It can be hard to know when to stop doing something that is not providing the return it used to. This is a challenge pertinent to newsagents with several categories in the traditional newsagency business no longer performing at the level needed. The challenge for newsagents is having the guts to cut the category before it hurst the business. Data is your friend. Let the numbers tell you what to do.
I am pleased to see more product brands protect their intellectual property by taking on retailers who stock knock-off products.
Most recently I have seen this action against a discount retailer selling fake Beanie Boos. The Rockhampton retailer was selling products at less than half price. This alone should have made people wary.
Check if the product you could soon spot the fake – the branding was sub standard, they face wonky, the trademark bright eyes dull and the product itself felt inferior.
Cheap products are cheap for a reason. A sales rep you have never seen before walking if unannounced and offering ‘brand name’ products cheap you need to ask tough questions. Brands have authorised distributors, check with them.
Selling fake products opens your business to seizure of these products and other action.
Newspaper publishers either publish content they value and want to see widely read or they see their product as a big ad catalogue that has to hit its numbers to keep working. The two products are from different eras and are quite different.
In the mid 1990s I had discussions with a senior newspaper publishing executive about early warning of newspaper sell-outs.
In the Tower Systems newsagency software was the ability to forecast when papers would sell out based on sales by 10am. The discussion was abut a data feed to the publisher from newsagents that could trigger replenishment action by 10am so papers could be in-store by 12 noon and the publisher not miss almost certain sales.
Back then, every over the counter newspaper sale was pursued with energy beyond what you could justify based on the financial return from the sale.
Newspaper companies were run by publishers back then.
Today, with the bean counters in charge, the focus is on return on investment. A lost newspaper sale does not have the same value to a bean counter today as it has to a newspaper publisher of old.
The opportunity is on my mind this week as more newsagents report sell outs and the lack of interest in publishers in resolving them. Even some newsagents care less about sell outs today that they did years ago.
The opportunity to predict sell outs remains, the will to bring the project to life does not.
I love the creative for the BTS promotion in Baker’s Delight stores. In addition to the on-screen promotions there was a banner at the back of the counter and a pitch at the front of the counter. All visuals were consistent. This visual consistency is important in driving shopper engagement.
Their use of colour pencils was smart as it provided an appealing base for the marketing collateral. I also love the cheerful headline for the collateral.
Well done Baker’s Delight!
This article in The Age today is a must read for newsagents engaged with Back to School.
Under quoting by real estate agents is an issue that gets plenty of medial and politician attention, especially in Victoria and New South wales where auctions appear to be more popular. In Victoria recently one agent was fined and more are heading to court.
In our channel, the problem is the misrepresentation of the performance of the business. This is done several ways:
Some brokers are dreadful at preparing a business for sale and providing prospective purchasers with accurate and reliable data on which to make their decision. this can see people coming into the business unprepared and based on data that is completely wrong.
I have had two calls this week from people looking to buy newsagencies in Victoria and in each case the broker has not done their job in preparing the business. For example, they have a value for the computer system, considering it and the data an assist. In each case, the data in the computer system is useless, there is no stock on hand value, no tracking of each item sold and no compliance with industry data standards. A quick check by the lazy broker could have discovered this and counselled the newsagent to sort the data out to make the business more appealing.
People looking at buying a newsagency need to be fierce. They need to ask the tough questions, demand proof and only proceed when they are completely satisfied.
People selling their newsagency need to prepare the business, make it appealing,e sure all data is accurate and clean house so the sale is easy … otherwise, people like me, when asked for an opinion, say don’t do it, not this time.
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.
This is a terrific result, $1000 of Pokémon plush in a few weeks in the newsagency. Good margin, new traffic thanks to out of store marketing, nice impulse purchases from existing shoppers and an efficient return on floor space thanks to the small formal floor unit.
This is a win for a product you’d not find in a traditional newsagency.
Today’s Inside Football features a cover story about the imminent launch of the AFL women’s league. This gives is an opportunity to gauge interest in the women’s league. In AFL crazy Melbourne it’s good to have the opportunity to reach a wider audience with AFL product. We are pitching the magazine with newspapers to drive impulse opportunities.
News Corp. continues its obsession with Fairfax by speculating in the The Australian about Fairfax plans to stop printing weekday newspapers.
My feeling is News is actively watching this as a Fairfax announcement would make it easier for News to make its own announcement.
The question for newsagents is: are you ready? This will happen, newspapers you sell today will stop being printed, are you ready?
FYI, I am on the record from last year saying I expect the changes to start this year. I expect that The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian Financial Review will cease daily publication. Based on circulation numbers, the cost of print distribution and the continuing evolution in how we access and consume news, the print newspaper is redundant for today’s marketplace.
The Reject Shop two doors away from the newsagency has started pitching cards on the lease line including these 75 cent cards. While colleagues tell me they have seen cards at this price before, I don’t recall seeing them. I can’t recall, either, seeing a strong pitch for cards on the lease line at The Reject Shop. While their shopper is not ur shopper, I look at the price and think how low will they go?
