Lottery sales in the US declined 2% in the third quarter of 2008 on a same store year on year comparison according to La Fleur’s magazine, which tracks the lottery business. This is significant because historically lottery sales in the US have been recession-proof.
The Wall Street Journal has the original story but you need a password to access that so go to Recent Poker for a report you can access without a password.
Magazine sales are strong for many newsagents this time of year with new customers in town for the holidays. It surpriuses me therefore that publishers do not sieze this opportunity. Instead, they shutdown and stop providing marketing collateral with which we could more easily promote titles which could appeal to holiday makers. Smart publishers would promote right now because no one else is. Instead, we are left to create our own promotions. While this is okay, it would be easier if we were provided good collateral with which to work.
Even in the post Christmas sales, a charity connection matters when it comes to selling boxed Christmas cards.
I saw one customer today purchase three boxes from us because we had cards which raised funds for the Peter Mac Cancer Centre. This customer came in to buy a newspaper and struck up a conversation when waiting to meet a friend at the front of the shop. The charity connection drove the purchase.
We are actively promoting the charity connection with our Boxed Christmas Cards through the current sale.
A digital version of the USA Today newspaper has just been launched for the Amazon Kindle reading device. For US$11.99 a month you can get the latest US Today on your Kindle in the US – the Kindle reader is not avaiolable in Australia. A monthly home delivery subscription of the print version of USA Today costs US$16.00.
A digital version of the New York Times is available for the Kindle Reader for US$13.99 a month. A home delivery subscription of the print version of the New York Times costs US$21.20 for the same period.
A customer complained at one of our stores yesterday that because of us, their son now knows that Santa Clause is not real. Their son saw a Letter From Santa at our counter and when they got home he asked them about it. The customer returned to the store and complained face to face and then asked for the number of the store manager to take the complaint to a higher level.
When I heard the story I initially thought it was a joke. For a child to see and read the Letter from Santa on our counter he or she would have to be at least six or seven. Further, there are many indicators in many retail businesses, on TV and online that Santa is not real.
I would be shocked if ours was the only store where this boy’s belief in santa was challenged. If there was a risk of this why take him shopping at all? But this is not a conversation to have with the mother, she is too angry at us.
I did some research online this morning and there are mixed views about when to let your children know that Santa is not real. The consensus appears to be between seven and nine – certainly before they hear about it from other children … and shops, maybe.
The stories one hears across the counter some days are truly amazing.
Our team at Forest Hill removed all of our Christmas decorations before closing Christmas Eve. With such a long lead up to Christmas and the focus now on sales, there is no place for Christmas decorations. The focus right now is on deals.
For newsagents wanting to break into calendars, I can recomment Bartel. Their range of Australian calendars sells well in each of my newsagencies. We go out early (September) and achieve good sales from people sending calendars as gifts overseas. I especailly like that they offer regional calendars – Mornington Peninsular for example for our Frankston newsagency. Newsagents can deal direct with bartel. They offer end of season deals to their regular customers.
In my own experience, the Bartel range has performed better than Steve Parish.
The time to plan for calendars is February and no later than March.
The gift of jam from the folks at Better Homes and Gardens is a nice treat in our kitchen. Small things like this count in a channel flooded with products. It also gives our team another reference point to the title – this is important because it is easy to suggest products to people who are browsing.
Gift cards branded to other retailers need to be considered carefully by newsagents. On the plus side is the thought that making a commission off a sale we would not have got. On the downside is the promotion of other retailers in our businesses and thereby pulling focus from items we may have which could satisfy the gift occasion.
While my newsagencies sell the Visa prepaid products (Canvas, V Card and Just 4), I am yet to commit to the retail branded store-specific gift cards. If someone has asked for a store specific gift card, we have pitched the Visa product – saying it can be used anywhere.
Before newsagents jump into these gift card offers careful thought is needed about the impact on existing and future sales, the revenue opportunity from the cards, floorspace requirements and how the offer reinforces your point of difference … given that Australia Post has these in their corporate stores.
That said, I know of newsagents who are thrilled to have the store branded cards for companies like Sportsgirl, JB HiFi and others available.
We put a lot of thought into our Boxing Day Sale strategy this year. We bought product especially, dressed the stores boldly and staffed so we could achieve. The day went well for us. We achieved excellent sales of boxed cards, calendars, Christmas items and diaries. Some other departments (magazines, counter cards) benefited from the increased traffic. Our plan is to run the sale for two weeks. We are prepared for further discounting late in the last week to give any remaining product a push.
With Back To School needing space along with Velentine’s Day we need to be firm on when this post Christmas sale ends.
Dan Farber, writing at Cnet.com, says print is fading thanks to competition to online. He quotes the latest Pew study which shows that 40% of people in the United States surveyed get their news online compared to 24% a year earlier.
Michelle Meyers, also writing at Cnet.com, writes about the Pew study and includes data showing that the Internet has taken over newspapers as the primary news source.
Now take a look at ten way Edward Roussel suggests newspaper organisations make the transition to digital. I like point ten – Experiment. This applies equally to newsagents.
Smart newsagents will experiment individually and through marketing groups.
I spent five hours behind the counter working in one of my shops this afternoon. While I am in my shops regularly and invariably serve customers, I rarely put in more than a hour at the coounter in any one stint. The experience today reminded me…
I would love our suppliers to spend time behind the counter on a day like today. They would learn why we get frustrated at out of date practices they force us to use, the supply of product on uncompetitive terms and lack of control in our businesses thanks to restrictions they impose. But those are points for another time.
