Tractors and the World of Farming is a welcome new partwork with which we can show off our special interest credentials. It will appeal to our collector customers as well as those with an interest in the tractor and farming fields.
With the space at the front of our shop fully committed, we are promoting Tractors and the World of Farming at the entrance to our men’s magazine aisle.
We are actively promoting the re-launch of Real Living this week in the feature display (see photo), in a couple of pockets mixed with our women’s weeklies and in its usual location with home and living titles. With Notebook losing focus (and sales in my own stores) the time is right for refreshing the Real Living offer. I especially like the budget pitch on the cover.
Syndicates for the Oz Lotto $90 million jackpot are very popular. I put this down to the coverage syndicates have received in the media and to the size of the first division prize – people are happy to share. They also like to be part of something. Our customers are buying syndicate shares in addition to their own tickets in the Oz Lotto jackpot. While our $10 syndicates have been the top sellers in terms of shares sold, our $374 syndicate will sell out by tomorrow – all sold from within our store.
Grazia magazine gets my vote for the best (and most unexpected) Michael Jackson coverage today. They are using the story to connect with their relevance as a publication. To reward such a good and timely issue, we have given Grazia an impulse location at one of our busiest registers – a rare location for Grazia.
Magazines featuring Michael Jackson tributes have been given prime position this week. The photo shows the feature display which lines the approach to our main lottery counter. We have allocated space based on the extent of Michael Jackson coverage. We selected the supporting posters based on those which featured the Michael Jackson coverage in the magazine.
Clean Food Organic publisher, Malcolm McGuire has considered newsagents in developing the masthead for the relaunch of the magazine. The new design has ample room for our barcode label – inside the O. This saves us covering the masthead as often happens with barcode label placement.
“Looking at most magazine mastheads, it’s clear that newsagent staff often struggle with where to place the barcode sticker. Magazine titles are often obscured by price stickers. We thought it was time someone designed a masthead with the newsagents in mind. We view newsagencies as our most important channel with our relaunch and any small thing we can do to make life easier for newsagents staff can only help exposure for our title.” Malcom McGuide, Publisher, Clean Food Organic.
Clean Food Organic is the new quarterly magazine version of a bi-annual book that was launched back in 2005. I am told that organic food is Australia’s fastest growing food category with product sales outstripping supply despite the recession. Sales of food and lifestyle magazines are also holding up well. The relaunched titles should be in-store this week.
This magazine comes from a small Australian publisher and this is another reason for newsagents to provide support. Independent magazines like Clean Food Organic provide a point of difference for us – based on a product with a good social conscience.
The mall-facing displays being created at our Watergardens store are working very well. Each side of this prominent column are used to present titles in a professional and eye-catching way.
Australian Women’s Weekly sales are up thanks to the display in the photo. By using some of the publisher’s collateral and adding professional VM style, the display stands out. This way, we are not offering another billboard but rather a connection which is unique to us and the title.
While displays like this take thought and time, they are important where our competitors are supermarkets and department stores which do little to promote titles like AWW. The display shows off our point of difference.
Renee and the team can be proud because their display strategy is 100% their own work.
We have noticed a run on travel diaries this month in each of our stores. A check of sales data shows this is not uncommon in June. This makes sense – school and uni holidays.
We were lucky to have a good range covering various price points.
An enterprising supplier in this space ought to make a note to remind newsagents of the travel diary opportunity and this time and to the end of the year.
Travel diaries are easy business for newsagents since few other retailers have them at all or if they do they only have one or two. Newsagents serve this marketplace well because we sell travel magazines, maps, travel books and we are the go-to place for photocopying passport, tickets and the like.
Our opportunity goes beyond the diary since these are often purchased as gifts. There are Bon Voyage cards as well as other travel gifts. Thinking about it, we could package several categories together into a small season and become known as the destination for these travel services and products.
Being a destination is better than a last resort stop.
I call this a curious season because the opportunity almost passes by. We can be asked for travel diaries and service the need and not realise the bigger opportunity or that this happens at this time each year. There must be other opportunities like which which we, individually and collectively, miss.
