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

Reviewing the value of comics in a newsagency

fhn_comics_oct09.JPGComics are not performing well.  Not just in my newsagencies but in many for which I get to see data.

Overall, comic sales are down.  Unfortunately, supply for some comics is not falling in line with the sales decline.  This suggests that these suppliers are not respectful of the newsagency channel.

A consistent sell through of less than 60% means that I am losing money.  Hence the decision to review supply in my own newsagencies.  This means cutting some titles and resetting base supply figures for others.  Based on stock I pulled off the shelf yesterday, I expect to save in the order of $500 in cash-flow.

I suspect that print comics will be an early casualty to digital platforms, certainly with the consumer (as opposed to collector) audience.  iPhone apps, see here, here and here, make them readily available.

The review in our own shops will focus on selecting a range for the smaller amount of space allocated to the segment and ensuring that we are not supplied beyond this.

The saved space will be used to expand other magazine segments.

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magazines

Halloween at Forest Hill

Our team at Forest Hill has created a terrific display in the window to promote our extensive Halloween range.  Using some of the products we sell and collateral from newsXpress, the display draws excellent attention and, most important, sells product.

fhn_hal092.JPGThis first photo shows the display from inside the window looking out into the mall.  This shows just over half the Halloween stock we have available for the season. Click on the image to see a larger version.  It is a shopper-friendly display, easy to navigate.

fhn_hal091.JPGThis photo shows the Halloween window display looking from the mall into the newsagency.  The reflection from the glass hides how good this really looks.  It certainly draws passers-by in to see what we have on offer.

newsXpress has been promoting Halloween in newsagencies since 2005.  It is good to see others getting in on this fun and retail friendly season.  I know of newsagents who will sell in excess of $10,000 of Halloween product – at excellent margins.

Newsagents can own Halloween.  While the majors play, we can do better thanks to easy access to suppliers with good product and our ability to embrace the season in a more practical way than you will see in a Coles or Big W.  I have seen newsagency staff and customers dress up.  It’s about fun after all.  The newsXpress posters make that point: Scary can be fun.

Halloween is a good break in the lead up to the craziness of Christmas.

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newsagency marketing

Promoting Melbourne Cup Carnival magazine

fhn_carnival.JPGThe Melbourne Cup Carnival magazine has never worked for us at Forest Hill.  This year we are trying something different, we have moved it from our small racing section and placed the magazine in our women’s weeklies magazine section.  This should drive impulse purchases whereas leaving it in the racing section only serves the destination purchase which history shows is small for us.

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magazines

US magazine publishers to create their own iTunes?

The Financial Times and others report overnight that Time Inc is working with a group of magazine publishers in the US to create a digital store for magazines to avoid control over distribution as has happened with music through Apple’s iTunes.

The new service would serve as a digital shopfront for magazine content.  Reports say it will be announced in a month.  Given the growth in eReader devices, movement in the distribution of content was inevitable.

Matt Buchanan writing at Gizmodo thinks this plan by magazine publishers will fail.

Great, except that it’s not going to work. As Peter Kafka points out, they have to convince people to sign up for another service—not an easy feat if they’re already tangled up with a Kindle or Apple. Especially if this new service will be just magazines, and not include newspapers. And there’s no way Amazon or Apple will let the publishers tie a separate service into their devices, pissing in their pool.

Consumers have already gathered around iTunes, Amazon and others for digital content.  Smart magazine publishers will use these established new media distribution channels rather than create something new with its own costs and marketing challenges and with a connection to old media distribution.

In this new world, as music publishers have found, content wants to be set free.  Those who embrace the most flexible distribution models will prosper.

Unfortunately for newsagents, in the long term, this means we need to reinvent our businesses.  And before people say I am in a gloomy mindset, no, I did say long term.  Also, the change opportunities are excellent for us.

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magazine distribution

Technology companies to save newspapers?

Time has published a report about proposals from technology companies to help save newspapers in the US.  While technology will play a key role in news distribution in the long term, publishers today ought to focus on their readers.

Readers buy newspapers, not advertising consumers as some publishers (and advertisers) seem to think.  One only has to see how much of the overweight Saturday or Sunday newspapers is shed to see what the majority of newspaper readers want.

