The Powerball jackpot of $20 million is timely for us. While it is nowhere near this week’s Oz Lotto jackpot, experience shows $20 million as a trigger point for bringing casual players to the Powerball game.
We are engaging some of the successful tactics from the last few weeks of Oz Lotto jackpots to drive good sales for Powerball.
We have been able to access some remainder Christmas stock and are planning a Christmas in July Sale using the collateral created by our team. Our plan is to run this for two weeks starting late next week. At 50% off we still have an excellent margin on most of the stock we have planned for this. In deciding on this campaign we are trying to tap into those hosting Christmas in July parties as well as offering an early purchase opportunity for those who plan ahead for the Christmas season.
John Hartigan, chairman and chief executive of News Limited, yesterday spoke at the National Press Club. Click here for an extract from his speech as published by The Australian this morning. Hartigan’s case, in my reading, is more about the future of publishers and journalists they employ than the print newspaper medium:
Instead of throwing a paper over your fence we will offer you a much more sophisticated package of print and electronic content, incentives for loyalty and tools that allow you to conduct transactions with our advertisers.
We will make our content suitable for the next generation of smart phones: devices that are still in their infancy with potential to deliver news, information, entertainment and shopping in high definition with full interactivity.
I agree with most of what Hartigan said in the speech. Publishers do need to evolve their model for new distribution channels.There is a bright future for quality journalism. Consumers will pay for this.
Newsagents ought to read the extract in The Australian as it reinforces my view that our shops need to be flexible and our businesses need to be structured to not rely on newspapers for traffic as we have done for decades.
The speech also reinforces my view that newsagents do not need contracts with newspaper publishers in this period of transition.
We have capped our busiest magazine aisle with a display for the new issue of Good Health. This has given us an opportunity to display the collateral for the free lip gloss which comes with this month’s issue. Often this collateral is missed as customers a quite close to the display. The aisle-end display is seen from the main entrance to our shop. The only downside of this position is its adjacency to Darrell Lea – from a health perspective probably not ideal.
The folks at News Magazines need to sort out their retail strategy. Using the same bag for two different titles, as they have done this month for Two Wheels and Live to Ride, will confuse consumers. Check out the photo. One challenge is finding the title – as this is blocked by the printing on the bag – both titles look the same. Another challenge is seeing (or not) the difference between the two titles.
I’d expect this common bag to hurt sales.
The Just In bookmarks are being put to good use today to draw attention to the special edition of Woman’s Day which arrived this morning featuring Michael Jackson stories. we use six to eight of the bookmarks for selected new titles which customers might otherwise not see as new.
The Mastering Digital Photography Guide distributed today by NDD is a perfect example of newsagents being abused by poor distribution practices. We are well serviced with Digital Photography titles. This publication, at $14.95, is expensive. It is also small and not suited to our magazine fixturing. It is easily stolen and therefore presents a higher risk to us. I can see no evidence in our sales data of various Digital titles to justify this title being sent to us. It looks to me like a cash grab. We are early returning all copies.
While NDD and their lawyers may say that this blog post is evidence of me targeting the company, I’d suggest they look carefully at their practices. They could have stopped this blog post being written by not supplying this title in the first place.
I am undertaking a sales benchmark study comparing April-June 2009 against April-June 2008. This study will provide an update on the sales health of our channel with the last study now three months old.
Tower Newsagents can participate by sending a Monthly Sales Comparison report: tick the box to exclude home deliveries, and tick the box for a category breakdown. Set your first date range (on the left) to April 1, 2009 to June 30, 2009 and the date range of the right to one year earlier. Once the report is on the screen, click the PDF button to save this as a PDF, go into your email software and send a copy of the PDF to me at mark@tower… Newsagents not using Tower Systems software should click here for a spreadsheet template.
I’ll publish the benchmark results here and elsewhere so all newsagents can benefit.
