We moved Notebook magazine three weeks to next to our weeklies, along with Real Living and Better Homes and Gardens. While all three have benefited from the move, Notebook has benefited the most. We sold out. These three titles challenge location guidelines – hence our decision to try them across with the weeklies. Our shopping basket data suggested this is where they belonged.
This magazine ought never have been released. No one wants to get started with Windows XP now. It’s old had. Years old hat in fact. The 8 copies sent to my newsagency with a price tag of $19.95 is a waste of my cash. We did not even put them on the shelf. We currently have sufficient titles covering XP and don’t need new stock.
If we (newsagents) were organised and had a magazine czar controlling what titles we permitted into our network the magazine distributors could not send through something like this Ultimate Guide to Windows XP.
I have been thinking about why Fairfax would allow an affiliate marketing campaign to run which specifically targets my 3loves free online dating website. (3loves is one of several sites we have launched to provide, in part, newsagents with access to some revenue from online advertising.)
While it is possible that Fairfax would not have known that an affiliate of Commission Monster – the affiliate services provider engaged by Fairfax – was running such a campaign, they ought to have known. Any business would want to know how their brand is represented in an advertising mix. Or, they ought to.
Anyway, why would Fairfax let this happen because it did happen, for at least two months? Not just to us but to a range of other tiny and not so tiny online dating sites. All these competitors of RSVP were targeted in a marketing campaign which was designed to move traffic to Fairfax’s RSVP site.
Profit is the answer. RSVP is highly profitable for Fairfax. It’s Australia’s largest online dating / personals site. Based on membership numbers and the charges for using some services on the site I’d suggest it is likely to be among the most profitable and therefore important to the Fairfax bottom line.
3loves is free. What RSVP charges for we offer free. We will always be free. 3loves exists to provide is a platform at which we can advertise Find It, our online classifieds site.
Even though 3loves is minuscule compared to RSVP, it must pose a risk. Why else would someone, either inside Fairfax, inside Commission Monster or elsewhere, specifically target 3loves? There is no reason other than a view that we, at some point, are a threat to RSVP.
What the last week has proven is the scams than are being used in the name of major brands, with their knowledge or without, in an effort to screw with Google, Yahoo and other search results. Some activities are outright scams. Others are done under the name of Search Engine Optimisation or as one could call it – Scam Everyone Online.
Five newsagents in the Newcastle area (NSW) have been faced armed robberies in the last seven days. There appear to be two men involved. The first is a male wearing a dark hooded jumper under a jacket with stripes on the sleeve. He has a thin moustache and brandishes a large blade knife. He appears to have a bald or shaven head. The second is a male, a big chap. with a bald or shaven head. Newsagents in the area are working with the police.
I’m hearing about more attacks on newsagents than I can recall. The police in each state provide training for retailers to ensure they understand how to respond and what they need to do to facilitate catching the perpetrator. It would be timely for newsagents to review their security arrangements.
At the Magazine Publishers of America Awards this week, retailer Wegmans received an Award for cross department promotion. Here’s what the MPA press release says:
In the promotion/cross-merchandising category, Wegmans was the Best Practices Award recipient, for implementing and supporting creative cross-merchandising opportunities across various departments, and for having a definitive cross-merchandising and promotion calendar
It’s essential that we promote magazines outside the traditional magazine retail space in our stores. Likewise it’s critical we promote other products and services within the magazine space.
Wegmans is a great business – a wonderful place to shop. Their website gives an indication of how ahead of their game they are.
I’ve talked here before about the importance of co-location. It is a very effective way for newsagents to drive sales of weekly titles. We know from sales data that these are affected by a steep decay in many newsagencies. I see some stores where 70% of sales for New Idea and Woman’s Day occur on a Monday – making what you do for the titles the other six days of minimal relevance.
It’s good to see the US publishers association reward in-store promotion in such a specific way.
Talk about in your face advertising. Here’s another ad stuck on the masthead of The Age today.
We now know that the people behind the denial of service attack against this blog earlier today are also behind a denial of service attack against our Find It free online classifieds website today. Find It is hosted on a different server in a different state. That the same party is attacking two seeming externally unrelated but under common ownership sites is evidence that the attacked are targeted against us specifically and not the result of random internet crime.
