The government owned Australia Post shop opposite our newsXpress Forest Hill store has changed its hours on a Saturday. It now closes at 1pm. Tenants in a shopping centre have an obligation to support each other. We rely on the traffic Australia Post pulls as do other retailers nearby – indeed we rely on each other. It is the government ownership of Australia Post which allows them to get away with this arrogant behaviour.
Intralot has provided new in-store marketing collateral to support sales of their products. I especially like the floor decals and that they lead customers to the purchase point. In addition to the decals we have been given new posters, counter mats and other materials. It takes hard work to break into what was a monopoly marketplace and it is good to see that Intralot is continuing to invest.
After playing a key role in making Alpha Australia’s largest selling men’s monthly magazine, newsagents have been ‘rewarded’ by News Ltd. News has cut newsagent margin by 40%, cut revenue by direct (non newsagent) supply to Woolworths, Coles/Bi-Lo, Franklins, Big W, 7-Eleven and Coles Express, seized control of newsagent home delivery customers and shifted distribution to NDD.
Newsagents earned 50% margin from the sale of Alpha. This was in return for prime space allocation – next to newspapers. It is this prime space commitment from newsagents which got Alpha to the circulation it has today.
For the last three and a half years, newsagents have been told to only sell Alpha with a News Limited newspaper. In the early days some News representatives were quite threatening to newsagents about this. That strategy is out the window with these latest changes. I am curious as to what this makes of News demanding that newsagents sell it with a newspaper.
Curiously, the announcement from News implies that the changes with Alpha will benefit newsagents. There is absolutely no benefit in these changes for newsagents. It is offensive for News Ltd to suggest otherwise.
Newsagents are white-hot with anger toward News Ltd about this move with Alpha. They feel “conned”, “ripped off”, “cheated”, “abused”. This is the issue of the moment among newsagents.
News makes a big deal in its announcement that the commission through NDD is 5% more than is usual for magazines through NDD. While that may be the case, it is less than newsagents have historically made from Alpha. Indeed, newsagent margin has been cut by News by 40%.
You’d expect us to be used to this abuse – building a product and having what we have built taken away by a supplier. For all of our complaints, however, we do not fight back. We feel helpless.
Publishers will do what they think is right for their businesses. Newsagents need to start to do the same.
The Age has a post-it note type ad stuck over a teaser for a story on the young royaly inside today. I don’t understand why they could not have replaced the story teaser with their ad. On the ad itself, they are pitching 20 weekends of home delivery for $39. I wish I could make an offer like that as a retailer. The more they push consumers from retail the less interested retailers will be in their product.
Using older front-of-shop fixturing in a magazine relay this week, we were able to create what I’d rate as a reasonable magazine offer above the newspapers. Living within the needs of the business – to keep adult and sport titles near the counter and needing a place for a very small business category – we segmented the shelves above the newspapers. From the left we have blokes magazines, in the middle is business and to the right is our women’s section. Following guidelines established with the team at the newsagency, the titles in the women’s section will change through the week – the goal is to lift sales of New Idea, Woman’s Day, Take 5, That’s Life, Who, OK!, Famous, Better Homes and Australian Women’s Weekly early in the on-sale.
The women’s titles in the display are co-located here – that is, their main display is in the women’s section of the main magazine display.
The key change we brought to the display was structure which can be maintained with some simple rules. While this may need to adjust as the business builds experience with the change, a clear structure can be maintained.
Too often, at the front of newsagencies I see confusing messages – a mixup of magazine titles which do not support each other. While it is okay to have several categories in the one display, they need to be segmented vertically and with logic. We need to make it easier for customers to see our offer, we need to show them what to buy. This is best achieved by promoting titles which they know and are more likely to purchase on impulse.
Changing magazine displays or completing a full relay is a huge challenge for any newsagent. I can understand why people resist. For many, it is a tough task just keeping up with day to day maintenance of the sprawling magazine department – especially where you have less space than you need for the titles being sent. This is why getting the supply back to a manageable level for your business is the right place to start.
To guide our relay choices we consider the guidelines published by the Magazine Publishers of Australia some years ago, local demographics, local sales history and gut feel. The key is to know that the relay is not an end point. We need to continue to evolve our magazine layout to keep it fresh and to chase every business development opportunity.
Given that motorsport is top of mind in Melbourne this weekend – thanks to the Formula 1 Grand Prix – we are promoting Top Gear Australia at our prime counter position. We created the display yesterday and will leave it run until Monday morning. I will be interested to see what uplift we achieve. This late in the on-sale for an issue Top Gear anything more than a couple of copies would be a good result.
