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

Author: Mark Fletcher

Your situation in your newsagency is yours to own

It’s not my fault newspaper and magazine sales are falling. It’s not my fault I’m going to lose my business and my home.

The newsagent speaking to me recently was explaining why they were so close to losing their business.

Creditors are circling and they are looking for help. It looks like the request for help has come a year too late. Their own business data from 2012 and 2013 provided evidence of what could happen if they did not act and change their business. The data from 2014 is worse.

They did not act. Indeed, they continued to run their newsagency in a traditional way, offering the traditional range of products.

The result is their situation today, where creditors are circling and their business looks like going into receivership.

This business offers a traditional mix of cards, newspapers, magazines, stationery and lottery products. They have some gifts for Christmas and other seasons but no permanent gift department. They have some soft toys for baby gifts but they are not from a specialist soft toy supplier.

This business is not unique in any way. It’s biggest asset is its convenient location, an assets which have not been leveraged in any way.

I’m not a retailer I’m a newsagent – is what the newsagent said to me in response to me suggesting what they could have done over the last couple of years.

I feel for them as they look set to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars, more than the equity they have on their home.

We have many people in our channel who have been brought in through a system that did not choose and approve retailers. Rather the approval processes focussed on the self interest of a some suppliers selecting based on skills for their products and not for the overall business. Those processes over the last twenty or so years have left us with too many newsagents and not enough retailers.

If this is you, if you feel ill-equipped for being an engaged retailer in today’s market, I say: OWN YOUR SITUATION as that is the starting point for you to create your own success.

Own your situation ASAP. Look at your data, know what it shows you, project your future based on past performance and embrace every change necessary to make your business relevant and viable for your future.

Don’t wait until it is too late to act.

I’d be glad to help.

I don’t like writing a post like this but I feel I have to to get attention of newsagents to look at their numbers and act for themselves on signs of rough waters ahead.

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Newsagency management

People’s Friend selling out in the newsagency

pfwThis special edition of The People’s Friend commemorating The Great War is one issue away from being a sell out. Like every title published under The People’s Friend it’s a great story – not only of the sales of the titles but often for those titles we place around them. We use the traffic attracted by The People’s Friend to help drive sales of other titles. A small amount of effort like this is another way we can grow our magazine sales.

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magazines

Magazine covers pitching weight loss

fatmagsThese three magazine covers tell us that magazine publishers think people who purchase weeklies are interested in weight loss this time of the year. I’d agree with them based on the interest in other weight loss related titles. This placement is another example of taking note of the covers and placing titles that fit appropriately next to each other.

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magazines

AFR pushing digital

afrcheapThe front page of today’s Australian Financial Review newspaper is a reminder of the importance Fairfax places on digital as a distribution channel for their content. The sticker offering 50% off a six months digital sub is stuck over news on the print edition. While I am not privy to the financials, I expect the daily print edition of the AFR to be replaced by a digital only product soon. Digital distribution of AFR type content makes sense in this faster and more connected world. Newsagents need to factor this into their business planning.

The challenge for Fairfax is that the news in the AFR and the charts are accessible elsewhere. It’s point of difference is analysis and the question is whether that is worth $1 a day.

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Media disruption

Newsagents: beware counterfeit licenced product

illegalLicenced brands are important in our businesses. Licenced brands like Frozen, Sesame Street, Disney and Peppa Pig.

They are licenced brands because they are licenced by the owner of the intellectual property and represent large investment in developing the licence.

The challenge is that these products can be easily copied and governments are under-resourced in detecting and stopping copyright infringement.

Some suppliers of licenced products to our channel are funding legal action to protect their interests and the interests of their partner retailers. I welcome this as I only source genuine licenced products. It angers me when I see a retailer selling a knock-off.

The photo is from a retailer near my newsagency. It took it on Saturday. Their Peppa Pig product is not licenced. The items in the photo are illegal knock-offs. What makes matters worse is that some of the items have been so poorly made that they pose a health risk in my view.

Newsagents selling licenced products need to be part of the compliance regime. We should report to our suppliers when we see retailers selling products that are not officially licenced. Such reports should include details of the outlet and photos of product. We should also report these infringements to IP Australia and the ACCC.

I’d also suggest informing staff members so they can speak to customers as appropriate.

In my own case I am letting the landlord know because any retailer selling illegal copies is a breach of the lease of just about any major landlord. I suspect the landlord could be the first to act out of the various bodies I could complain to.

I will also take it up with the group brand under which the retailer trades under. However, it’s possible they are involved.

I did try and speak with the manager of the shop. Their reprocess was that they did not speak English. True.

Taking action matters because we pay a higher price to access genuine licenced product. This is something to protect for us, for the licence owner and for the consumer who purchases Peppa Pig product believing it to be genuine.

