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

Publisher helps newsagents make a sale

melbourne_observer_putaway.JPGThis ad appears on page three of the Melbourne Observer newspaper.  It encourages readers to fill in a form and hand it to the newsagent requesting that the paper be put away for them each week.  It is terrific that the publisher of the Melbourne Observer support newsagents in this way.  Kudos to them.

Educating customers about putaways has the potential to increase putaways for other titles.  I wish other publishers would follow this example.

Imagine the business we would achieve if magazines actively promoted putaways in this way.  Putaways promote regularity to our customers and this is a cornerstone of the newsagency model.  I am certain that newsagents would more actively support titles promoting our putaway service.

From a technolopgy perspective, pre-sales are already advised through XChangeIT so tracking for publishers of these pre-sales would be straightforward.

The Melbourne Observer sells well in our newsagency. It appeals mainly to women 50 and older.  Customers are very loyal.  We place next to our newspaper stand each week.

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Newsagency opportunities

Rolling Stone placement drove sales

Our placement of the latest issue of Rolling Stone at the counter resulted in sales of an additional six copies over the weekend.  Some of these are likely to be sales of the Rolling Stone which would not have otherwise been achieved.  This opportunistic placement of magazines is key to driving incremental sales.  Not flashy displays or consumer competitions but placement in a high traffic area where the cover will connect with a reasonable number of shoppers and from where a quick impulse purchase decision can be made.

It is challenging for publishers to make this pitch.  We do it in our newsagencies because to look at the covers and have space set aside for this type of promotion.  We have made it easy for us.

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magazines

Managing the Simpsons Sticker campaign

simpson_stickers.JPGWe approached the management of the Herald Sun Simpsons Sticker campaign the same way we manage other newspapeer part series.  Customers can preorder the whole series.  We record their details on a sheet.  While we could use our point of sale software, it is faster and easier to use a single sheet to take track who has collected which part of the series.  We only accept preorders when the entire order is paid up front.

simpsons_sheet.JPGClick on the image on the left to see a larger version of the sheet we use to manage the process.  We have been using this approach for two years with success.

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Newsagency management

Junk shop newsagencies

The gap between newsagencies is wider than I have ever seen it.

At the top end, our channel has professional looking newsagencies making a clear newsagency pitch around core lines and offering brand name products in a retail environment which competes with any major retailer.

At the bottom end our channel has what can be best described as junk shops, newsagencies dominated by cheap China product in dump bins and on tables spread across the front of the shop to the detriment of core newsagency lines.

Both types of businesses call themselves newsagencies, unfortunately.

The junk shop newsagency is more of an endangered species given the number of other junk shops out in the marketplace. It seems that shopping malls and high streets are cluttered with shops pushing cheap China product.

There are fewer newsagencies focusing on the core and offering strong, logical, shoots off each side of the core. Yet many of these newsagencies are flourishing. It surprises me that more to not take what is clearly a successful path.

While newsagents can run their businesses how they choose, those in the junk shop space, where more than half the floor space is taken up with cheap China product, ought to find a new name so as not to confuse shoppers looking for a newsagency.

The alternative is that the proactive newsagents shift focus away from the newsagency shingle.

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Newsagency challenges

Great customer service from Darrell Lea

Darrell Lea had a truck on the road in Melbourne yesterday ready to respond to calls from retailers in need of more of their Father’s Day Dad’s Bags.  One of our locations, new to Darrell Lea just last month had sold out and within a couple of hours of calling we had the stock we needed – in time for the afternoon rush.  This is excellent customer service from Darrell Lea.

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confectionary

New newsagency opportunities

Through my involvment with newsXpress I am hearing of more newsagency for sale opportunities through landlords looking to get national brand representation in their centres.  Right now, I am aware of newsagency locations available in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.  Some are greenfield locations and others are existing centres. I’d  be happy to point interested parties to the landlords involved.  I can be reached on 0418 321 338.

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buying a newsagency

Magazines for the weekend

weekendmagaziens.JPGOne task on a Friday morning is to select the range of magazines we will promote to passers-by in the mall at the front of our newsagency over the weekend.  We take care in selecting either one title we want to push or a range of titles which will appeal to our weekend shopper.  This is our one shot to pitch magazines to people visiting the shopping centre without a plan to visit our newsagency.

