I heard of a newsagent who takes out the ‘free’ magazines bagged with others and sells them in a value pack of their own. Products which ought to be trashed, based on the agreement with the supplier or returned if not sold, is being offered by the newsagent for 100% profit. This behaviour impacts on the reputation of all newsagents.
I shake my head sometimes…
I love the cover of the latest issue of Cosmos magazine. It is visually stunning and certain to result in browsing of Cosmos by people not familiar with it. This is the key role of a cover – to get someone engaged with a title. Browsing is essential to impulse purchases.
I think this cover of Cosmos is perfect.
We have placed it next to newspapers.
Right now, in the middle of Christmas, is the right time to make changes in a busy newsagency.
While this may sound crazy, it is good advice for one reason – you have very little spare time to allocate to changes. This will guide you to make faster decisions, it will focus you to act.
The types changes I am talking about include: product location in-store, re-allocation of floorspace to one or more departments, bringing in a new supplier, quitting a supplier, completely changing how you use your counter. These changes benefit more from action than planning as action leads to engagement and data from this can guide your finessing of the move.
Making changes through the busy Christmas period will see you be more efficient in your time management. Too often I see decisions and changes over-thought, to the point of losing value for the business. Acting now when you are even more time-poor will force you to decide sooner and act efficiently.
Making changes now can provide you with more options if you are relying on external service providers as most retailers don’t make changes now and the services providers are less busy.
Try it next time you think – I’ll think about that after Christmas or after Back to School. Think about it now. Act now.
In this marketplace where every sale is cherished and where we feel the impact of structural change daily, change is vital to our businesses. Change only occurs when we act. Putting off acting says your business does not need the benefits of change today.
The latest issue of That’s Life magazine is ideal for promoting in the newsagency as a suggested add-on purchase thanks to the free Christmas gift tags that come with the magazine. Try it – make the up-sell offer at the counter, make this issue a sell out by offering it to customers who otherwise may have not considered the purchase. Do nothing and your sales will be average.
The Australian Financial Review is today reporting that Bauer Media’s Network Services will cease operations:
German media giant Bauer Media is planning to wind up its Australian distribution business Network Services Company in early 2016 with rival distributor Gordon & Gotch to pick up the job.
I doubt that Gotch will pick up the job. I suspect titles they take on will be as a result of negotiation between Gotch and the publishers involved and not Gotch and the Network Services division.
As this is not an acquisition, I don’t see a role for the ACCC.
I have been aware of talk of this move for the last ten days but have not written about it as it was speculation. Even now, details are thin. We need to let the parties involved work through things before jumping to conclusions.
Facebook has strict rules for the promotion of lottery products and the age of people you can promote any products to through your business page if you sell lottery products.
The rules are so onerous that it may be worth not losing lottery products as something you sell.
Imagine you have products that are ideal for 13 – 17 year-olds. If you have lottery products listed as something you sell, your posts will not reach 13 – 17 year olds because of the Facebook age guidelines. You can see the Facebook page term here.
I have seen retailers go from eating none in the 13 – 17 age group to reaching thousands simply by changing the mix of products they sell.
On the east coast, given that Tatts aggressively promotes its products on social media, there is no major loss in my view if you pull back from connecting with the Tatts brand from your business Facebook page.
I was surprised to see a nextra newsagent talking up discounting Christmas gift items on the Today Show today on the Nine Network this morning. Discounting this side of Christmas feels desperate to me.
Maybe I am wrong. What do you think? Of course, they may have bought at a discount, making the discount not a real discount as such.
I set myself up to not discount through offering items that are not easily price compared. This coupled with a genuinely valuable shopper loyalty offer negates the need to discount. Indeed, I am finding it easy to achieve above suggested retail for more unique destination items.
I was pointed to the story by several newsagents surprised at what this newsagent was doing and the margin impact it could have.
The Today show story itself was a nonsense story, not focusing on anything long enough to be of real value. It was kind of click bait but on TV.
