A blog on issues affecting Australia's newsagents, media and small business generally. More ...

Author: Mark Fletcher

Advice for small business newsagents on how to win more diary business

Newsagents used to be the biggest retailer of diaries in Australia. That has not been the case for some years.

You only have to go into an Officeworks to see an extraordinary pitch for diaries. Calendar Club, too, are in this space. Plus we have Typo, Kikki.k, discount variety stores, K-Mart, Target and supermarkets. Then there is online – from websites in Australia and overseas.

Looking online, I found diaries for a raft of special interest niches available at less than Australian recommended retail and with free delivery from overseas websites.

It is a tough challenge for newsagents to win back the diary business. But we have to try. The channel has to try. The alternative we we mark this down as another loss for us. We should not stand for that.

Here are some management and marketing tips for newsagents to win back diary business:

  • Display differently. Create something beautiful, eye-catching. Colour block.
  • Feature diaries, showing off features in a creating way to grab attention.
  • Use social media. Run a series of posts showing information about diaries, show off your knowledge. Pitch yourself as the local expert.
  • Pitch range. Show your range in a way that pitches you as having the biggest local range.
  • Use a secondary location. Near weekly magazines or newspapers. Get your regular shoppers considering diaries thanks to tactical placement in-store.
  • Offer multi-buys. Consider packaging multiple diaries in a pack to make price comparison difficult. For example, a small pocket diary with a desk diary.
  • Host a diary party. Some people are very committed to their diaries. If you can find them this could be a fun event. Put on some drinks and food to make it special. Can you think of any other business nearby hosting such an event? Probably not. And this is the reason for you to do it.
  • Run a short term sale. For, say two days. 25% off. Run it now and call it an early bird sale. This is particularly useful if you have shoppers who may, later in the season, purchase elsewhere.
  • Feature new diaries in store now. As you get new product, shout out about it to show your range has expanded.
  • Train your staff. Make everyone a diary expert.
  • Find the oldest diary. Ask your customers for the oldest diary they have and get ti in-store for a promotion.

My hope is these ideas get you thinking of ideas for yourself.

Diary sales growth is here for the taking for small business newsagents. If you do what you usually do your results will be in line with your past trajectory. If you are happy with this, don’t change. If you want to do better then you need to do better.

Good luck and let’s all work to win more diary revenue for newsagents this season.

13 likes
Diaries

How small business newsagents can push back on Lottoland misrepresentation

With Tatts not doing anything to counter the false and misleading portrayal of newsagents by Lottoland in their TV commercials, it falls to newsagents to act.

Newsagents selling lottery products need to actively engage and pitch that they are not the grumpy old white guy they see in the TVC. They need to embrace every opportunity to promote local personal service. They need to find ways to add value.

Lottoland and Tatts want lottery customers to migrate from in0-store purchases to online. Lottoland is a pure online play. I say Tatts wants people to migrate because of the extent of their investment in online and because of their failure to confront the Lottoland attack on the Tatts retail network.

While I no longer sell lotteries, I sold my newsagency with Tatts in 2011, I have some ideas on how newsagents can counter the Lottoland pitch. I have developed this list specifically to address the representation of newsagents by Lottoland:

