Staples announced this week that it will rebrand its Canadian Corporate Express operation as Staples Advantage Canada. I’d expect to eventually see the Staples name here in Australia and with that more of a consumer focus applied to the traditional Corporate Express offering. Such a move would shake-up stationery retail here – hence the need for us to work on our own stationery offering. Staples acquired Corporate Express in July 2008.
Check out whsmithentertainment.co.uk and see how this national UK newsagency chain is pursuing online sales of music, films and electronic games.
ACP Magazines has launched a Sales Based Replenishment program for twenty-one of its titles with newsagents. Through my software company and one of my own newsagencies, I have been closely involved in the two SBR trials with ACP for five years. This latest SBR incarnation demonstrates the value of trialling the SBR approach to magazine distribution. We have shared our own learnings with other software companies not involved in the trials.
The key benefit on the ACP SBR program will be a reduction in sell-outs in newsagencies. This is good news for the publisher and for the newsagent.
The key to gaining the maximum benefit from SBR is accurate on-time sales data. Newsagents who do not provide this automatically will miss out. Supplying accurate on-time sales data is something Tower covers in its free online magazine management workshops as well as at its face to face training with newsagents.
Accessing sales data from newsagents is a holy-grail of sorts for the channel – every supplier wants accurate on-time sales data. ACP has placed a value for newsagents on the provision of this. Smart newsagents will ensure they provide it so they don’t sell out.
We ran out of space for a magazine at one of our newsagencies yesterday. Every available space in the category was full and no title was due for return. This happens regularly in many newsagencies each week across the country yet magazine distributors continue to pour product into the channel. Publishers and distributors complain about newsagents returning magazines early yet they continue to leave newsagents with no choice by sending too much stock – as we experienced yesterday.
I am aware that the ACCC is considering looking at magazine distribution. I hope that this develops into a formal Inquiry. Newsagents need this as do Australian publishers.
Every day in newsagencies across Australia there are examples of what I’d consider unconscionable conduct around magazine distribution.
We are promoting the Lovatts special bonus pack at one of our lottery counters as part of a Brain Awareness Week promotion. This $9.50 pack includes two current titles and a How To booklet from Christine Lovatt. $16.00 value for $9.50. What I especially like is the header cards provided with the latest product from Lovatts. Their claim to be Australia’s BEST! reminds shoppers that not all crossword and puzzle produycts are the same.
Brother is launching the SV-100B, a workhorse e-reader. The number of devices is growing rapidly. As I keep saying, these devices alter the news and information supply chain. Publishers will close the gap between their business and consumers.
On the column at the front of one of our shops today I noticed six unrelated magazine titles being promoted. That we allowed it to happen is our fault. That a merchandiser did this thinking it made sense is another issue. It makes no sense to promote Aboriginal Art magazine next to Health Smart. I would be interested to know the fee paid for the visit to abuse our space.
While I have reinforced that merchandisers need to get permission for every display, this can be difficult to police sometimes, especially in locations which are hard to see from the counter.
We will remove this visual noise (mess) and reclaim the front of the shop for our own purposes.
The second Scheduling Conference in the matter of ACCC v Bill Express & others was held yesterday before Justice Finkelstein.
The ACCC successfully sought a preliminary trial to determine the issue of liability for the third line forcing and misleading and deceptive conduct elements of the case, with the issue of BNY’s involvement to be determined at a later date.
The preliminary trial will commence on 13 July 2009.
There is an interesting discussion under way at Core Economics about the price of The Age newspaper. Well, that’s how the conversation started. Now it has evolved into a discussion about alternatives to the print newspaper for accessing news and information. In the mix there are mentions of the iPhone and the Kindle from Amazon.
Newsagents ought to be engaged in similar discussions. Alas, we are not. This is due to publishers telling us it is business as usual and due to ignorance. One day we will, with hindsight, realise we missed an opportunity. Of course, some individual newsagents have not missed the opportunity and are reinventing their newsagencies already.
I’ll be interested to see if the controversial issue of Quilter’s Home magazine reaches us. We usually only get a couple of copies but judging by the reports out of the US it could sell considerably more.
We are promoting the latest issue of Gardening Australia between our two busiest sales registers.
The free gardening gloves packaged with this issue of Gardening Australia make it a good candidate for this successful impulse driven location. That and the changing season.
The only frustration is that the magazine came with one poster. If the glove giveaway is designed to boost sales then they need more than one poster to help us tell a decent retail story. The publisher may say that they pay a merchandiser to visit and take care of that. My view is that they should save the $35 for the merchandising visit, pay us and provide appropriate materials for the job.