Okay, so the Oz Lotto Million Jackpot went off last night. That first division reached $106 million says something about Australians and their love of gambling.
Today, we turn out attention to several fronts to leverage the ticket checking and minor prize traffic which will flow from the Oz Lotto draw.
Powerball is $15 million – we have syndicates to offer those who bought shares in our Oz Lotto syndicates for the first time.
School Holidays, which started Monday, give us reason to adjust our front of store offer.
With several titles coming out today with Michael Jackson features we will be increasing our attention to this opportunity.
While we did not sell the winning ticket we had a heap of fun and connected with plenty of new customers. The rest of this week is about retaining a share of those as many re-visit.
I switched my newsagencies to the Tyro boradband eftpos a couple of months ago. It’s brilliant. Much faster than a bank terminal, integrated to the point of sale and all for a lower cost.
The benefits I am seeing personally are: better customer throughput, fewer mistakes, a lower cost and happier staff and customers thanks to ease of use. The benefits were obvious yesterday in handling the Oz Lotto jackpot traffic. The Tyro integrated solution is far more efficient.
No, this is not an ad for Tower Systems. POS Solutions is integrated with Tyro as well.
Today is better than if it were a Tuesday before Christmas thanks of the Oz Lotto $90 Million Jackpot. I say better because this is about more than being busy. The customers are cheerful about the shared experience. They are enjoying being part of this. We are too, it’s busy and fun. Other products are selling too, icing on the cake.
I think one consequence of tonight’s jackpot may be lower than expected sales of magazines featuring Michael Jackson stories.
The federal government has announced (quietly) that business to business contracts will be excluded from amendments to the Trade Practices Act banning unfair contracts. This is a huge blow to newsagents. The provisions which were set to come into force next year offered newsagents and other small businesses protection agains unfair contracts.
We have an opporuntiy during the winter break of parliament to lobby local members and government ministers to have our voice heard.
MinOnline published a report yesterday about magazines emerging on the iPhone platform. It seems that Paople magazine in the US is enjoying considerable success.
People magazine’s iPhone app appears to be a major hit, as it remains high on the App Store’s bestseller list weeks after its release. In many ways, People was tailor-made for mobile. It has a persistent and rich feed of Web stories about celebrities and images that fit the mobile model of drive-by content snaking.
The iPhone works as a distribution channel because it is easy for publishers to make money thanks to Apple’s technology and control. iPhone users are used to paying for applications.
Tractors and the World of Farming is a welcome new partwork with which we can show off our special interest credentials. It will appeal to our collector customers as well as those with an interest in the tractor and farming fields.
With the space at the front of our shop fully committed, we are promoting Tractors and the World of Farming at the entrance to our men’s magazine aisle.
We are actively promoting the re-launch of Real Living this week in the feature display (see photo), in a couple of pockets mixed with our women’s weeklies and in its usual location with home and living titles. With Notebook losing focus (and sales in my own stores) the time is right for refreshing the Real Living offer. I especially like the budget pitch on the cover.
Syndicates for the Oz Lotto $90 million jackpot are very popular. I put this down to the coverage syndicates have received in the media and to the size of the first division prize – people are happy to share. They also like to be part of something. Our customers are buying syndicate shares in addition to their own tickets in the Oz Lotto jackpot. While our $10 syndicates have been the top sellers in terms of shares sold, our $374 syndicate will sell out by tomorrow – all sold from within our store.
Grazia magazine gets my vote for the best (and most unexpected) Michael Jackson coverage today. They are using the story to connect with their relevance as a publication. To reward such a good and timely issue, we have given Grazia an impulse location at one of our busiest registers – a rare location for Grazia.
Magazines featuring Michael Jackson tributes have been given prime position this week. The photo shows the feature display which lines the approach to our main lottery counter. We have allocated space based on the extent of Michael Jackson coverage. We selected the supporting posters based on those which featured the Michael Jackson coverage in the magazine.