  1. Ensure your lottery customers receive excellent customer service every time. Excellent customer service is:
  2. Always smile.
  3. Never sit behind the counter.
  4. Never charge a credit or debit card surcharge.
  5. Always have the youngest person working at the lottery counter.
  6. Provide free breath mints at the counter for staff.
  7. Provide hand sanitiser for staff and customers to access at the counter.
  8. If anyone behind the counter wears reading glasses, take them off when talking with customers – do not leave them on and look over them.
  9. Blokes should not wear cardigans or jumpers such as what we see in the Lottoland ad.
  10. Be cheerful when paying out a prize on tickets purchased elsewhere.
  11. Be cheerful when people say the same thing over and over. The alternative is having no one in your shop at all.
  12. If you sell candy of any sort, every so often offer a free tasting. Look for more ways to add value to the shopper visit.
  13. In winter offer free soup at lunchtime.
  14. In summer offer access to cups and filtered water.
  15. If you are on the high street, have a bowl of water for dogs.
  16. Celebrate all wins in-store on your noticeboard as well as on your business Facebook page.
  17. Run a second chance draw and actively encourage every customer to engage with this. Be generous with the prize.
  18. As an alternative for a second chance draw, host a BBQ event in the shop for the prize draw. Di this once a year, quarterly or six monthly with the prize commensurate with the frequency and business size. For example, in a shop with $250,000 in lottery commission, second chance draw prizes should value at least $10,000 a year. In fact, if it were my business, I’d be more likely to go with $24,000, $2,000 a month. Yes, you have to be that bold I think.
  19. Establish a community noticeboard and welcome free notices. Somewhere on the board have a subtle sign: Your support of this business helps us support your community.
  20. Share links to news reports about data security breaches by hackers with comments like: shopping in-store is safer or Our shop is a hacker free zone. Print the stories and place them on your community noticeboard.
  21. List every local community group you support on the noticeboard with a certificate.
  22. Thank community groups you support with a note on Facebook like: We are grateful for the opportunity to support the work of xxx community group.
  23. Ensure your staff understand what Lottoland is and isn’t and are able to explain why purchasing lottery products from your business is better for them and the community.
  24. From out the front of your shop make sure it looks appealing to passers-by.
  25. As people step into the shop make sure the pitch is fresh and enjoyable. Get rid of anything that looks or feels like an old-style newsagency.

All newsagents selling lottery products need to urgently ensure their businesses look nothing like the Lottoland depiction. You have to distance yourselves from the Lottoland depiction.

This work is urgent. No one will do it for you. Tatts appears asleep at the wheel on Lottoland. Or, as I suspect, they like the idea of educating people to move online.

Take a careful look at our business today in the contact of the list I have published here. Then, act!

Hopefully, more ideas will flow from this post in comments from others.

23 likes
Lotteries

Halloween at Coles

I took a look at Halloween at a couple of Coles stores yesterday, to understand their focus this year. Here is the main display:

IMG_0108

Plenty of stock. I like the mix of products, the adjacencies especially. See:

IMG_0113

Their prices aren’t good though:

IMG_0109

What I like about the Coles pitch is that it is bold. Their commitment is helping to educate shoppers about Halloween and that helps us. The key for newsagents is to differentiate.

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Competition

Sunday newsagency marketing tip: hold an event to showcase something you don’t sell

I have participated in marketing events in several newsagencies this year where feature products have not, until the event, been available in the business. A purpose of the event was to test if there was sufficient. In each instance, there was. In fact, in some cases, several thousand dollars in revenue for the new products on the day of the event.

Hosting an event for products you don’t usually sell is another way to extend the reach of your business, to attract shoppers who do not usually shop with you. It can be a valuable marketing activity.

I also love this idea for the excitement it provides when the retailer sees products they don’t usually stock selling in their business.

This is a great way to build optimism.

9 likes
marketing

Sunday newsagency management tip: track your newspaper regulars

IMG_0024I was in a newsagency recently where they labelled newspapers for customer pick-up.  It was a thrill to see this part of the newsagency software being used. It is professional, enables tracking of collection and provides confidence in your business.

This is my tip today: if you hand write customer names on newspapers, stop and use your software for a more professional approach.

5 likes
Management tip

Promoting cards in the newsagency on Facebook

Screen Shot 2016-10-07 at 10.05.08 PMPicking up on comments on my post about where I think some newsagencies will be by 2020, I note I regularly promote core lines like greeting cards on Facebook and other social media platforms. Here is a Facebook post from this week. It is simple and ensures the cards are the hero. I selected cards likely to appeal to a demographic – outside what is traditional for a newsagency.