I have had success recently with a bank and a telco by using social media, Twitter actually, to draw their attention to issues when their usual communication channels had failed to work for me.
Without being rude or unreasonable, I reached out to each via Twitter and this resulted in my concerns being put in front of someone who could help.
The outcome in each instance has been terrific – because the companies in each case had a structured approach to social media including monitoring mentions outside usual office hours. This is important as if having tried usual channels first – going out complaining on social media without trying other channels first is unfair.
Footnote: newsagents ought to note the need to respond outside usual hours as this is what people on Facebook and elsewhere expect. Gone are the day of the business being closed when the shop doors are closed.
A newsagent recently had a crack at a supplier about poor performance, saying the supplier was letting them down.
Looking at the sales data, I saw that the products from this supplier are down 5% year on year but the overall transaction count for the business are down 11%. This tells me the supplier is performing above average.
I can’t stress enough the importance of using data to support any claim made about your business, especially when dealing with the supplier.
I was asked to look at the data as the supplier was experiencing good growth in other locations nearby. They wanted to know if the problem in the newsagency in question was their issue or a business-wide issue.
My review of the data indicated a business-wide issue. At first, the newsagent would not accept this. It took a confronting discussion looking at data on their computer system for them to accept that their view was not matched by the evidence.
This was not about winning an argument. Rather, it was about guiding the newsagent to make business decisions based on facts rather than half facts.
Publishers wondering why newsagents early return need to look at this example. The data on the Network Services website shows the sales volume. The newsagent is requesting supply closer to actual sales, to limit their financial exposure. The Network website rules forbid the newsagent from doing this. This is exactly the type of evidence that ought to be submitted to the ACCC.
Just as newsagency businesses are changing so is newsagency software. Traditional and non traditional suppliers are expecting more of the software and this is pressuring the software companies to invest considerably to keep up.
Speaking from my own knowledge as owner of Tower Systems serving 1,850+ newsagents, we have eight newsagency business specific projects in development for newsagency software – involving retail as well as distribution – at the moment with most of these projects focused on business areas that would not have been involved just a few years ago.
Technology is playing a more important role than ever and newsagents will be able to use new technology to mine for new opportunities and new shoppers.
It is exciting to see these developments evolve and unlock opportunities for newsagents.
Australian magazines are important to us, especially Australian magazines not sold in supermarkets – they are our point of difference. Please take a moment to read this call for help from the publisher of Lunch Lady:
Just wondering if you can help us let newsagents know not to send back as many early returns. As suspected we have received quite a few early returns and it’s a shame because we have an overwhelming amount of people email and call us to say they can’t find it or it’s “sold out”.
We do a lot of marketing through instagram and people are literally hunting it down at newsagents across the country. The engagement so far has been outstanding – very similar to when we started frankie. People who buy it LOVE it and want to find it easily in newsagents.
I understand that newsagents have a lot of magazines to consider, but I do think Lunch lady will be a success for them if they give it a chance. We are doing lots of marketing and brand awareness. I think the fact people are going from newsagent to newsagent speaks volumes.
Some early feedback below including great shout outs for newsagents who stock it…
https://www.instagram.com/p/-lGutcmYck/?tagged=lunchladymagazine
https://www.instagram.com/p/-NmSdMo2a1/?tagged=lunchladymagazine
https://www.instagram.com/p/-P6Fl1Leki/?tagged=lunchladymagazine
https://www.instagram.com/p/-VZ6BOrIp5/?tagged=lunchladymagazine
https://www.instagram.com/p/-Z9-_2kH9F/?tagged=lunchladymagazine
https://www.instagram.com/p/-aR6WmHhNU/?tagged=lunchladymagazine
As always any help would be much appreciated.
Kikki K is pitching strong competition with newsagents this Christmas with their three for two offer for Christmas cards. Their approach is the same as Typo but for an older shopper. It is in every Kikki K store I have seen. Be aware of this.