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Media disruption

London’s Evening Standard to go free

After more than 180 years as a paid newspaper, the London Evening Standard will go free later this month.  The Guardian has details.  The newspaper’s current circulation is 250,000.  They are chasing a circulation of 600,000 from the move. From what I understand, this is the first quality newspaper to adopt a free model – a significant shift in newspaper publishing and, I suspect, a seismic shift in newspaper distribution.

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Newsagency challenges

This is how to include a CD or DVD with a magazine

fhn_linux_mag.JPGLinux magazine shows how to distribute CDs and DVDs with a magazine.  Check out the latest issue.  Inside the magazine you will find a CD.  No plastic pack.  No box glued to the front.  The CD is in a slim pack in the magazine.  The magazine remains browser friendly.  This is a nice way for the publisher to distribute digital content and deliver a product which works for retailers and browsers.  Now if only other publishers could follow this lead.

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magazines

Julia Gillard – cover girl for The Monthly

fhn_monthly.JPGWe are promoting the latest issue of The Monthly next to our newspaper stand from today and for the next few days.  The Julia Gillard cover looks good and should appeal to people from both sides of politics.

This is one of those covers which needs to be seen in total – rather than just the masthead as would be the case in usual magazine fixturing.

The Monthly is also a title which works better for us in a impulse location than its traditional location with news and current affairs titles.

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magazines

New trader service launches in newsagencies

mt_masthead.jpgOvernight, a new trader classifieds service was launched in Victoria.  The publisher of the Melbourne Observer launched Melbourne Trader on the 3AW Overnighters program.  Reader ads have started to roll in. The newsagency distribution channel will be promoted in radio ads in the coming week. Click here for a listing of newsagents already selling the Melbourne Observer.

Given the announcement of the closure of the Trading Post, the Melbourne Trader provides Victorian newsagents with an excellent opportunity to retain and even grow classifieds business connected with the newsagency channel.  I’d suggest placing the Melbourne Observer where the Trading Post usual goes as well as the existing position for the Observer.

We sell between 65 and 100 copies of the Melbourne Observer every week.  It’s customers are loyal.  As a publication, it supports newsagents by promoting our putaway service and through other promotions in the year.  I’ll happily support Melbourne Trader.

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Newsagency opportunities

Professional newsagency customer newsletter

nx_foresthill_nl.jpgClick here for a PDF version of the customer newsletter for our newsagency for October.  This is available free to all customers from a stand at the front of our newsagency.  We switched this more promotional style of newsletter in August.  It works better promoting our offers than the more newsy style newsletter it replaced. We pitch price (ink, cards and magazines) range (cards) and being green (O’Bon pens and journals).  We are pretty happy with the corporate image this presents for our business.

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Customer Service

How bagged magazines hurt publishers

fat_country_collections.JPGWe didn’t have space for a new country title which arrived on Wednesday and had to make a decision as to which title to return early.  Australian Country Collections was chosen because it took up more space than other titles as it was bagged with a giveaway.  the title had been on sale for close to two months and we still had stock in three pockets.  Had this issue not been bagged we could have kept ito one pocket and not returned the issue early.

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magazines

September sales results

September has been an interesting month for newsagents.  I have seen stores with excellent growth and others with dreadful figures.  From what I see, it continues the patchy economic condidions we find ourselves in.

In our own case, we had a good month overall: books – down 17% (due to differences in sales cycles over the two years); calendars – up 14%; cards – down 16% (due to run down to a complete card relay and 25% supplier replacement yesterday);  confectionery – up 2%; Gifts – up 83%; magazines – down 7%; ink – up 25%; stationery – down 24% (fluctuation in some corporate business).  Overall traffic is up 3% but average sale value is down 10%.

We are moving to higher margin product and this is creating a healthier business.

In magazine categories, partworks is the big drop – if we take these out of the figures, the magazine department is down around 3%; food – down 22%, sport – down 18%; women’s interests – down 12%; women’s weeklies – down 3%; computers – down 29%; craft – down 17%.

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Newsagency management

Apple tablet to reshape how we consume news?

There has been plenty of noise online about the soon to launch Apple Mac Tablet including speculation of negotiations between magazine publishers and Apple about getting magazine content available through iTunes.  PC World has a good summary of news.

