Bill Express exits ETT
PPB, the liquidators of Bill Express have announced the sale of their shares in ETT in an off market transaction.
Our customer wins Tattslotto
We heard yesterday that one of our customers won division 1 in Tattslotto Saturday night. Wins like this help drive sales so we will be promoting it well in the shop.
The basket builder from behind
The photo on the left is the back of the ACP basket builder stand which I wrote about in my previous blog post this morning. Once we moved this stand yesterday, we realised we have to make good use of the back otherwise it would be dead space in a high traffic area. The result is this display for Men’s Style magazine. While it is nothing too special, we have made it easy for people to buy off the stand – something too often forgotten in retail displays. Once we created the display we realised that we only ever looked at this ACP stand from the front and for too long had missed the opportunity of using the back.
Moving the basket builder stand
We are fortunate to have a basket builder stand from ACP Magazines. This is a stand in which we place popular ACP titles as part of a co-location strategy. The stand is usually at the front of our Frankston store, to attract passers-by. The risk in using the same location is that customers get store blind. Yesterday, we moved the stand to next to the main newspaper display. (Excuse the photo, it’s not the best.) While it partially blocks the entrance to an aisle, we figured this was worth the opportunity of more customers browsing the stand. Change in a business like ours is crucial. We have great traffic but most of it is for a single purpose each visit. Anything we can to to break that and get an extra sale is money in the bank.
Promoting Cleo with gifts
Cleo gets front counter promotion with the exclusive music CD and two eye pencils which come with the latest issue. While we could wait for the publisher promotional push which usually comes in the second week, I’d rather go early. We did this last week with Notebook and sold three times our usual week one number in just three days. This counter position works well for us. We can create a display in less than ten minutes and bank the results.
Optus mobile recharge for eziPass
Click here to see the announcement being sent to all newsagents this afternoon about important developments which will bring Optus mobile recharge to the eziPass platform. This announcement is the culmination of a considerable amount of work involving e-pay Australia, Optus and Tower Systems. It delivers an operational outcome for newsagents which is better than was available through the Bill Express / DialTime terminal. eziPass is available free to all newsagents.
Good Food launches
The Australian edition of BBC Good Food was launched today. The marketing collateral supporting the launch is excellent. It is a good publication, keenly priced and features Gordon Ramsay so it’s bound to do well. I have high expectations that Good Food will shake up the food category as Top Gear has the motoring category. Like with Top Gear, we are chasing more product so we can do the launch justice and run an aggressive co-location strategy and not just at the aisle end.
7-Eleven asks newsagents to stand still
7-Eleven has sent a fax to newsagents today suggesting that they do not commit to any long-term contracts with alternative suppliers should they wish to have the option of resuming the Bill Express service. The letter advises that they expect to know if it is possible for them to take on the business and resume operations within weeks and that they would try and get the network operating shortly thereafter.
I suspect that this communication is reaching newsagents and other merchants too late.
Personal development magazines
The personal development segment of magazines is growing. em power is the latest title to be sent to some newsagents. These are challenging titles to locate. I have seen them in women’s titles and in with business titles in other newsagencies. The supply model is a mystery to me. Lack of range makes it hard to break the various personal development titles out into their own display.
Last call for photos of newsagents
If you want your newsagency represented in the TV commercial I am producing to promote the channel, please send in a high res digital photo ASAP. One daily newspaper has offered to run a full page print version of the ad in several issues free as has a major magazine publisher. This supplier support for the advertising initiative is most welcome.
Foreign newspapers the hero category
Newspapers delivered poor results in the latest sales benchmark study which I published here Friday. The results for the department would have been worse had I extracted foreign newspapers. In more than 60% of newsagencies I have data for they delivered growth. In our Forest Hill store, where we offer more than 30 titles, foreign newspapers delivered a 10% increase in unit sales year on year – excellent growth by any measure. Foreign newspapers are too often regarded as the poor cousins to the capital city dailies. The sales data suggests their readers are more loyal. Foreign newspapers is a category newsagents could do well to research and grow.
Finding gold in magazines
I missed The Ultimate Guide to Poker when it came in last month. While we have it located with sports titles, it will not find its market if just left there. We are promoting it as part of our Father’s Day pitch – next to our Poker gift packs. We will also include the title into our displays with newspapers. We are also thinking of how we might co-promote this and other poker titles with the Intralot poker scratch game. All this may seem like hard work for a small category. Our view is that it is worth it because it promotes range.
