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

Better Homes and Gardens sell out

We are set to sell out of Better Homes and Gardens this month even after ordering additional stock in the first few days of the on-sale. While it will screw with our supply and sales data from the distributor, we want to see how many copies we can sell with the tactics we are using for this issue.

While the free DVD on the cover has been a key driver for our success and that many other newsagents, we have leveraged the opportunity as much as possible.

As part of our process of arriving magazines into the business on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday, we look for promotion opportunities based on the cover for it is this which is key to the impuulse decision to purchase from the high traffic locations we use.

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magazines

Counter display drives AFL card sales

fhn_afl_2010.JPGWe have expanded our AFL cards counter display to include the new range of cards which arrived on Friday. While the select range has been selling well, it is this new range which our regulars love and which attracts new traffic thanks to good word of mouth.

We have grown sales by more than 10% each year for the last three years through an excellent counter display. Newsagents who have only one or two packs at the counter should try a bigger display. We found that switching to this has worked very well for us.

We have people buying just the AFL cards but the majority are adding cards to other purchases and thereby building sales efficiency.

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Counter offers

Bill Express Director loans probed

The Herald Sun ran a story on Bill Express yesterday on page 87.  This adds to the excellent coverage in The Age over over recent months.  Yesterday’s story focused on the evidence of Julian Little and the treatment of a loan provided ot him by the company and paid out by the company.

My understanding is that it is rare for an examination of the details we are seeing of the Bill Express mess to take place.

While we won’t get to the bottom of the tactics used to get newsagents to sign up for what now appears to have been a ponzi-type scheme or those close to newsagents who may have made money from this, it is comforting to see the Directors of the company and some associated with them under scrutiny.

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Bill Express

How much do newsagents spend on marketing?

I am curious about how much newsagents spend marketing their retail businesses outside their four walls on: advertising (newspaper, TV, outdoor), direct mail (catalogues), sponsorships (sporting and community groups) and in other promotions designed to promote the business outside the business.

I have always used 2% of revenue as a guide to marketing spend. By revenue I mean commission from lotteries, transport tickets, electronic voucher and agency lines plus sales for everything else – newspapers, magazines, stationery, books, calendars, diaries, ink etc.

Two newsagents I was talking with this week did not have a budget so we worked out the number. In calendar 2009 they spent under half of one percent of revenue on marketing. They were shocked when I suggested they quadruple this. They felt that being a newsagent should bring people in and that newsagent suppliers should do more to advertise newsagency businesses.

While I can understand the view that newsagents suppliers should promote the channel from a historical perspective, it is not appropriate today. Most of what we carry is in so many other retail channels that it is not appropriate to expect a supplier to promote us.

We need to market our businesses to bring people to us. This is best done in our local communities. All of what we spend in my newsagencies is designed to get people living and working near us to visit for seasonal, category and sale opportunities we promote.

We use a mix of direct mail, email and print advertising consistently throughout the year. This investment does bring in new customers. It also guides existing customers to spend more. The investment pays off.

While it is expensive to find a new customer, this is vital given the competition from other channels attracting shoppers to what we sell.

So, what do you spend as a percentage of revenue?

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Newspaper marketing

Promoting That’s Life Reader Recipes

tl_readers.JPGWe are promoting That’s Life Reader Recipes at our main counter this weekend. It’s a good looking title at a keen price. I expect it to sell very well for us. It takes over the prime impulse purchase space from 70 Family Meals. This did very well for us in two days, so much so that we are chasing extra stock.

The key with these titles connected with major brands is to promote them hard as soon as they are published as the decay curve is sharp. With That’s Life Reader Recipes for example I’d expect to achieve most sales in the first two weeks. We will leave the display up until Monday and then reassess.

As the display shows, we created our own very basic marketing collateral by copying the cover.  It works in this location.

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magazines

Netball magazine out in newsagencies

netball_mag.JPGWe received Netball magazine yesterday for the first time. As happens with Network Services, we were not asked if we wanted this title or whether we had the space. The title (new for us) arrived without any collateral so we put it on the shelf and hope that someone notices it. This in itself is a challenge because it is the only title of its type and we only received two copies.

In placing the title, I wondered, do we put it in the sports (mainly men’s) area or in with women’s health titles? We went with sports. I may give it a counter push next week because it strikes me as a title people will purchase if they know we have it.

I’d prefer magazine distributors to ask before they send me new titles. I’d also prefer them arrive on our shelves with coillateral tactics which are designed to help them find customers. Just getting shelf space in a newsagency does not achieve this.  that said, we permit our national network to be used this way.

The barrier to entry for magazines reaching our cahnnel is too low.

