Ask your accountant to check how you handle GST in your business from the arrival of goods to sales across the counter through to your record keeping.
It is better that you discover and correct any mistake in your handling than it being discovered by the ATO in an audit.
I have seen one newsagency mishandling GST calculations resulting in an overpayment to the ATO in the six figure range.
I am looking forward to reading the Quarterly Essay by Benjamin Law that is to be published in ten days. While I have not read the essay, I am aware of Benjamin Law’s work and respect his thoughtfulness and contribution on many topics of societal interest. His essay, Moral panic 101 Equality, Acceptance and the Safe Schools Scandal, is bound to be controversial, entertaining and provocative. These are all good attributes of any contribution to the timely conversation Australia is having right now.
We can decide how important the topic is in our own businesses with our decision as to where the title is placed. I suspect placement with newspapers would be ideal. It is more likely to be considered for purchase there than, for example, at the counter.
The alternative is to early return or hide the title. That would be sad for a few reasons: this is an Australian publication, it is certain to get media coverage and sales revenue should be a motivator, it contributes to a local conversation, supermarkets won’t have the title. You can use this title to differentiate your business in a small way.
Regardless of your position on the $122M survey later this month, this issue of Quarterly Essay is worth supporting. Remember, we are retailers not censors.
Footnote: this post is not about which way to vote or about the same sex marriage survey that may be conducted later this month, depending on the High Court, it is about placement of a title to maximise the opportunity for the business.
Facebook is a terrific platform for pitching products that may not be top of mind and products people can purchase as gifts. This is true for magazines, especially niche titles, like train magazines.
The image shows a post I did on Facebook this week pitching train magazines. Without mentioning Father’s Day, it is one of several posts pitching dad friendly magazine titles.
When doing a post like this that is designed to show off a unique and carefully selected range of magazines, I boost it for one day for $2.00. It works a treat. Posts like this have resulted in feet through the door.
I know of six newsagents who are each advanced in opening additional retail locations, newsagency locations, or their version of newsagency locations at least.
I mention this today as an indication of six different individuals who have food knowledge of our channel and who are confident enough in key parts of the channel and their own business acumen to invest in opening additional locations.
Kudos to them.
This is a good story. It reflects a confidence that has always been there but may not have been as obvious.
Sure, there are businesses under duress and some closing. But here we have new business opening because the newsagents see growth opportunities. These are moves to celebrate as they contradict the narrative of some.
In each case the newsagent has embraces a shop space opportunity made available to them, in true entrepreneurial spirit. Starting from scratch, with a clean slate – the best type of slate of all.
I am interested in the different questions they ask of themselves. For example, if I am going to have magazines, how many different titles do I need? Or, if I am going to have magazines does it really matter if I am only a sub agent?
There are many more questions than these. This is not the space to document them.
I know from my own experience earlier this year that opening a new business is a wonderful experience in terms of the decisions you can make, because of the clean slate, especially if the business does not have any agency requirements such as lotteries. This is where there is real flexibility, starting afresh without any supplier demands. It puts you 100% in control as the retailer rather than as an agent.
From product location to shop look and feel to fitout, you can create something fresh when you have a business with fewer restrictions than the last generation of newsagencies had when they were created. This is even more true if the business is outside a major shopping centre where landlords make some tough demands.
But back to the six who are expanding their businesses. Good on them and well done. This is good news for our channel and good news for the local communities. I am excited to see how far they evolve their own models.
This photo shows most of our home and garden magazine range. We have this located near our crossword titles as both are destination locations for us. While magazine sales are challenged, there are segments where we are seeing good growth. These are the segments we promote and support with good placement.
The layout is fluid, adjusted based on sales data and on covers, for a brilliant cover can easily boost sales.
The key with all this work on magazines is to manage space and time investment in line with the return achieved.
Where we can own a segment compared to a competitor we will invest more because of the broader benefit to our business.
SBS is preparing a story they anticipate will run on their TV news tonight that references the newsagency channel. I have been contacted for some background information. I stressed there is plenty of good news in the channel as there are businesses transitioning, finding new traffic through new opportunities.
This is not my story. It is a story about an other newsagent family and how a competitor targeted them, leveraging their marketing in what I think was an unfair action.
The newsagents, with whom I am friends, determined to host an event in their shop for a high-profile brand of products they sell. While they are not the only retailer in their shopping centre with the brand, their approach is unique and bold and goes beyond what is traditional for the brand.
