To the many newsagent suppliers who read this blog I wish one of your would seize the opportunity of lottery jackpots. This Thursday Powerball offers a $20 million prize. Lottery sales will be up by around 20%, much of this as a result of additional traffic. Upselling across or near the lottery counter is easy and newsagents would welcome the opportunity to add value to a lottery product sale.
While entrepreneurial newsagents use jackpot traffic to boost sales elsewhere in their business, others, the majority, do not and they would wait for a supplier driven offer.
My pitch to suppliers is that a network wide offer attuned to easy upsell at or near the lottery counter would be ideal. I appreciate there are costs associated with creating and distributing such a product and that the risk in expecting newsagents to embrace the upsell tactic is considerable. However, until a supplier tries this we will not know if it works.
Personally, I know hat upselling around a jackpot is easy. In my newsagency, the team has had success with magazines, pens, other lottery product and newspapers. With at least twelve such jackpots a year the opportunities are regular yet still special.
I pitched this idea to Lovatts, the crossword folk, a year ago and it seemed to be too hard for them. Hopefully another supplier can come to the table with a timeless product offer which will work with lottery customers. What we need is the ideal win win win where suppliers, newsagents and customers benefit.
Might Lovatts have knocked you back because they did not want the integrity of their products compromised by gambling products.
C Stephens, CEO and magazineophile
My pitch to suppliers is that a network wide offer attuned to easy upsell at or near the lottery counter might appeal to publishers of ‘How to Get Rich Quick’ titles, especially as until a supplier tries this we will not know if it works but don’t hold your breath waiting for suppliers of esteemed products to offer a link
with gambling bonanzas.
What we need is the ideal win win win where suppliers, newsagents and customers benefit The ideal “win win” for customers would be for newsagents to sell gambling products from their back rooms. Australia already has a horrendous gambling problem. How many of your customers can’t afford to spend what they already spend on gambling products in your shop? Yet you’re willing to entice those people to spend even more money. What wonderful respect you have for your customers.
The ideal “win win” for suppliers would be for their products to be stocked as far as possible away from gambling products.
While entrepreneurial newsagents use jackpot traffic to boost sales elsewhere in their business In this instance, ‘entrepreneurial newsagents’ can only be interpreted as greedy and unprincipled.
C Stephens, CEO brimming with integrity
Publishers tell me they want to be stocked at the lottery counter.
Lovatts told me they liked the ideas but cold not create something which worked for them.
Good on you for your integrity. You demonstrate it in your anonymous postings and your use of several names here: C Stephens, M Stephens, Michelle, Lee, Jim. They are all you. Yep, integrity on show.
On gambling product, you’re entitled to your view as are others.
C Stephens,
Would it interest you to know that only 7.7% of all expenditure on gambiling in NSW (2003-4) was on lottey products. Gaming machines, casinos and racing were all above this.
The big gambiling problem you talk about comes from gaming machines.
Lottery products are not likely to comprimise the integrity of other products. NSW Lotteries is forever doing promotions with unnasociated products such as
-Cadbury
-Movie companies (they have a hugely popular Spiderman 3 scratchie at the moment)
-Car companies (there is a scratch match and drive promotion comming up)
-A Zoo (i can’t remember which zoo, but there was a scratchie associated with one)
-Airlines (The boarding pass scratchie)
And that only names some of the recent few.
Lottry products are as ligitimate as any other. Don’t slander lottery agents who use jackpot traffic to boost sales; it is not different from using seasonal traffic from christmas, easter, mothers day etc to do the same thing.
C Stephens, M Stephens, Michelle, Lee, Jim or whoever you are –
CEO brimming with integrity,
CEO and magazineophile,
CEO, 40+yrs biz experience
using whichever epithet you care – perhaps you should change the last one to read CEO, 41+yrs biz experience and go out into the real world and get a job in a newsagency for a year or so. Perhaps then you might get some sort of understanding of the issues in this industry and, more importantly, understand the difficulties most of face on a daily basis in resolving them.
As others have stated, you are entitled to your opinion but why waste your prejudices here – display some real guts (given that you can’t even display your real name) and have a crack at the alcohol industry, the tobacco industry and anyone else involved in legal activities.
There may be a gambling problem in Australia but it is not the lottery industry – then again you probably don’t get much press on the TAB and the casino industry in the rarefied atmosphere of your dreamworld.
Jarryd quotes some real figures on the percentage of gambling spent on lotteries – it is even less in Victoria – so before you try to justify your ravings why don’t you look at the demographics of those who regularly gamble across all three arenas – you will find that the problem gamblers don’t frequent newsagencys!
Mark
Publishers tell me they want to be stocked at the lottery counter You speak to publishers? You who categorically stated that distributors forbid newsagents to do that. How can anyone reading this blog know when to believe you?