Notice that we have AFL collector cards on either side of the display. Hopefully, kids will point to them asking mum or dad to buy a pack and when they look they’ll see Top Gear – and buy cards and the magazine.
While it might seem like a lot of work to create a display like this for three days of sales, my view is that it makes absolute sense. Our goal is to sell more product and we can do this by creating displays which connect with local events. You cannot miss the Grand Prix in Melbourne this weekend.
We need to rethink airfreight titles because of the confusion they cause some customers. There is the issue of what appears to be fluctuating price – the airfreight edition costs significantly more. There is also the issue of sequence – take Model Engineers’ Workshop. Issue 148 (airfreight) came in three weeks ago. Yesterday, issues 147 and 149 (airfreight) came in. So, we are rethinking whether selling airfreight titles is appropriate for our shop. Based on questions I have been asked I suspect not. There is also the issue of the higher cost of theft – given the cover price. My concerns aside, however, I do know of newsagencies where it is appropriate.
Express Publications sent out a bagged magazine today which is a waste of money and space. The feature title is an old copy of Caravan and Motorhome – two issues older than the one we currently sell. We have eight caravan titles and each struggles so why Express and Network Services would think we would want a ‘new’ (old) title is beyond me. Gotch would handle this better – I could say no prior to allocation.
I am early returning the junk today from Express – I don’t have the spare space for it.
The counter display we did for Good Taste magazine worked a treat – we sold ten copies in two days. The other ten copies we were short suppliers will not arrive until next week – too late for us. had NDD continued its Friday deliveries we would have suppoirted the sale through the weekend and sold double what we achieved in two days. Ugh!
I wish newspaper publishers in Australia supported the over the counter subscription system like the have in the UK. Read how these subscriptions operate with The Guardian:
How does Guardian and Observer Subscriber work?
The subscription scheme is based on a voucher system. We will send you personalised, dated vouchers for each day of your package. You simply detach the appropriately dated voucher and hand it to your retailer as payment for your copy of the Guardian or Observer. You will receive a new set of dated vouchers every three months. Your retailer will be fully reimbursed for the full price of your newspaper.Where are my Guardian and Observer vouchers accepted?
Most local newsagents, major supermarkets and petrol stations will accept your subscription vouchers as payment for your Guardian and Observer newspaper. If you have a problem using your voucher then please contact us on 0845 1204733 9am to 5pm seven days a week. Calls charged at local rateMy local newsagent already delivers my papers. Can I still subscribe and benefit from the saving?
Yes you can. If your local newsagent already delivers your papers to your home, simply hand your Guardian and Observer Subscriber vouchers for the relevant month to your retailer and these will be put towards your bill. Please note that you will need to arrange home delivery of your papers directly with your newsagent who may charge you for this service. Home delivery is not part of the Subscriber scheme.
While I am sure there would be some bumps with implementation, something along the lines of what The Guardian offers would drive sales more days of the week. I have pitched this several times over the last few years and failed. Maybe others here, if they like the idea, could pitch it to their publisher contacts.
The photo below shows how the team at a newsagency I was in yesterday are using the feature space between their newspaper display on the left and the start of the magazine display on the right. The Easter gifts display stands out.
While the magazine and newspaper fixturing on either side is inflexible, the gift area fixturing is flexible and allows for a professional looking display. The keys with this high-traffic feature space are to tell a compelling story and to change the story regularly.
Often I go into newsagencies and see feature space like this populated with dust covered products which look like they have been there for months. No wonder they are covered in dust.
Country Style from News Magazines sells well for us so it is odd that our supply has been cut so much so that we will sell less than usual. Now we have to try and find out if this is a News Magazines decision of a decision by the distributor.
Some magazine supply decisions don’t make sense.
SPOTTED.mobi, a mobile magazine rack, has been launched for the iPhone. It aggregates the top 20 headlines from a selection of magazines. Click on the headline and you’re taken to the story. Headlines are updated hourly.
I suspect publishers pay to be on so there is a limit to the titles. Still, it’s another reason to not need the print product.
I don’t want to read this on the blog … This is for you and not for the blog … Just don’t blog about it … Off the record means off the blog.
These are just some of the statements which have preceeded meetings I take and phonecalls I receive since this blog really started attracting traffic (currently an average of 1,450 visits a day). Some people think that I blog anything I hear or am told. I don’t. These people don’t know me that well. Early in my blogging I found the Bloggers Code of Ethics at CyberJournalist and have tried to blog to those standards since.