Such a move is guaranteed to happen as I have noted here before.  Once newspaper and magazine friendly devices appeal to consumers, publishers will embrace them.  This happened with music.  It makes sense.

Smart newsagents are building flexible businesses to cope with change while also working hard to make the most from print product in serving consumers who prefer this medium.

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magazines

Dust storm magazine shows off innovation

strange_light.jpgStrange Light is a one-shot 40 page magazine about the dust cloud which enveloped Sydney last week.  The magazine was created in a day and a half using MagCloud from Hewlett Packard. The storm occurred on September 23 and the magazine was published and available for purchase on September 25.  Amazing.  Read the publishers blog post about the process here.

This is an excellent example of how MagCloud and similar technology could change special interest publishing, especially around an event or a single topic.

I am grateful to Andrew Batt of Bangkok Station tipping me off to Strange Light.

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magazines

Sudoku junk proves why we need a magazine czar

sudoku_junk.JPGAs if we do not have enough sudoku titles already.  These five new titles arrived on Wednesday.  We were not supposed to receive any.  Ugh!  I am kind of glad we did because I got to see this junk.  These titles should never get access to the newsagency channel, not with the range of sudoku titles we have in our newsagencies already.  This is why we need a magazine czar to grant access approval to our retail network.  Someone controlling access to our network, based on range anf performance criteria, would have blocked these titles from getting through.

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magazines

Promoting The Australian Women’s Health Diary 2010

fhn_health_diary.JPGWe started promoting The Australian Women’s Health Diary 2010 at the front counter of our newsagency from yesterday.  This is the first time we have done such a display for this at the counter.  While the diary usually sells very well, we wanted to see what we could achieve with a good display at our best impulse purchase location.  Our goal is to sell 200 copies over the next few weeks.  The sooner the better given space challenges of this time of the year.

I like the poster supplied to promote the diary – it appeals to the targer customer.

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Diaries

Promoting Dolly magazine and Roxy duffle bag

fhn_dolly_oct09.JPGWe are promoting the latest issue of Dolly magazine at the entrance to our women’s magazine aisle. It replaced Australian Women’s Weekly which had been up for a week.

What may not be obvious from first glance at the photo is that we sliced up three of the posters to create the strips in front of each shelf promoting the free Roxy duffle bag. This attention to detail is important since we have the magazine opened out showing the bag.

We put this display up yesterday and already it is generating good interest.

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magazines

Update on XChangeIT update

Here is an update on the status of yesterday’s update to XChangeIT Link:

We had a few issues with a couple of the distributor gateways during the night, and therefore files will be delayed in delivery to you. We will contact you with updates during the day via email. Gotch & NDC may also send their invoices via email, depending on the status later today.

I have heard from a number of newsagents that the link has loaded successfully overnight.

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newsagent software

Freight move increases cost of magazine returns

The move by magazine distributors NDD, Gotch and Network to Toll Holdings for freight looks set to significantly increase the cost of returning unsold magazines.  One newsagent told me that their cost will go from $25.00 to $66.00.  This is what they will have to pay for stock they did not order and which has failed to sell.

Newsagents are understandably angry at this cost increase imposed on their businesses.  If distributors let newsagents return only then cover then the cost would be significantly less. NDD performs worst out of the three magazine distributors based on the data I see in terms of sell-through – meaning higher additional costs.

The magazine distribution model which makes newsagents liable for the cost of freighting titles which have not performed is flawed.

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magazine distribution

Trading Post classifieds newspaper to close

The Trading Post classifieds newspaper will cease publishing within the next four weeks.  While this has been a topic of discussion for months, there has been no clarity on specifics.  The publisher has certainly worked hard to migrate customers to their website.  In newsagencies, the Trading Post is not paying its way.

The Australian published a report stating that the print edition of the Trading Post is to close.  Telstra has published a notice with details.

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Media disruption

Soccer balls in newsagencies?

soccer_merchandise.JPGWe received 10 soccer balls today from Gordon & Gotch in one store and 15 in another.  The packaging carries ANF endorsement.  I knew we were getting soccer product because I saw it on a list of new titles I approved earlier this week.  Had I known they were actual soccer balls I’d have said no thanks.  I don’t want to sell soccer balls.  They do not fit in my newsagency.