Going out early with Easter cards and gifts is paying off – sales are good. I’d be surprised if we are not more than 10% up on last year by the time we reach Easter Sunday in April. Easter is a feel-good season so sales growth amid the doom and gloom stories makes sense. Easter is also a season around which newsagents can promote their local-shopping credentials – helping shoppers buy locally and save and support the local economy. We need to promote more around the local themes – newsagencies are ideal businesses for this.
If you know of a web developer looking for full time work please put them in touch with me. newsXpress is looking for a full time web developer with skills in: PHP 5, Smarty templates, MYSQL query writing, HTML/XHTML and CSS, JavaScript, Ajax and graphic design.
The power to the Tower Systems Head Office and several blocks around was knocked out just before 9:30 this morning. While it is back on now (10:15), we were able to keep our 1,500 newsagent customers informed of alternative support access points through various information channels including this blog. Since we take between 200 and 300 calls a day from newsagents, access is important. We sent a newsfeed direct to the point of sale software desktop of our users, posted information on the Tower blog and emailed all of our users.
This post was orignially about the outage but since it has been fixed I have modified it to reflect the usefulness of the blogs and other communications channels – especially the direct to desktop RSS feed for our users.
We are experiencing the value of marketing outside the shop with the latest Hot Ink! campaign. Customers are bringing in the brochure in with the products they want already circled. The Brother $20 cashback offer is popular as is the exclusive coupon offering a 10% discount off a second cartridge. As we find each time we distribute a Hot Ink! flyer to homes around our newsagcnies, new customers come and visit – some just purchase ink while others pick up a magazine, paper or other items. The flow-on benefit of attracting new customers is considerable.
It is campaigns like this which are crucial for navigating to the newsagency of the future – individually and as a channel. We are promoting branded product at competitive prices. This helps push-back on the consumer belief that newsagencies are expensive. We are also promoting product knowledge. This leverages what consumers think about newsagents when it comes to stationery. Most important of all, we are promoting relevance. This is what newsagents have to do to stay, well, relevant.
The reaction to the campaign is exciting and motivating.
The photo shows our use this week of the new space we have created at the exit to our two magazine aisles about which I blogged last week. We are promoting Good Food magazine as part of our ACP display commitment and because it has the free Italian cookbook this month.
The display was easy thanks to an excellent variety and quantity of collateral delivered with the stock.
We are getting used to creating integrated displays in this space, using one title as the focus point and supporting with other titles from the segment. While some publishers may not be consider this integrated approach ideal for their brand, indications are that it works for us as the retailer.
The Grazia price reduction to $2.50 this week is not as obvious as it could be. While I am no graphic designer, I would have thought that using different colour to the masthead colour to show the special price would have made it stand out more and therefore have a greater chance of achieving a sales boost. The $3.50 price on Famous is more obvious. $2.50 for Grazia is a good deal, I’d make a noise about that.
The new issue of Scrapbooking Memories went on-sale yesterday. The old issue is not due for return for some weeks. While I am sure between the folks at Express Publications and their distributor there will be excuses, these will not help newsagents. One excuse will be that we can early return – that work if you have a distributor who respects the newsagent and makes the process easy and certain.
Some days are extremely frustrating dealing with magazine issues in newsagencies. It is always the rats and mice titles, those outside the top 200, which cause the most grief and cost us the most time and cash.
Don’t forget to sign up for the free Tower Systems AFL and NRL tipping competitions. Cash is up for grabs. These comps are opento everyone. The site will allocate your user number. You set your own password.
Discover magazine published an excellent article in April 2008 about the carbon footprint of each issue. It wroked back the carbon cost of each issue from in-the-field news gathering through production, the retail and subscription distribution channels and, ultimately, to recycling.
The article got me thinking about the carbon footprint for a copy of Discover purchased here in Australia. It would be far greater by the time you add the cost of shipping product to Australia and distributing this on trucks across the country to newsagents.
Discover is not the only overseas title we carry. Indeed, there are hundreds being air and sea freighted to Australia for distribution through the newsagency channel. With a (generous) estimated average sell through of 50% and the unsold stock being returned, the carbon footprint on these imported titles is significant.
On environmental grounds alone, the distributing overseas titles here needs to be reassessed. In some cases, such as Discover, they serve a purpose and fill a genuine need while in other cases, crosswords, craft titles and home furnishing titles for example, they are filler taking sales from an excellent range of locally produced product. The environmental impact of this unnecessary stock ought to bar them from entry. Yet we have them because magazine distributors make it cheap to distribute them without allowing for the environmental cost.