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Ethics

Newsagents feeding the post-Christmas bloat with healthy eating magazines

postxmasDiet season is in full force as happens every year after Christmas and New Year celebrations as Aussies head on holiday to the beach and elsewhere. This is a perfect time to get diet and health magazines out on show.

Australian Healthy Food is a perfect title to place in the spotlight – to serve those concerned about how they feel after eating poorly. This is the time when people are more likely to notice the title, browse it, and, hopefully, purchase it.

Listening to talkback radio on the weekend – healthy eating to lose the Christmas / New Year weight gain is a hot topic.

We have taken time to ensure that we have full cover displays of key healthy eating titles to make the most of people wanting to eat healthier. I’d urge others to do this. A few minutes of care with magazine placement could help you achieve additional sales. That’s got to be a good start to the year.

We have more opportunities for growing magazine sales that we give ourselves credit for. I think the key is product placement – the right product placed in the right location will drive sales more so than a pretty display or an aisle end billboard display.

Take time to look at covers and have places where you can ensure full cover display.

While we can complain about supply and margin, we can also do a bit of extra work ourselves to grow magazine sales and fightback against the migration of magazine sales away from our channel.

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magazines

Sunday newsagency marketing tip: make your own season

jigIt is easy to get caught up in the major seasons and appreciate the break between them to recharge. I think there is value for our independent retail businesses to play away from the main game, to create our own seasonal opportunities.

Done well and with a small investment in marketing you can achieve more notice than focussing only on the big seasons.

W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne talk about this in their book, Blue Ocean Strategy – a terrific business book I first read eight years ago. Their thesis is that companies can succeed not by battling competitors but rather by creating ″blue oceans″ of uncontested market space.

newsXpress, the newsagency marketing group with which I am involved does this regularly. For example, it has declared January jigsaw month. Backed by a supplier deal providing a considerable discount off the already discounted newsXpress price and supported with professional marketing collateral, we are running a January is Jigsaw Month promotion. It has been timed to tap into the challenge of what to do during the school holidays. Early indications are of an excellent sales boost.

Sure we are still running a post Christmas sale – we’re in a shopping centre and we’d be crazy not to. However, our Jigsaw promotion is a point of difference, shoppers notice and comment. It shows us as playing outside the very full red ocean filled with other retailers.

This is exactly the type of activity W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne call for businesses owners to undertake in their book.

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marketing tip

Sunday newsagency management tip: choose the best team for 2015

How good is the team in your retail newsagency? Is it the best team you could have? If not, invest time at the start of the year to improve the team.

Either replace people, including you, or train them to ensure your team is the best it can be to position your business for the best result.

What is the point of going into the year with anything but the best team? Especially when this year you will face more competition directly and indirectly than ever before.

My management tip today is to work on your team, make it better trained and more competitive than last year.

If you are not sure where to start with your training, consider sharing more information about the business. I have seen excellent engagement follow greater disclosure about the challenges of the business. This has come about because your challenges become their challenges.

If the key weakness is you, however, consider working elsewhere. If that’s not an option, you have to change, you have to lift your game to make your business more competitive.

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Management tip

Some retailers benefit from the heatwave

While many in Australia fight to protect their homes and communities from bushfires today, it feels inappropriate to benefit from the surge in sales as a result of people flocking to shopping centres to escape the heat.

That’s what is happening though. Today will be a much busies than usual first sSaturday of the new year as a result of the extraordinary heat.

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retail

Newsagents keen to participate in newsagency sales benchmark study

Screen Shot 2015-01-02 at 3.54.34 pmIn the 24 hours since announcing the December 2014 quarter Newsagency Sales Benchmark Study I have received more than fifty submissions.

I can tell already this will be a fascinating study with excellent insights into newsagency business performance across the country.

For years the Newsagency Sales Benchmark Study tracked declines, particularly in print media sales. Now, it is exciting to see growth in categories as more newsagents pursue change in their model and seek out new (to them) revenue opportunities.

I hope to have the analysis of the data done in the next two weeks.

While done under the auspices of my newsagency software company, the study results are made available to all newsagents through this blog.

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Newsagency benchmark

Strong Christmas for stationery sales in the newsagency

While on a stationery theme, our stationery sales were up 33% in the December quarter with the stand out successes being

  • Address books up 96% – $600 in growth.
  • Desk accessories up 77% – $1,500 in growth.
  • Pens up 21% – $600 in growth.

What makes the sales growth even more valuable is that our stock investment has not changed – our return on inventory investment has increased.