This weekend’s selection reflects the care we have taken in crafting our pitch.  We have used beacon branding principles – showing the feature titles by allocating two pockets each. Better Homes & Gardens, Good Health, Women’s Health, Real Living and Money are among the ten titles which get this higher profile treatment.  You see in the photo that we have titles grouped by segment: garden, health, food, living and money/property.

We are using the last row to display the third title in each segment we cover.

Almost all titles are well known.  This is important as the eyeball time the stand will get is very limited.

This display took us between around ten minutes to create, not because of the quality of the display but because of the time taken to consider what we wanted covered in the range. This weekend, we wanted to include titles in the range which could be considered as part of a Father’s Day gift.

The display was created first thing yesterday (Friday) morning and will be taken down Monday morning.  It truly is a weekend-only display.

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magazines

Book sale continues to drive success

fdaybookflyer.JPGOur Father’s Day book sale continues to drive excellent sales thanks to a great range of books and simple yet effective free marketing collateral promoting this range.  From a small stock commitment we are achieving sales of between $300 and $500 a day.  The sales in recent days show the popularity of books as a gift for dad.

In addition to an excellent range, the A5 four page flyers drive good traffic.

This is an example of chasing better margin business for the newsagency. We make more than double the margin on these books than we make on magazines and newspapers yet we rely the traffic of newspapers and magazines to drive book sales.

Father’s Day is clearly a great time to run this size of book sale. I know of newsagents who are going much harder than us with outposts – and achieving excellent results.

A book sale at Father’s Day is now part of our annual marketing plan.  It’s a guaranteed win and we have book retailers in our centre so it is not as if we have no competition.

The keys as we see them are: the right supplier, a great range, keen prices and a plan to get in, be bold and a clear plan on when to get out.

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Book retailing

Promoting Time magazine

tedkennedy.jpgWe have placed Time magazine with newspapers this week to bring the Ted Kennedy coverage to the infrequent Time consumer.  We are bound to sell several copies from this location which we would otherwise not have sold.  It pays to check the covers of magazines for opportunities like this.

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magazines

Promoting scratchies for Father’s Day

ilotfdayflyer.JPGI like the collateral provided by Intralot promoting instant scratch tickets for Father’s Day – especially their pitch with the brand of greeting card we carry.  This makes it easy for us to pitch scratchie gift packs with our cards.  It is not often you see a supplier from one category complimenting a supplier from another category.

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Greeting Cards

Promoting Rolling Stone’s John Lennon feature

fhn_rolling_stone_sep09.JPGWe are promoting the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine as part of our Father’s Day magazine moves around our newsagency.  The John Lennon feature makes this a collectors issue and an ideal Father’s Day gift for a Generation X dad.  We have this display located at the busiest point of our counter – targeting maximum impulse purchase. It’s ideal timing from ACP to have the John Lennon feature out now.

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magazines

Promoting Top Gear for Father’s Day

fhn_topgear_sep09.JPGWe are promoting the latest issue of Top Gear magazine near our newspaper stand in the lead up to Father’s Day.  This placement is part of a range of moves with magazines to pitch for Father’s Day business around our newsagency.  The newspaper location has worked well for sales of Top Gear for us in the past.  We will leave this display up until Monday at least.

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magazines

Sony’s electronic newspaper

Sony is calling their latest e-reader device the Daily Edition, connecting it with the newspaper reading habit.  A story in the New York Times asks can it whar fish?

The Wall Street Journal this morning published a report about the prospects of the mass market for these e-readers and noting that it is about price.

These readers and other devices will evolve and evolve until we have an iPod like device for delivering access to what was print material.  It happened with music and when it the whole game changed.  It will happen with print.

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Media disruption

Expensive Nurse Diary

nurses_diary.JPGWhat will newsagents sell the 2010 Australian Nurse Diary for?  $11.95 which is the RRP or $15.00 which is the retail price for the copies supplied through Network Servcies? Network has invoiced me at 71% more than the cost price from my direct supplier.  The margin on the Network price is 36% and the margin on direct supply 53%.

