifty copies this past weekend. The key is to be tactical in the placement of the title. No one is coming in planning to buy the cookbook, every purchase is on impulse. Now that’s basket building for you!
Thankfully, we should have more Slow Cooker stock in the next week or so.
We are promoting issue #3 of the master chef magazine next to our main newspaper stand, in with our weeklies as well as in our usual food titles section. If Issue #2 is anything to go off we expect to see another lift in sales. That’s right, issue #2 sold out and achieved a great increase on the launch issue.
The key to success is tactical placement in high traffic areas – hence our placement next to the main newspaper stand. Next week, we will run the title at the counter for a few days. Constant movement is essential in chasing impulse business for a title like master chef.
The over the counter feedback on the title is very strong. People who have purchased the magazine comment positively about it. This is where master chef is a stand out from title launches in recent years. I cannot recall such unsolicited and positive comment for a new title.
We have thankfully accessed additional stock of Diabetic Living. The last issue is selling very well. Again, our success is being driven by tactical placement in-store. The title performs well in high traffic locations: with the weekly magazines, with health titles and a stint at the counter.
If you have Diabetic Living in only one location you are probably missing out on sales.
Recently, News Limited gave newsagents permission to charge in advance for newspaper home delivery accounts.
I am curious as to how many newsagents are actually billing in advance and if so what issues / challenges have been encountered?
We are promoting Famous magazine at the counter this week thanks to the offer is a $100 WISH card which could be won with a purchase of this or any of a range of titles from Pacific Magazines.
Given the decay curve for Famous we are likely to leave this display up for most of the week – it performs quite differently wo Woman’s Day and New Idea.
The other important reason for having Famous at the counter this week is the text message and email marketing campaigns running in support of the $100 WISH card promotion.
We are promoting the Woman’s Day / NW double pack in a dump bin on the shop floor. Since this is a discounted deal I did not want to place it in the usual location for the titles. I am chasing impulse business rather than educating our regulars to switch to the discount pack.
This dump bin approach worked for the last discount package from ACP – it sold out.
We have the dump bin in a high traffic location on the dance floor.
We are promoting Madison and the free gift at the entrance to our women’s magazine aisle. We also have the title in its usual location taking up double pockets – thanks to the free scarf which comes with the magazine this month.
I wonder if magazine customers are feeling tip-on fatigue like newsagents. Finding space for these fold out double spacing packages is a challenge. While we could leave it folded and taking one spacing, the value of the gift is then hidden.
Looking down the women’s magazine aisle and it feels as if all the major monthly titles have a gift or one sort or another. There will be a point at which the gifts have no perceived value.
Magazine distributor Network Services operates as victim, prosecutor, judge and jury in the handling of disputes arising from magazine returns. While they will say that statement is unfair, it is how it is. It is how newsagents who have experienced a dispute often feel.
While I have seen Network act fairly in some situations, I have also seen them act unfairly in others. The frustration felt toward their handling of disputes is magnified since they relate to products over which newsagents have very little control thanks to the push model of magazine distribution in Australia.
Here are my suggestions for newsagents to be better able to deal with a magazine returns credit dispute:
The better you are able to prove what you did and when in the event of a dispute the faster the dispute will be resolved.
The process outlined above will also show some newsagents mistakes which led to credits being denied.
We are promoting The Monthly magazine with an in location display. The Bob Brown cover is certain to attract sales if the significant rise in opinion polls for the Greens is anything to go by.
This display can be easily seen by people heading from the newspaper stand to our main counter. It also faces everyone entering our men’s and special interest magazine aisle.
You can see in the photo that we are also promoting viewpoint under The Monthly – again because of the Bob Brown cover.
We plan to leave this display in place for at least a week.