As for the cards, they are what I expect for the price, cheap, flimsy and clip-art graphics. However, they would only have them if they sell.
On February 1, 2017, Western Australian newsagents have an opportunity to meet with West Australian Premier Colin Barnett at a forum to discuss growing converse about the growing costs associated with the new corporate image Lotterywest requires agents to install.
This is an important meeting that every WA newsagent who sells lotteries should attend.
Click here to see the letter from ALNA to the Premier.
Click here to see the notice for the ALNA facilitated meeting.
The core issues are the cost of the refit and the lack of economic justification for the refit. When I first saw the proposed refit in September 2015, the anticipated costs were significantly less than is the case today. On today’s numbers, it is possible small business newsagents will not achieve a reasonable return on the capital expenditure. This is not how it was meant to be.
I support the ALNA work in this area and I urge all newsagency marketing groups, newsagency software companies and other groupings of newsagents to support it. In my own newsXpress group we have shared the details of the ALNA work, with ALNA permission, and encouraged WA newsXpress members to attend this meeting. While I will be overseas, my fellow newsXpress director will be attending the forum with the WA Premier.
If you are a newsagent in Western Australia and have completed the Lotterywest refit, you may have business performance data that could be useful to the ALNA work in this area. I urge you to make contact with Ben Kearney from ALNA on ben@alna.net.au to discuss the impact of the refit in your business.
This issue feeds into the Tatts refit issue as the challenges are the same. tatts is requiring small business newsagents to undertake a considerable level of capital expenditure without reasonable financial justification for the capital expenditure. While I am not a lawyer, I suspect the ACCC may have a view about the moves by Lotterywest and Tatts.
With lottery purchases moving online at a considerable rate, it is appropriate to question the level of capital expenditure being required by Lotterywest and Tatts. Required expenditure has to be fair, justified and appropriate to the expected market conditions and trends over the period of which the capital expenditure is expected to financial perform for the business.
VANA is promoting what appears to be a series of News Corp. newsagent promotion event. I think associations need to be associations and not marketing arms for newspaper publishers. Also, this latest marketing from VANA indicates a visual disconnect from the national association, ALNA, with a very different looking logo.
Publishers should check out how the kids magazine area looked at a Melbourne inner city Coles supermarket on the weekend.
And if the excuse is it was there weekend that is no excuse. Any retail business that is open has an obligation to present products in the best possible way. My experience with Coles and magazines is they don’t care themselves.
This holiday season, once again, people left running newsagencies while owners are away have had to work out who to speak to if something goes wrong. I got a call from a staff member left in charge seeking help with a stationery order. They called me because my card was on the wall next to the phone. Another call, at 5:45am Friday morning, was from someone wanting help connecting to the internet in the newsagency – they had no idea who their ISP was and only called me because they knew of a computer connection.
A well organised owner would provide people running their business in their absence with a contact list and simple guidance of businesses to contact for what.
Leaving staff to work out what to do for themselves is asking for trouble, it is poor management.
One way to pitch the local focus of your business if to have a locals special, locals sale or a locals special day. Regardless of what you do, pitching it for locals, people who live locally, if a way of demonstrating being local in your focus. If you promote this on social media, use one or more of the the many hashtags that promote local.
I saw a small retail business in Australia recently added 5,000 Facebook likes in 24 hours. They did this by paying an overseas service $25.00 for the likes. While is makes their overall likes number look good, these likes represent no tangible value to the social media strategy of the business.
There are many services offering to sell likes for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and more. They are cheap and easily accessible.
Social media experts say that bought likes rarely engage with a retail business.
My understanding is that bought likes can also negatively impact the metrics facebook uses in analysing your page and this can hurt your business in the longer term.
My advice is don’t use these services. A smaller number of genuine likes is more valuable to your business than a larger number of likes you have paid a service to provide.
It is important to think about what you want from your social media presences before you chase size. If you want in-store engagement then the likes you want the most are the real, from people likely to shop with you.
Sure, attracting genuine likes is a hard road. However, my experience is that it is valuable. Invest the time, provide useful content and fun content and people will be attracted to you for this.
If you are in a marketing group they should provide to you a carefully thought through strategy for attracting genuine likes.
Paying for likes can open you to ridicule as people will know you have done it. The can know this by seeing a high like count but actual human engagement that is low and more reflective of lesser likes.
There is no substitute for the hard slog of real, personal, engagement. People who try and sell you a magic bullet are more likely snake oil sales people and should be avoided.
Earlier this week here I asked distribution newsagents three questions:
Now, I have a supplementary question, a judgement question:
If a newsagent is found to have paid sub agents less than publisher mandated commission and they charged sub agents to deliver newspapers to them and/or have charged sub agents for returns pickup, should they have their distribution business taken from them?
