We are promoting the ACP cookbooks offer at the counter, featuring a different cookbook every couple of days. This is in addition to a power end display. Promoting the right title makes this a good counter offer, an easy purchase. Our regular customers will understand the added benefit of our Magazine Club Card with this offer as we give a clip on the card for an ACP cookbook.
Tower Systems has scheduled a free online roundtable discussion on magazine compliance for Tuesday December 9 at 11am. This discussion will review current standards and provide newsagents with steps to take to ensure their businesses are compliant and ready for the next phase of IT innovation in the magazine supply chain. This session is available for supported Tower Newsagents only. Bookings can be made by emailing bookings@towersystems.com.au.
Discount is the new “thing” in pharmacy retail in Australia. Stores screaming discount on their shingle and across the front windows have replaced traditional pharmacies on every secod street, or so it seems.
The pharmacy of yesterday, offering personal service and local knowledge is fading and being replaced by these impersonal barns which use a claim around price as their only point of difference.
In some of these discount pharmacies, the price pitch stops at the door for inside many items are priced the same as you would find in a more traditional pharmacy.
I wonder if this is a trend we will see in the newsagency channel, a group built around a price proposition. It would be challenging to achieve because so much of what a newsagency traditionally sells has a slim margin and is, somewhat, price controlled.
It is interesting to consider whether someone will boldly play the price card because some of the challenges pharmacies face we face too. Much of what they sell is sole elsewhere. There are too many retail outlets. Suppliers are frustrated with lack of discipline The overall shingle will support only so much divergence from the traditional offer.
While I have no interest in a price based offer in the newsagency channel as this would distract from our core unique propositions of community connection and customer service, the question is interesting to contemplate.
Click on the image below to see a TV report, The uncertain future of the newspaper industry. This ran an New England (US) TV NECN – New England Cable News – last night.
I am sure that other TV stations are running similar reports. Public reports like this become a self fulfilling prophecy.
From a newsagents perspective, the concern has to be howw we configure our businesses in terms of attracting customers and the shop fit itself for the changes coming whatever they are.
We have adjusted our merchandising for our ABC Christmas CD specials and the results were immediate. This display at the counter is driving excellent business. In one of our stores today a customer bought ten of the feature title on display and came back half an hour later and bought ten of a different title. She made the point “I only came in for a card!”. While we were achieving sales with our previous pitch, this new display, in the same location, works much better. The lesson we learned is that less is more – removing clutter from a display helps customers see what you want them to buy.
VANA is making a mistake investing time and member funds in developing its new nesagency marketing and management group (the Futures Project). This project does not seek to serve all Victorian newsagents. Nor does it seek to address the operational issues of most concern to Victorian newsagents. If I were on the Board of VANA, I would push for the organisation to focus on:
Once sufficient progress has been made on these five key areas and if VANA had resources available, I would push for what I would call phase two of the reinvention of VANA. I’ll leave those thoughts for another time but they include practical help to fix troubled newsagencies. While some of us do this today, VANA could bring valuable statewide focus to such effort.
There is no sense in working on a futures project unless you have taken care of today.
Lovatts Publications is promoting newsagencies with the running of our newsagency ad in two of their current publications. The back pages of Super Sudoku and Clue Words have the ad. This coverage is being provided free by Lovatts in support of newsagents. I didn’t approaach Lovatts for this support. They heard about the TV ad and wanted to help support our channel.
UK digital publishing solutions providor Zmags claimed yesterday that it can help publishers cut costs by an average of 82%. The claim is another of many being pitched to magazine publishers to entice them to move a print to an online model.
While I cannot vouch for the savings claim by Zmags, evidence is mounting of success being achieved from online magazine models.
My concern is that newsagents will ask one day how this happened and why the channel did not see it coming. This is another reason we need to take control of our shop fits and not have builders create shop fits which cannot easily evolve as our business model evolves.
The NSW State Government has introduced legislation to permit the sale of lottery tickets online. The Sydney Morning Herald has the story.
In Victoria, Tattersalls has been successful in driving online lottery sales for several years. Click here to see my first post about this in April 2005. Tattersalls uses its retail network of newsagencies and other businesses cleverly to drive online sales. This is done without compensation to the retailers.
In Queensland, the Golden Casket pays a small trail commission to newsagents who sell a registration card which is used for online sales. This was negotiated by the Queensland Lottery Agents association. While the trail could be larger and run for longer, it at least respects the role the retail outlets play in facilitating growth in online sales.
The reality is that more over the counter business will move online. While it would be a waste of resources to try and stop the online businesses, we must not permit our retail businesses to be used to facilitate migration of our customers online as has happened in Victoria.
