The refreshed New Idea continues to sell well. We are helping it along with continued promotion next to our main newspaper stand – as the photo from yesterday morning shows. This is the last week we will use this display unit here – we will find a new high-traffic location for the display next week. I see this stand being used for another month or so and then rested for a few weeks. We dothis with all well bade merchandising unit.
The masthead of Card Making magazine is partially covered up by a plastic thing which comes with the latest issue. It looks kind of silly. The plastic thing is the height of the magazine so it has nowhere to go. It makes the magazine look less noticeable on the shelves.
I saw a magazine up-sell offer fail at a busy airport outlet today to the bemusement of the person making the offer. The customer brought to the counter two weekly titles from publisher A and a third weekly title from publisher B. The pitch I heard was switch the one title from publisher B for another title from Publisher A and the shopper would get the three for around the same price as the two titles from publisher A.
The shopper was frustrated at having her choice challenged and purchased only the title from publisher B.
By the time the shop assistant served me he was still grumbling about the rejection of the offer. I think that he misses the point that the offer disrespects the choice made by the shopper. It’s like hey, I know better than you or, content doesn’t matter, it’s all about price.
While I am no magazine publishing expert, it seems to me that the best way to drive sales of any magazine is to deliver a better product. A price based deal may achieve a sales bump but I doubt it would be sustained unless the product itself has changed.
We are promoting Burke’s Backyard magazine at the counter for the next few days. With only one poster sent, we created other collateral in-house.
Publishers need to realise that the best time to promote a title is in the first few days of on-sale. No excuses. While today is a day off for many, newsagencies are open and will get good traffic. Burke’s Backyard is one title I would have liked to receive more collateral for today.
We have take a different approach with the weekly magazine display at the front of our shop facing shoppers as they leave the centre. Based on recent sales, we see more value in focusing on the top four weeklies. Hence our promotion of Famous, New Idea, Woman’s Day and NW. You’ll see that we have filled the small space at the bottom with crossword and puzzle titles – these sell well with the weeklies.
We are pitching Melbourne Wedding & Bride next to the Australian Women’s Weekly for the next couple of weeks – we set this up last week.
This primt placement is in addition to a waterfall display in with our wedding titles. This is a well known title so it makes sense having it in a high-traffic location to catch impulse business.
The delayed billing can mean we’re ahead of the game in cash-flow terms. I wish other publishers would take notice of this.
We have promoted Melbourne Wedding & Bride previously with excellent success.
The January issue of the iPhone version of the US edition of GQ has sold more then 12,000 copies according to a report in AdAge. While that is not a lot when you consider the 900,000 copies of the print edition sold at the newsstand and distributed to subscribers, it is significant when you consider this is only month two and it’s early days for a new distribution channel.
We have ordered more diaries to cope with demand. The Collins Enviro and Kyoto ranges are particularly popular. Being the only outlet in a shopping centre with diaries results in good destination purchase traffic for us.
We developed a sales projection for February – March diary sales based on October – January sales. This is what tells me that there is an excellent opportunity for us. The bonus is the better margin we can achieve thanks to the current buy price.
Having a good range of diaries in stock right now is a financially rewarding point of difference for newsagents.
We use this end of season approach with boxed Christmas cards and calendars for equally rewarding customer traffic and margin success. While it won’t work for everyone, it is worth trying. The keys we find are range, good promotion on the dance floor and daily attention to the display.
There are some clues to publishers partnering with Apple and their soon to be announced tablet device in the positive coverage being given. Whereas in the past reporting of e-reader device launches has been in a negative vein, the Apple coverage is fare more positive.
I thought I’d update how the Herald Sun Australia Day hat promotion panned out for us in our four shopping centre based newsagencies – two I own and two in which I have a 50% share.
In one newsagency we received around 30% more hats than Herald Sun newspapers. This worked well for us. We ran out at around 2pm with some of our newspapers still left to sell and while we faced frustrated customers, by that time of the day they were okay about it. Our distribution newsagent had given us as many as possible.
In another newsagency we didn’t receive any. We approached the supplying newsagent and we had to go pick up the stock. They gave us hats for around half our Herald Sun stock. Since we are outside a busy major supermarket we were, naturally, out of stock within an hour. We called for more stock and while a staff member answering the phone told us they had plenty the newsagent said they had none. Our people spent the rest of the day fending off upset customers.