Network runs a much improved magazine distribution model.  Their handling of fringe opportunities such as diaries and calendars needs work if newsagents are to be seen as competitive by consumers.

If I relied on the Network supply of the Nurse Diary I’d be seen as expensive compared to other retailers.  Newsagents are already considered as expensive by consumers.  We need to push back on this and source products on terms which permit us to be seen a competitive.  The push model of magazine distribution for non magazine products does not help us be more competitive.

We need to make our own success.

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Diaries

Promoting marie claire

fhn_maire_claire_sep09.JPGWe are promoting marie claire magazine at the front of the newsagency this week to leverage the free bag which comes with the title.  We’re short of space right now so finding this location for what is a good offer was a challenge.  We have this display near our busiest lottery counter.  It will be up for at least three or four days – longer depending on demands on space.

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magazines

FLYP, more than a magazine

Check out FLYP.  As they claim, it is more than a magazine.  It offers magazine like content in a fresh from combining video, audio, animation and interactivity.  Stories will cover just about anything including politics, music and science.  Two issues a week.  Purely digital.

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magazines

August strong for magazines

We had a good August for magazines compared to last year, especially for womens weeklies – unit sales declined just 23 copies off a considerable base.  Given the volatility in sales of the weeklies this past year, a decline of 23 units for the month on a year-on-year comparison is good.  Gifts, books, stationery and ink also recorded solid growth.  The surprise of the month is the 262 calendars we sold – all at full price (yep, no discounting here) and all with an excellent margin.

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magazines

Australia Post extends the definition of postal services

While best practice around the world is the open competition for the postal service and retail post offices being dominated by, well, postal services, successive governments in Australia have allowed and even encouraged the 100% government owned and protected Australia Post to compete more with private enterprise.

Yesterday’s news that Australia Post is to sell insurance is more evidence of selective interpretation of what is permissible under the Act which governs Australia Post.

Let me declare my interest.  One of my newsagencies is directly opposite a government owned Australia Post shop.  Here, the federal government directly competes with me for stationery, greeting card, ink and toner, book, calendar and other sales.   Government owned post offices have no role in taking more and more business from private enterprise.

Australia Post benefits from government protection.  Their retail outlets get rent deals, special landlord treatment, better buying and cheap access to customers who have nowhere else to go for the right to stand in a line for mediocre service.

I don’t blame the Australia Post executives.  They are probably on a nice bonus scheme.  This is a policy issue which can only be fixed by politicians.  That they refuse to even consider the issue demonstrates their lack of care for small business.

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Australia Post

7-Eleven promotes Cosmo and NW

7-Eleven is promoting a Cosmopolitan and NW magazine bundle this week.  What is interesting is that they are using header cards in their magazine rack to promote the bundle.  Two 7-Eleven stores I have visited have the headers randomly placed in the magazine rack – covering other magazines.  Their merchandising is usually much better than this.  that said, I do like the idea of trying bundling without creating a new pack with the two titles bundled.

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magazines

Losing the magazine tip on

healthy_living.JPGThe free pedometer on one copy of Healthy Living magazine which arrived yesterdaay was missing from the packaging.

Note to publishers – if you are going to use a tip on to promote a magazine make sure that it is delivered in a way which enhances the title (and sales) rather than detracts from it.  Besides the lost pedometer, the cards to which they are attached arrived bent on many of the magazines.  These cards also stick up so much they cover other magazines in the display.

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magazines

Ultimate Nintendo magazine sales slide

ultimate_nintendo.JPGOur sales of Ultimate Nintendo magazine from Derwent Howard have collapsed with the latest issue.  One copy sold in seven weeks on-sale.  This makes Ultimate Nintendo loss making for us by the time we cost in retail real-estate and labour.  This magazine may go the way of some computer game magazines overseas … gone.  At the very least in our store based on sales numbers, we need to significantly cut supply.

The Australian published a report today that a winding up notice had been issues against Derwent Howard.   The report also notes that Ultimate Nintendo has been transferred to another company.

