I could only find two Australia Day themed magazines in the newsagency on the weekend. I’m sure we had plenty more a few years ago. We have given these two a bit of sunshine in the lead up to today. On Australia Day, I am glad I god to view the Stan Grant speech. It is a must see.
I heard a story tonight of a newsagent being put under pressure by another party approaching the landlord with a better deal for when the lease expires. This newsagent could lose their business as the landlord says they have no legal obligation to offer them a new lease even though no payment has ever been missed another shop has always been fresh and exciting.
Those operating in and around our channel that do this, try and grab businesses built up by others, by going direct to the landlord need to be exposed for the unethical people they are. Hopefully, the world punishes them.
I don’t know how things will pan out for this newsagent. Hopefully, they get to keep their business on reasonable terms, they deserve to.
I did a full-on magazine relay in the newsagency on Saturday, in the middle of the day, while the shop was busy with customers. The relay was unplanned. It started out as me venting frustration and ended up with a fresh magazine layout to challenge regulars, drive sales from them and those shopping with us for the first time – and with my frustration resolved.
Getting into a hot and sweaty mess doing the work and then seeing the outcome, I was reminded that a magazine relay can be the single most effective marketing activity we can undertake for magazines.
It makes us more house proud.
It demonstrates us managing magazines.
It reflects our specialisation.
It frees space for other activities.
It trains our team.
It teaches us about magazines.
Once I processed the frustration that got me started I had a good time. I love a good magazine relay. I finished the job with a sense of achievement and pride. I also got to implement a couple of ideas to shake things up, to pitch magazines differently to what we have done in the past.
In the photos you can see magazines tossed on the floor. This is how I do it. I have found by tossing them around like this I have to be more thoughtful when rebuilding the display and this leads to a better outcome.
Click here to see my latest advice on how to do a magazine relay.
I urge all newsagents to do a magazine relay every six months. The result is a fresh pitch for magazines in-store, better product knowledge, greater shopper engagement and a reinforcement to you and your team members that you are magazine destination, that you take the category seriously.
Newsagents need to do the magazine relay themselves. This demonstrates leadership. It also demonstrates your commitment to the category. Okay, I get that you want more than 25%. The thing is, your margin is what it is. You probably bought your business knowing it was 25%. Suck it up. Make the most of it. Use magazine traffic to help the rest of the business. A magazine relay is a step toward making this happen for you. You doing the relay yourself is you being serious about being a newsagent – whatever that term means now in 2016.
Regardless of what you achieve sales and traffic wise form a magazine relay for the business, you will feel a sense of accomplishment and that, in itself, is terrific. The accomplishment comes from you exerting more control over your business, from you making your business your own.
Okay this is a challenging challenge, fraught with danger. But think about. When was your card unit last completely emptied and cleaned? The answer is probably when you last changed card companies or installed new fixturing. A clean shop is a good shop. Consider, carefully, taking cards down, cleaning and rebuilding – with all cards going back in the right place. I saw a retailer doing this last week and was inspired.
Ask most Australians where they would got to purchase an 80th birthday card and most would say a newsagency. We are known for specific captions far more so that supermarkets with limited ranges. We ought to celebrate our unique captions by hosting events – like an 80th birthday party one afternoon. Or a 90th birthday party or a 100th birthday party. Get known for celebrating the wisdom of those of age and, at the same time, reinforcing our businesses in them minds of shops buying cards for these folk.
Use a wall or a nook or some part of your shop where you use colour on the wall to be bold, noticeable and as a backdrop for you making fresh moves to reposition your business. This photo shows one retail supplier using black as a backdrop for a bold homewares display. Stunning. Inspirational.
Click on the image to see the detail.
APN sent this email to affected newsagents in North Queensland at 5:28pm last night. While the email provides a week’s notice on a price rise, anyone working with newsagents would know that an email late on a Friday is not a smart move – if they want newsagents to be properly informed about the contents. Newspaper publishers need to get better at their email communications.
Click here to see the letter to newsagents from News Corp’s Herald and Weekly Times re the upcoming Dr Seuss promotion supporting the Herald Sun and the Geelong Advertiser. I am sharing it here for newsagents in other states to see another example of professional communication sent our early enough for proper preparation for what loos to be a terrific promotion.
When I heard Colin Powell was keynote speaker for the National Retail Federation conference in New York this week I wondered about his retail connections. Sure he was involved in shopping for weapons but what about retail and, in particular, small business retail.
As it turns out, Powell was a terrific keynote speaker. From stories of his years as a teenager working in a New York toy shop through to his thoughts on leadership, he was relevant. Click here for a more complete (and professional) report on the speech.