The Kikki K offer is differentiating compared to the traditional newsagency offer unless you are doing the Hallmark Hot Press 3 for $10 offer or unless you run a front-end loyalty offer like discount vouchers. In fact, in my own newsagency, the discount voucher offer is better value than the Kikki K for. However, I don’t have the resources Kikki K has to promote.
Some product and service suppliers to newsagents have the worst websites I have ever seen. They are a barrier to doing business. Too often when I speak with a supplier about their website the answer is they are working on it. In the meantime, they complain newsagents are not doing enough business with them.
Here are the faults I have seen in the last few days with some newsagent supplier sites:
A website is your shop window. If you want people doing business with you it needs to be stunning and it needs to be changed regularly.
A good supplier website should give me everything and more I could get from a good rep.
Newspaper stands no longer need to be in prime position or taking as much space as they used to. My challenge today is: use this prime space for more valuable items through which you re-position your business. Place newspapers in a more space efficient floor unit.
This photo shows a terrific newsagency I visited recently. The Christmas tree, off of which they are selling ornaments and other products, is located where their newspaper stand once was.
I have a love-hate relationship with spinners. I love a clean shop without them and then find myself bringing them in for specific tasks and promotions.
Here is advice designed to help you make the most of the spinner opportunity.
Where can you buy dice? From a newsagency of course! Sure a toy shop may have dice as might a major like K-Mart. But good luck finding it from either. Your local newsagent is more likely to have dice and to make it easy for you to purchase. However, the newsagent is not likely to promote this in any way.
My marketing tip this week is to call out obscure items such as dice and promote then on social media and elsewhere.
Make sure you are known as the go-to retailer for hard to get and infrequently purchased items.
A test I did of this recently revealed stretch community interest in where people could reliably purchase such items.
Consider a feature somewhere in-store, away from Christmas business, promoting obscure items.
A deeper analysis of over the counter newspaper sales indicates Saturday remains a valuable newspaper day. While sales are down, they are, generally, down less on a Saturday. In most capital cities, the decline on Saturdays is less than for the weekday and Sunday edition.
Newsagents who are placing newspapers further into the shop and pulling back from other engagement may want to consider what they do on a Saturday. This could be the day they treat newspapers differently, to leverage the stronger interest on this one day of the week compared to the rest.
if you are going to promote newspapers, Saturday is the day to do it for sure.
We are using the strong well-branded Pacific Magazines floor display unit at the front of the business to promote magazines in with our Christmas ranges. With magazine sales lifting through the Christmas season, tactical placement of the unit is a key factor in maximising this opportunity. We place this unit outside the magazine department as this is where see it is works best. I recommend it.
Doctor Who is one of those worldwide product licences we can use to drive traffic and revenue for the newsagency. Using the image of one of the various Doctor Who 2016 calendars, posters, figurines, books or other products we can get good traction on Facebook and elsewhere through regular posts as well as boosted posts.
We are using this to attract new shoppers to the business – and it is working. We find the best posts are those using an image like the one I have included here. It is colourful and therefore easily noticed in a Facebook feed.
Our newsagency businesses are full of licenced items like the Doctor Who calendars that we can use to drive traffic. Using them is free and takes little time. It’s no brainer marketing.
I have seen these Typo gift cards in several retail locations this week. The gift cards are part of their plan to reach out beyond their shops and to drive engagement through the gift card purchase. Typo is taking stationery purchases we should be winning. The gift cards and the usual excellent design work from Typo – on point.
Magazine sales spike from now to Christmas as they are purchased as Christmas gifts. We can drive sales by calling out titles as ideal gifts. Australian Coast to Coast Country Style is one such title. This is a perfect gift for someone overseas – easily posted and showing off Australian beauty. I love the cover of this issue. Take it out of the magazine rack, place with Christmas gifts and include a handwritten bookmark pointing to it being a Christmas gift for overseas friends. Send them a bit of Australia.