They promoted the event in-store with professional posters as well as online, through boosted Facebook posts. They spent money.
For the party, they organised prizes, specially made tasty treats themed to the product they were promoting, activities and more. It was set up as a terrific and fun family event that aimed to also sell plenty of stock but to also give people an opportunity to engage with the products, to learn and have fun beyond plain shopping.
They were exhausted by the start of the day of the event, having put in plenty of work to dress the shop and create an experience that matched their proactive marketing, but excited for what was to come.
On the morning of the event they discovered a small business competitor in the centre had cut prices of the same products to close to cost, for one day only. They announced this with a hand written sign at the store entrance, capturing traffic heading to the newsagency with the promotion.
While I accept competition is real, this promotion by the competitor to cut prices to almost cost price on the day a fellow retailer in the centre in running a value-add promotion in which they have invested considerably is, in my view, poor form. It goes beyond regular competition.
I think what the other store did is lazy marketing, disrespectful to the competitor and disrespectful to customers who love the brand being promoted.
A smart retailer would have countered with their own event, at a different time, adding value in a variety of ways. Instead, this retailer ran a spoiler sale designed solely to mute the success of the in-store party run by my friends.
There were shoppers who saw the activity for what it was, and said so. Others were happy to get the discount.
Long term, the better retailer will win as this is what shoppers will appreciate – the retailer who understands the brands they sell, who services the collectors of the brands, who offers experiences that are enjoyable beyond price based shopping.
In the meantime, sure, the almost cost price sale had an impact. But no one won. My friends had the success of their event dulled by the competitor’s actions. Any boost the competitor got was money through the register but little in the way of gross profit.
People who shop solely on price are not loyal. For the competitor to keep anyone they won through the almost cost price sale they will have to keep discounting. I can’t see the upside in that.
Retailers in local shopping precincts and in shopping malls have to walk a fine line in handling competition. While I get that all is fair in competition, there are ethical lines one should not cross. I think what the competitor did in this instance is a crossing of an ethical line.
Crosswords continue to be one of the most valuable magazine categories in newsagencies. On average, they account for between 6% and 8% of magazine revenue. In the latest benchmark study, crossword unit sales are up, ahead of most other categories.
This is an important category for newsagency businesses. It is one where you can beat every other magazine retail channel. My advice is you place it at the front of the magazine department.
Here is the crossword section in one of my stores. While the location gets moved as we tweak magazine locations, the space allocation is consistent.
Back when Mind Body Spirit first launched in Australia years ago there was a ton of noise in-store and in the media. This latest launch, happening now, is low profile compared. we are doing our bit but without TV driving traffic as it used to I expect sales to be quite low.
We have the launch issue with weeklies, the highest traffic location in-store.
While the latest season of Game of Thrones may have ended its run this week, GoT licenced products are set to be popular right through to Christmas.
Spending on the demographic focus of the business, GoT could be the most popular licence in a shop this year with avid collectors happy to spend big on limited-edition opportunities as well as big piece, high ticket price, items.
Like any major licence, key to leveraging success was locking in products months out from the airing of the latest season, often committing to products without understanding exactly what you were committing to.
While there are other strong licences, such as Star Wars, anything Disney, the Wiggles and more, GoT is a favourite of mine because of collector loyalty to the licence and to businesses that are serious about their commitment to all things GoT.
A challenge in this space is dealing with multiple suppliers and being able to be on early allocation of new product, especially the limited edition product. To achieve this you have to be proactive, often chasing relationships that are unusual for the newsagency channel.
It is certainly exciting being part of a licence franchise for which there is a terrific traffic rush.
Fair Work has been making compliance visits to retail businesses, checking employee and payroll records.
It is important that all employee related records are ignorer. These include rosters, payroll records, payslips given to employees, your injuries register and more.
At the same time, it is worth ensuring your have current employee emergency contact details as well as superannuation records, with records showing up to date superannuation payments.
If any employees work under a specific type of visa, it would be useful to have that as part of their employee records on file, stores securely.
Even if your business is not in a area targeted by Fair Work, now is a good time to self-check your compliance. The fines for non-compliance are considerable.
With Hamish Cameron’s permission I share here his note to me on the sale of his Albany Western Australia business, lessons learned and what’s next:
Well the time has come to move into another direction and exit the retail space.
