Please excuse this off-topic indulgence. I thought I’d share a photo I took last week of a business I drive past regularly of The Compassionate Hair Studio. What a brilliant name. Does this make other hairdressers not compassionate? Are they compassionate in their cutting? In how they treat customers? Jokes aside, they stand out and I remember them.
We are playing some more with non-seasonal gift hampers in a couple of our stores. The one in the photo is for love. We have included several things someone would want to give to a partner or would-be partner. We have tried to go for a variety of items in the box for each of the hampers we have made – to reflect several categories we have in-store. We have made hampers for new baby boy, new baby girl, general female birthday, farewelling a co-worker and love.
While we have used hampers at seasonal times, this is our first concerted effort to drive sales outside of major seasons.
After what look to me like a couple of challenging months for The Monthly, the magazine has come out with a great looking issue. The Nick Cave cover is stunning and works particularly well in traditional newsagency fixturing. This is an excellent example of using the cover to cut through the magazine range in a newsagency. While the masthead is important, the content of the latest issue is what gets an infrequent reader picking up a title. we will pitch this title with our newspapers as well as the usual location. The second location is earned by the stunning cover.
NANA, the NSW Newsagents Association of NSW & ACT, has thanked the newsagency industry suppliers who have worked together to help the Lin family reopen their newsagency following the tragic death or Min Lin, his wife and three other family members. NANA has done a terrific job co-ordinating the suppliers in difficult circumstances. I am speaking from personal experience of what they have done. NANA’s work is an excellent example of what an industry association is about. They have done this work without promoting it or seeking to use it as a membership drive. Well done NANA.
Jarryd Moore writing at his Unboxed blog intensifies the spotlight on Express Publications, a company about which I have written in this place. Express Publications recycle what to me looks like junk, magazines without dates and with price stickers from months and even years past. These old magazines are sent in sealed bags on a merry-go-round, on trucks which spew out carbon emissions. There is an environmental story here. There is also a story of the space these bagged magazine take up in newsagencies. Finally, there is a story for the advertisers. I wonder what they are told about circulation and readership? Be sure to jeck our jarryd’s blog post and add your voice on this issue.
Further to my post earlier this week about the announcement by Rupert Murdoch that News Corp. would charge for access to its news websites, go to this link at Crikey.com to listen to the full conference call. This provides a more complete context.
This is the media story of the week with more than 4,500 stories online and 10,000 blog posts. It has sparked a huge debate as to whether people will pay for content. The only way publishers will find the answer is if more of them throw up models. The current approach clearly has financial challenges for them, something had to change.
The ABC yesterday published an excellent report on the charge or die imperative newspaper publishers are being told they face.
Personally, at this stage I don’t see myself paying for online news. But who knows? As we found with iTunes, the distribution channel (iPod, iPhone) is the key.
Calendars have started arriving an they are selling, even at this early stage. We are getting them out as soon as they come in – you can’t sell stock from the back room. The race is to convert the value of the stock to cash before the account is due.
We have customers who have preordered from us on the basis of the extensive range we carried last year.
Our calendar sales were up 38% last year. We anticipate double digit growth this year based on our buying decisions and how the other key departments are travelling.
We do not plan on discounting calendars until 2010. This was our policy for the last calendar season and it worked for us – in the face of discounting in our centre.
The latest issue of donna hay kids magazine is one of the most successful we have seen. In less than a month on sale we have sold 80% of our stock. This title will sell out. We have driven this result by a good display in our food section and proactive co-location with our weeklies – sometimes on the flat stack and other times in a magazine pocket.
No one asked us to do this extra work. we did it because it made good business sense based on a great looking cover with excellent visual cut-through.
donna hay kids magazine is a title customers will buy if they know it is out – hence the importance of co-location to drive a great sales result.
We are participating in an interesting trial with ACP Magazines promoting the Australian Women’s Weekly and Good Health in a a newsagent’s version of a combo pack for $10.95. This bundled offer saves the consumer $2.80. Magazine combo packs like this are popular among UK publishers – particularly in supermarkets from what I understand.