“The old model of newspapers is dying. The newspaper industry is trying to innovate as much as possible and it just hasn’t struck gold yet and figured out what will work best. It’s a serious problem for them and they may not solve it at all because it may turn out that less and less people want to buy newspapers in the future.”
This is a quote from Ed Butler, a Senior Analyst with IBISWorld. He is quoted in an article published by ad industry journal B&T speaking about the turmoil at Fairfax following the ‘resignation’ today of CEO David Kirk and the sacking yesterday of Alan Oakley as editor of the Sydney Morning Herald – are evidence of the challenges of newspapers. These changes have been brought about on the back of a considerable drop in Fairfax share price, staff retrenchments earlier this year and other major changes.
Newsagents are experiencing changes in their dealings with Fairfax through trimmed margin on subscription offers, more complex and time consuming consumer offers and other changes. Fairfax sees newsagents as a cost rather than an opportunity. If they reversed this view and treated newsagents with economic respect they may have healthier sales than today. By this I mean that Fairfax should reward newsagents for growing sales. Instead, with some of their current offers, newsagents are effectively penalised for new subscription customers.
The latest issue of Money magazine from ACP Magazines has a the full page ad promoting newsagents on the inside back cover. ACP is providing the space for this newsagent marketing campaign free of charge. This is a terrific support from ACP. They offered the space without request. We have copies of the print ad in A3 and A4 size for newsagents to download from the Tower Systems website for newsagents who want to support this campaign.
Page109 of the latest issue of Good Health magazine from ACP magazines has a full page ad promoting newsagents. This is a variation of the ad being run by ACP in the current issue of FHM.
I am grateful to ACP for their support of this newsagent marketing initiative.
An election is under way for the NSW Director of the ANF following the tie of six votes all from the last election a month ago. I have spoken with Stuart Kilborn, the candidate running against incumbent Brenton Brown. I like what Stuart has to say and that he is not tained by four years of failure as Brenton is. While I have grave doubts about the relevance or effectiveness of the ANF, current members in NSW ought to vote. Click here to see a copy os Stuart’s candidate statement.
Stuart has not sought my endorsement nor asked for coverage here. I am giving it because of the failure of the ANF to adequately represent newsagents under the watch of the current NSW Director and because the organisation desperately needs new blood.
While on the ANF election, it has been put to me that during the vote last month the organisation had one of its staff contacting members seeking votes for the incumbent NSW Director. I don’t know if this is true. Maybe NSW newsagents could advise if they were contacted.
Through more than 850 Federal Government owned and operated retail Post Offices the government’s commitment to a sustainable small business economy is mocked. Successive Federal Governments have sat on their hands and allowed the bosses at Australia Post stray further beyond offering the services permitted under the Act. Indeed, they had the Act drafted in such a way as to make it hard to prosecute a case against Australia Post for selling books, CDs, DVDs, general stationery, ink, cameras, BBQ sets – all manner of items already available from thousands of stores across
The Australia Post Christmas catalogue is a perfect example of how Government ownership is being abused.
Australia Post, thanks to its monopoly protection around postal services, lands people in its shops for a fraction of what a newsagent costs. A look inside the door of a Government owned outlet shows this stamp and service business looking more and more like a newsagency and other retail outlets. I took the photo of the entrance to the Government owned outlet at Forest Hill (VIC) earlier this week.
I don’t blame Australia Post. They have successfully manipulated the process to get politicians and policy on their side.
The politicians have been convinced into thinking that Australia Post needed these other products to make their retail network viable. This is what the former Minister responsible, Senator Helen Coonan, told me when I met to discuss this issue (without success).
If the current Federal Government is serious about small business it will research how the retail Post network operates overseas and research the impact of Australia Post’s retail expansion has hurt businesses like newsagencies over the last ten years. Overseas they will see that best practice is considered to be retail outlets that focus on postal services. Back home they will find that small business retailers like newsagents have lost, I’d estimate, more than $100 million to the Government retail network.
The Howard Government failed to engage on this issue for its entire tenure. This is an opportunity for the Rudd Government to show if they are serious about small business.
I have organised an online discussion about magazines. Given the comments here about the Universal Magazines matter I thought it would be good to see if newsagents want to talk. If enough newsagents register interest I will organise the online discussion through the
Readers can visit Amazon’s online store and upload a new book right to their Kindle. Subscribers also can have electronic versions of The New York Times and other newspapers and magazines delivered automatically to their Kindles in time for reading with their morning cup of coffee.