Within 10 days of listing the business for sale I had two cash offers presented which does speak to the attraction of a relevant, well presented and profitable business.
As you would see regularly, trying to sell a newsagency isn’t always such a straight forward proposition – the hard work has finally paid off.
So as I drift into the sunset of my retail career and reflect on why this business has worked so well I find myself returning to Community Engagement.
Aside from Product, Presentation and People the contribution to the community we live in has been critical in securing and growing market share in this regional town.
I thought I would share this with you as something of a positive story, we all need to hear positive things especially in the retail industry.
I hope you share this with that in mind, will leave that completely up to you.
We were approached by the Albany Youth Services Assoc to help with their fundraiser and awareness campaign around the plight of Homelessness and the impact it has on the community.
Following in the footsteps of various CEO Sleep outs around the country the AYSA again held this event in the town square. Apart from rolling out the swag for the night I was keen to help in whatever way I could.
Utilizing our window display was always a going to help raise some awareness, to compliment this we placed donation tins at the counter and set up an online donation page through our ticketing software.
All money raised is going towards buying emergency bedding in the form of Backpack Beds (swags) that local agencies can supply to people and families that find themselves in this horrendous predicament.
We raised $5300, which will purchase 35 swags – hardly world changing I know, but for some hopefully it’s the first thing to go right in a long time.
Yes we have run many similar type things over the years although this one will stick with me. Two things happened.
Passion, Engagement, Ownership and Pride – we all want this from staff, getting it from customers is truly the retail holy grail.
I will be hanging around until the January handover (had to get one more Christmas bonus) and will keep an eye on the blog until then. May look at doing some retail consulting next year and freelance window displays in the industry – a clear weak point in the newsagency sector. Who knows, maybe make some newsXpress Stores actually look 21st Century, contemporary and cool…… break those long tried, repetitive, lazy and tired presentation techniques so synonymous with the industry!
Anyway, I also want to say thank you for your input into my business over the years. While I may not always agree or have a different take on a story I do appreciate the effort you make to educate, question and champion newsagents and their industry. In all sincerity – Well Done, good luck and thank you.
While we know that around 60% of Father’s Day card sales are in the last two retail days of the season, already we are seeing year on year card unit sales up by 18% and revenue up by 21% – reflected in data to the end of last week. This is in a store that has been established in its current location for seven years, in a centre with another newsagency and many card competitors plus Father’s Day outposts.
Several factors are combining to play well for us including:
We are also consistently executing what has worked well for us in previous years: Father’s Day cards on the lease line, rewarding card shopper loyalty, Keeping the card range looking fresh. Sequencing cards in the display based on our knowledge of our shoppers.
While you ponder this, I think it is ridiculous that there remains a physical process around returns. Newspapers are a slim-margin product for distribution agents and for retailers. requiring physical returns to be returned if a cost impost on both parties.
It is time newspaper publishers eliminated this old-world approach. They have the data. They can spot audit. It is time the ‘tax’ of physical returns was removed from small business.
Check out how Coles is promoting discount newspapers from News Corp. at the moment. I hope News Corp. does not do for newspapers what Bauer did for magazines by making discount bundles the new normal and educating customers to expect them.
Either a title is worth the cover price or not.
Content sells print media products more so than price.
With easy social media and other digital access platforms it is easy to contact employees outside their hours. If you expect them to respond outside hours and the communication is about matters other than their roster, you could open yourself to a claim under Fair Work provisions.
The best way to avoid any trouble is to make it clear, regularly, that while you may email or post to a private business employee only Facebook group, you do not expect an out of hours response from them. Having documentation of your advice re this may be useful in the event of a dispute.
Check out this sign seen in a retail business recently. It is sure to draw some attention a more traditional and law-enforcement type sign may attract. We need to keep changing how we tell customers they are at risk of being caught because people see laziness in the usual and that tells them theft could be easier. Winona may be noticed enough to work.
A newsagent showed me a line of stationery they were pressured to take with the pitch they are on-trend, that they will help compete with Typo. The stationery is not selling. The products are not on-trend, there is no professional marketing the prices are too high.
Compared to notebooks in Officeworks (see photo), the products forced on the newsagent are more expensive and not of as good a quality.
Too many suppliers say they have products for competing with Typo and similar. Most don’t know what they are talking about. Take care. Buy carefully. Educate yourself about what Typo and others have. Knowing your competition is crucial.
