Partwork season rolled on this week with the release of the Build A Model Solar System partwork on Monday. This has launched in time for our local school holidays and is a week off in some other states. As we do with partworks, we have gone hard with a good display at the front of the shop – parents and grandparents will like something like this to make the holidays count for more than some fast food or a movie. We are certainly promoting the education value.
We have created a power-end display to promote Annette Sym’s Symply Too Good To Be True range at Forest Hill. Our goal is to drive sales of multiple books in each purchase. The display is directly in front of our cookbooks and health section – meaning it should connect with browsers. We picked up the marketing collateral at the newsXpress conference last week.
For newsagents new to Annette’s range, newsagents are the exclusive retailer and the books are available through Network Services.
I received a call from another newsagent who has achieved a refund of three months of Bill Express equipment rental payments as a result of reading about it here. This is great news. While the status of the finance agreements is yet to be tested, any return of cash in the meantime has to be welcome.
I have received some interesting calls in response to my blog post yesterday about renting magazines. The post was meant to be more about getting us to think outside the traditional when it comes to our businesses. I can think of many reasons renting magazines will not work just as I can think of reasons other innovative ideas will not work. My interest in the post was more from the perspective of being open to exploring a radical idea for its is out of that process that other good ideas can spring.
Given the number of newsagents who have handed back their home delivery runs this past year, newsagents and publishers ought to get together for a summit to discuss the situation. Since the giving back is occurring more in regional NSW and QLD, the summit ought to be located in either area.
Publishers and representative newsagents ought to talk frankly about the problem, listening to each other and pursuing any idea, no matter how crazy, to chase an economically fair home delivery model.
Unless such newsagent / publisher dialogue is engaged, more home delivery runs will be handed back without a plan.
My understanding is that for newsagents this is about money. I was talking with several last week who handed back their runs because they were losing hundreds of dollars a week. They had the financial data to support their claim. They had approached the publisher in question to discuss operational costs and were ignored. No one wins from a head in the sand approach to what is a real problem for regional newsagents.
While I am pleased to see the men’s health segment grow with the arrival of the Australian edition of Men’s Fitness, it is disappointing to see it’s cover look almost like clone of Men’s Health. While there may be research indicating that this is a smart move, from a retail perspective I want to separate the two titles – so they will each be seen. Together, they look the same and one or the other will be lost to browsers.
Zoo Weekly is a feature magazine with the ACP Connections program this week. Based on our past experience at Forest Hill, we have gone for a promotional display next to our main newspaper stand. This leads to a better sales lift than a power end display – especially since we are chasing the irregular Zoo consumer who is probably visiting to purchase a newspaper. Also, we have had complaints from some of our older customers when we display Zoo on a power end.
What if we were to rent magazines as well as selling them? People could pay by the day or week (for monthlies). We could sell rental contracts in monthly (or longer) blocks. They could rent by the title or by the total rental days regardless of title.
I appreciate the ideas may seem ridiculous. Mull on it for a while and see what other ideas it ignites.
The shredders we brought in for Father’s Day (as part of the newsXpress offer) have sold easily, more easily than we expected. With stories about identity theft in the media, I guess it is no wonder people are happy to buy some protection. There is enough interest for newsagents to carry two or three models of shredders – to satisfy personal and small business needs. Shredders are a logical extension to the usual newsagent stationery offering – play in that space and you soon see more opportunities.
Healthy Food magazine comes with a sample bag worth $10.00 which we are featuring at the counter of our newsagencies. There is no point in making this display too pretty as it is all about the bag and magazine. If the bag works like last year we will be out in a couple of days.
Scott Karp blogs that the New York Times website has an offer – advertise online and they will throw in a free print version of the ad. Talk about role reversal!
The Ronnie Barker partwork which was launched last week is selling well. What I noticed on Saturday is customers wanting to tell you their funny Ronnie Barker stories and their opinion of him compared to Ronnie Corbett. I put this down to the older demographic – when they shop they are looking for more than a quick financial transaction. We have this partwork on display next to the main lottery counter.
At the newsXpress conference on the Gold Coast last week I was fortunate to meet Annette Sym, author of the Symply Too Good To be True books which are sold exclusive through newsagents.
Annette spoke on the second day of the conference, sharing her inspirational personal and business journey and relating that to owning and running a newsagency.
I appreciate Annette’s commitment to newsagents. It is a commitment we ought to reward with active promotion of her books in every newsagency – they work well in the magazine stands next to the ACP cookbooks, in the health section and next to popular weekly titles. We often co-locate them. We maintain copies one through five because one people buy one they want more.
If you don’t stock Annette’s Symply Too Good books then talk with Network Services. No other retailer will have them. Embrace the exclusive opportunity. There is plenty of collateral available for in-store displays.
John Menzies, a UK based magazine distributor, has partnered with ITV.COM to create what they call a digital newsagent. Check out the website: www.magazinesondemand.co.uk. The site calls itself The Digital Newsagent. Maybe I am missing something here but I would have thought that newsagents in the UK would be up in arms about this. There is another site, www.digitalnewsagent.com. I am not sure of the connection.