As for the Netball title itself, it looks pretty good. The challenge is finding those with this narrow interest.

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magazine distribution

Another demo of a magazine on the iPad

VIVmag is a lifestyle magazine which is currently only published in a digital format. The publishers, like others recently, hae put together videos to show how they may embrace the Apple iPad as a delivery channel for their content.  While not showing off much detail of how the reading experience would work, it demonstrates the power of video content.

VIV Mag Motion Cover – iPad Demo from Alexx Henry on Vimeo.

What is interesting is that magzzines and newspapers will change how they gather and produce content. Sending a still photographer out to capture images for a store will change with video being used more and more. This is one area where content on the iPad will differ to the print version.

There is no reason why a channel like the newsagency channel cannot use this video footage to enhance the shopper experience.

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Media disruption

Driving book sales at Easter

book_sale_fhn.JPGWe are running our traditional Easter Book Sale. I say traditional because this is now our fifth year. We know from book experts that Easter is one of the top three seasons for book sales.

We have two large table on the dance floor with books displayed and grouped by special interest. Hero books like the Curtis Stone cookbook for $14.95 are to the front or the Gordon Ramsay books.. As the photo shows, we raise the books to show the whole cover. This part of the display faces customers as they leave our counter. We have a different display facing customers as they enter the business.

We have the Easter books in a separate display with our Easter offer of egg, gifts and cards.

We give over so much premium floor space to the book sale because of the margin in each item and the sales efficiency – they do sell well on impulse, you only have to watch customer behaviour.

Books are a terrific impulse purchase opportunity. We also use them to find new customers – we have four page brochures going to homes around our centre this weekend. These exclusively promote our business. We also get good book business from word of mouth since we have become known for these sales.

Books also fit well with magazines, we find that they appeal to similar customers.  We can promote one category near the other and drive incremental business.

The book sale is a newsXpress initiative.

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Book retailing

Bill Express hearing update

Fpr those wanting an update on the Bill Express investigation in the Supreme Court, click here for the report on yesterday’s proceedings.  It’s all about Julian Little, the Bill Express Director who drove the relationship between the ANF, newsagents and Bill Express.

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Bill Express

More coupons for newsagency receipts

receiptrollartwork.jpgMy post yesterday about promoting OK! and Who on newsagency receipts sparked emails and calls from suppliers and newsagents wanting to know more. It’s an easy process to included this free marketing collateral on receipts. It makes sense to get more value from the receipt than just as a record of a sale. Click on the image to the left to see a range of coupons we have prepared to trial in our newsagencies over the next few weeks. While we have done this promotion for years, the new coupons breathe new life into the opportunity.

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marketing

Maybe this time for John Tickell’s book

john_tickell.JPGIn October 2008 we received John Tickell’s book from a magazine distributor. We supported it and it failed. It should have never been distributed using the magazine distribution model. Earleir this week, we received stock as part of our book sale. This time around, it has a more appropriate price ($3.95) and a better margin (more than double). Magazine distributors take on inappropriate products sometimes yet they do not accept responsibility for the financial cost on newsagents. This time around, I am happy to have John Tickell’s book.

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Book retailing

Limited interest in magazine barcode technology

It is interesting to see US publishers play with barcodes which, when scanned with a laptop or phone camera, fire up video content.  Bonnier is the US is doing this with their WakeBoarding title.  By interesting I mean from a gimmick sense.  While there will be a curiosity factor with the technology, people who want video content will get it directly for themselves.

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magazines

Good old Collingwood forever

On arriving at the newsagency yesterday morning we heard a magpie caught in the cavity between our ceiling and the floor above us. We knew it was a magpie because it flew into the centre the day before. It sounded distressed and unable to get out.

Our Manager Jason removed a ceiling tile in the hope that the magpie would find the way out. He/she did in the afternoon, flew around the shop a bit, spooking customers. It then flew into the back room.

Jason and Jono, our magazine manager, opened the backdoor – which opens to a carpark – and hoped the bird would see the way out. They tried everything from coaxing to jumping. Nothing worked. Our magpie would not leave the ceiling of the back room.

Jason and Jono, tragic Collingwood supporters, hit on an idea. Jono sang the Collingwood theme song. Our magpie flew down from the back room ceiling and out the back door. I am not sure if he got to finish the song.

Reading this back it sounds like a metaphor.  It’s not.  This is a true story. Crazy things happen some days.

The story does make me wonder though about whether we are sometimes caught in a ceriling cavity waiting for someone to sing us down.

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retail

Making your own shop-a-dockets

newsagency_promotion.jpgWe are trying this ad on the bottom of receipts today to promote OK! and Who which come out tomorrow.  It has been set to run only on Thursdays automatically – so we don’t have to remember to include this.  Using the receipts like this makes them more valuable than just a record of a sale.