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magazines

ANF CEO quits

Here is the full text of a release sent out earlier today from the announcing the departure of CEO Anthony Matis from the Australian Newsagents’ Federation.

Board Expresses Appreciation to Outgoing CEO

The Board of Directors of The Australian Newsagents’ Federation (ANF) has expressed its appreciation to outgoing CEO Anthony Matis for his valued contribution during the past nine months.

Chairman Peter Allpike said Mr Matis has successfully completed the important groundwork in a much needed re-structuring of the newsagency body and has set its steady course for the future.

“In reflection I must say it’s going to be business better than usual.When we appointed Anthony to look at how the ANF could be restructured, we needed a person with a certain set of skills,” Mr Allpike said.

“The organisation needed rationalisation and modernisation and Anthony’s accounting background in mergers and takeovers has proved extremely valuable.

“Anthony is moving on, but I am pleased he has accepted the Board’s offer to remain as a special consultant to the ANF.”

Thanking the Board for their kind words, Mr Matis shunned attention to instead praise loyal ANF staff for the cooperation and hard work they have shown during his time in the role. Further to this Mr Matis thanked State and Federal Governments and senior executives within industry partners.

“I have made friends at the ANF and I have made friends among the many newsagents I have met during this time,” Mr Matis said.

“The staff has been absolutely wonderful and I would like to thank those key people who put in a great effort and had no problems working on weekends when the challenge called.

“The ANF has good people and now has a stronger foundation to better represent its members in the months and years ahead. I believe this industry has an extremely positive future and newsagents who choose to be a part of the National body will be better placed.”

Mr Allpike said Mr Matis was appointed to the CEO role at the ANF at a time the industry faced new challenges.

“We’ve had the NSW Lotteries announcement, News Limited contracts, we have had Collective Bargaining negotiations, and the Small Business Summit among a host of other things and the ANF has done well in a very tough year.

Mr Allpike said part of the restructuring of the ANF was the creation of the position of National General Manager which saw the appointment of Alf Maccioni to the role.

“Alf has filled this role well and has proved to the Board that there needed to be such a position created. Alf has provided good management at Head Office and will continue in this role as the Board of Directors embarks on a robust search for a permanent replacement for Mr Matis.

“A lot has challenged the newsagency channel since the economic downturn and we know in this world there is nothing more certain than change. The ANF has undergone important backroom modifications and is now in a prime position to meet the issues ahead and more importantly to assist newsagents grow, develop and prosper.

“We thank Anthony for his valuable contribution, wish him well and look forward to working with him in the future.”

Since the departure of Paul Waite from the CEO role in 2005, the ANF has had three CEOs.  Given the failure of any CEO to deliver meaningful change to the representation of newsagents, newsagents need to ask if the problem has been the CEOs or the Board.  Sure, the Board has changed, but not as much as it may seem.

Nothing of substance or value to newsagents has been achieved in the last year, despite the list in today’s announcement.  I wonder if this is a reflection of failure of the CEO or failure of the Board.

At the ACP Connections Conference in Cairns last week the ANF Chairman and CEO looked like a unified team.  Much has changed in the last five days.

We will never know because, as the press release shows, the ANF is a master of spin.

Today, once again, newsagents have to ask themselves if the ANF serves any purpose.

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Newsagent representation

Featuring Heath Ledger Vanity Fair issue

fhn_vanity_fair_sep09.JPGWe are opportunistically promoting the latest issue of Vanity Fair, out today, at our main newspaper stand.  The Heath Ledger cover story makes this issue appeal to a broader demographic than usual for Vanity Fair.  It is this approach which drove excellent results for us with the Ben Cousins issue of GQ magazine.

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magazines

Pitching That’s Life

fhn_tl_sep02.JPGWe are pitching the latest issue of That’s Life at the counter today because of the $20,000 scratchie promotion with the magazine.    This display will stay up until Friday.  Somone asked my why we run That’s Life so often in this prime location – it’s a top 5 magazines for us.  Gaining extra sales is easy.  Decisions about what to display where and for how long are about the return we can achieve.

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magazines
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