The point I like the most is one about delegation – giving people parameters and allowing them freedom to operate within the defined parameters. I like this because I see opportunities in newsagencies for more delegation, for giving junior and casual employees authority for parts of the business, to encourage them to take the business places not envisaged by often tired and old-school leaders.
Leadership is a tough gig, especially in this world of faster and more comprehensive change, and a world of more demands from and for employees. Indeed, the changes today around leadership are as considerable as the changes around and in the traditional Australian newsagency model.
From a newsagency channel perspective, the biggest mistake of those claiming to lead through associations is their obsession with leading relating to legacy products and processes. There is no future in that. Powell talked about lading for the future, leading to be relevant to the future.
This is a conference newsagents would have got plenty from.
Already this year we have the considerable news of the closure of Network Services, the closure of Cleo magazine and Dolly magazine cutting half its issues. Now there is speculation of the sale of the Sunday Times newspaper in Western Australia to Seven West Media.
I have been told many times over the years by News Corp. stalwarts that the Sunday Times held a special place in Rupert Murdoch’s heart. If it was sold there would be some Murdoch watchers who see the move as prescient.
Disruption and consolidation is to be expected in the continuing print media circulation declines. The last quarter of 2015 is among the worst I have seen for magazines – more on that in the next couple of days.
On newspapers, we must be very close to a decision by some publishers to cut the number of days they print or to cut the print product altogether. My understanding is falling ad revenue is the key factor in such consideration.
The consolidation we have seen already and that anticipated ought to drive newsagents to work harder and faster on their own future as too many still rely on print product for much of their traffic and relevance.
The changes we are seeing should not worry us or cause newsagents to question closing their businesses. Rather, they are opportunities to re-define our businesses for a brighter future around the points of difference we wish to drive. Indeed, the changes are not unexpected.
Here is around 80% of the Valentine’s Day card range I saw in a Hallmark Gold Crown store yesterday in New York.
Whereas in Australia Valentine’s Day is primarily about acknowledging and honouring love between partners and spouses, in the US it is for all sorts of situations: to pets, from pets, between kids, aunts, uncles, grandparents, teachers, pastors … it is a broad and all-encompassing season. Great for card retailers – especially in that it educates people about card giving and receiving.
The Hudson News at Grand Central Station has a busy thoroughfare on either side. The store designers embraced this with a circular design while at the same time creating a space that brings you in and makes news the feature – with the ceiling news ticker and TV screens dotted throughout with current commercial new playing.
I love the feel of this shop. It is perfect for its unique high traffic location.
I get that most of us could not justify this type of fit. That said, there is plenty to learn from segmenting magazines through to making the range enticing. Take a look at this photo showing how they pitch a segment:
I love the line: Takes you places.
Marcus Berkman, writing his article, We are supposed to feel grateful to our newsagents and banks for compromising their standards of service for The Independent, has a massive whinge about WH Smith and their use of self-checkout.
For instance, I occasionally go into WH Smith in one of the mainline railway stations to buy a newspaper or a competitively priced bag of Revels. They used to have four or five tills and a queueing system, which meant you were usually in and out of the shop in a couple of minutes. Sometime last year they ripped all this out and replaced it with eight self-service machines and one till, which is the only place from which you can buy cigarettes. This means there is always a queue of half a dozen people for the one till, some of whom are buying gaspers with bags of change or out-of-date credit cards, and all of whom will miss their train.
The things is, Marcus, your bitch is with WH Smith and not newsagents, not the real newsagents, the family run businesses that provide personal service, usually from the proprietor or a family member.
For the record, this newsagent does not like self-checkout terminals as the dehumanise the retail process.
Here is an on-trend Valentine’s pitch that I saw earlier this week. It is aimed at the 18 to 35 year old from a small card and gift shop situated outside the city, in a high street location. I am sharing the photo so people can compare their offer. Sometimes, thoughtful product selection for a display is the best way to attract the right shopper into the business.
I love the kid friendly approach to Valentine’s Day by this card store. It is fun and supportive and less about the more commercial aspects – other than that they want you to buy the materials for this from them of course. It is certainly a welcome difference from the usual hearts, chocolates and roses.
We card sellers do not make a good job of educating people about cards and this season in Australia.
Further to my post about the botched promotion from News Corp’s Adelaide Advertiser, click here to see how the folks at the Herald and Weekly Times have communicated with newsagents about their Australia Day promotion. It is clear and to the point. This is typical for Victorian run promotions.
While newspaper promotions are important, they need to be relevant, easy to execute and easily understood by all involved.
