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

Author: Mark Fletcher

Playing outside traditional retail seasons is vital to growth in retail newsagencies

Blue ocean strategy is all about positioning your business in clean and clear waters with less competition. Red ocean is where most are, it’s crowded and bloody.

Major seasons like Valentine’s Day are red ocean. Crowded. Competitive.

At the newsXpress newsagency marketing group business we love creating blue ocean opportunities for our members. Here is a short video from me, which I shot Thursday last week, in which I talk about blue ocean opportunities in 2022 for newsxpress members.

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newsagency marketing

Going out early with Easter is important for newsagents

The Toyworld a couple of doors away from our newsagency has has had cheap $1 and $2 Easter cards on the lease line for several days. I can’t recall them pitching the Easter season two months out before, but here we are.

Thankfully, we had our stock so we could adjust plans and go out early, which we have done, and, yes, people are shopping the season early.

Right now, the focus is on cards. we will add gifts as they arrive, to tell a more complete seasonal story.

The card pitch today for us is all about friends connecting, using Easter as an opportunity to send a greeting or I’m thinking of you message to a friend, using an Easter card.

While Easter is a smaller card season, it is valuable, and growing. We don’t engaged with the $1 and $2 cards as we see that as a mugs game. Price based shoppers are not loyal.

What we are seeing this year, as with every year for Easter quite frankly, is that religious cards sell best early in the season.

We encourage this through gentle social media posts and tactical placement of these cards within the broader Easter card offer. It is not uncommon for this shopper to purchase several religious Easter cards at once. Since we have a good range of general religious cards in-store, we are able to cater to this shopper beyond the Easter season. It’s important that we try and make that connection.

My tip for newsagents: if you have Easter cards and they are not already out, get them out if you have the space. There are other retailers, like Toyworld, in this space and possibly taking sales you might have otherwise got.

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Greeting Cards

Leveraging the loyalty differentiator in the newsagency

Shopper loyalty has become a maze of hoops, often with little real value at the end for shoppers, and retailers. Almost 9 years ago to the day my newsagency software company launched a new approach to loyalty. Yesterday, I shot this short video in which I talk about what continues to be a differentiating approach to loyalty. I know of hundreds of newsagents using this, and hundreds of other retailers.

Sure the video promotes my software company. It also encourages you to look at what you do in the loyalty space and to question whether what you do values shoppers and differentiate your business.

This simple approach to loyalty is easily understood and this helps people engage with it sooner, even those who make a one time only visit to the shop.

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Leadership

Retailers keen for OzLotto changes

The SA Government recently gazetted changes to the state’s Lotteries Act and through that offered.May 11, 2022 as the date from which changes to OzLotto will apply.

7 numbers from 47 are drawn and three supps.

The changes are expected to reinvigorate interest in OZLotto through an increase the jackpot opportunity, which plenty of retailers love.

For retailers reliant of lottery products, the changes are good news.

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Lotteries

Retail advice: you are not your customer

Talking with a newsagent the other day they mentioned their success with a product category they had rejected for several years. That category is now delivering close to $50,000 a year in good margin revenue to the business. Better still, it is attracting a category of shopper not common to their business.

They mentioned it because they heard me say to another retailer you are not your customer.

None of us in retail are our customers yet too often local small business retailers stock their shops with what they like, missing opportunities to give more local shoppers what they like.

Ranging new products is speculative, a risk. But, trying to attract new customers requires this type of risk taking, done carefully.

The key is the data analysis of the performance of what you have taken on, to measure whether it stays or goes. If it is working, the opportunity could be to expand into allied niche areas, to grow the opportunity further.

Accepting that you don’t know what you don’t know can free you to trial products you have rejected in the past and, through that, uncover valuable opportunities for your business.

My advice is to always have a modest inventory and space investment on the shop floor of new products that you would not usually carry. Let them show you if they work or not.

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Management tip

Covid rapid tests available for immediate delivery

Through my work with newsXpress and a national pharmacy group I have been sourcing Covid rapid tests. From the latest shipment, which arrived at the office this morning, there are a few boxes of spare stock.

Each retail pack has 5 tests. Each box has 240 retail packs. The wholesale price of $43.90 per retail pack (plus GST) delivered for 240. That is $10,536.00 for a carton of 240 retail test packs delivered. or $44.90 (plus GST) for 120 delivered, or $5,388.00 per 120 delivered.

The current retail price ranges between $55.00 and $75.00 for these 5-test packs.

The tests are the TGA approved Clungene tests.

If you are interested, please email me direct rapid@towersystems.com.au.