How to win from high petrol prices
As I wrote six weeks ago, the 50% increase in the price of petrol over the last year is an opportunity for newsagents. We are the quintessential local business. We sell national brands locally. People don’t have to drive. We can help them sale fuel costs. Here is a more extended list of ideas on how we can seize the opportunity:
- Promote local shopping. With with nearby retailers and produce a flyer promoting how shopping locally saves on petrol, time and money. Prepare a follow-up flyer to promote how your prices re as good as bigger businesses further away – reinforce the petrol saving pitch again.
- Get together with local traders. Create a website to promote your local shopping. Promote the businesses, easy parking and how they can save on petrol by shopping locally.
- Study the numbers. Work out what an average shopper could save on petrol by shopping locally compared to driving to the nearest largest centre.
- Improve convenience. Look at how you can make shopping at your newsagency even more convenient and appealing.
- Delivering value. Offer a free delivery service for purchases above a certain value. Promote this around a theme save on petrol!
- Offer deals for volume. In some areas people will shop less frequently. Drive a deeper shopping basket by offering deals for a bigger spend.
- Local Marketing. Reconnect with households and businesses around your newsagency and remind them that you have locally what they might otherwise drive for – or that you can get it in for them.
- Comparative pricing. Make it your business to beat a major competitor on some popular items. For example, at our shop, our printer ink prices are better than Big W, Australia Post and Officeworks. While customers discover this and are thrilled, a small sign near the category could people not in the market for ink to trust us for other categories and shop locally more often.
- Save money. Do deal with a local independent petrol outlet. Offer coupons for discount petrol which they provide in return for them handing out discount coupons for use in your newsagency.
- Talk it up. At your next team meeting share some ways they can let customers know that shopping locally reduces what they spend on petrol.
While rising petrol prices present serious challenges for newsagents, they also present opportunities worth exploiting.
Promoting Home Beautiful
We have created a counter display for Home Beautiful at our Frankston newsagency. The free shopper guide with the magazine qualifies it for a premium display. Frankston does not have the slatwall behind the display – this will, be in our new shopfit.
Promoting the new look Notebook
We have placed the new look Notebook magazine at the counter at Forest Hill. It also qualified for this spot given the free mascara with this issue. For those new here, this space is between our two main registers. Behind the display is slatwall – crucial so customers can buy off a display
N-Stock a con for newsagents
UPDATE: N-Stock has been reviewed by VANA and efforts are being made to work with traditional newsagent suppliers to develop online opportunities further. It is good to see it move from the offer of three years ago.
I have a few issues with N-Stock, the VANA initiative now endorsed by the ANF through which stationery and other items are offered. It is on my mind today because of another three pages fax from them – this time offering Global Star Diaries.
- VANA and the ANF failed to serve newsagents on the Bill Express matter. It is wrong for them to charge off into other areas when they continue to fail on basic association service.
- My VANA association member funds helped create N-Stock. That should be enough for me to gain full benefit.
- There is double commission for accredited newsagents. I am not about to give up two days to do training telling me to do things which I already do. While the accreditation training may teach me one or two things, using rebates as a carrot for me to pay for training is wrong. Their approach to accreditation is like the supplier approach to compliance – there is little basis in business performance.
- Associations have no business acting like a marketing group or a stationery wholesaler. If they do, maybe marketing groups should act like associations and offer HR and other services.
- The deals rarely have overall retail context – seasonal or whole of line.
I label N-Stock a con because it is not the straightforward off it makes out to be. We have no visibility of the commission being made by the ANF and VANA on the deals. Newsagents are required to spend money on accreditation training to access the best deal. They often promote products which compete with brand name suppliers we see at trade shows, in the national magazine and supported on TV (teaching us to be poor retailers) and there is no comparative pricing to justify the claims of incredible deals.
I am a director of newsXpress, a marketing group for newsagents. We offer deals like those offered through N-Stock. It is important readers know this and therefore my conflict in discussing my concerns. However, the association playing in this space conflicts them on many fronts and I am sure their Directors have not thought this through.
Given the relentless promotion of N-Stock, placing VANA and the ANF in the marketing group / supplier space, it would be appropriate for groups like Nextra, newsXpress and Newspower to consider offering association services which, if acted upon could bring the Associations to an end.
Magnum covers Hackett
A photo of Grant Hackett is covered on the front page of The Age newspaper today with another of their stuck-on ads. This time, it is a pitch from Streets for their Magnum ice cream. More trash. More evidence of advertising trumping editorial.