If your card sales are flat or declining you have to act and promote cards outside your business and your promotion has to target a demographic that is not common in your business. All this is your obligation and not the obligation of your supplier.

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Greeting Cards

Tatts marketing endorses Lottoland depiction of newsagents

I think this poster supplied by tatts to lottery outlets including newsagents endorses the depiction of lottery outlets as being run by older out of touch white guys. If they wanted to push back on the Lottoland depiction they would have gone for a different looking poster to this.

IMG_3134

I continue to wonder if Tatts is concerned about Lottoland. I see no evidence in their marketing suggesting they are.

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Lotteries

Out of date newspaper fixture

I noticed this out of date newspaper fixture in a convenience store in Sydney earlier this week. I mentioned to the guy behind the counter about the out of date promotion information from April this year. Not my problem he said. The newspaper company has to change it. This is a competition of the newsagency channel. I really wonder why publishers like convenience stores. They care less about their product.

IMG_3150

4 likes
Newspapers

UK council votes

Screen Shot 2016-10-07 at 9.50.45 PMDerry City council passed a motion calling on newsagents to stop selling The Sun. As The Guardian reports, the council also voted to support the group Total Eclipse of the S*n, which wants every shop to boycott the newspaper.

This campaign is about the grossly inaccurate reporting by The Sun on the tragedy at Hillsborough.

2 likes
Ethics

Taking a look at the performance of the traditional newsagency in 2020

For my Newsagency of the Future workshops, in 2010 I developed a forecast model of where a typical newsagency would be by 2020.

The forecast was based on a blended business.

Here is the forecast exactly as published in 2010. Note the lotteries figure is commissions only. What matters in looking at the forecast is not so much the numbers but the differences across the model year on year.

Screen Shot 2016-10-06 at 9.12.48 PM

What I predicted for core traffic categories has happened, unfortunately.

Recently, I looked at the period from 2016 to 2020 again, taking on board new trends.

Here is the forecast to 2020 as I see it today for a traditional newsagency. By traditional newsagency I mean a business focussed on newspapers, magazines, lotteries, stationery, tobacco and cards with minimal gifts or higher margin product.

Screen Shot 2016-10-06 at 9.13.49 PM

You can see I am more downbeat in this model than I was back in 2010. Things are far worse for this type of old-school newsagency into the future than for the transforming newsagency.

This old-school newsagency is confronted by:

  • Newspaper and magazine customers sourcing content online.
  • Newspaper and magazine customers buying from other retailers.
  • People quitting cigarettes.
  • People buying cigarettes elsewhere including discount shops.
  • People emotionally connecting through text messages and social media rather than sending cards.
  • Card customers migrating to specialty retailers such as Kikki.K and Typo.
  • Improved offers from discount variety stores that look nothing like they used to.
  • Less people purchasing paper based stationery as they migrate to digital.
  • More businesses purchasing stationery online.

While there are some old-school newsagencies doing well because of their local situation, it is not a model with an upside. This is why it needs to transform, to be appeal to more people, to shift overall GP performance, look relevant in today’s retail landscape.

It is not too late to switch from the old-school approach. However, doing this needs commitment to change. It also needs some capital but not too much if the transformation is managed well.

Change starts with wanting it. My goal in sharing these forecasts today is to demonstrate what a business could look like if it does not embrace change, to get people in old-school newsagencies to think about the future of their businesses and realise that what happens next is up to them.

There are many stories of success in our channel, success based on embracing change. I’d love this blog post to encourage more of these.

In posts here I have offered plenty of advice on newsagency business transformation for newsagencies in any situation and of any size. The key message is – there is on magic bullet, no one single thing to do to transform your business. The best success I see comes from many small steps.

10 likes
Management tip

E-commerce seminar series may interest newsagents looking for online engagement

I am running free e-commerce workshops starting next week that may interest newsagents. Offered to all retailers through my POS software company, newsagents wanting to know more about website options and how to connect to POS software could find the sessions useful. Here are the details of the events:

Join Tower Systems for a one of our free seminars in Australia and New Zealand (in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch)  where we will show our latest Australian developed POS software for specialty independent small business retail.