In our third newsagency we received enough hats for 60% of our Herald Sun stock. We were out by 11am and the newsagent did not have any more stock. Again, upset customers.
In our fourth newsagency we received hats for 30% of our Herald Sun stock. We were out of stock of hats by 10am. The supplying newsagent agreed to give us five more – we had to go and pick them up. they were gone in minutes.. Being right outside a supermarket we were getting hit hard for hats. Plenty of angry customers for the rest of the day.
I don’t know where the supply problem is – with the Herald & Weekly Times or with the supplying newsagent – but I do know that there is a problem and the team at the front counter in newsagencies like mine are left dealing with upset and, occasionally, abusive customers. The damage to the reputation of our business and to the name of the Herald Sun is, in my view, considerable.
I love the Australia day hat promotion but, as is so often the case with newspaper promotions, am highly critical of the execution. What is the point if these things are executed so poorly so often?
I’d like to see the circulation people at the Herald & Weekly Times host a meeting with retail and distribution newsagents and work out a plan which serves customers better. If we get that right then the publisher, the retail newsagent and the distribution newsagent all win.
We’re ready with the free Australia Day hat giveaway with the Herald Sun this morning. We have been given good stock in one of our stores, just enough in another store and not enough in another. I expect the hat to be a hit with customers. Where it gets tricky is people who purchased the newspaper elsewhere coming to us wanting the hat. This is where we rely on the publisher and the supplying newsagent. As our quantities show, sometimes this works and sometimes it does not. We are keeping accurate data on supply and collection quantities and will provide feedback to the publisher so that they can work with their channel on the next promotion – the promotion needs to work for everyone after all.
The manager of one of my stores bought the Medi Buddy as a counter offer. I was surprised, saying that the $12.95 price point and the product itself made it a questionable counter offer. The five units sold in barely three weeks. I was wrong. It is amazing what can work at a counter. Adding $12.95 to any sale is good for business, especially when the impulse item has a better margin than most products it is purchased with.
The keys to success appear to be: a good holiday offer, good packaging and uncluttered placement at the counter.
Our plan, once we sell out, is to replace this at the counter with something else.
Newsagents may want to check their supply quantities for The Source this week. In one of my stores our supply increased more than 100% on the back of sales data which suggested that no such increase was warranted. Maybe it’s the Snoop cover but I doubt it. While there will be an excuse, those making it will not have the financial stake I an other affected newsagents have.
More than 350 newsagents are now using the broadband eftpos solution from Tyro. Both POS Solutions and Tower Systems (my software company) offer this fast and secure eftpos link.
Reaching 350 locations is significant because this involved retailers in deciding to go for new technology and quitting their traditional back relationship for eftpos services.
My own experience is that once newsagents see the speed and realise the accuracy benefits they love it. The benefits, beyond the good fee structure, make it a financially rewarding move for the business.
We are promoting the latest issue of Delicious magazine with our main newspaper stand from this morning. We created this display using colour copies of the front cover – we didn’t have any other collateral available.
This location next to the newspaper stand works well for us with the right titles. Delicious is a good title because it’s a brand people like yet something shoppers tend to not visit us to purchase.
I’d expect our display to drive more business for us than the publisher funded posters put up elsewhere in the store because of the better location.
The photo shows how we refreshed our weeklies display for the weekend this morning. You can see that we have made Who and OK! the focus – as should be done for the display to be relevant to fresh product.
We also refreshed this display on Wednesday to reflect new titles which went on sale that day.
The Year of the Tiger is the theme for the syndicate board created to promote the lottery superdraw for Saturday February 13. Since 2010 is the Year of the Tiger in Chinese New Year tradition and given that Chinese New Year begins on February 14, a promotion of the superdraw around this made sense.
Researched and developed by our manager at Forest Hill (Jason), collateral was sourced online and printed in-store. Other team members setup the display. It looks fantastic – especially given that all of the collateral, except the A4 sign in the middle, was sourced and created in-house.