From a report overnight at CNN.COM about the amazing success for Amazon’s year-old Kindle portable electronic reader. While the Kindle does not work here, it will eventually. The Kindle and other future similar devices will disrupt the print media supply chain. The question for newsagents is at what point will we realise this.
This is how our Frankston store is using the poster we have created to promote magazines as a Christmas gift this week. We are using the poster as we would single title posters from a magazine company. I hope more newsagents are using these free posters – I had the artwork created to provide us a way of pitching magazines as a gift worth considering. Too often we turn our shops into billboards for individual titles and miss a more valuable opportunity to promote our broad range. The poster represents a selection of publishers and product categories. We will create a different display next week using the sale collateral.
In Darwin yesterday I was impressed with the support newsagents are providing Resident, a local lifestyle magazine. Like SA Life in South Australia, Resident is very popular – newsagents love the title. I like the fact that you can rely on a traffic boost around the publication date for the local title – this helps newsagents build excellent ad-on business from the opportunity. I am surprised we do not see local lifestyle magazines like this for each capital city.
I saw a customer pick up the Sydney Morning Herald this morning, remove the post it type ad for Oxfam stuck on the masthead and leave this at the counter. Regulars here will know I obsess about these stuck on ads on Fairfax newspapers. The ones I dislike the most are those stuck over a news headline or the masthead as they represent a disrespect for the brand. Oh, as the trash left by unhappy customers.
Click here to see a copy of the newsletter we have available for customers out the front of our newsagency this month.
I continue to hear stories of suffering relating to Bill Express. The latest is from a supplier who has found charges levied to their business which relate to a business closely associated with Bill Express. The six figure sum charges have been back dated by a supplier without any contract being in place. They are for services not provided. Documents I have seen show them to be charges which were originally levied to the entity associated with Bill Express. I’m told that a person representing that entity advised the supplier to invoice the non Bill Express related party.
The resolution is requiring legal action and engagement with the Bill Express related entity but the latter is a challenge because they are expert at smoke and mirrors.
Meanwhile, in thousands of newsagencies, Bill Express equipment sits in back rooms and elsewhere waiting for someone to claim ownership and newsagents wonder about the status of their lease agreements.
A new Dick Smith store opened opposite our newsXpress Forest Hill store (next to Australia Post) on Monday. We are thrilled to have a national retail brand open so close to us. With Australia Post, the other national brand tenant at our end, closed at key times (evenings, Saturday afternoon and Sunday) it will be good to have someone else drawing customers to our end of the centre.
Dick Smith features ink, an important category for us. While we are comfortable with or competitive position on price, they will keep us on our toes in this category. I suspect they will drive a response from our Australia Post store on ink prices and positioning.
On the Dick Smith store itself, it is an excellent design – very open, bright, welcoming and nicely zoned. Each department is clearly identified. The Dick Smith brand frames the entire offer inside and out.
I got to visit several newsagencies in Darwin yesterday. Each had evidence of pursuing new opportunities. Each was keen to talk about ideas they have for their business. It was motivating to see their excitement, especially in gifts and in managing magazines. Magazines present a special problem here because of the distance. Besides the difficulty in getting replacement stock, they only get two magazine deliveries a week, meaning busir mornings on the days of deliveries and greater competition for retail space.
While I have been to darwin plenty of times, the trip and visits to other cities over the last few weeks are a reminder of the importance to make an effort to understand the differences in newsagencies around Australia. While we say we’re one channel, we are very different businesses because of local situations – and because we’re each our own boss.
The photo shows Nightcliff Newsagency. This and other newsagencies could easily locate to Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane. Indeed, the retailers I met with here could give many in the more populous states a run for their money.
A Current Affair beat up scratchie tickets tonight, saying it is not fair that a customer may be sold a ticket for a game in which the major prize has already been claimed. It was like they had discovered some new rip off. Given the nature of the scratch ticket product the story was a beat up. Sure the main prize may have been won. Other prizes are available until the last few tickets are sold. My experience is that most customers do not buy these tickets for the main price. It’s a bit of loose change fun.
Further to my post Monday calling for sales data for November 2008 and 2007, I have received responses from ninety three newsagents. I’d like to close this off tomorrow so if you are able to participate please send your sales figures by lunchtime.
Analysis of the sales data will provide a health check for our channel. My analysis will focus primarily on Cards, Magazines, Stationer and Newspapers. I will also look at Diaries, calendars, Ink and Confectionery but not is as much detail given the differences in newsagencies for these categories.
While the analysis looks set to reveal some concerning indications, it is better that we are aware of our individual and network wide performance year on year so that we can adjust our businesses accordingly.