I am told many things by newsagents, suppliers and others connected with the channel. I have a good sense of when someone tells me something hoping it will lead to a blog post. I tend to ignore these situations unless I think it would be genuinely inetresting or useful.
I and some colleagues are doing a magazine relay today (when I land back in Melbourne from Sydney) for a newsagent, to reinvent their magazine offer. We have been planning the relay for a week (off and on), considering sales data, demographics, the MPA magazine layout recommendations and gut feel.
As should happen with magazine relays, we are going into this with the view that what we do today is not a destination – no magazine re-location should be considered to be this. Indeed, it is about change, change and more change. This keeps the offer fresh and ensures it continues to improve.
The layout of magazines needs to be assessed in each newsagency at least annually. By assessed, I mean reviewed physically and through magazine performance reports. The category responds well to change – there is commercial value in playing with the layout based on what customers are buying and looking for.
Three newspapers in Michigan (USA) are cutting their daily print editions to publishing only on Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays. Another Michigan daily is closing altogether. read more here.
These moves are opportunities for newsagents who want to embrace change rather than react to it.
Congratulations to NANA for a good night last night at their Newsagent of the Year Awards.
Congratulations and kudos too to the stars of the evening – Van Nguyen Tuan Tra of Wincamden Newsagency for winning the Distribution Newsagent of the Year Award and Allen and Brenda Kavanagh of Greenhills Newsagency for winning Retail Newsagent of the Year award.
More than 160 people attended the event – a show of tremendous support for the work of NANA.
The photo shows the businesses which financially supported the Awards dinner. This includes my own Tower Systems. I mention the sponsors because the suppliers supporting newsagent events demonstrate, financially, their commitment to the channel – support them.
The value of the free block of chocolate bagged with the latest issue of Australian Natural Health which came out yesterday has not survived the distribution process well. The packaging of every block Scraborough Fair organic blameless chocolate in my shop looks damaged. These giveaways are only valuable if they look good to the consumer in-store. We considered featuring this title but could not find any worthy of the prime space.
Silicon Chip magazine this month comes with an advertising catalogue which is four times the thickness of the magazine itself. This creates a retail space challenge for newsagents without any financial benefit.
At the very least the publisher should pay newsagents for the addditional space required to handle this fat magazine package.
We are chasing the bonus margin on this month’s Popular Science by promoting it in its usual place – men’s lifestyle – as well as next to our main newspaper stand. If we achieve a greater than 50% sell-through, our margin for Popular Science goes from 25% to 35%. extra margin focuses the mind of retailers. If only this was a long term arrangement – reward for additional effort would see newsagents act more proactively for the titles involved.
We are promoting the Woolworths branded Good Taste magazine at our prime counter position for the next few days because of the free magnetic shopping list which comes with the title. Our feeling is that Good Taste will sell well from this location – hence the display between our two busiest registers and the call to action on the pad – Buy Me!
With a title like Good Taste being promoted heavily elsewhere, it makes sense for us to try and sell out early in the cycle.
The latest issue of the Australian Women’s Weekly went on sale today and while we received stock, we received one folded poster to support the title. The Souvenir Edition will appeal to our customers so we have created a cover based display at the front of the shop. This would have looked so much better had we received professional marketing collateral commensurate with the status of this issue.
The new annual access pricing announced by XchangeIT, the company owned by the three magazine distributors and through which newsagents receive electronic invoice data and provide sales data, at the QNF conference yesterday of $695 for users of the POS Solutions DOS software, $895 for non compliant newsagents and $495 for compliant newsagents is a step in the right direction but not far enough if they want to drive compliance among newsagents. Access for compliant newsagents should be free or, at least, token in cost. Only this will focus the minds of newsagents on the value of compliance. It is important to demonstrate the value to the channel of the many newsagents committed to efficiency and the cost of those who are not.
NANA, the Association representing newsagents in NSW and the ACT has called upon newsagents to not participate in any petition to the state government about NSW lotteries. Click here for a copy of the notice sent by NANA to newsagents.
Here are the suppliers who funded the QNF Queensland Newsagent State Conference the event yesterday.
As one who regularly supports such events through newsXpress and Tower Systems, it is frustrating that it is the same suppliers who stump up cash for newsagent conferences, golf days and the like. The best way newsagents can encourage more suppliers to open their wallets is to support the suppliers who fund industry events.