Located in a less than ideal aisle in the store, stationery works well primarily because it is brand focussed, clean, well laid out and very shoppable. In addition to unit sales growth, revenue is up because of the higher mark-up we now apply to stationery. Since most people shop with us out of convenience, we apply a convenience premium.

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Stationery

Officeworks promoting back to school in shopping centres

I was surprised at the Officeworks Back to School outpost in a shopping centre in Melbourne a couple of days ago. Maybe I have missed but I do not recall seeing Officeworks running outposts in centres where they do not have shops.

owoutpost

Their pitch looks strong even though newsagents have better deals. Their price guarantee pitch is clever, worded I suspect to limit the opportunity of it being called on that much.

I’d be interested to know if others have seen Officeworks setup outposts in other shopping centres.

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Stationery

Try this for promoting Back to School

If you are running Back to School in your newsagency, consider a locally targeted Facebook campaign. You can select the suburbs to target, gender and age. Targeted campaigns like this are not expensive. You can set your total spend goal. Facebook provides terrific analytics on engagement. I have used local Facebook ads with terrific success.

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marketing

Officeworks ramps up Back to School

owbtsOfficeworks is promoting and extraordinary offer as part of their in-store, outpost and advertising Back to School pitch: find and identical item on a quoted school list at a lower price and we’ll beat it by 20%.

Newsagents competing with Back to School need to be aware of this and the conditions associated with it.

I don’t participate in Back to School as I find more profitable to invest in promotions others are not running this time of the year.

While I understand the theory that cheap Back to School product will show you as competitive, I am skeptical that those whoppers buying based on price will think first of you for their purchases through the year – unless you advertise on price all year round as Officeworks does.

Back to Officeworks: be aware of their offer and have a plan for competing with it.

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Competition

Wine or science

winemagI found the latest Cosmos magazine in with our wine titles. It makes sense when you look at the cover. Someone looking for a wine title could be very happy with the cover story in this issue. Locating magazines away from their usual location can increase sales.

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magazines

Optimism in dogs

It’s the start of a new year, a perfect time to be optimistic. While this video from the University of Sydney is about dogs, there are messages for us humans…

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Optimism

The optimism of Life is Good

I was fortunate to hear Bert Jacobs of Life is Good speak at a conference last year and was taken with his message of optimism. It’s a message that speaks to us as newsagents in a challenged marketplace operating challenged businesses. I;m sharing it today is it’s a terrific message of optimism:

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Optimism

Soundtrack for optimism in 2015

I have been reading lately about optimism – what it is, how to nurture it and how to share it. It matters to me because it is too easy to be pulled to the negative view and to dwell there for too long.

I think 2015 can be an excellent year for newsagents and for the newsagency channel. I’m optimistic about the year ahead.

So, today I want to share some videos with you about optimism. The first video is from Imagine Dragons it’s the video for their On Top of the World hit. The lyrics speak to challenges we face:

And I know it’s hard when you’re falling down
And it’s a long way up when you hit the ground
Get up now, get up, get up now.

I wanted to start the year not talking about our businesses directly but instead through a prism of positivity for the year head.

I love this song. I hope you do too.

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Newsagency management

Excited for 2015 – inspiration

New Year’s Eve is an excellent time to think about what’s next and while doing that today I could not shake the memory of the opening to The Bugs Bunny Show – not because next year will be a cartoon, nor because it will be a fight between a duck and a rabbit, nor because it will be frivolous.

I’m thinking of the opening to The Bugs Bunny Show because of the lyrics to the song. 2015 will be a year of extraordinary change for newsagents as a number of factors come to a head and intersect. No more rehearsing and nursing a part. While there will be challenges, there will be more opportunities. On with the show this is it.

Yes, thisis it resonates with me – 2015 is the year many of us will define our businesses beyond what has been traditional. It’s a year we get serious for ourselves.

I feel optimistic about 2015 because of the decisions we can make that will define our businesses for many years to come. But more on that later.

Here’s some inspiration for you if you are thinking abut next year:

For what it’s worth – I rate The Bugs Bunny Show as the best cartoon of its type from the 1960s.

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Newsagency challenges

Encouraging diary sales in newsagencies

Screen Shot 2014-12-30 at 8.06.19 pmI was pleased to see the tweet from Collins Debden about diaries and had to respond to them to encourage their promotion of newsagencies as the go to retailers for diaries. We need to embrace every social media opportunity possible to promote our channel.

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Diaries

WH Smith promoting iconic Australian gifts

whsagiftsCheck out the placement of iconic Australian gifts by WH Smith at one of their outlets at Melbourne airport last week. This is ideal placement of ideal gift lines for this specific store. Look at the photo, at the fixture that looks like it has been created specifically for this. It’s attention to detail coupled with supplier support that makes a difference.

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Gifts
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