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Social responsibility

How to spot employee theft in a newsagency

Theft is a problem in retail. Too often, it is not discovered until after the event, primarily because of a lack of belief that theft is a problem, particularly theft by employees.

One of the best ways to detect employee theft is to look at your business transactional data. Good POS software not only tracks what is sold, it also tracks what is deleted from sales and entire sales that are cancelled, and it keeps this data in a hidden file, not accessible in the usual reporting way of the software.

In my experience, one out of ten times I have received this secret data for a retailer using my POS software I have found evidence of questionable behaviour. Laying this evidence out with video footage, ideally, and employee rosters, a person of interest emerges, or more depending on the video evidence with a money (in the pocket) shot.

I am not going to share here the incriminating keystrokes but I will say they have been court-tested in cases while providing expert witness for the prosecution.

My advice to newsagents and any retailer is to use the theft detection and mitigation tools in your POS software. learn about them. Use them. But don’t tell others what you are doing.

Some retailers think the best approach to reduce the theft opportunity is to lock everything down, making it very hard for people to steal. The thing is, people who want / need to steal will find a way and the harder you make it for them m in a retail setting the harder it will be for you to detect it.

I am not saying tempt them. rather, don’t lock your POS software down, give people reasonable access, and watch what they do – follow the advice of your POS software company on using the data their software collects for you to see if theft could be a problem min your shop.

Cases of employee theft in a newsagency in which I have been involved have ranged in theft cost from $5,000 to $245,000. In every single instance, using the secret tools I have mentioned here could have detected the theft sooner and reduced the financial an emotional impact on the business and others.

If you have read this far, thank you and well done. Most will not, because theft is not an interesting topic – until they are personally impacted.

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theft

People are more curious of product origins

One consequence of Covid that I am noticing in retail is that shoppers are more curious about product origins. More are interested and ask, and, if there is a choice between locally made and imported, there are enough preferencing locally made to for us to speak to that in buying and marketing.

As a retailers we are more aware ourselves about products that pitch Aussie or an Aussie connection, which may have been made offshore. In these instances, more shoppers notice and comment, as someone did at the Coles checkout I was at the other day, pointing out these made ins China “Aussie” bags.

It is sourcing like this that can bite a retailer. And, rightly so in my opinion. The only Aussie thing about the bags is the use of chant often hears at sports events. Okay, it says they were designed in Australia. There does not seem to be much to the design.

The bags feel like a misstep by Coles to me, but I doubt people will care. They are cheap and at the counter for easy purchase when needed.

This is where local retail businesses can make a difference. Okay, local sourcing of bags means they will be more expensive, but through this we can call out those shipping Aussie cash and jobs offshore. It all depends on what people want.

In local small business retail we want shoppers and we seek this by being different. Sourcing more locally is one way we can speak to our difference. This matters if our businesses are hit up by local charities to support them. This is where the whole sourcing local issue becomes circular. We can only help them if they help us and helping us means helping keep more jobs and Aussie cash locally.

It’s a hard care to make when so many do buy on price. My experience is that there are enough buying based in value, as opposed to price, and they are more loyal to our businesses.

As a result of Covid and challenges in the supply chain, people are more interested in sourcing locally. This is an opportunity for us.

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Social responsibility

Photo background remover tip

Remove BG www.remove.bg is the best tool I have ever used to quickly and easily remove backgrounds from photos.

Before:

After:

And, with a black background:

From the 3 images above you can see the value of a quick tweak of an image, especially if you plan to use it online.

From the taking of the photo through to the final image, it took less than a minute.

We’ve been using this in the newsXpress community for ages along with other graphic design and adjustment tools for better images. remove BG is a must-have in the toolkit. It’s 100% free.

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newsagency marketing

Leveraging the Better Homes and Gardens opportunity

It’s terrific when there is a feature in a magazine of products you have in-store. This is the case with the latest Better Homes and Gardens magazine.

We have the magazine open and placed with the products it showcases, products we usually carry.

What a treat!

And, yes, this is a display in a newsagency. It is placed at thew front of the store so passers-by can see it and, hopefully, enter as a result.

Homewares is one of the best performing categories in newsagencies right now, delivering good year on year growth, good stock turns and good margins. Plus we have access plenty of suppliers in this space.

Footnote: while the publisher may want a display that’s all about their magazine, this display we have created does more for magazine and homewares sales, and that is what matters to us as the retailer.