Take crosswords, I’d love to work out the carbon footprint of a Lovatts crossword title and a Penny Press crossword title. I suspect the difference would illustrate why we need to restrict overseas titles in segments where consumer interest is well satisfied with local printed and published titles.
Publishers are aware of environmental issues. Surfing magazine was onto this in 2007 – but only through an offsets program. The PPA in the UK undertook some research into this in May 2008. FIPP is also doing work in this area. There is an interested related discussion at Dead Tree Edition.
Just as packaged foods warn us about fat, sugar and sodium and washing machines are rated on energy and water efficiency, maybe products such as magazines ought to have a carbon footprint rating. At the very least, there could be a warning sticker on the cover of overseas titles in a category well serviced with local and more efficient titles.
A free local newspaper. The Phoenix, covering Victoria’s Bushfire affected areas has been launched by the company behind the Melbourne Observer newspaper. The Phoenix will be primarily distributed through newsagencies in fire affected areas including Nillumbik, Whittlesea, Murrindindi, Mitchell and Yarra Ranges – 100 outlets in all. Once again newsagents are playing an important community role.
Each issue of The Phoenix will carry free advertising listings businesses in the bushfire affected areas. The Melbourne Observer office is providing free backup support for calls and faxes in addition to underwriting production costs.
The Phoenix is a terrific initiative for the newsagents in bushfire affected areas and the wider community.
I understand that newspaper publishers want to educate university students to read newspapers. They also want to drive circulation. $20 for a year’s subscription for a university student – including home delivery on weekends – is an amazing deal. These offers are from publishers who refuse small business newsagents even the smallest cost of living increase. The two issues are related. You cannot discount your product by 97% to grow circulation and then pay less than minimum wage to newsagent to fulfill part of the service.
Click on the image to see a larger version of the Chocolatier Easter Egg display our team has created at our Sophie Randall Melbourne Central store. Customers entering the store are greeted with this table. We experiment at our Sophie stores with fixtures and display concepts with a view to using these in our newsagencies. The table we have used for the Easter Egg display works well in newsagencies.
My software company, Tower Systems, formally launched its online Training Academy for newsagents today. This is an exciting move for us and for newsagents – guaranteeing a on-goinging training opportunities which will help produce better outcomes for newsagents, their customers and their suppliers.
Free online Training Academy for newsagents and newsagent staff
MELBOURNE – March 10, 2009 — Tower Systems, Australia’s largest supplier of retail management software to newsagents has launched a free online Training Academy for newsagents.
Through the Training Academy, newsagents can access formal training designed to help them better compete in today’s environment.
This is an unprecedented opportunity for newsagents and further demonstrates the leadership of Tower Systems to its community of 1,500+ newsagents.
Fully interactive, participants learn from each other and the workshop leader – as if are in the one room – even though they can be at home or their shop. Questions are answered and live examples provided to create a professional learning experience. Each session ends with a test to gauge what has been learned and the value of the experience.
Tower Systems provides access to all training for free. There is no limit to how many workshops newsagents and their staff participate in.
“Anyone can train you about what button to press and when, this is different. We train you about the why, we help you genuinely save time and make more money.” commented Mark Fletcher, Managing Director of Tower Systems. “Training like this, months and years after you install our software, helps you unlock tremendous value from the relationship with us.”
The online program includes training on magazine management, stock control, point of sale, stock take and how to move from POS Solutions to Tower Systems.
The online training services are in addition to Tower Systems’ group and one-on-one training sessions which are delivered around the country.
Access to the Tower Training Academy is from any computer with broadband. A phone is used for toll-free audio participation.
The Tower Training Academy is part of the exclusive Tower Advantage TM initiative.
Tower Systems serves in excess of 1,500 newsagents with retail management and home delivery software. It serves more newsagents than all other software companies combined. Tower owns and operates three newsagencies – it uses its software itself and provides test facilities for supplier initiatives.
Woolworths is offering Woman’s Day and NW magazine for $2.00 off if purchased together in a catalogue promotion which has newsagents concerned. Discounting these popular weekly magazines in this way risks resetting consumer expectation in relation to price of these titles and other weeklies. Newsagents are not well positioned to compete if magazines go the way of other supermarket such as soft drinks and breakfast cereals which are always on special somewhere.
Discounting like this with the majors, if continued, diminishes the value of the newsagency channel – where 50% of magazines are sold. The last position publishers want is to be more reliant on supermarkets than newsagents for sales. This is what they risk if campaigns such as this one featuring Woman’s Day and NW take off.
While we run a loyalty program for magazines in our newsagencies, this is a whole of category offer and pursues genuine incremental growth rather than shifting a purchase from one retail channel to another.