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

Author: Mark Fletcher

News Ltd forgets how important newsagents were to Alpha

News Ltd was singing our praises prior to the launch of Alpha magazine and telling analysts how important we were.

“That positioning in newsagents is a massive advantage,” he says. “And the strength of the newspaper brands gives that instant imprimatur, gravitas and authority.”

Phil Barker, Managing Director of News Magazines was quoted in The Australian on April 28, 2005.

We need to understand the importance of our real-estate and run our businesses accordingly.  While the opportunity to do this nationally has well and truly passed, we do have an opportunity through other communities – such as marketing groups which have levers of discipline.

What News has done with Alpha is a wake up call.  Only time will tell if it did indeed wake us up.

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magazine distribution

News Corp investing in Kindle like device?

Peter Kafka at Mediamemo is reporting that News Corp. is investing in a colour Kindle-like device. Here is what Rupert Murdoch is reported as saying during a Q&A session at a cable industry conference in Thursday, talking about the Amazon Kindle:

We need new models. The first inkling of it is the Kindle. You can get the whole paper there. And you can get the whole of The Wall Street Journal on your BlackBerry. We’re investing in a new device that has a bigger screen, four-color, and you can get everything there.

The Kindle is changing the way people read and buy books in the US.  At some point similar technology will disrupt the purchase and distribution of newspapers and maagzines.

UPDATE: The Australian covered this story as well.

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Media disruption

February customer newsletter

nx_fhn_apr09.jpgClick here for a PDF copy of our April 2009 customer newsletter for our newsXpress Forest Hill shop.

We have copies of the newsletter on a stand at the front of our newsagency  – for any passer-by to take. This is in addition to advertising flyers promoting ink, books and other deals we also make available customers from the same location.


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Customer Service

AFL product drive excellent sales

footycards.JPGJust as we found with the season launch AFL Record earlier this year, the AFL cards are selling very well this year.  While magazines may be challenged, there are related products, like these AFL cards, which are trading well.  Year on year we are up 64% in unit sales of these.  I like the trading cards because they drive repeat business if we maintain a good level of stock.

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magazines

Maxim UK print edition to close

The UK edition of Maxim is closing its print edition and moving online from next month.  The US edition will replace the UK edition at retail.  The Guardian reports that Lad’s mags like Maxim are doing it tough in the UK:

Lads’ magazines are suffering heavy declines across the board. IPC’s Nuts fell 13.3% year on year to an average weekly circulation of 234,034 in the six months to December 2008; while weekly rival Zoo, from Bauer Media, fell 18.7% year on year to 145,555.

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magazines

Displaying women’s health magazines

fhn_womenshealth.JPGClick on the photo to see a larger version of what I’d consider to be be best practice for displaying women’s health realted titles.  This is from our Forest Hill store this morning.  As we do with other categories, we anchor the display with top selling brands: Women’s Health, Good Health and Medicine, Health Smart and Diabetic Living.  Blocking key brands in this way draws attention to the category.

Newsagents often say that they don’t have the space to display magazines in this way.  We make it our business to find the space because the sales benefit makes it worthwhile.

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magazines

Overloaded with patchwork magazines

fhn_crafttitles.JPGThe photo shows three of the packs of patchwork magazines from Express Publications.  This is a perfect example of oversupply.  The titles in the packs are similar.  They demand space for an already well-serviced segment.  Given the packaging and quality of the products themselves I’d regard these as junk – sent in the hope of theft or, maybe, purcahse by a less discerning consumer.  having to deal with poor selling packs like these from Express soaks up our time and cash, away from more profitable magazines.

The magazine distribution model is in need of urgent review.  I was hopeful that the ACCC questions about this might lead somewhere.  I am now concerned that this appears unlikely.

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magazine distribution

Newsagency industry podcast

I participated last night in a podcast about the newsagency industry for Mediaweek magazine.  Moderated by Brenden Wood, Eugene Varricchio – Group General Manager – Retail & Distribution – ACP Magazines, James Manning – Editor – Mediaweek and I talked about magazines in the newsagency channel and the challenges we encounter and the opportunities ahead.  The 30 minute discussion started with a look at the issues surrounding the changes with Alpha magazine.