  1. Discover how to connect your retail business with Magento or Shopify direct from POS software.
  2. Learn how to be found through Google.
  3. Learn about creating beautiful websites for a fraction of the costs some charge.
  4. See the POS software integration that saves time and cuts mistakes.
  5. See a new approach to loyalty shoppers love and big businesses cannot copy.
  6. See the POS software to Magento and Shopify links LIVE with working websites.

This will be a truly interactive learning opportunity for small business retailers, an opportunity to see under the hood of website development, to discover is this is something any retailer could do for their business.

We will show you how to setup up a Shopify store that can be live in hours. Plus, there will be a Q&A opportunity so you can explore your specific needs. Book now by clicking on the city location you prefer.

  1. Adelaide. October 10. 10am. Rydges South Park.
  2. Sydney. October 11. 10am. Kogarah Golf Club.
  3. Brisbane. October 12. 10am. River View Hotel.
  4. Perth. October 13. 9am. Country Comfort Inter City Hotel.
  5. Melbourne. October 14. 10am. Hawthorn Arts Centre.
  6. Canberra. October 18. 10am. Vibe Hotel, Canberra Airport.
  7. Hobart. October 19. 11am. Rydges Hobart.
  8. Darwin. October 26. 2pm Mantra on the Esplanade.
  9. Auckland. Nov. 2. 3pm. Novotel, Auckland Airport.
  10. Wellington. Nov. 3. 10am. Intercontinental Hotel.
  11. Christchurch. Nov. 4. 10am. Novotel Christchurch.

We will share our experiences in the small business POS and e-commerce areas and outline what we learned when creating sites for our own retail businesses. This seminar could save you thousands in web developer fees.

If you have questions, please email mark@towersystems.com.au or call 0418 321 338. If you are in New Zealand, please call toll free on 0800 444 367.

6 likes
Newsagency management

Halloween in the newsagency

14449028_10153974818347947_3663110468699798187_nWe have Halloween up and running in the newsagency with the front third of the shop established as the scary (in a good way) zone.

This year our focus is on style with three major displays (only one display is in the photo) targeting a specific aesthetic.

We have left the lower price point disposable Halloween items to the Reject Shop and Coles supermarket located a few doors from us. Our buying goal has been to focus on products different to what they will stock.

We are particularly focussed on adult Halloween parties as this is a differentiating and lucrative market.

If you are not in Halloween 2016 it may be a bit late. We ordered most of our stock more than six months ago.

Halloween is an important season for us and many newsagency businesses. We put it up after Father’s Day and ahead of the major Christmas rush. it is a way of easing into Christmas. Plus it is fun (and scary).

6 likes
marketing

New CEO for GNS

Newsagent owned Group Newsagency Suppliers stationery wholesale business announced the appointment of a new CEO today:

Paul Yardley has been appointed CEO of the GNS group of companies.

Paul’s most recent role was CEO of WH Smith Australia, one of the country’s leading news, book and convenience retailers. His time in that role saw –

  • Increased earnings and market share
  • Acquisition and integration of Supanews and other businesses
  • Implementation of key retail systems including inventory controls

Previously, he worked in retail consulting roles and has developed wide experience in business transformation. Starting his career in merchant banking, he saw the light and moved into retailing as Managing Director with video game retailer GAME Australia. He has a wealth of senior executive experience and is well versed in corporate transformation. Paul and his family live in Sydney.

Paul commences with GNS on October 17th and is looking forward to working with the newsagent and stationery businesses to forge a company well positioned for the future.

– Martin Hartcher
   Chairman
   GNS

5 likes
Leadership

The humiliation of a Pokemon knock-off retailer

The story goes that a parent bought a Pokemon card game pack from a shop because that shop’s price was half all the others. The kid went to play with mates but could not because the cards were not authentic. The kid was humiliated. They went home and ripped into the parent. The parent went to the shop and was told they are half price, what do you expect.