Clean Food Organic publisher, Malcolm McGuire has considered newsagents in developing the masthead for the relaunch of the magazine. The new design has ample room for our barcode label – inside the O. This saves us covering the masthead as often happens with barcode label placement.
“Looking at most magazine mastheads, it’s clear that newsagent staff often struggle with where to place the barcode sticker. Magazine titles are often obscured by price stickers. We thought it was time someone designed a masthead with the newsagents in mind. We view newsagencies as our most important channel with our relaunch and any small thing we can do to make life easier for newsagents staff can only help exposure for our title.” Malcom McGuide, Publisher, Clean Food Organic.
Clean Food Organic is the new quarterly magazine version of a bi-annual book that was launched back in 2005. I am told that organic food is Australia’s fastest growing food category with product sales outstripping supply despite the recession. Sales of food and lifestyle magazines are also holding up well. The relaunched titles should be in-store this week.
This magazine comes from a small Australian publisher and this is another reason for newsagents to provide support. Independent magazines like Clean Food Organic provide a point of difference for us – based on a product with a good social conscience.
The mall-facing displays being created at our Watergardens store are working very well. Each side of this prominent column are used to present titles in a professional and eye-catching way.
Australian Women’s Weekly sales are up thanks to the display in the photo. By using some of the publisher’s collateral and adding professional VM style, the display stands out. This way, we are not offering another billboard but rather a connection which is unique to us and the title.
While displays like this take thought and time, they are important where our competitors are supermarkets and department stores which do little to promote titles like AWW. The display shows off our point of difference.
Renee and the team can be proud because their display strategy is 100% their own work.
We have noticed a run on travel diaries this month in each of our stores. A check of sales data shows this is not uncommon in June. This makes sense – school and uni holidays.
We were lucky to have a good range covering various price points.
An enterprising supplier in this space ought to make a note to remind newsagents of the travel diary opportunity and this time and to the end of the year.
Travel diaries are easy business for newsagents since few other retailers have them at all or if they do they only have one or two. Newsagents serve this marketplace well because we sell travel magazines, maps, travel books and we are the go-to place for photocopying passport, tickets and the like.
Our opportunity goes beyond the diary since these are often purchased as gifts. There are Bon Voyage cards as well as other travel gifts. Thinking about it, we could package several categories together into a small season and become known as the destination for these travel services and products.
Being a destination is better than a last resort stop.
I call this a curious season because the opportunity almost passes by. We can be asked for travel diaries and service the need and not realise the bigger opportunity or that this happens at this time each year. There must be other opportunities like which which we, individually and collectively, miss.
Celebrity gossip site tmz.com has published the cover of a special Michael Jackson commemorative issue of Time magazine which hits US newsstands Monday morning. Newsagents know that there will be special coverage in our major women’s weeklies starting from tomorrow (in most states). I also expect a few publishing surprises in the next week given the blanket coverage on TV and online. A couple of publishing people I have spoken with are aware of the additional traffic being generated by the $90 million Oz Lotto jackpot and this is also guiding their response to the Michael Jackson story. Like publishers, we need to be opportunistic. It’s business. While some customers are sick of hearing about Michael Jackson already, many more will collect everything they can. Newsagents ought to be the go to place for this – we will have the best range.
We did not sell a single copy of the last issue of British House and Garden. This is a surprise because British magazines do well for us. I checked sales of a number of titles in various categories and found that while our British women’s weeklies are doing okay, others, like home, garden, craft and women’s interests titles are not travelling so well. This is a recent situation, likely related to the economic doom and gloom.
I’d be interested if others are experiencing the same with imported titles, British titles in particular.
Olga Kharif writing at Business Week suggests that Amazon is looging beyond the Amazon Kindle reader to smartphones as a commerce platform. Newsagents should read the article for a perspective on the new distribution model. Our role in supporting these media access devices will be in picking up a bit of account top up business, if we are lucky.