UPDATE: (14:24) We have reported the matter to the Australian Federal Police and to the Australian High Tech Crime Centre. We have also been in contact with the Panama based company which issues the IP address to someone claiming to be in St Petersberg Russia from where the attack aparently came.
UK newsagents have asked the Office of Fair Trading to to consider whether to refer the market for the supply of newspapers and magazines in the UK to the Competition Commission (CC) for a market investigation. The OFT press release has more details.
My newsagency has been trading with Network Services for more than eleven years. Our accounts record is good. Our sales record is excellent – considerably above industry average. We received our February statement on February 7. This came with a due date of February 20. Our accounts office received a call March 5 from Network to remind us the statement had not been paid. This is the first and only reminder we received. The reminder came after Network had stopped supply to us. We paid the account by electronic transfer immediately after the call from Network. We did not receive any Network product Wednesday (March 6). We’re told it will take up to two weeks for supply to get back on track.
It is disappointing that Network act so aggressively and swiftly against a trading partner of eleven years standing. They had no reason to believe from our trading history with them that they would not be paid.
That they called us after they had implemented their economic harm against us is disappointing. A phone call prior to doing this would have seen us fix our mistake immediately. It’s as if they did not want this done before they gave us a lash and inflicted pain.
There is no excuse for our late payment but that does not give Network the right to deliberately harm our business this way. They have never been out of pocket from us. There is no reason for them to suspect that we will not pay. As events showed, the non payment was an accounting oversight which was immediately corrected.
Through my software company I am involved in the Just In Time trial with ACP / Network. I have personally so far invested more than $10,000 in this trial by allocating staff time to work with the 80+ of my clients involved in the trial. This investment is for the benefit of ACP / Network and the newsagents involved. I am glad to be involved.
I look at my relationship with ACP / Network holistically. I wish they would do the same.
Footnote. To add pain to the wound from Network, the March statement which has just arrived is missing between $3,000 and $4,000 in credits. We will call them to get these missing credits reinstated.
Our blog has been down for seven hours today as a result of a sustained denial of service attack. This malicious attack took down all websites on the server on which we are hosted. The attacks were in the form of thousands of accesses per minute against the comment script for the blog. Until we resolve this we have disabled comments. I apologise for this and hope to have comments live again within the next week.
The attack was apparently out of Russia. However, it is possible to ‘spoof’ the IP address to hide where the real attck is from.
My earlier post about the manipulation of Google results in a way which benefited Fairfax’s RSVP resulted in some aggressive comments. Especially by one seopro. They have been silent since I claimed they placing their comments from within Fairfax. Here’s what we know about the IP address from which the comments were posted:
Seems like from inside Fairfax to me. Maybe that’s why seopro has gone quiet.
Chicago Business reports that US newspapers are reporting single digit declines in real estate advertising. Publishers say the downturn is cyclical. Industry observers say the downturn reflects a long term change by vendors and real estate agents.
This space is hotter in Australia than ever with PBL now in the space pushing their MyHome offering, News Ltd strong with realestate.com.au and Fairfax pushing their strong Domain. Across at the independent end is zeroagents – for vendors who want to really change the way they sell their proiperty.
The New York Times is predicting online revenue growth of 30% in 2007 according to MediaPost. Their online revenue grew 41.2% in 2006.
Today’s Australian Financial Review has a red stuck on ad on the front page – covering part of the story about Australians who perished in the Garuda plane crash in Indonesia. As the photo shows it’s a bold ad which pulls focus above anything else on page one. The advertiser would be happy.
I’d be interested to hear from editors and journalists about this ad being placed in front of a page one story. I’m certain they would be unhappy, especially when they lift the ad off and it takes part of the paper with it as I have seen happen several times.
At least this ad is not across the masthead as Fairfax tends to do when running the ads on The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald.
Back in 2004, I was involved in informal discussions with News Ltd and Fairfax and whether newsagents could run ads on plastic bags used in the home delivery of newspapers. Their position at the time was an emphatic no. One argument put was that they could not have such advertising detracting from their product. Every time I see one of these intrusive litter causing post it note type ads I am reminded of their 2004 position.