Celebrity gossip site tmz.com has published the cover of a special Michael Jackson commemorative issue of Time magazine which hits US newsstands Monday morning. Newsagents know that there will be special coverage in our major women’s weeklies starting from tomorrow (in most states). I also expect a few publishing surprises in the next week given the blanket coverage on TV and online. A couple of publishing people I have spoken with are aware of the additional traffic being generated by the $90 million Oz Lotto jackpot and this is also guiding their response to the Michael Jackson story. Like publishers, we need to be opportunistic. It’s business. While some customers are sick of hearing about Michael Jackson already, many more will collect everything they can. Newsagents ought to be the go to place for this – we will have the best range.
We did not sell a single copy of the last issue of British House and Garden. This is a surprise because British magazines do well for us. I checked sales of a number of titles in various categories and found that while our British women’s weeklies are doing okay, others, like home, garden, craft and women’s interests titles are not travelling so well. This is a recent situation, likely related to the economic doom and gloom.
I’d be interested if others are experiencing the same with imported titles, British titles in particular.
Olga Kharif writing at Business Week suggests that Amazon is looging beyond the Amazon Kindle reader to smartphones as a commerce platform. Newsagents should read the article for a perspective on the new distribution model. Our role in supporting these media access devices will be in picking up a bit of account top up business, if we are lucky.
With the Oz Lotto $90 million jackpot driving Christmas-like traffic and the Michael Jackson story driving excellent news traffic, we all need to take extra care managing cash this weekend. Here are some tips which may be useful:
While this list may seem alarmist, the circumstances we find ourselves if maye us an appealing target.
Please, add to this list…
MediaPost reports that a digital version of PC Magazine for the Amazon Kindle reader hgas been launched. The subscription cost is US$1.49 a month. The print edition of PC Magazine closed in January.
Apple pulled an iPhone app this week which provided access to images of topless women. (The LA Times has more on this.) It will be interesting to see if the device continues to be used as a censorship tool because if it does, maybe this is a green shoot for some publishers.
The death of Michael Jackson, and Farrah Fawcett to a lesser extent, this morning makes an already intense trading week busier for newsagents. It’s a good thing.
The $90 million Oz Lotto jackpot has resulted in considerably increased traffic since Wednesday morning. The news today will take that further as people turn to the brands (newspapers and magazines) they know for coverage. When they purposefully set out to purchase a newspaper or a magazine, more will head for a newsagency. While some may say that is wishful thinking, our recent experience in Victoria with bushfire coverage showed this to be the case.
The key is for us to make the most of these converging opportunities – with special offers and promoting of categories we handle well. This is our opportunity to remind people of our relevance.
The intensity of the Michael Jackson story was demonstrated by the Gold Coast Bulletin publishing a special issue delivered to newsagents around lunchtime today. We received a special edition of the Herald Sun mid afternoon.
We are promoting Wheels magazine at the exit of our men’s magazine aisle for the weekend. We did have Zoo in this location but sold out so this morning we had to make a quick move.
We have been using this ‘created’ location for several months now with excellent browsing and sales success. It is terrific to watch people engage with the display as they head to the counter with a purchase or leave the shop. It disrupts enough of them for the display to be worth it to us.
With Hannah Montana The Movie opening this weekend we have opportunistically placed the magazine next to TV Week as well as in our teen section. This is one of those titles which will be purchased on impulse and this weekend is our big opportunity to shift stock thanks to the publicity for the movie and the start of school holidays.
Sticking out of the window of the Australia Post shop on Park Street South Melbourne is an Australia Post branded ATM. This ATM has appeared in an area well serviced with ATMs by banks and other commercial operators.
There was no need for Australia Post to enter a well serviced marketplace, no need for this government owned monopoly to leverage its protected name and status to take business from private enterprise.
This is what Australia Post has been doing for years – under successive Governments. There appears to be no stopping of the extent to which this wholly Government owned and protected enterprise will go to take revenue from the private sector.