If someone tries to sell you Pokemon cards at half price or a massive discount to what is usual, they are probably a knock-off. Selling knock-off product of any brand can seriously harm your business.

Only purchase licenced products from a business that you know has the licence.

11 likes
Ethics

Toy insights help newsagents grow sales

Every month data is released reporting on the year on year performance of toy related categories such as games, puzzles, plush, art, craft, dolls, sport, indoor, outdoor and the like. This data and the accompanying analysis is used by buyers in major retailers and connected small business toy category retailers to adjust focus to leverage the trends in the data.

The monthly report is tremendously valuable is seeing the whole of category isights across all retailers. The analysis reveals trends you may not see in your store or a group of stores you work with.

Suppliers will usually not share the isights unless they are relevant to them. This is why whole of category insights are valuable, because of the source of the data and that it is outcome focussed and not supplier driven.

As we transform our businesses, which is a never ending task, external professional data to fuel strategic and tactical decisions is vital. Sure, you can get insights from your own business. However, to see broader possibilities, seeing what is happening inside competitor businesses could take you to a whole new level.

Newsagents in a marketing group should have access to this information as it is just this sort of independent analysis groups would / should use to guide the advice they provide their members. In the toy category there is an excellent independent report, best practice in fact.

As a channel we have moved beyond relying on advice from suppliers and others that is nothing more than opinion. Our decisions need a strong foundation and the best foundation will be in reliable data backing professional analysis.

Toys is an important category in the transforming newsagency. It can account for an amount equal to around 25% of annual card sales as a starting benchmark.

The toy category is another of those in which newsagents used to dominate. It was let slip away. Now it is time to bring it back. However, in toy more so that almost any other category, brand matters. This is not a place for cheap China imports if you want to become a destination retailer.

6 likes
newsagency of the future

Supermarkets drive confusion around loyalty points value

I don’t get why any small business retailer would run a loyalty program based on points when the supermarkets have ruined the value of points programs with change after change and a value proposition that is dreadful.

News Corp. published an article about this in August. Consider the Woolworths supermarket pitch:

$1 spend will earn one Woolworths Point, with no minimum spend.

$2000 spend on anything in the supermarket, BWS and Caltex will earn 2000 Woolworths Points, which can be redeemed for $10 off your next shop.

Now, take a look at the Coles supermarket pitch:

$1 spend will earn one FlyBuys Point, with no minimum spend.

$2000 spend on anything in the Coles supermarket, Target or Kmart will earn 2000 FlyBuys Points, which can be redeemed for a $10 gift voucher in Coles or Shell petrol, effectively $10 cash off your next shop.

Now, if you run a points program, think about your offer. I know newsagents who accuse a point per dollar spent and the points are worth 2.5 cents each. In this scenario, $2,000 in purchases results in a value to the shopper of $50.00 – considerably more than the $10.00 you get from the same value purchase at Coles or Woolworths.

The comparison is reasonable because the currency is the same – the currency is points. Regardless of the value of the points.

I don’t understand why any retailer would offer a loyalty program that can be easily compared with a big business competitor, especially where the competitor actively runs a loyalty program that is anything but.

In small business especially, the loyalty program you run needs to be an easily understood point of difference. It needs to be something people will switch to your shop for.

If you run a points program, ask your customers if they understand it. Next, run your management reports to assess whether you are actually making money from the program. you know what it costs each year, are you achieving incremental business to justify the investment?

Many years ago we all jumped into points based loyalty because it was the big new thing and because we wanted to be like big businesses because that’s what we thought was right back then. However, that sea quickly became competitive and bloody. In fact, now it is so cluttered and confusing that copying big business is not a smart move at all.

Be smart about your loyalty offer. Ensure it is easily understood, differentiating and offering understood and appreciated value.

14 likes
marketing
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