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Newsagency opportunities

Having fun with Valentine’s Day in the newsagency

Where there is the traditional approach to Valentine’s Day in the newsagency of celebrating love, there is also the opportunity of having fun. The Valentine’s Day cards from the dog and from the cat cards are one example of this opportunity – these cards offer retailers an opportunity to subtly poke fun at the day, for us to not take ourselves too seriously.

Big retailers, of course, are all in, at one high-volume level, with front of store displays and, primarily, focussed on cliche items like chocolates, cheap plush sold at a premium price, flowers and cards. By playing with the quirky and at the fringe, I think we have an opportunity to stand out.

That’s what we are doing. Through some social media posts and in other ways, we are pitching an alternative, fun Valentine’s Day. Okay, we offer the traditional cards and are pitching them – but even there we are trying to be less commercial and more 2022 in the pitch. We really don’t want to get lost or unnoticed in the big retailer Valentine’s Day noise as that’s a cacophony that local retailers are less likely to win from.

I like the dog and cat card because they are niche and quirky, because they give us permission for some fun. So, that’s what’s we have been doing already on socials and in-store.

The more we play outside what is expected the more we are likely to be remembered. This is vital for our local retail businesses … and, seasons like Valentine’s Day provide is the perfect platform on which to speak to outpoints of difference, without being too obvious.

For the more traditional, but still nuanced, pitch, here;’s what we have at the counter at one of our stores.

I say nuanced because of the card selection chosen for the counter.

And, here’s what we have for Valentines Day inside the shop door. This is in a shop serving primarily retirees.

That’s not it though. We are pitching Valentine’s Day in three different locations in-store, to make the most of the opportunities its and knowing that shoppers will pass a pitch twice before noticing it the third time.

Valentine’s Day offers a unique opportunity in 2022 to pitch something to distract from the messy and challenging Covid situation and the heightened poison of this being an election year in Australia. It’s a distraction, a welcome distraction. The dog and cat card are, to me, a perfect example of welcome distraction that we can play with.

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Greeting Cards

What do you think of the Are Media Take 5 / That’s Life discount bundle?

On February 10, sone newsagents will have a Take 5 / That’s Life bundle on sale for $60.00.

That’s half price.

It’s an offer that makes no sense to me from a retailer perspective. It’s an additional SKU, an additional pocket, all to try and sell two magazines at half price.

Retailer revenue only comes from sales while. This discounting trial costs us money.

What do you think?

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magazines

Covid rapid test opportunity

Through the newsXpress retail marketing group business I own I have access to Covid rapid tests. The first shipment sold out. We have access to two more charter flights landing Feb 11 and Feb 16. The tests being imported are TGA approved: Clungene and Alltest. Each retail pack has 5 tests. Each box has 240 retail packs. The wholesale price of $43.90 per retail pack (plus GST) delivered. That is $10,536.00 for a carton of 240 retail test packs delivered. The current retail price ranges between $60.00 and $75.00 for these 5-test packs, putting the 240 units at a retail value of between $14,000 and $18,000.

We have to finalise our next order today, and pay in advance for it on Monday.

If this interests you, please email rapid@towersystems.com.au with your business name and address and the number of boxes (240 retail packs per box) you would require.

We will get back to all who register with advice as to whether we hit the required minimum for the order. If it proceeds, we’d need payment by Monday.

Sorry, there is no opportunity to break the boxes.

The challenges with importing Covid tests are causing logistics costs to surge overseas and locally as there is a scramble for stock. This is a key factor in the wholesale being what it is.

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Social responsibility

Newsagents frustrated at delay to Suncorp EFTPOS funds settlement

Suncorp missed its daily EFTPOS funds settlement, causing challenges for plenty of retailers from what I am hearing.

The company issued a statement:

Overnight processing of Suncorp merchant settlement files from Wednesday, 2 February 2022 has not occurred and resulted in these being delayed.

Technical teams are investigating and options are being worked through at the moment but the outcome is likely that yesterday’s settlement will be paid tonight along with today’s so merchants will get two days in one.

This is only an indication at this stage whilst further investigations are completed.

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Ugh!

The value of the loyal magazine shopper in the newsagency

We have this customer come in every three or four weeks and spend usually around $250.00 on special interest magazines. Here’s the transaction from yesterday morning.

Range is key to the sale is range of special interest titles. Shoppers like this one like to go deep.

Magazine segments like music, military, cars, crafts, home decor and similar offer opportunities to serve this type of niche shopper.

Yes, I can hear some of you saying but the 25%, it’s not enough. I agree, it is appalling in 2022 to make 25% from these price controlled / price suppressed products. But, if we’re offering magazines we need to do it on space and labour terms that work for us, and balance this with better margin products, and sales, from elsewhere in the business, which we do.