It is good to see the newsagency channel featured and discussed in this way.  As Eugene points out, we account for sales of mroe than 50% of ACP magazines product.

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magazines

Foreign newspapers up 13% Q1 2009

fhn_foreignpapers.JPGI am working through our own Q1 sales and found that once again foreign language newspapers were a stand-out success.  Unit sales are up 13% year on year at Forest Hill.  Other daily newspapers recorded a 0% change over the same period.  In Q1, we sold 867 foreign language newspapers.  We are achieving sales equal to around $12,000 per square metre of space allocated.  This is an excellent story.

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Newsagency opportunities

The Land covers news and ads

land-1.JPGI am grateful to a colleague newsagent for showing me that the latest issue of The Land has taken covering the front page of the newspaper to a new level.  The ad covering the bottom half of the front page covers editorial as well as advertising.  I’d expect Terry Miller Concrete Tanks, the advertiser covered-up, to be frustrated.

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newspaper masthead desecration

Magazine reader due for release next year

Toy Story: Are Those 5,000 Magazines in Your Messenger Bag, Or Are You Just Happy to See Me? is an excellent report by Gillian Reagan at The New York Observer about the first mobile digital reader made specifically for newspapers and magazines.  The device can hold many magazines with content easily searchable and indexed.  Once a consumer has the device, they would not need a retailer for new issues.  They hope to have this product on the market sometime next year.

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magazines

ANF lets newsagents down over Alpha

The ANF made its first statement about the Alpha magazine situation today and said, well, not much. Indeed, they reported the facts as we know them but proposed no action on behalf of members. Newsagents can now add disappointment with the ANF to their disappointment with News Ltd on the Alpha mess for it seems that a week after the Alpha announcement, the ANF does not have a plan.

To those inside the ANF who complain about what I have written here I’d say that this blog post recording another ANF failure to lead could have been easily avoided.  Newsagents are angry.  Your constituents are angry.  Ask what they want of you and do it.  This is what newsagents expect from an association – to have their views robustly represented.

No wonder News Ltd thinks it can get away with treating newsagents in such a poor way.

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magazine distribution

Warning to newsagents over Alpha magazine action

Newsagents ought to consider taking care in what they say publicly about their plans to remove Alpha magazine from their shelves or block sales in some other way.  I have heard that questions are being asked about whether newsagents are colluding to harm the sales of Alpha.  If questions are being asked, I know this will be enough to scare off some newsagents.  Newspaper publishers are good at scaring newsagents.  It is why we accept making less in real terms today than we were making ten years ago.  Many of us are like deers caught in the headlights – too scared to take care of ourselves.  Publishers know this about us.

That said, I have received more calls from newsagents who are removing Alpha.  Many of these are newsagents who supported the title through the launch, believing that News was committed to supporting newsagents.

If it were not illegal I would actively promote a boycott and encourage newsagents to practically demonstrate their anger at being treated so poorly.

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magazine distribution

EDI compliance training for newsagents

Tower Systems has announced a national newsagent IT compliance training and advice tour. Each 2 hours session will cover the new XchangeIT (EDI) standards and other new standards.  Access is free for this newsagent only session. Come and learn how to get XchangeIT access for the lowest price – by being compliant.

BOOK NOW. HERE ARE THE DATES:

  • Geelong Wednesday, 6 May 2009 2pm
  • Adelaide Thursday, 7 May 2009 11am
  • Melbourne Tuesday, 12 May 2009 11am
  • Cairns Wednesday, 13 May 2009 2pm
  • Brisbane Thursday, 14 May 2009 11am
  • Gold Coast Friday, 15 May 2009 10am
  • Sydney Tuesday, 19 May 2009 11am
  • Newcastle Wednesday, 20 May 2009 10am
  • Gosford Wednesday, 20 May 2009 3pm
  • Tamworth Thursday, 21 May 2009 10am
  • Hobart Tuesday, 26 May 2009 10am
  • Launceston Wednesday, 27 May 2009 11am
  • Canberra Tuesday, 2 June 2009 10am
  • Albury Wednesday, 3 June 2009 11am

BOOK ONLINE: At our free online booking portal.
BOOK BY EMAIL: bookings@towersystems…
BOOK BY FAX: 03 9524 8099

Every newsagent is welcome to attend.

