We have a vacancy at our newsXpress Forest Hill (Victoria) location. This is a full time retail role including, among other tasks, management of magazines. If you know someone who may be interested please have them email me: mark@towersystems.com.au. We advertising more widely tomorrow.
Our co-location strategy for the AFL Record is driving excellent sales in our newsagencies. You can see customers notice the Record and add to their newspaper or magazine sale. It’s a nice basket extension at $15.00 – for a weekly title! I wish we had more impulse opportunities which worked as well as this.
The Age today has a wrap up by Mark Hawthorne of last week’s Bill Express announcement. The Age led on the Bill Express last year thanks to Mark and his team. It is good to see them continue their coverage.
Take a piece of paper and sketch out the floor plan of your shop by department. Write into each the average margin % for each department. Then, write in the $margin you have made over the last year.
While this may seem like basic business training, newsagents I have done this with are often surprised by what they discover. Especially when they note down the labour and real-estate cost by department on the plan. And even more so when they compare the current year with the previous year.
Newsagents with computer systems can do this easily – I know that our Tower software does, it’s the Business Analysis Report, anyone can get the data with a calculator and a bit of time.
We control the growth of our newsagencies by how much time and capital we invest in the various categories. Our attention on one department over another ought to be driven by the returns achieved. Take greeting cards, newsagents spend little time on what is often the most profitable department.
What does your floor plan show? Are you respecting the most profitable department with your resource allocation?
ACP Magazines has announced details of their first ever Women’s Lifestyle magazine awards. Launched by Deborah Thomas at the recent Connections Conference in Cairns a few weeks ago, the awards provide an opportunity for proactive newsagents to shine. There are five good awards up for grabs based on engagement and sales success. Click here for details.
I have been running Tyro broadband eftpos in my newsagencies for most of this year. In addition to reduced mistakes and faster processing (less than two seconds for approval), it is the reduction in bank fees which I really like. There is also the benefit for some newsagents of being able to cancel a phone line.
Tyro has been smart by not locking newsagents into a contract. This builds confidence and further demonstrates the difference between Tyro and the big (expensive) banks.
With more customers paying by card, efficiently managing the process of payment and achieving this with the least cost to be business possible is essential in businesses like ours where eftpos transactions could be for as little as $2.00.
The Tyro interface is available through Tower Systems and POS Solutions software.
We are promoting the Grand Final edition of the AFL Record at the counter (and several other lcoations) this week. With two local teams in the Grand Final I’d expect this issue to sell well.
The only downside is the lack of collateral with which to promote this one-shot. We made our own. Investing in good collateral would have been a smart move by the AFL to grow interest in their game.
We have created a Patrick Swayze themed display right at the front of our newsagency promoting the special coverage of his passing in Woman’s Day, New Idea and Who. We will leave this display up until Wednesday.
While the coverage is not huge, putting the three titles together gives it a better profile and drive more sales..
In addition to moving magazines to the back of the store, Wal-Mart is cutting the number of magazines they carry. see Folio for the story. I am involved in a new newsagency project, we are targeting a magazine department of 750 pockets.
We are promoting the bonus $5 million lottery prize up for grabs tonight. This would have been easier had the collateral arrived before last Friday. Indeed, we would have liked to start promoting this from Tuesday last week. The collateral I saw in Sydney and sent by NSW Lotteries really pops. It stands out from the usual collateral. The posters we received are too corporate, they do not give a sense of urgency or that this is a one-off opportunity.
I am told by a newsagent that today’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper weighs 900 grams. The July 2006 Nery report, an OH&S report commissioned by the ANF in 2006 and provided to News Limited that same year, recommends a newspaper weight of no greater than 600 grams. On the basis of the recommendations in this report, News Limited would know that today’s newspaper would be considered by the report’s well qualified author to be unsafe to deliver.
The Sunday Telegraph bulks delivered to newsagencies weighed 16.2 kilograms. This is 1.2 kilograms above the recommended safe weight of packages.
Newsagents have an obligation to provide a safe and healthy environment for employees. The only safe way to deal with today’s Sunday Telegraph would be to deliver in two bundles. Such a move is impractical and uneconomic. So, newsagents and employees deliver the overweight newspaper.
This problem needs to be addressed by publishers since they control the weight of newspapers. Indeed, it should have been addressed in 2006 when the report was first presented.
This issue needs to be aired and debated and a solution found for the health of newsagents and their employees. Unfortunately, you will not read about this in newspapers.
The latest issue of Good Food magazine is an example of how a great cover drives sales. If we left this issue in regular magazine fixturing we would not have sold 50% of our supply in five days as we have done. Customers would not have seen the delicious pavlova. Our placement of Good Food magazine in a high traffic area in a full face display frees the cover to work its magic.
Notebook used to be sold this way – covers showing stunning flower arrangements. We responded with better placement. Why Not? A great cover put on a full face display is good for our business too. This is why I like the current issue of Good Food. It is also why the latest issue of Donna Hay Kids magazine sold so well.
I can imagine the work which goes in to selecting magazine covers. My comments above are not meant to say that covers for other magazines are not good. Some pop more than others, especially in a visually noisy environment like a newsagency. The pavlova on the cover of Good Food leaps off the page and says eat me. This gets people picking up the magazine and once they do that you’re close to the sale.
Further to my post on Friday about newspaper supply on the basis of AFL finals results, I checked our sales for the Collingwood magazine. It achieves a sell through of 23% – with a long three month on-sale. That’s an adjustment to be made to supply on Monday – but we should not have to make an adjustment since sales data shows what we (don’t) sell.