The trial should give ACP sales data with which to assess bundled offers.
We are promoting Australia’s Open Gardens magazine at the counter as part of our proven strategy for this title. If we repeat last year’s success, we will be sold out within a month. We will leave it on display at the counter for up to a week and the co-locate in our garden section and with women’s weeklies titles. In the third week we will promote the title with our newspapers. Few newsagents promote in this Australia’s Open Gardens way and they miss sales. Even though the cover price is $17.95, avid gardeners love this title. It is terrific to see a Saturday newspaper customer at the counter upgrade from a $2.00 sale to a $20.00 sale.
Newsagents with healthy gardening magazine sales ought to consider shifting this title to a prime location for a few days and see if they have the same success we expect. It’s a tremendous opportunity for us.
My only frustration is that the Australian Open Garden Scheme website does not promote newsagencies as a place from where to purchase the title. They could easily list all stores with the title or, better still, offer a search by postcode.
Australian Country Collections takes up double the retail space in newsagencies this month because of the copy of an old issue of Life magazine included in the browser unfriendly plastic bag. I don’t see the value in such lazy marketing – Australian Country Collections is a popular title for us. It is also popular with browsers. Bagging the magazine may hurt sales. Given the success of Life magazine I do not expect it to be a factor in driving sales.
I call this lazy marketing because it is not creative. Unfortunately, it is one of the most popular marketing tactics used by Australian publishers.
I’d suggest that there are more effective and creative ways to drive sales of this title than bagging it with an old unrelated magazine. That is what this post is really about – calling on the publisher and other publishers to be innovative in how they seek to drive sales in newsagencies. Bagging magazines is out of date and encourages waste in terms of unecessary freight as well as for the plastic bags.
Three promotions I would like to see for a title like Australian Country Collections are:
Each of these ideas is about newsagent and publisher engagement in a common goal. Bagging a free old magazine is not about this – quite the contrary.
If magazine publishers are to achieve break-out growth, they need to engage in break-out marketing. An average newsagency will have 1,000+ different titles on the shelves at any time. That is a lot of noise with which to compete – for newsagent and shopper attention. Hence the importance of a genuinely break-out campaign.
Magazine publishers doing the same old stuff in marketing their titles train newsagents to do the same old stuff.
This is a copy of the artwork we have developed for for Father’s Day for our four Sophie Randall card and gift shops in Melbourne. We do not use collateral from card companies other than header cards – hence the need to create our own seasonal pitch. Father’s Day tends to be promoted with a more traditional look than other seasons. We wanted something lighter but still emotive. For those interested, we did the artwork in house and paid $6.00 a poster to have them professionally printed on think card.
“Quality journalism is not cheap,” said Murdoch. “The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive distribution channels but it has not made content free. We intend to charge for all our news websites.”
This is Rupert Murdoch speaking yesterday at the company’s announcement of its results.
This is a bold move, to charge for news websites. It will be interesting to see if it happens and, then, the impact on traffic. The plan is certainly generating considerable discussion online. In the meantime, sites like AOL are busy hiring their own writers to create content.
I am not sure what I think about charging for content online. You can’t feed families with a free model. We need to see models like the News Corp. plan to test what will work and what will not.
What I don’t understand is the News Corp. policy on cover price for their print product. The cost of producing newspapers has risen while cover prices, for the most part, have remained static over the last ten years. Newsagents only make money from cover price. In real terms, our return from newspapers has fallen over the last ten years. A quality distribution system is not cheap.
Magazine merchandisers can be frustrating. Too often, they move titles around and take liberties with our retail space. Take the header card a merchandiser put in place to promote Popular Science in one of my newsagencies. This blocks our coproate image header card. I think, but cannot be certain, that they moved Popular Science to above the science magazines. We usually have Scientific American in the top two pockets – to beacon brand the serious science segment.