A choice had to be made between promoting a Valentine’s Day connection to the February 13 superdraw or a Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year was selected because it is a more natural fit with lottery purchases and because it ties with other promotions. Also, it goes beyond the February 14 so there are further opportunities.
There is more to the display than the photo I took. It really grabs attention. It’s located at the front of the shop and is easily noticed by passers-by.
Don’t be thrown off by the small range of syndicates. These are the price points. Once a syndicate fills, a new one replaces it with the same price point.
The That’s Life and Eco Bag counter units work well together for us. Each product attracts their own browser and since they are together, the other product is also noticed. We have had That’s Life and Eco Bag at the counter since last week. We will probably given them another week in this configuration before using them elsewhere – even three weeks in the same location at the counter is a bit long.
We put considerable though into how we use our counter and carefully monitor the results. Our counter tactics are all about adding to the sale at the last minute.
Check out Kayak Angler and see how publishers are using technology to provide easy, and free, access to back issues of content. Special interest titles with somewhat timeless content will benefit the most from making older content available online.
Woman’s Day in the US is launching a digital “book” (a vook they are calling it) that blends text and videos.
The Woman’s Day Cookvook: Healthy Food for Everyday Living is based on the newly released hardcover book Woman’s Day Cookbook for Healthy Living. Along with recipes, it contains 45 updatable video cooking demos from editors and readers. A social-network feature lets users share recipe comments via Facebook.
Woman’s Day parent Hachette Filipacchi Media worked with Vook to develop the “cookvook.” It sells for $9.99 and be accessible online or on Apple iPhones or iPod Touches. Woman’s Day has a revenue share with Vook and Apple, which it wouldn’t specify.
The product is ad-free for now, but Woman’s Day senior vp, chief brand officer Carlos Lamadrid is talking to food, pharma and other advertisers about product placement and preroll ad opportunities.
It’s all about getting the maximum value from content and hunting for potential revenue online.
We have taken advice done some research and decided to post this in our stores. The wider the coverage the better we figured. The poster is near the entrance – in an obvious location. We know of several businesses who would be happy to identify this shopper. Click on the image or here for a large version.
The Retail World Annual Report has published magazine sales data for the year to December 2009 in grocery. It reports a decline of 3% in unit sales of magazines and revenue growth of .2%. Total magazine revenue was $232 million. Check out category level growth/declines:
These are interesting numbers for newsagents to compare their own performance against.
Starting in 2011, the New York Times is to charge for frequent access to its website accounting to an announcement overnight. If publishers can improve the revenue model outside of print – for website access or access via protable devices – it will focus their attention more on these print alternatives.
Personally, I don’t see myself paying for online access. I tried this a while back with a couple of newspapers but stopped when I found alternatives for the content I was after.
As anyone in business knows, it is hard to charge for something which was previously free.
We received four copies of the last issue of Gameinformer magazine. Yesterday, we received twenty-four copies of the latest issue. A 600% increase in supply is extraordinary even though we did sell out of the last issue. It is easy for magazine distributors to be bullish about a title for it’s not their money, time or space at risk. I would have like a request for permission to increase supply beyond a reasonable 100% in the case of a sell out. Had I been asked, for it is my money after all, I would have agreed to a 100% kick and an agreement to more if sales warrant during the on-sale. While distributors don’t want excess stock in their warehouses in the event of a need, the current approach of making us the warehouse (and bank) is unreasonable as the 600% increase in supply of Gameinformer shows.
Maybe I am missing something here. Maybe there is a reason for the increase. I am sure that the publisher will say it is because they are pushing the title. That’s fine – but a 600% increase? I am carrying the risk for them along wit, maybe, thousands of other newsagents.
We are promoting Dolly magazine and the free beach towel in a display at the entrance to our main women’s magazine aisle and at the end of our dance floor (premium display space). I expect this location and display to work very well for us as most customers shopping with us will see the display and due to it being such a good offer.
What is not shown in the photo is the rear of the stand – it is also promoting Dolly. It’s the first time we have embraced both sides of the display stand to promote the one title. We were able to do this thanks to the good range of collateral from ACP.
We plan to leave this display up for a week at this stage.
While displays like this are less likely to win best display awards, they are usually very successful because of location and ease of purchase. Sales, after all, are what matter.