Fairfax launched Brisbane Times today. This is a copy of other successful Fairfax sites connected with The Age and Sydney Morning Herald except and that it has no local newspaper driving traffic. The site design and navigation are excellent – typical Fairfax in terms of their online news offerings. Their launch video is particularly interesting in that it pitches hard on the theme of a “new perspective†– in a long term one paper town it’s message I’d expect to resonate.
This move makes for interesting times in Brisbane – a new daily website from Fairfax and the soon to launch mX from News Limited. The question is which cityn is next on both fronts?
Visit one of the Government owned Australia Post retail outlets and take a look at the Government’s small business policy in action.
The latest Australia Post brochure, Crowd Pleasing Prices is another example of Australia Post is encroaching further on territory which has been well served by independently owned small business. It does this with the benefit of a product and service monopoly and backed by national TV and radio advertising funded by the monopoly.
The Government is complicit in the actions of Australia Post. They know the harm being done to family businesses across the country yet they respond to complaints by writing irrelevant responses to questions which were not put in the first place.
The Australian Postal Corporation Act 1989 .defines what Australia Post’s permitted functions. Inaction by this government allows Australia Post to skirt around the Act. Here are the relevant clauses:
16 Functions—incidental businesses and activities
(1) The functions of Australia Post include the carrying on, within or outside Australia, of any business or activity that is incidental to:
(a) the supplying of postal services under section 14; or
(b) the carrying on of any business or activity under section 15.
(2) Without limiting subsection (1), the functions of Australia Post include the carrying on, within or outside Australia, of any business or activity that is capable of being conveniently carried
on:
(a) by the use of resources that are not immediately required in carrying out Australia Post’s principal or subsidiary function;
or
(b) in the course of:
(i) supplying postal services under section 14; or
(ii) carrying on any business or activity under section 15.
Government ownership, regulation and monopoly protection guarantees traffic to Australia Post stores for a fraction of what it costs newsagent. My newsagency does not have this monopoly advantage. Australia Post is abusing this advantage to encroach more and more into space previously the domain of newsagencies, some supermarkets and stationery stores.
I cannot land consumers to my store for the same low cost of Australia Post.
I cannot leverage a national brand like Australia Post to buy competitively.
I cannot control my opening and closing hours.
I cannot get the rent discount of an “essential serviceâ€.
I do not have a government protected postal service brand with which to leverage the sale of unrelated items.
Australia Post has, through its government owned stores, been targeting newsagencies. The government’s inaction on this is evidence of merely lip service being paid to small business.
It seems some petrol and convenience outlets are pulling back on the space they devote to magazines is what I and others have seen recently is anything to go off. I know of one outlet which has cut their magazine display space by 33% to 16 pockets. The duty manager says he’d be glad to see the category go altogether because “it’s nothing but trouble”. Back when the local newsagent managed the category for the outlet sales were higher and magazines were no trouble at all.
It seems the pursuit of margin by some petrol and convenience outlets is biting them at their bottom line. Maybe if they ask nicely newsagents will manage the category for them again and lift sales.
Before magazine company people call or email, I’m not claiming that all of these outlets you took off newsagents are selling less. I have spoken directly with several as have a couple of newsagent colleagues. These are outlets which initially did better and for the last six months have been in a slump – petrol outlet bosses don’t understand such slumps, they don’t understand the category.
Newsagents who had this business taken from them three years ago might get a good response if they pushed to win back the business.
David Grover, Department of Geography and Environment, London School of Economics wrote an excellent letter to the Financial Times about the hidden cost of free newspapers. Here’s part of what he wrote:
Free dailies externalise their production costs in at least three ways. They clutter and detract from the appearance of our streetscapes and public spaces (costs to all Londoners); they generate great volumes of rubbish which then become the disposal problem of boroughs (costs to borough residents); and they create extra cleaning costs for Transport for London when papers are left behind on trains and in stations (costs to TfL and therefore transport users).
In January, the Guardian newspaper reported that Westminster Council has approached publishers about the waste problem:
The council has warned News International and Associated Newspapers that they must help the council deal with the “mountain of waste” their newspapers produce, or face restrictions that could see them banned from its environs, including the West End.
The BBC has more on this story here. I first bloogged about free newspaper trash on July 29 last year, recording what I saw on a train just after rush hour – 50 copies of mX left on seats and the floor in on carriage!
All this is timely give the march of News Ltd’s free daily mX to Brisbane having conquered Melbourne and Sydney.