I have no space at the counter for these even though they come in a counter unit.  Ugh! We currently have tweleve counter units and only two spaces for their use.

Soccer fans will know they can get brand name balls at sports stores.  They don’t think about buying these at newsagencies – unless there is a major advertising campaign to drive traffic.  Given that the ANF represents only 33% of newsagents, the endorsement is of dubious value. The ANF is engaging in an area which has nothing to do with an association.

This is not a smart promotion.  For it to work properly, there needs to be a narrative built around the offer.  This is done by bringing several products together with professional collateral to support the offer.  This has not been done with the soccer balls.

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Newsagency challenges

Cashing in on the Geelong AFL Grand Final win

fhn_herald_sun_geelong.JPGWe are displaying the Geelong team photo (free with the Herald Sun) today at our usual newspaper stand as well as at the lottery counter (see photo).  Based on selling out of the Geelong premiers magazine in two days, the team photo should be a hit in our newsagency.  The poster should drive good sales.  On the premiers magazine, we received extra stock today and by 8:30 we had already sold three.  Opportunistic moves like these are essential.

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magazines

Promoting crosswords in newsagencies

crossword_plate.jpgThe creative team at Tower Systems has developed another poster for use by newsagents in promoting crosswords.  I like this one more than the artwork I published here two weeks ago as I think it will stand out well against the sea of colour in a newsagency.  I also like how it represents the health benefits of crosswords.

Once we make any adjustments, based on feedback from publishing this here, I will make a PDF available for anyone to download and print locally.

We plan to use this poster in a front-of-store crossword display as well as on visual merchandising space adjacent to our main crossword display.  The poster being timeless allows us to use it when we choose.

I wish publishers would work together and fund unbranded collateral promoting newsagencies for key magazine segments such as crosswords, crafts, food, motoring and travel.  While they only want to promote their titles, a healthy segment overall is good for all publishers involved.

Tower invests in this artwork and other promotional activities for newsagents to help build a healthier newsagency channel.

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crosswords

Graduation and teacher gifts

fhn_graduation.JPGEven though the school year has a way to go, we have a small display of graduation and teacher gifts on display for our school holiday shoppers.  We have the range of plush in the photo and several other items in this growing category.  We display these items along with a selection of appropriate cards to demonstrate the context of the gifts in case it is not obvious.

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Gifts

XChangeIT update available today

Newsagents using the new XChangeIT platform has been asked to act AFTER 4:30PM TODAY to ensure they are running the new release.  This will help address some of the operational challenges of the last month – it’s an important update.  The advice from XChangeIT for noewsagents to either reset or reboot their computers as follows:

To Reset:
1. At a convenient time shortly after 4:30PM on the 30th September, right click on the XchangeIT icon (its the blue triangle) in your bottom right task bar
2. Select the Exit option. This will close the XIT application and remove the icon from your task bar
3. Go to your Start menu and select All Programs.
4. Select the XchangeIT Link and the XchangeIT Newsagent Client option. This will launch the XIT application with the new version installed.
5. Check in your Newsagent client at the top right corner just below the round picture of the world and you should see v1.0.40.
6. Send us an email to let us know you have completed the upgrade support@xchangeit.com.au

To Reboot:
1. At a convenient time shortly after 4:30PM on the 30th September, simply shut down all programs you might have running, and save any work in process.
2. Shut down your PC
3. After 30 seconds turn your PC on again. Start your regular programs and start your XchangeIT LINK EDI program. The new version 40 with a new security key should automatically load. You should be able to continue receiving and sending files as normal.
4. Check in your Newsagent client at the top right corner just below the round picture of the world and you should see v1.0.40.
5. Send us an email to let us know you have completed the upgrade support@xchangeit.com.au

To check what version of XchangeIT LINK you are running:
1. In your Newsagent Client look at the top right corner just below the round picture of the world
2. There you should see v1.0.40 after you have upgraded.

The folks at XChangeIT have consulted widely on the release of this update including the timing to ensure that it is released at the best time possible for newsagents.

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newsagent software
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