Dad’s Nuts, Father’s Day product of the year
Dad’s Nuts from Morish gets my vote for the best Father’s Day product for 2008. The name is brilliant, value fantastic, product quality excellent and the packaging stunning. Customers are loving Dad’s Nuts. I have spoken to several newsagencies and sales are good. When I first heard the name I thought people would react negatively. The opposite happens – people laugh, the love the name. While this is a newsXpress exclusive, I am yet to see a new Dad product so engaging.
Using the Bill Express lightbox
More newsagents are replacing the Bill Express ad in their lightbox with a more relevant offer. No point promoting a dead brand.
If you do this, be sure to use a material which is appropriate for the lightbox. Most printers can help with this.
Bagged magazines
We appear to be in the middle of bagged magazine season. Right now, more than any time I can recall, we have more bagged magazines in store. This is happening in the car, craft and homes categories.
These bags hinder browsing. Browsing is important to sales. I appreciate that the publishers see value in the free magazine to drive sales. I disagree.
Publishers need to find more clever ways to drive sales. For example, If I were publishing an Holden and Ford magazines I’d stage a state by state trivia competition around the brands, get people loyal to the brands competing in a fun atmosphere with the brands the focus. I reckon that a $50,000 spend nationally could result in a more valuable sales lift than bagging and hiding the magazines from browsers.
Newsagent sales benchmark report
We released our latest newsagent sales benchmark report this morning. This report is the result of thorough analysis of year on year same store sales data from 63 newsagencies with accurate, supplier compliant, data. The benchmark report and associated dataset provides the most current and comprehensive dataset against which newsagents can compare their businesses. Here are the headlines from the report:
- Overall retail sales in newsagencies up, on average, 2%.
- Newspaper sales fell 4.8% in the city and 2.3% in the country.
- Magazine sales fell 4.5% in the city and rose 2.2% in the country.
- Card sales increased 3.3% in the city and 2.3% in the country.
- Stationery sales fell by 7.8% in the city, and 2% in the country.
The benchmark study, the fourth over the last year and most comprehensive conducted by Tower Systems, provides more evidence of consumers migrating from the newsagency channel and migrating from traditional paper based news and information sources to online.
The study also grouped newsagencies by size of magazine sales. In this analysis of newsagencies with $200,000 a year in magazine sales and higher, the year on year results showed the top performing store achieving magazine unit sales growth of 5% and the bottom performing store achieving a decline of 7%.
In the group of newsagencies with less than $200,000 in sales, the range was between 12% growth and 8% decline.
Over the next week or so I will outline how I think we can react to some of these challenges. Knowing how we are performing is half the battle to navigating a better future.
Undertaking these benchmark studies is is a free service we have offered through Tower Systems for close to eight years.
Early with calendars
You know the year is rushing to the finish line when calendars arrive in-store. Being early with a good range of calendars is important for the overseas gift purchases. This why the early range out now includes plenty of Australiana product. Year on year, calendars are growing more than 10% is newsagencies which drive the category. Going early is key.
Promoting Wine Collector
Wine Collector is a smaller volume title from ACP Magazines which often gets forgotten in retail merchandising. Rhonda at our Frankston store created this stunning display using colour photocopies of the front cover and the one poster which we were sent for the title. While I often complain about in-store billboard advertising, this time I like that we are promoting a title and category most other magazine retailers will ignore – this is where we get a flow-on benefit as we are promoting range.
ACP Connections Conference a success
I was fortunate to attend most the 8th Annual Connections Conference organised by ACP Magazines yesterday in Melbourne.
The sessions I attended were genuinely beneficial. In between there were excellent networking opportunities. The place was buzzing as you would expect with more than 200 proactive newsagents talking shop. The dinner last night was wonderful – great food and fantastic entertainment.
One graphic summed up the importance of Connections. On a year on year same store basis, Connections newsagents are more likely to show growth compared to non Connections newsagents. I know I make comments on here from tile to time about single title displays and the cost of this real-eestate. This graphic showing the channel wide value of the Connections program is proof that embracing the program has commercial benefits for participating newsagents.
Congratulations to newsXpress Gympie for taking out the Newsagent of the Year Award.
Newspaper circulation numbers released
Do a Google news search on newspaper circulation this morning and you will see that our major dailies have stories on the latest circulation and readership numbers. It is interesting the biases which show in the reporting on the same set of data. While the circulation figures show some falls and some gains, we continue to be insulated here in Australia from the considerable declines in newspaper circulation in the Unites States.
Our own sales benchmark data we are sending to newsagents today shows a decline in newspaper sales which is higher than the circulation data meaning probable migration to other retail channels.