Anyway, I am not here for that fight today. Rather, I note that there are good magazine buyers out there, spending up, being loyal to newsagencies with range and, often, buying other items to make the visit more valuable to us. This is especially true with the niche segment magazine shopper compared to the weeklies shopper – the weeklies magazine shopper is less loyal.

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magazines

Freight delays at Sydney airport impacting RAT supply chain

The Freight and Trade Alliance shared this with their members re challenges at Sydney airport.

IMPORT COLLECTIONS: EXTENDED SYDNEY OPENING TIMES & REQUEST FOR PROMPT COLLECTION

Freight & Trade Alliance (FTA) have received feedback from freight forwarding members that they are experiencing delays at Cargo Terminal Operations (CTOs) which appear to be largely resulting from increased import cargo volumes and staff isolating due Covid-19.

We understand the sudden influx of cargo flights with rapid antigen test kits and other medical equipment is proving to be problematic particularly in MEL and SYD. Numerous chartered cargo flights are arriving with little to no notification. This is resulting in some resourcing challenges, at present, with the processing of import cargo for CTO operations.

We will continue our ongoing engagement with CTOs, Qantas, Dnata and Menzies in these challenging times.

In the interim, Menzies have confirmed this morning (Monday 31 January 2022) that they are facing collection issues, predominantly in Sydney, which is inhibiting the processing of new inbound cargo flights.To help alleviate the situation with the influx of import cargo Menzies will extend opening times in Sydney.

I share it as it’s another piece of information retailers can consider when looking at freight delays, specifically RAT delays.

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Social responsibility

The Are Media price for Rapid Antigen Tests doesn’t make sense

My newsXpress newsagency marketing group negotiated access for its members to this exact same Rapid Antigen test product for newsXpress members for $34.95 with no limit on quantity. The Are Media price of $51.75 does not make sense. They are suggesting magazine level margin with their RRP, a RRP by the way that is $10.00 higher than the RRP for the newsXpress sourced product.

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Social responsibility

Supply chain challenges add to retailer inventory investment

With the supply chain continuing to be unpredictable, retailers including newsagents are finding themselves holding more stock for some product categories than would usually be the case.

Stationery is one category where holding more stock pays off – if your business is strong in stationery. It’s the everyday items like pens, paper, notepads, stickers, staples – you get what I mean – where holding extra stock enables you to smooth out in0-store the kinks in the supply chain behind the scenes.

We operate to an inventory on hand budget. A few months ago we increased this for stationery by 50% to enable us to be the local store where people could get the stationery they wanted. While it benefits our customers, it benefits us too as we don’t lose time chasing stock when a supplier is out.

I understand that not every retailer can do this. For us, it was about priorities. The increase in stationery spend was possible in part due to a trim elsewhere.

A couple of Tower Systems POS software customers were referenced in a report by the ABC last week looking at supply chain challenges.

Ronald Voukolos, the manager of Fishing and Outdoor World in Darwin, says he has taken a risk and resorted to ordering much more stock than needed, in some cases a year in advance.

“We’ve always been used to being able to buy it as we need it,” he said.

But with the Omicron variant causing crippling staff shortages and transport issues in Australia and the unpredictability of a broken supply chain, Mr Voukolos says the future has become too uncertain.

“Some of the footwear we sell, we placed orders last year in July to get them in 2022.”

But still, he said he is letting people know they could be waiting three or four months on some in-demand items like drinkware, and plastic shoes from Vietnam.

…

In the bike world, Paul Clancy says customers at Bikes to Fit could be waiting up to two years to buy a particular brand amid a global shortage of parts.

“It’s not just bikes, it’s bike parts, even simple things like tubes and tyres where suppliers are starting to run very low,” he said.

He said that even though the popularity of bike riding skyrocketed during the pandemic, the scarcity of parts has even seen some shops close down.

It’s now “really hard for surviving bike stores”, which are now overloaded with repair jobs, he said.

“We’ve been flat out.”

While supply chain interruptions have been challenging, those stockpiling have ensured they maintained supply throughout.

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Stationery

What does newsXpress offer newsagents?

To answer a query from a newsagent about newsXpress and what it offers newsagents, I decided to shoot a short video Saturday. In it I share actually results, talk about the focus on high street and regional / rural businesses and explain why the membership period is 5 years.

What I share in this video speaks to optimism about local newsagency businesses, and the channel more broadly.

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newsagency marketing
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