Agreement on NSW Lotteries sale
It appears that agreement has been reached on the legislation required to put NSW Lotteries up for sale. I am sure that NANA and the ANF will have different views on who achieved what for newsagents in this.
Chasing change in card mix
We have had the For Arts Sake range of cards at Forest Hill for years, they had 25% of our allocated space. While we have been happy with the performance of For Arts Sake and their cards, we have been looking to change, to continue to evolve the card offer. We have made the decision to switch the 25% of space across to the Henderson Greetings range. We looked carefully at the cards to ensure that they would suit our demographic.
What I like about the Henderson relationship is that there is no contract. This is them backing their products and services.
At the same time as introducing the Henderson range, we are working with Hallmark on refreshing their range to create a fresh new card offer.
Kudos to Australian Traveller
Last week I received more proof that magazine publishers read this blog and act on the feedback newsagents post here. Australian Traveller magazine is changing its newsagent commission model – to 50% commission for the Oct/Nov issue and 30% thereafter. Newsagents contribution to this place have had a lot to do with this.
Read the text of an email I received from Quentin Long, Director of Australian Traveller magazine.
Hi Mark
Just wanted to let you know based on the feedback of agents on the blog we are changing our commission structure for Agents.
Agents for the Oct/Nov issue will be receiving 50% commission
Ongoing agents will receive 30% commission
Oct/Nov
This will be a cracker issue as the cover title is 100 Great Australian Holiday Homes. Some of the homes are flat out amazing, however we have made a big point of having all price points represented in the 100 homes.If you wanted to inform other agents I would really appreciate it. We have the merchandisers out in market talking to agents and telling them, we will be sending a note with the magazine parcels and I will be emailing agents directly as well.
If there is anything we can do to help please let me know.
This is a terrific opportunity for newsagents to get behind Australian Traveller to drive sales and reward the commitment from the publisher to our channel. There is a terrific reward for us too in better than average commission.
If newsagents do get behind this and drive excellent sales results other publishers will notice. It’s up to us what we make of this opportunity.
DOCTOR WHO DVD FILES out now
We are promoting DOCTOR WHO DVD FILES partwork in a couple of locations in our newsagency to make the most of this week’s launch and the associated TV campaign. We have an in-store display (click on the photo for a larger look at this) as well as a display bin at the front of our newsagency. We have a good feeling that DOCTOR WHO will deliver excellent sales, some of these from shoppers visiting newsagencies specifically as a result of the TV commercial.
I often hear from newsagents who complain about partworks. They worry that the channel is being used to drive subscriptions. I am over this argument. Instead, I like the new traffic the TV campaigns for partworks generate for us – this is a more useful focus.
Finding space to promote Madison
This is another heavy week for magazine promotions. Madison is the third ACP title we have in a feature location this week. We have it facing shoppers as they leave our two main magazine aisles. This location is on the back of the ACP Basket Builder stand – space with many newsagents leave idle. We will leave Madison in this location until next Monday – unless we shift it to our counter position.
Launching Prevention magazine (part 2)
Further to my earlier post about promoting the launch issue of Prevention magazine, we have the counter unit located in among our women’s weeklies titles. This was another right out of the box display – very easy and fast to setup. Publishers should take note of this – the easier they make it for newsagents to promote their titles the more likely they are to be promoted as they want.
We will try and keep this display unit for at least the next three months to help build regular Prevention customers for us.
So far today we have sold five copies of Prevention.
Promoting Good Health magazine
We are promoting Good Health magazine at the entrance to our women’s magazine aisle this week. This stand located at the entrance to the magazine aisle continues to work very well for us. But with Good Health magazine out a week already I am not expecting amazing things from this promotion. However, it would be good to be wrong on this.
We plan to change this display later this week if we are not getting the sales necessary.
Top Gear stand worked
The small stand promoting Top Gear magazine near newspapers over the weekend worked with three copies sold off the stand.
We track sales for single title stands. The more successful a title in as a result of such a display the more likely we are to promote it in this way again.
Promoting Harpers Bazaar at the newsagency counter
We are promoting Harpers Bazaar magazine at our counter this week thanks to the free notebook and pencil gift provided with every copy. The offer looks stunning when opened out flat – as on the display. We will leave this in place for three days and see how it performs. We also have a double facing display in the usual location for Bazaar in our fashion area.