Other coupons we have produced contain offers to reward customers for loyalty if they come back within a certain time of the sale.  I think that sometimes retailers complicate loyalty programs and make accessing the prize too time consuming.

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magazines

delicious magazine as an impulse offer

delicious_mar2010.JPGWe are giving the latest issue of delicious a run at the newspaper stand. It replaced the Grand Prix program which did not work for us in this location. delicious is one of those titles which works well in impulse locations – hence our positioning with newspapers. We also plan to position it at the counter – it has worked well there for us in the past.

In addition to this newspaper location, we have a pocket in the food column with our weeklies as well as several pockets in the food category.  Our tracking of sales shows that we sell more copies of delicious outside the food category.

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magazines

Better Homes and Gardens flying

Two weeks in and the latest issue of Better Homes and Gardens sales are up 100% of the average of recent issues in our Forest Hill store.  We are thrilled with the result.  It’s been driven by strategic placement of the title more so that amazing looking displays.

We will continue to promote this issue BH&G on weekends as history shows that there are sales to be made right to the last on-sale day.

While on strategic placement, Gardening Australia has also performed well for us over the last week as has 70 Family Meals.

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magazines

Staples launches bid for Corporate Express

Staples has offered to buy the shares in Corporate Express it does not own.  MarketWatch has more.  This was always expected once Staples acquired their shares in August 2008. Once they mop up the shares, watch for major moves on the retail and corporate stationery fronts.  Staples is a tremendously successful organisation.  Their stores are the benchmark.  I have seen plenty across the US and the offer is consistent.  They will be a tougher competitor than Officeworks.

I will be interested to see if the ANF acts on the rumours of it doing a deal with Corporate Express.

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Newsagency challenges

Happy St Patrick’s Day

Many newsagency team members will be dressed for St Patrick’s Day today.  A good dress up can give the retail workplace a real boost.  It can also allow our independent businesses to differentiate ourselves from the major retailers who tend to not embrace days like today.  While only a small step, dressing up is a good way to show off the difference.

As I noted earlier, we sold out of St Patrick’s Day stock twice over.  Our 2010 sales were more than doubles sales of 2009. The word of mouth business was excellent and demonstrated the value of committing to a minor season.

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Newsagency opportunities

Is this the magazine stand of the future?

Check out this video which shows how people with tablets could purchase magazines from a table (store) which could be placed almost anywhere.  The video was shot at the SXW trade show.

While people will come up with barriers to why this will not work, imagine this in an airport where there are plenty of gadget laden road warriors looking for something to read on a flight.

The demonstration is amazing.  It shows one way of purchasing product for the tablet-like devices.  There are others and will be plenty more.,  Most do not involve a bricks and mortar business.

Source: eMedia Vitals.

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magazines

Promoting Marie Claire

marie_claire_mar2010.JPGWe are promoting Marie Claire in a couple of places this week in support of the Witchery shopping offer.  With promotional space at a premium we have had to get creative in allocating space to promote the title, using high traffic areas to show off the title to people not looking for it in these areas.

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magazines

AFL footy tipping competition

afl_footy_tipping.jpgRegistration is now open for the annual Tower Systems AFL Footy Tipping Competition this year. The competition is open to anyone.

Entry is free. I have put up prizes for the competition: First $250.00; Second $100.00; Third $50.00.

Sorry, but this year we are running the AFL competition only as we have missed the start of the NRL season. Apologies, to all the NRL fans.

To join the AFL tipping competition, please follow these instructions:

  1. Go to the Tower Systems web page www.towersystems.com.au.
  2. Click on the AFL footy tipping logo at the bottom.
  3. The footy tipping page will then load
  4. Click on Join, at the top of the menu on the left hand side of the screen.
  5. You will then be asked for a password to join, which is ‘tower’
  6. Click on OK
  7. Enter in your details and click on Submit Details. (Note you only need to enter information on the fields highlighted with an *)
  8. Make sure you note down your alias and passwords so you can log in again later, and enter your tips!

Each week, go to the Tower Systems’ web site – www.towersystems.com.au – click on the AFL button, enter your username and password and tip away.

Rules:

  1. Anyone can participate.
  2. Tips must be in by 5:30pm EST on the evening before the first game of the round, either Friday’s or Thursday’s. (No late tips will be accepted this year, no exceptions, none, nada, nope, no way, your late – you’re out for the week)
  3. Failure to enter your tips will see you get the Average score for the round minus 1 tip.
  4. To play you need join before the start of the season
  5. Have fun.
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Social responsibility
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