The photo shows a quarter of the range of calendars we have on display at our newsXpress Forest Hill outlet right now. Click on the image for a larger version. As we do with magazines, we pursue range as our point of difference for calendars. take a look at the range of dog breeds covered to get a feel for how far we take this.
We have customers visit because they have heard that we have the best calendar range in the area. We also have orders from customers looking for calendars of special interest areas – people we may see only once or twice a year.
We should have all of our calendar range in stock and on the shiop floor in the next couple of weeks. We will not discount until the start of 2010. Our margin on calendars is north of 50%. This is why calendars get prime location on the dance floor at the front of the newsagency.
Sales are already strong, matching stationery in and cards some days. Sales will increase each week as we head to Christmas.
Newsagents still have an opportunity to own calendar sales. The channel can do this by taking control and driving a pull model, where you order what you want, rather than the push model, where suppliers like magazine distributors send stock. It is hard work. The rewards in terms of new traffic and good margin are worth it. In choosing what to order, look at your magazine sales. That data is ‘gold’ in guiding purchase decisions.
While we have sold calendars for years, our calendar strategy today is the newsXpress calendar strategy. For the record, I am a Director of newsXpress.
A newsagent colleague from Queensland sent me this photo showing how they are using their Bill Express display now to promote lotteries. Very smart. Professional too! It bothers me when I see Bill Express light boxes and other collateral still on display in newsagencies. It is this lack of attention which holds us back as a channel than just about anything else.
I made a decision to expand our range of fitness magazines and selected to carry Fitness First, the house magazine for the gym chain of the same name. I like this title because it appeals to men and women. This means we can co-locate. We don’t have many women’s fitness titles so it is a nice addition to go next to Women’s Health and other health title.
I am continually looking for opportunities to expand the magazine range. Not mass expansion, but title by title, in pursuit of our goal to drive magazine traffic through our range point of difference.
We will run the Fitness First title for three issues before we look at the sales results and assess the next step. It’s easy for us to take these steps ith Gordon ^ Gotch, the distributor of this title.
Demographer Bernard Salt who recently spoke at the ACP Connections Conference (see my comments here) was in the news yesterday talking about a predicted popularion surge. I heard him on radio. He was a fascinating as I found him at the Connections conference. His insights and those of others on this topic can help us make better strategic business decisions. These are insights major retailers listen to.
We need to take on board these predictions and seize opportunities to leverage these for our advantage. We do this through relationships with landlords who work five and ten years out and by researching social and economic change, looking for opportunities.
The Herald and Weekly Times advised newsagents this afternoon of its publishing plans for the Herald Sun based on the outcome of AFL games this weekend. It is good to have forewarning of loading plans based on AFL game outcomes. This is especially important in regions where an AFL result drives sales such as Geelong and the Bayside area in the case of the saints. The plans suggest that Collingwood fans don’t read newspapers as much as Geelong fans.
The notice is handy for newsagents as it lets those in target areas know of opportunities in their areas.
The weekend pitch at the front of our newsagency at Forest Hill this weekend features: Who, Better Homes and Gardens as well as Women’s Health. All titles are from Pacific Magazines and all appeal to our weekend shoppers. We are giving Who bigger treatment because of the special issue.
This display went up early this morning and will remain in place until Monday.
We are promoting the magazine launched to coincide with UP the movie. This is at our main sales counter for the weekend. I expect it to work well as an impulse purchase. Already this morning, a few minutes after putting up the display, we had our first sale.
Since we did not receive any collateral, we created the backing material ourselves – this is easily done with a colour photocopier.
This is a draft of a crossword promotion poster we are developing to promote the category and share with other newsagents. While not yet completed, I thought I would post it here for feedback.
What I am not sure of is the hyphenation of crosswords – it does not look right to me. Fitting crosswords is a challenge though.
Once done, I will post a link to the art on this blog so people can download it and print locally – A4 or A3.
It is important for us to promote categories of magazines and not just single titles as we do today, especially categories in which newsagents specialise like crosswords.
The photo shows more magazine subscriptions being pushed through diaries associated with the magazines. While I understand that subscriptions are part of the publishing model, I am not happy that they use diaries in newsagencies to take business from us.
News Magazines are the worst culprit at the moment with discounts of up to 58% off Gardening Australia, Inside Out, Country Style and delicious. What makes them worse than others in-store at the moment is their use of insets in diaries and their blatant pitch. I have seen at least one other diary offering a subscription but without a massive discount and not using an insert.
Diaries from magazine publishers are not provided to newsagents for what I would call a commercial margin. They ride off the back of the magazine supply model. I can make twice as much from diaries I bring in under fairer commercial terms.
So, magazine publishers use magazine relationships to place diaries in newsagencies on terms which are favourable to them. They then use this cheap placement to try and get newsagency customers to buy magazines direct from the publisher.
A smart publisher would work with newsagents on a subscription plan and offer fair compensation for the up-sell effort. We have the technology to offer this today. I know of plenty of newsagents who would be happy to sell subscriptions. They’d also be happy to offer a discounted putaway service in return for a long term up front commitment.
Using diaries to take business from newsagents lacks foresight on the part of publishers. They should support this valuable channel and not treat it with such disrespect.
Publishers diverting revenue from newsagents risk looking back one day and wondering what happened to the newsagents? Respect us and we support you.