Beyond working with a couple of exceptional team members today and learning from the joy they showed in serving customers, is the happiness of our customers themselves – Christmas kicked in for me thanks to them.
In between handling a busy Christmas Eve our newsagencies have been preparing for our Boxing Day sales. We have two posters prepared – the one on the photo and another pitching details of our specials. We have purchased product (cards, calendars, journals and some gift lines) for this two-week event to supplement existing prduct we want to quit. Tonight, before we close, we will dress the stores ready for an easly start on Boxing Day.
The Puzzler Brain Trainer is a drain on newsagent cash. The new issue came out today and is to be returned week five next year – the same time as the issue this new issue replaced. We do not need two issues on the shelf at the same time. Most newsagents would not have the space. All this delayed return achieves is a delay in refunding newsagents for unsold stock. Grabbing cash from small business newsagents like this is unfair.
It is actions like this which make newsagents want to pull back on magazines. One day, magazine distributors will wonder what they did to cause newsagents to focus more attention on other product catgeories.
We sold out of the Australian Financial Review bumper edition yesterday. Frustrating. That they have only one issue to cover a week is also frustration – I say that as a Fin reader.
Christine Lovatt was sent this note from a reader who saw our ad promoting newsagencies in Cluewords recently:
On reading the back of the December issue (77) of my favourite crossword magazine, Cluewords, I must agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments expressed about the local newsagents right around Australia. Our newsagent in Springwood, NSW are David, Vicki and Chris and they are extremely helpful. They deliver my four crossword magazines, Mega, BIG, Colossus and Cluewords along with my Sydney Morning Herald. I am amazed that they will do that as it means remembering to roll the magazine with the paper and also remembering in which paper it has been rolled so I get the correct one thrown into my front yard.
This is great kudos for Springwood newsagency (NSW) and for newsagents generally. That a customer takes time to provide such positive feedback is wonderful.
Thanks to Lovatts for running the ad promoting newsagents for no cost in Cluewords.
I was surprised to receive a Christmas gift from Intralot yesterday. I thought it might have been sent to a few but it seems that many newsagents received the same gift.
It is rare that newsagents receive a Christmas gift like this from a supplier.
The folks at Intralot have been thoughtful as the gift contained a range of items to share with the team.
Jeff Jarvis has an interesting post at his Buzz Machine blog which says, in part, that the LA Times can cover its editorial staff costs from online revenue. This is a significant milestone and presents the publisher with options, as Jeff speculates – when to turn off the presses?
The question of shutting print and going with a pure online model is complex. That the LA Times has reached sufficient revenue to permit such a discussion is, of itself, ground breaking.
This is another reason our shopfits need to be flexible and why we need to be thinking about the kind of future we want for our businesses.
Sales for calendars, diaries, gifts and books are the stand out success in newsagencies I am connected with this Christmas. Each is showing excellent (double digit) year on year growth. At Forest Hill, this has been achieved without the real-estate and labour cost of an outpost which we had last year. Sometimes I think those of us in shopping centres think that an outpost is essential when smart retailing within the lease line can deliver a better bottom line result.
We are still not discounting – except for Advent Calendars. Boxing Day is when our SALE starts.
Worrells, the Administrator for OnQ, has recommended that the company be wound up. This was to be put to a vote of creditors today. OnQ is interesting to newsagents because of its shareholding in Bill Express and its connection with hardware supplied to newsagents as part of Bill Express through Technology Business International, another OnQ company. Click here for a copy of the report to creditors provided in advance of today’s meeting. It sheds some light on the Bill Express / OnQ mess.
The announcement by Borders in the US of an agreement with HarperStudio to buy books on a firm sale basis instead of the usual sale or return basis is a significant move in book retailing in the US.
If magazine publishers and distributors in Australia offered firm sale with better margin, some newsagents would embrace the opportunity. These newsagents would have more reason to sell product purchased on a firm sale basis.
At my newsagency software company, Tower Systems, we have contact with between 150 and 200 newsagents every day through our help desk. In the course of these calls about software or some other supplier issue, team members often find themselves talking about general industry issues.
It is interesting to me the number of shut-in newsagents we talk with. These are newsagents from smaller businesses who don’t have the staff or other resources to enable them to be out of the shop. Often they want to more actively participate in the industry but cannot free themselves from being behind the counter.
I have heard some suppliers and industry representatives say that these people are holding the industry back by not getting out of their businesses are participating. My view is that they are participating by running their businesses.
I would not criticise anyone for owning a business which is too small to justify hiring staff so the owner could have free time. All of us in our own businesses sacrifice our own time for the future of the business.
At Tower Systems this year we have run many online training sessions and workshops for newsagents. These have been a success with the shut-in newsagents and provided to them access to a community of newsagents which would have otherwise been missed.
I’d like to see other suppliers pursue online meetings and other models which build a better connection with shut-in newsagents. The result will be a better informed and motivated channel.
Check out this very cool ad for the New York Times:
Further to recent discussion here on newspaper home delivery, click here for a copy of the business plan I developed three years ago when I was looking to expand in this area. As I was unable to interest anyone in this or acquire any adjoining runs I sold my home delivery business. Timing is everything as they say. I was lucky.
