News Corp has been sloppy in organising the Roald Dahl promotion that launches in ten-day. Rather than give the newsagency software companies a head’s up so they could provide timely advice, They told newsagents and left it for them to tell the software companies. Poor form News Corp.
I am surprised by the different communication. Click here for the NSW notice. Click here for the VIC notice. The difference in style is considerable. Why the company feels this is necessary is beyond me.
Dahl’s appeal notwithstanding, for the margin we make I am not a fan of these promotions. It is time for a fresh approach.
My Newscorp rep just cannot seem to understand that newspapers and promotions are a low priority in my stores for a couple of reasons. Low margin for the space they take up and surprise, low margin for the labor involved in running them. She gets a blank look on her face when I say I don’t want to participate in the promotions.
I just tried to buy one of the Dahl books at a newsagent near my work using today’s token from the Herald Sun. Was told I would have to buy the paper. Didn’t quibble as I didn’t have time, but just wondering – would this be because of the poor margins mentioned above? Ie newsagent doesn’t see anything in it for them without the dual sale?
WJ the publishers requires us to sell with a paper or to people with a coupon from the paper. If you had the coupon you should not have had to buy a paper.
It’s actually a good promotion product this time and they only allocate, at least for us, less than 50% books to sales. Along with no extra allocation. End result is pissed off customers, either because a regular reader misses out on a newspaper or you run out of books, especially when they haven’t sent other sellers any.
Our allocation was increased a crazy amount (Sunday alone we were allocated more than 300 papers!)
We were sent upwards of 60 of each title and we are barely selling more than 25. Great way to take up valuable storage space in a tiny country shop.
More and more often people are coming in without a token and asking myself or my staff to sell them a book.
When it is refused they become agitated with myself and staff and cause a scene.
I am left wondering if it is really worth the time, effort and agro we go through to actually run these promotions on behalf of NL.
With the increase in papers we seen an increase in returns which is time my staff can use else where, then we are left with having to dispose of the left over newspapers.
Not enough papers for us. Number of books is ok but the abuse when you follow the rules is ridiculous. These promotions are of little or no benefit to us run as they are.
Just wondering, does Newscorp really believe they are creating extra traffic for us with these promotions any more or have they piggy backed on Valentines traffic? Maybe I’m becoming a cynic in some areas.
Good promo where I am. We have educated our regular customers to save their coupons and collect full sets at the end. Grandparent customers love these sets, and during the day we promo extra customers who notice the counter display. It isn’t the money you earn from the promo, it’s the repeat happy customers that come back over and over, all year.
Good promotion. Firstly, we sell a lot of other books, Children, Classic, Giftbooks when News Books promotion starts. Secondly, best time to train staff to practice cross selling and up selling, and to overcome negative feeling when offer is refused. Last, just in time to get some Roald Dahl activity books and they are selling well.
I agree with Sunny & h…good promotion. And it’s not always about margins, but as h said, the repeat business, & that goodwill you create for those customers. We too, encouraged people to pre-order, which we do with all our promos, & we’ve never had anything left over, we’re happy to say. In fact I’d say in the 11 months we’ve been here now, all of the promo’s have been good for us except for the ugly Olympic scarf. We sold about 95% of the Hasbro games, probably sold more than 100 Anzac coin sets, & have only one left, of last weeks RD books (Mr Fox), but that would probably be because we don’t trade on Sundays. so not bad going for a tiny little agency in the far outer suburbs of Melbourne, in a small village strip. As far as the abusive “one-night-stand” customers go, we simply tell them, as politely as possible, that they’re more than welcome to shop elsewhere without buying a paper or presenting a coupon, but in our establishment, the conditions are the conditions. I’m probably going to say something very controversial here, but it needs to be said…however, before I make my comment, I’ll also explain that I’ve been in retail for 37 years & dealt with a LOT of divas & princes, so I think I can safely say that I’m fairly qualified in what I’m about to say…there’s just TOO much negativity in this industry..WAY TOO MUCH, & I can see now why our reps LOVE coming to visit us here…because we’re not (negative). We take on everything with a positive outlook, I make sure my windows reflect what we’re doing at any one time, (I have a mischief & mayhem display at present that the customers simply love), & we mention promos & specials to our customers every opportunity, but without sounding like a Macca’s staff member; we make it part of a normal conversation. At the same time, we also know when to pick our battles, & when giving criticism, to suppliers, it’s always based on actual data, facts & figures; not clouded emotion. We’re still finding our feet here, but we’re also trying everything we can possibly think of, & so far almost everything has worked (but we won’t be doing calendars next year, that’s for sure). We got rid of Hallmark 6 months ago, & the State Manager had the gall to tell us we’d regret it by now, but with a 13% growth in card sales in that time, I think he’ll be eating his own words. We had a 26% increase in Xmas card sales; a whopping 39% increase in Fathers Day card sales, & about 11% increase in Valentines card sales, (side by side comparison to sales the year before), & more multi-card sales than we ever had with crappy old Hallmark. Our average card spend has gone from $3.97 (Hallmark) to $5.03 with Hendersons, & word of mouth is now bringing people in for our cards, which exposes them to our other goodies. And our Toy & Gift sales are up as well just by being different. As retailers we actually have the power to steer things in the direction we want. We simply need to bring back old fashioned values about service & community, because that’s what works & I think we’re living proof, so far. 11 months in & we’ve had a 9% growth in our shop sales, without joining any groups, & without jumping on the online bandwagon yet, (& I doubt we will anytime soon), & I haven’t even had time to really work on our FB page either. That’s not bad going considering most small business post a loss in their first year. Our customers come here because they genuinely like us & LOVE that feeling of familiarity, respect, & “welcome-ness” that they get, even on their FIRST visit. Service is what matters, not just what’s in stock, & THAT, I believe, is the one thing that will drive people back into stores; that feeling that they’re the single most important person shopping there, whether they spend $1 or $1000. The other tip I can give you is don’t always be a sheep; go with your own intuition sometimes, you’ll surprise yourself at what you can achieve by having that point of difference. We’ve created that “Adriana” thing with our community, (…you know, Wheel of Fortune…what’s Adriana wearing tonight?)…we have them coming in more regularly now to see what “different things you have this week”, because of what we’ve been doing over the last 11 months. So promos?, well margins might be small, but opportunities are huge, it’s just how you choose to work them. Cheers All & thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope you got (or can get) something useful out of it 🙂