Launching Prevention magazine
We are promoting the launch issue of Prevention magazine next to our main newspaper stand as well as with women’s weeklies and in the loctaion where Prevention will usually be located.
We plan a bold front of store display for the weekend to attract passers-by.
The floor stand for the launch issue of Prevention sent out by Pacific Magazines is brilliant. It required no assembly. This is a huge time saver for newsagents. The same with the counter unit. It is the attention to detail on things like stands which can save newsagents valuable time and feel better about in-store promotions.
With $2 million being spent promoting the launch of Prevention, every newsagent ought to have this title in a prime location – to trade off the baack of the massive spend.
Publisher helps newsagents make a sale
This ad appears on page three of the Melbourne Observer newspaper. It encourages readers to fill in a form and hand it to the newsagent requesting that the paper be put away for them each week. It is terrific that the publisher of the Melbourne Observer support newsagents in this way. Kudos to them.
Educating customers about putaways has the potential to increase putaways for other titles. I wish other publishers would follow this example.
Imagine the business we would achieve if magazines actively promoted putaways in this way. Putaways promote regularity to our customers and this is a cornerstone of the newsagency model. I am certain that newsagents would more actively support titles promoting our putaway service.
From a technolopgy perspective, pre-sales are already advised through XChangeIT so tracking for publishers of these pre-sales would be straightforward.
The Melbourne Observer sells well in our newsagency. It appeals mainly to women 50 and older. Customers are very loyal. We place next to our newspaper stand each week.
Rolling Stone placement drove sales
Our placement of the latest issue of Rolling Stone at the counter resulted in sales of an additional six copies over the weekend. Some of these are likely to be sales of the Rolling Stone which would not have otherwise been achieved. This opportunistic placement of magazines is key to driving incremental sales. Not flashy displays or consumer competitions but placement in a high traffic area where the cover will connect with a reasonable number of shoppers and from where a quick impulse purchase decision can be made.
It is challenging for publishers to make this pitch. We do it in our newsagencies because to look at the covers and have space set aside for this type of promotion. We have made it easy for us.
Managing the Simpsons Sticker campaign
We approached the management of the Herald Sun Simpsons Sticker campaign the same way we manage other newspapeer part series. Customers can preorder the whole series. We record their details on a sheet. While we could use our point of sale software, it is faster and easier to use a single sheet to take track who has collected which part of the series. We only accept preorders when the entire order is paid up front.
Click on the image on the left to see a larger version of the sheet we use to manage the process. We have been using this approach for two years with success.
Junk shop newsagencies
The gap between newsagencies is wider than I have ever seen it.
At the top end, our channel has professional looking newsagencies making a clear newsagency pitch around core lines and offering brand name products in a retail environment which competes with any major retailer.
At the bottom end our channel has what can be best described as junk shops, newsagencies dominated by cheap China product in dump bins and on tables spread across the front of the shop to the detriment of core newsagency lines.
Both types of businesses call themselves newsagencies, unfortunately.
The junk shop newsagency is more of an endangered species given the number of other junk shops out in the marketplace. It seems that shopping malls and high streets are cluttered with shops pushing cheap China product.
There are fewer newsagencies focusing on the core and offering strong, logical, shoots off each side of the core. Yet many of these newsagencies are flourishing. It surprises me that more to not take what is clearly a successful path.
While newsagents can run their businesses how they choose, those in the junk shop space, where more than half the floor space is taken up with cheap China product, ought to find a new name so as not to confuse shoppers looking for a newsagency.
The alternative is that the proactive newsagents shift focus away from the newsagency shingle.
Great customer service from Darrell Lea
Darrell Lea had a truck on the road in Melbourne yesterday ready to respond to calls from retailers in need of more of their Father’s Day Dad’s Bags. One of our locations, new to Darrell Lea just last month had sold out and within a couple of hours of calling we had the stock we needed – in time for the afternoon rush. This is excellent customer service from Darrell Lea.
New newsagency opportunities
Through my involvment with newsXpress I am hearing of more newsagency for sale opportunities through landlords looking to get national brand representation in their centres. Right now, I am aware of newsagency locations available in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. Some are greenfield locations and others are existing centres. I’d be happy to point interested parties to the landlords involved. I can be reached on 0418 321 338.