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newsagent software

Promoting Better Homes and Real Living together

fhn_bhg_realliving.JPGWe are promoting Better Homes and Gardens and Real Living together to customers as they leave our highest traffic magazine aisle at Forest Hill.  We have gone for two titles to change up our usual approach in this space of focusing on one title and supporting this with other titles from the same category.

We hope to sell both titles together enough to encourage us to to do more of these dual title displays.  Hopefully, ACP and Pacific will be happy with the joint promotion – both have key mastheads being given feature treatment.

Of course, retail displays are only useful to the retailer if they drive sales in that business.  This is how we measure every display and determine if it is to remain active.

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magazines

Financial crisis hits US Postal Service

The head of the U.S. Postal Service went before Congress late last week to deliver a submission seeking help in the wake of a considerable downturn in business.  While there are considerable differences between the US Postal Service and Australia Post, reading the report led me to wonder about the health of our mail delivery sevice and whether Australia Post will further increase focus on non mail delivery service revenue streams.

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Australia Post

Aussie newspapers faring better than others

Australian newspapers have been receiving kudos in international reports over the last 24 hours following the release of advertising revenue figures which showed a decline on 0.6% in 2008.  My view is that part of the reason for the lower decline here is our newspaper distribution model.  Without the financial support from newsagents, publishers would bear a higher cost and this would have altered their model and sales – eventually playing out in lower ad revenue.

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Newspapers

Q1 2009 newsagency sales benchmark study

I am undertaking a sales benchmark study comparing January-March 2009 against January-March 2008. Tower Newsagents can participate by sending a Monthly Sales Comparison report: tick the box to exclude home deliveries, and tick the box for a category breakdown. Set your first date range (on the left) to January 1, 2009 to March 31, 2009 and the date range of the right to one year earlier. Once the report is on the screen, click the PDF button to save this as a PDF, go into your email software and send a copy of the PDF to me at mark@tower… Newsagents not using Tower software should click here for a spreadsheet template. I’ll publish the benchmark results here and elsewhere so all newsagents can benefit.

UPDATE (3.50PM): I have now received sales data from 40 newsagencies.  I’d expect to have data from more than 100 by the end of the week.  This will be a good dataset.

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Newsagency opportunities

New magazine launch: Newsdoku

Australian newsagents today launch a new magazine to the Sudoku, Addoku, Kakuro and Crossword lovers of Australia. Newsdoku is a new type of puzzle, a WORLD FIRST. Each puzzle will take between four and twelve hours to complete and involves maths, detective skills and pure luck.

Modelled on the newsagents magazine allocations and accounting model used to supply magazine to newsagents, Newsdoku has a sting in the tail in that when you think you have got it right, the rules change and you are back to square one. If your game has not been cancelled in the meantime.  While the usual game will run for a month, some run for six months.  Others come back again and again even when you have done them because everyone knows we cannot get enough of a good things.

You can call the national Newsdoku help line for help but this results in penalty points and the loss of time – and their advice has a 50/50 chance of heading you down the worng path for which you will be responsible and not the national help line.

Ask your local newsagent about Newsdoku. It will be in the back room.

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Newsagency opportunities

Reusing the Alpha magazine stand

alpha_magazine_newsagency.jpgA newsagent colleague sent me a before and after photo of their Alpha magazine counter unit.  Repurposing the Alpha stand is reasonable given the decision by News Ltd late last week to cut newsagent margin on Alpha and to take home delivery business and give this to Australia Post. Using the stand for another title is better than not using the stand at all.

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magazine distribution
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