Lovatts told me they liked the ideas but cold not create something which worked for them Translated, they politely fobbed you off because they didn’t want to compromise their product integrity. Lovatts sponsors Probus and Literacy and Numeracy, they don’t want to link up with gambling! http://www.lovatts.com.au/partnerships/default.htm
Good on you for your integrity. You demonstrate it in your anonymous postings I do not post anonymously, my name is C Stephens, I am a CEO, I have 40+yrs biz experience (small biz-Government-Fortune 500) and I am a magazineophile. Do you need my sock, jock, shirt and trouser sizes as well?
C Stephens, CEO and magazineophile
Jarryd
You wrote: only 7.7% of all expenditure on gambiling in NSW (2003-4) was on lottey products – As you know, 7.7% in 2003-4 is probably 10%+ in 2007 given the relentless focus on increasing revenue.
Tattslotto with around 35% of adults in Melbourne playing our games weekly, with this number rising to around 60% in superdraw weeks. A key driver of Revenue in our business is Household Disposable Income. Duncan Fischer, MD, Tattersalls, 2006 AGM – “http://tinyurl.com/2rao3q. Trouble is many householders don’t have any disposable income which means they are gambling money they should be spending on food and other life necessities.
Don’t slander lottery agents who use jackpot traffic to boost sales; it is not different from using seasonal traffic from christmas, easter, mothers day etc to do the same thing Right, just like the supermarkets you despise that place items which appeal to small children next to the checkout counter and make life difficult for parents of young children. All this focus on “upsell” – small business in Australia used to be based on providing solid customer service, the best “upsell” of all.
If you’re not part of the solution, you must be part of the problem.
C Stephens, CEO and magazineophile
Jim O’Toole wrote: perhaps you should … go out into the real world and get a job in a newsagency – newsagencies the real world – who needs to get out more?
Jim O’Toole also wrote: There may be a gambling problem in Australia but it is not the lottery industry FYI, I have worked in the lottery industry and know exactly how many large trucks stacked high with pallets of scratch tickets are delivered to retail outlets every week.
You – and others here – are rude, presumptive and ignorant. Another difference between us is that you make sure what you do is legal, while I also factor in ethics and morality.
C Stephens, CEO and magazineophile
C Stephens,
You – and others here – are rude, presumptive and ignorant
You are including yourself in “others” I hope!
newsagencies the real world – who needs to get out more?
Perhaps I should have said “get yourself a job in a retail business with thousands of stock items, little or no control over a significant part of the supply chain, tightening margins and rising costs of which newagencies are a part” – would that have satisfied your nit-picking?
I have worked in the lottery industry and know exactly how many large trucks stacked high with pallets of scratch tickets are delivered to retail outlets every week
Then you would probably know how many more truckloads of TAB tickets are delivered as well!
You accuse Mark and others of trying to discredit everyone who doesn’t agree with them – you do exactly the same but use longer words to do it.
You would have us micro-manage every problem title in the shop – that is not reality!
C Stephens,
You wrote: As you know, 7.7% in 2003-4 is probably 10%+ in 2007 given the relentless focus on increasing revenue. – You have no basis for this assumption. I would suggest other forms of gambiling have focused more heavily on increasing revenue.
You also wrote: Trouble is many householders don’t have any disposable income which means they are gambling money they should be spending on food and other life necessities. – How is this any different to the same people buying something such as a magazine?
And you wrote: just like the supermarkets you despise that place items which appeal to small children next to the checkout counter and make life difficult for parents of young children. – I do not despise supermarket for this. In fact, just about every newsageny that has recieved a shopfit in the last few years has had shelving put in their counter to do the exact same thing as the supermarkets! Unfortunatly, while providing solid customer service may be essential in small business, it simply isn’t enough on its own.
Dont get all high and mighty with your, Another difference between us is that you make sure what you do is legal, while I also factor in ethics and morality. – You factor in your particular notion of ethics and morality. Dont use the words as if they have some form of universal consensus. Unfortunatly retail is a ruthless game; you wouldn’t survive for a minute if you played.
And i love the quote at the end. You try to make youself sound wise with a completely irrelevant statement that masquerades as profound.
Michelle – C Stephens, M Stephens and the other names you have used in your comments here:
It is ture, I have said that distributors want newsagents to go through them – on supply issues. That does not mean that I do not talk to publishers.
Your comments out you as a con. You continually twist what people write for some agenda of your own.
You weren’t at the Lovatts meeting. Given the wrong assumptuions you make on so many other things, people reading this will acept that youlre wrong again.
You do post anonymously – your emails to me list your name as Michelle, the IP address you have used has also been used by four other commenters – you post anonymously because you’re too scared to out yourself.
mark Fletcher
0418 321 338