Coverleaf launched in the US last Monday. It is a service whereby magazine print subscribers can access digital versions of those magazines. It is also a platform where non subscribers can browse magazines in a way which is new for the online experience.
We found another space this morning for featuring a magazine we want to push. We took an old acrylic display unit, freshened it up and have the display for Money from ACP Magazines you can see in the photo. We will feature a different title each week. We will select titles based on their suitability as an impulse item – something someone can see at the counter and say – I’ll take one of these too. Money works this week because of the economic situation and the world banking news. Next week it might be a sports magazine connected with football finals. The keys are: topical; known brand; good value; easy decision.
I know that other retailers are paid a fee for locations such as this. I am not them. I’d rather have control over how I use this space as this enables me to best serve the needs of my customers.
We have created a display at our sales counter for Better Homes and Gardens this weekend to support the launch of the new Saturday morning radio show. Thanks to this new radio initiative and the TV show on the Friday evening, Better Homes and Gardens generates excellent sales on the weekend. A counter display, in our premium location, helps people to remember to buy the magazine when they have come in for a greeting card or a newspaper. We also have BHG is its usual location with magazines as well as next to the weekly – for the first two weeks especially this co-location is essential to reaching full potential with this popular title.
The Geelong Advertiser is rightly crowing about excellent sales in the lead up to last night’s AFL finals game. As happened last year at this time, the whole of Geelong is behind the team. Newsagents are a key part of that thanks to the efforts of the Advertiser. This is a good example of newsagent and publisher working the local connection to its fullest. It is something more of us could do around local sporting teams and through working with local publishers.
The Worcester News in the UK has a story about magazine wholesalers and distributors getting together to provide a range of services and assistance to help newsagents increase magazine sales. While only a trial at this stage, this does sound like a good initiative:
Steven Jones, COMAG retail development manager, said: “We will be focusing on 10 stores in Worcestershire and Herefordshire, giving them additional tools and an enhanced service package.
“This will include new racking, promotional material, gifts to give away with magazines, a category advice and field support.
“The aim of the trial is to support independent news-agents and help them to grow their sales of magazines against the declining market trend.
“Part of the trial will be advertising the retailer and their extensive magazine range to the community. We want to encourage consumers to visit these stores, which can supply any magazine through their local wholesale network.
I like the idea of advertising in local newspapers promoting the range of magazines in local newsagencies.
I was disappointed to hear yesterday that Scott Lorson has been retrenched from his CEO role at ACP Magazines. I have met Scott a couple of times. In his time at the helm, ACP delivered several excellent launched including Good Food and Top Gear. However, change is inevitable. ACP is a big company with many capable people. The challenge for newsagents is that we need senior executives to understand our diverse small business channel – working with us is different to working with the mass merchants.
On Friday last week Tower Systems details of the Spring User Meeting Tour:
How to take advantage of tough economic times using Tower Systems’ software
As the title suggests, this Tower Systems User Meeting / training opportunity will focus on helping you find ways to turn tough economic times into success for your business.
We will provide training in software functions and reports you can use right away to improve the outlook for your business.
We will also answer all of your questions on any topic related to our software. This is your session designed to help you learn more about your software. Here are the dates:
We have tried to accommodate dates and time based newsagent preferences. In order to fit the locations in we have had to use some less ideal days like Wednesdays. We have a smaller format version of these sessions which we will be delivering through our free online program in October.
Any newsagent is welcome. Book by emailing your details to bookings@towersystems.com.au.
Better Homes and Gardens launches on radio this weekend in a tie-in show which supports the magazine. It will be on the Mix FM network in all state capital cities except Perth. The two-hour program, which will provide advice on topics such as gardening, DIY and pets, will be hosted by Johanna Griggs and Fast Ed from the show. This is a good opportunity to promote the brand and reinforces why we need Better Homes and Gardens on the counter for weekend sales. It is what we do and it results in excellent sales.
I don’t mind competing with Dick Smith, JB Hi Fi, Harvey Norman, Officeworks or Big W in the ink and toner category. I do mind competing with Australia Post government owned stores. They are trading off a brand which is respected only because of its government ownership and protection. When they advertise great prices, consumers are likely to believe them. Comparing our prices to these so called great prices from Australia Post, we beat them. But we cannot beat their brand awareness.
This latest campaign by Australia Post is another example of their abuse of the protection their Government ownership affords them.
I have been chasing information from our Tattersalls business manager for weeks about how we will be using the scratch ticket bays. The response is that the company will make an announcement soon. A follow up request for information told be it would be “this week”. That was more than a week ago.
It is frustrating to have prime real estate idle at the counter. Tattersalls forbids using the scratch ticket bay for anything other than their products and all the provide at the moment are posters promoting products which have prime promotional space elsewhere in the shop.
Matthew Schwartz from ScribeMedia.org conducts an interesting interview with Ken Doctor (formerly of Knight Ridder Digital as vp/content services, vp/strategy and vp/editorial) on the future of newspapers. Doctor talks about how newspapers can migrate from print to digital around. It is an interesting interview because the topic is discussed without the emotion and doom and gloom so often a hallmark of such discussions.