The boxed card market which is huge in Europe and the US is tiny here. Sure we have a good rang for Christmas but for the rest of the year boxed cards are almost non existent.
Overseas they have ranges of boxed birthday, baby, thank you, graduation and other cards. From retailers and wholesalers I talk with sales are strong.
Maybe its a cultural thing or maybe it’s that we don’t have the local range to drive interest. I’m curious because I have been chasing local all-year ranges of boxed cards without success and I’m having to purchase imported product.
My feeling is that in the right kind of store with the right display boxed cards would sell well here without detracting from single cards. US retailers tell me that single sales are not affected.
Many newsagents manage stationery today as it was managed by newsagents decades ago – before Officeworks, Australia Post, supermarkets and other mass merchants were in the stationery space. Newsagent suppliers also manage the channel as if time has stood still. This ignorance of today’s marketplace is both a problem and an opportunity for newsagents.
Take everyday pens and markers. Most newsagents have a good range of two brands. Many have three brands. Each is serviced by their own representative, calling on the newsagents and processing orders. These reps have one responsibility – to move stock out of their company warehouses. While most process the orders, these are ‘turned through’ newsagent warehouses with an additional cost for newsagents of between 5% and 10%.
So, we are buying badly because of a labour intensive sales process, deals add to the cost to support newsagent warehouses and newsagent time is taken dealing with reps. None of our competitors have these costs.
Smart newsagents a re tightly managing the time they give sales reps. They are also establishing direct accounts and negotiating better deals – so they can compete. This is where there is an opportunity – for entrepreneurial newsagents.
For our channel to compete in today’s marketplace it has to rid itself of practices which disadvantage us. While that will be unpalatable to longer term newsagents, suppliers and possibly industry owned warehouses, the reality is that unless we cut costs out of the supply chain we will not be able to hold our own in the stationery place.
There is a case to be made for carrying the whole range of one brand opf everyday pens and markers. This increases negotiating strength and enhances the in store story. It also cuts time with reps. So, with more time, more capital and unlocked retail space the newsagent can evolve their business to be more competitive.
Peter Dunn, a newsagent from Tamworth, blogs at Newsagency News. It’s a good, grass roots read, about newsagency life in rural Australia. We need more blogs like this.
Google in the US is about to get 500,000 real estate listings thanks to a deal with Realogy Corp., owner of the Century 21 and some other real-estate brokers. The BusinessWeek report says 58% of all searches for “real estate” are done on Google. Trulia is also to benefit from these listings. See the press release here.
Specialty paper is another ‘habit’ based product which newsagents could do well with. It fits with our demographic and lifts the look and feel of the shop. Once people have made an invitation to a party or some other event they are hooked and come back for more specialty papers and the bits and pieces needed to do the job.
This fashion related product sits well near the greeting card space – they serve customers chasing similar outcomes.
The keys with this category are to partner with a good supplier; refresh the stock regularly; display it well; and, locate it near your card space – it’s not a stationery item. Each of these ‘keys’ requires the newsagent managing, indeed driving, this part of the business. The rewards for such entrepreneurship are good.
To those who note such things, and there are plenty, for all the difficulties faced by newsagents there are opportunities which, if seized, deliver handsome rewards. This specialty paper area is one.
A great thing about card sales in newsagencies is the regularity of seasons. Easter is generating good interest as is, surprisingly, St Patrick’s Day. Based on a couple of customers I spoke with on the weekend newsagents seem to be top of mind with these seasons.
These seasonal promotions fit in with habit based products that I have discussed here before. It’s why I like them. The more newsagents embrace and promote even small seasons like St Patrick’s Day the more they are known as the place for these. It worked for us last month with Chinese New Year.
The best move we ever made was moving our greeting card space to the front of our newsagency.
The rumor put to me today is that Australia will have its first suburban free daily newspaper by the end of this year. I’ve been told to expect a newspaper which is mX like but for an older demographic, something which takes a statewide or national view of issues as opposed to what we see in suburban newspapers today.
I’m suspicious of the rumor as it would go against the trend of newspapers – but then there is the US model seeing hundreds of thousands of newspapers delivered daily to ‘subscribers’.
Whether the rumor is true or not, new newspaper models need to be discussed and debated by newsagents.