Magazines for the weekend
One task on a Friday morning is to select the range of magazines we will promote to passers-by in the mall at the front of our newsagency over the weekend. We take care in selecting either one title we want to push or a range of titles which will appeal to our weekend shopper. This is our one shot to pitch magazines to people visiting the shopping centre without a plan to visit our newsagency.
This weekend’s selection reflects the care we have taken in crafting our pitch. We have used beacon branding principles – showing the feature titles by allocating two pockets each. Better Homes & Gardens, Good Health, Women’s Health, Real Living and Money are among the ten titles which get this higher profile treatment. You see in the photo that we have titles grouped by segment: garden, health, food, living and money/property.
We are using the last row to display the third title in each segment we cover.
Almost all titles are well known. This is important as the eyeball time the stand will get is very limited.
This display took us between around ten minutes to create, not because of the quality of the display but because of the time taken to consider what we wanted covered in the range. This weekend, we wanted to include titles in the range which could be considered as part of a Father’s Day gift.
The display was created first thing yesterday (Friday) morning and will be taken down Monday morning. It truly is a weekend-only display.
Book sale continues to drive success
Our Father’s Day book sale continues to drive excellent sales thanks to a great range of books and simple yet effective free marketing collateral promoting this range. From a small stock commitment we are achieving sales of between $300 and $500 a day. The sales in recent days show the popularity of books as a gift for dad.
In addition to an excellent range, the A5 four page flyers drive good traffic.
This is an example of chasing better margin business for the newsagency. We make more than double the margin on these books than we make on magazines and newspapers yet we rely the traffic of newspapers and magazines to drive book sales.
Father’s Day is clearly a great time to run this size of book sale. I know of newsagents who are going much harder than us with outposts – and achieving excellent results.
A book sale at Father’s Day is now part of our annual marketing plan. It’s a guaranteed win and we have book retailers in our centre so it is not as if we have no competition.
The keys as we see them are: the right supplier, a great range, keen prices and a plan to get in, be bold and a clear plan on when to get out.
Promoting Time magazine
We have placed Time magazine with newspapers this week to bring the Ted Kennedy coverage to the infrequent Time consumer. We are bound to sell several copies from this location which we would otherwise not have sold. It pays to check the covers of magazines for opportunities like this.
Promoting scratchies for Father’s Day
I like the collateral provided by Intralot promoting instant scratch tickets for Father’s Day – especially their pitch with the brand of greeting card we carry. This makes it easy for us to pitch scratchie gift packs with our cards. It is not often you see a supplier from one category complimenting a supplier from another category.
Promoting Rolling Stone’s John Lennon feature
We are promoting the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine as part of our Father’s Day magazine moves around our newsagency. The John Lennon feature makes this a collectors issue and an ideal Father’s Day gift for a Generation X dad. We have this display located at the busiest point of our counter – targeting maximum impulse purchase. It’s ideal timing from ACP to have the John Lennon feature out now.
Promoting Top Gear for Father’s Day
We are promoting the latest issue of Top Gear magazine near our newspaper stand in the lead up to Father’s Day. This placement is part of a range of moves with magazines to pitch for Father’s Day business around our newsagency. The newspaper location has worked well for sales of Top Gear for us in the past. We will leave this display up until Monday at least.
Sony’s electronic newspaper
Sony is calling their latest e-reader device the Daily Edition, connecting it with the newspaper reading habit. A story in the New York Times asks can it whar fish?
The Wall Street Journal this morning published a report about the prospects of the mass market for these e-readers and noting that it is about price.
These readers and other devices will evolve and evolve until we have an iPod like device for delivering access to what was print material. It happened with music and when it the whole game changed. It will happen with print.
Expensive Nurse Diary
What will newsagents sell the 2010 Australian Nurse Diary for? $11.95 which is the RRP or $15.00 which is the retail price for the copies supplied through Network Servcies? Network has invoiced me at 71% more than the cost price from my direct supplier. The margin on the Network price is 36% and the margin on direct supply 53%.
Network runs a much improved magazine distribution model. Their handling of fringe opportunities such as diaries and calendars needs work if newsagents are to be seen as competitive by consumers.
If I relied on the Network supply of the Nurse Diary I’d be seen as expensive compared to other retailers. Newsagents are already considered as expensive by consumers. We need to push back on this and source products on terms which permit us to be seen a competitive. The push model of magazine distribution for non magazine products does not help us be more competitive.
We need to make our own success.