We have told merchandisers they are not to move anything, change anything or put up displays without permission. When they ignore this they disrespect our business.
Ugh!
I understand that publishers want to drive sales of their products. The best way for them to do this is to partner with newsagents in a business like way rather than by taking over part off the business. In the case of Popular Science, we have beeen told to place this title with men’s interests. This is where we have most stock. a pocket in the science section is part of our ownco-location strategy. Cursiously, the merchandiser did not violate our Men’s interests area display.
Sony overnight officially announced two new e-reader models: the Reader Pocket Edition (US$199) and Reader Touch Edition (US$299). They will be avauilable in the US in a few weeks. Sony also announced price cuts for books – dropping from US$11.99 to US$9.99. Once content hits a sweet spot and the devices have functionality consumers want sales will skyrocket and there will be an irreversable shift in medium. Like with the iPod. Business Week has a good perspective on Sony’s announcement.
The challenge for newsagents is the disruption to news and information distribution. We are middlemen. Over time, we become redundant. This is why we have to create our own future. This is why many of us are evolving our business model.
We are promoting The Classic Clint Eastwood Collection partwork (launched yesterday) at our counter – ready to capitalise on the TV advertising campaign when it kicks in. We expect this be a successful partwork given Clint’s current popularity across several generations.
Partworks continue to drive destination business for newsagencies thanks to the TV advertising. I just wish they had better online support for newsagents who get behind them – so consumers could find locatiosn near to them from where to purchase.
In anticipation of questions I am likely to get from this blog post, not all movie titles have been released yet but I expect them to include: Dirty Harry, Unforgiven, Magnum Force, Outlaw Josey Wales, heartbreak Ridge, Kelly’s Heroes, The Enforcer, Pale Rider and The Gauntlet. These are the titles in the UK edition of the partwork.
We have placed the latest issue of Lovatts Clue Words title above The Age newspaper thanks to the use of Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton (from ABC1’s At the Movies) on the cover. I am certain that Margaret and David will appeal to our customers and hopefully drive sales of Clue Words to people new to the title. It is small moves like this which can lift sales for an issue and show us off as the magazine specialists we consider ourselves to be. Hopefully, David and Margaret will work their magic for us.
That’s Life is a hero magazine for our newsagency in terms of sales so it is natural that we seized the opportunity to drive sales when we receive marketing collateral built around a new campaign supporting the title. We have placed the display in the photo at the front of our newsagency, acting as a billboard to passers-by and to drive sales.
I love the marketing collateral for That’s Life as it presents a genuinely cheerful image at the entrance to our newsagency.
Here is what I know about That’s Life customers – they are loyal not only to the title but also to the newsagency. I see this in shopping basket data. They love the price point for the title. They also connect with the pitch of: Laugh, Win, Love.
The loyalty we see in That’s Life customers is driven, in part, by our magazine Club Card loyalty program.
We will leave the display in place until the weekend, maybe shorter if sales drive us low on stock.
Like many newsagents, we have given prime position to the celebration of Vogue magazine’s 50 years. The collateral is excellent, true Vogue style. The multiple covers are stunning.
The launch of the issue has generated media coverage which should drive interest.
Vogue is an important brand to newsagents as it anchors our fashion segment. It is a beacon brand around which we can build business for other titles. The Vogue brand is especially important for those of us who carry editions from various countries.
We will leave this display in place for at least a week – depending on sales.
It is disappointing that newsagents who actively support the title were not given an opportunity to take on the boxed edition.
Given the tremendous success we had last month, we are pitching the latest issue of Good Health at the entrance to our main magazine aisle – where we have our weeklies, women’s interest, food and gardening titles.
While the fixture is not ideal for this display, it works for us – customers buy off right off the display and that is all the matters.
The display is made easier thanks to the variation in marketing collateral provided to support the title.
The re-launch of Good Health has resulted in a better product which is easier for us to pitch.