The only value associated with this ATM is the Australia Post brand. The Australia Post brand only has value because of its government protected mail service. The government backing and guaranteed foot traffic makes it easier for Australia Post to make this move.
There is no point in complaining about this to the regulators, they will look into it and say that Australia Post is acting within the Act. I have been down that road before. This is a political problem which requires a political solution. What we need is politicians who care about business and, in paticular, small business.
Where will one of these Australia Post ATMs appear next? I will be interested to see how far this network grows.
I am grateful to a reader of this blog for the tip and photo.
Even though the Oz Lotto jackpot is soaking up plenty of attention, we are still finding time to promote other categories. We have given the latest issue of Better Homes and Gardens a prime display thanks to the free cookbook which comes with the new issue out now. The display has been up since Wednesday and has generated excellent sales already. Better Homes and Gardens is one of those titles which we move several times through the on-sale, especially at weekends when we sell the most copies. In addition to the aisle end display, we have it in the garden section as well as two pockets in with our women’s weeklies.
B&T is reporting this afternoon that Australia Post is standing firm on its price increase (3.6% for magazines) despite publisher and printer representations yesterday. magazine publishers ought to engage with newsagents on a hybrid model which does not use Australia Post. Make newsagencies the collection point. The consumer saves on the cover price and we benefit from the traffic. While this will not suit every subscriber, it would be worth running a pilot.
While I mentioned this a couple of days ago, here is more information on how this could work:
I’d see a collect subscription costing more because of the additional services provided.
Australia Post has a monopoly. 3.6% this year, who knows what next year. Publishers and newsagents working together could come up with a solution which benefits both sides. However, for it to work, there needs to be no middleman between publishers and newsagents taking a clip.
The Norwich Evening News ran a story yesterday about the challenges facing UK newsagents. The story reports that they are closing at the rate of one a day in the face of tough competition from national retailers.
While I understand the pitch of use us or lose us, consumers will shop in newsagencies only if they see them as relevant. This is our challenge here and in the UK – to be relevant in today’s marketplace.
We are challenged by history, supplier relationships, rules and a cost basis which is not as flexible as could be useful to changes to our model.
The newsagency of the future will not be a newsagency.
While researching how others have merchandised major lottery jackpots overseas, I also found these terms offered to lottery retailers in New Mexico:
In terms of the initial search, I could not find anything which was useful to our circumstances. The $90 million jackpot is really new territory for us.
Today’s Daily Telegraph has a story about alleged rorts being perpetrated by newsagents and convenience stores against customers buying bus tickets.
The problems with NSW bus tickets started in 2004 when the State Government decided to go to a new ticketing system. The commission earned by retailers was likely to be less than 1% of the ticket value. During representations by newsagents made at the time, the Minister said that the Government understood that the lower margin presented a challenge but that the retailers could rely on the traffic to drive other sales. I know because I was involved in one such discussion with the Government when on the Board of the ANF.
While retailers of tickets should not breach the agreements they signed, the real story here is the drop in margin forced on the retailers by the State Government and onerous conditions in a contract. I’d suggest that the folks at the Daily Telegraph go back to the source of the problem and write about why we are at where we are at today. Give us real information and not a poorly researched biased piece which tells the reader what to think without specific evidence.
The argument that retailers can make money selling other products to transport ticket customers is weak. I have not seen any research other than my own as to the basket efficiency of transport tickets. On average, 25% of transport ticket sales include another item. While retailers play a role in this efficiency result, the nature of the product plays a role too. Buying a ticket is part of a journey – they are not shopping, but travelling.
As for the comments in the article by the Transport Ministor, he ought to go back and look at his role and the role of the government in reducing retailer margin.
This is the poster our creative team has put together to promote the $90 million Oz Lotto jackpot as our Tattersalls collateral will not arrive until Friday.
We have created A4, A3 and A6 sizes. The A6 are flyers with our store details to be given to non lottery customers.
We are dressing the store cleverly at high traffic points to make the most of the opportunity.
We are also working in an A6 flyer to give every Oz Lotto customer to lure them back. We are finalising those details overnight.