We are not our customers. We are not our customers. We are not our customers. We are not our customers. We are not our customers. We are not our customers. We are not our customers. We are not our customers. We are not our customers. We are not our customers. We are not our customers. We are not our customers. We are not our customers. We are not our customers. We are not our customers. We are not our customers.
This is a mantra we need to play over and over in our heads as we consider new lines for our newsagencies. Too often, especially in the gift and related departments, newsagents buy to their tastes and this stops the business from speaking to its customers.
The small boxes in the photo are a good example. These overly bright things are not something I or anyone in our newsagency would purchase. When I have shown them to newsagents they say that they would not work in their shop. I felt that way too. But we tried them. They worked – turning faster than many magazines. This was an excellent example that I am not my customer.
This started me thinking about why we get gift and other buying wrong. I see the results of bad buying in the data for newsagencies from time to time – stock which turns at less than once a year.
Unlike other businesses where the owner can wholly define the business, newsagencies are controlled by many suppliers in the categories of magazines, newspapers, greeting cards and even books. We are not brought up expressing our individuality. We accept this when we buy a newsagency business. I think this is one reason we struggle with understanding about creating a point of difference.
Another reason is that we are not used to testing and letting data drive our decisions. The data is there, newsagents tend to not use it.
We need to experiment more, really push the boundary of what we can sell in our newsagencies and be guided by what our customers like. It’s their money we want after all.
We need to stop buying to our tastes. We need to buy for our customers because, often we are not our customers.
The publisher os the Bellevue Business Journal / Eastside Business Newspaper (in Wastington state) delcared yesterday “Print is Dead” when announcing the cessation of printing and an expansion of its online focus.
Joe Kennedy, longtime Publisher of Bellevue Business Journal and Eastside Business newspapers in Bellevue, Washington and former Publisher of The Valley Business Journal in Temecula, California has declared the print news industry “dead” and instead of printing newspapers, will be focusing time and resources on continuing to expand reach to readers online and through the use of social media.
“It’s no secret that the print news industry has been hurting for some time”, Kennedy said, “but with the amazing and exciting evolution of social media, it has become all but irrelevant. We have reached many, many more people online with our news sites than through the print papers for the past couple of years. It is about time that we focus all of our resources reaching the majority of readers online and where they want to be engaged.”
While not a major publisher and therefore likely to be ignored as a significant move, it is a significant move. It will be interesting to see how widely this story is covered.
I am aware (through the developer) of a new newsagency opportunity in an outer eastern suburb in Melbourne. The new centre, due to open late this year, will have Aldi, Dan Murphy, Chemmart and Nandos in addition to the planned 300 sq metre newsagency. There is plenty of free parking right in front.
If this is of interest to you, please make contact with me.
The Melbourne Gift Fairs come to an end today. While there has not been as much in the way of new product that we wanted to see, some excellent deals have been on offer. Plenty of suppliers were prepared to negotiate on terms, making taking on new ranges more appealing from a cash-flow perspective. Suppliers who are sensitive to the cash-flow challenges of retail today are more interesting to newsagents keen to expand their floor stock – especially in the lead up to Christmas.
One frustration is a few suppliers who refused to permit their products to be places in newsagencies. While this is their right, it demonstrates an ignorance of what a newsagency can look like today.
Gift fairs always present excellent margin and range opportunities – crucial opportunities in building a healthier newsagency, crucial opportunities in pursuing change.
From Mag World, a Canadian publication on magazine retailing:
According to Shepard, a primary magazine pocket at a Gateway newsstand in the TTC has a list rate of $11,500 per year. The company’s most expensive location is Toronto’s Union Station, which sells primary pockets at annual rates anywhere from $12,000 to $30,000.
Read the article from which I lifted this quote here.
While I understand there is a considerable difference magazine retailing in Australia compared to Canada and a difference in transit retailing to high street and shopping centres, the numbers quoted make you think about the value of our retail locations.