We started our online ink and toner business, Inkfast, four years ago. While we have moved the operation to a separate location, it still plays a role with our newsagencies. If someone asks for an item we do not stock, we give them an Inkfast card and invite them to purchase direct. Inkfast delivers to their door. This works well, we see new business coming from this retail promotion regularly.
We are launching a TV commercial on channels Seven and Ten in
We are supporting the ad with the delivery of high quality flyers to homes around three of our locations in the last week of this month.
This is the first advertising we have undertaken for Sophie since we opened at Forest Hill in February last year. With our Toorak store opening two months ago we felt the time was right to step out with our unique and personal offer.
We hope to release details of the Sophie franchise model in then first quarter of next year.
The visual merchandisers funded by magazine publishers can be frustrating sometimes – most often when they do a display promoting a title which is nowhere near the display. Take Notebook – as in the photo. Without proper management these posters could we far away from the title. With proper management they are nearby and more helpful to our goal for our shop.
A good merchandiser works with you and this is what we are finding at our Forest Hill store. There is good dialogue between our magazine and most merchandisers and the result is titles being promoted near to where they are on our shelves. This may seem logical. Check your local newsagency, often it is not done this way.
We have been promoting Dolly at the counter this week. Last week, we did a more traditional power end display for Dolly as part of the Connections promotion. This week, we judged Dolly as having the best value gifts so it got our prime counter position. We feel it is the kind of title mums could buy for their daughters once they see the gifts with the magazine. This is what this space is about – chasing easy impulse sales.
I was fortunate to see Andre Rieu in concert in
Sitting there, immersed deep in the Rieu experience, I found myself thinking about the extent to which he has created an exceptional feel-good event – almost regardless of whether you are fan of his music. This did not feel like a concert. It is hard to describe what it felt like other than great!
You will see that I take a considerable swipe at magazine distributor NDD today along some publishers. They deserve it. They permit titles to be oversupplied and on terms which financially abuse newsagents. NDD can fix this. In fact, they will tell us they have been talking to publishers and to the ANF and that progress is being made. Progress is not being made. NDD has no financial interest in fixing this, no distributor does. Magazine distributors are paid a fee to distribute titles. They get paid regardless. Newsagent, on the other hand, are only paid for what they sell. We provide capital to magazine publishers and we weather the cost of theft.
I like the folks at NDD and I like many of their titles. I just wish they had the balls to act fairly for newsagents. More important, however, I wish newsagents had the balls to act against unfair publisher behaviour. Mat action by us could kill off some of these poor performing magazine titles.
The over supply and long shelf life of the three titles I focus on today is an example of the cancer hurting newsagents. Other suppliers ought to care about this – for the good of the channel.
Renovate & Extend magazine is a good example of an un-viable title from Universal Magazines about which I blogged last week. The five month on-sale is an unreasonable financial and space impost on newsagents. A fairer solution would be that we are paid for stock as it sold. The technology has been able to facilitate this for years. This takes the financial risk and the cost of theft away from us.
In addition to the unfair long shelf life there is the supply model itself. I have received too many copies, considerably more than I sell. The distributors know this. The publisher knows this. Yet they continue to supply.
The proof of their gross overprinting is seen with each issue when they bag it with old stock – the never seem to run out of old stock.
Universal Magazines causes the problem by printing far more than they sell. NDD, their distributor for this title aids and abets this crime against newsagents by permitting poor trading terms and supplying too much stock.
I am early-returning part of what we were supplied yesterday as I should not have to carry the cost of their bad behaviour.
The cash Universal sucks out of our channel with titles like Renovate & Extend reduces the cash we have available for better selling magazines and other product categories.
The latest issue of New Home Trends is the other title which received yesterday which has been provided on unfair terms. We have been sent considerably more than we could be expected to sell, thereby demanding more real-estate than is fair. The seven month on-sale is too long – this is what really suck our cash. If the publisher and distributor want a seven month on sale they need to back themselves and let us pay based on scanned sales. Otherwise they let us pay once they have the returns.
Newsagents will continue to be treated poorly by some publishers and distributors unless we stand up to this appalling behaviour.
We returned every copy of Printing Digital Photos magazine which we received yesterday from NDD. This publication will not sell inn our shop where we are well satisfied with digital photo magazines. A copy or two may be stolen because it is small and convenient to steal but it will not sell. The six month on-sale period is another reason we early-returned the title. This title is an unfair impost on newsagents. It should not have been allowed into our channel, certainly not on the terms NDD has negotiated on our behalf.
The only way to teach the publishers and distributors that we will not be abused this way is if we return titles like this and not pay for them.
Newsagents in NSW and ACT will sympathise with this –
Newsagents are in business. This request from
Newsagents were sent this Origami DVD today. We are supposed to keep it on our shelves until May next year. The retail price is $19.95. Our margin, on each copy sold, is $4.99. This will cost us over $4.00 a month for the retail space and labour to manage the product. I am early-returning our shipment of five copies. I am not prepared to take cover the risk of theft. It is a difficult title to place. It is grossly overpriced. I can find the equivalent information online for free. This title should never have been permitted into our channel.
The supply of this title through our channel with a seven month on sale is a gross abuse of small business newsagents by the publisher and the distributor. We are fools if we let them get away with it. My stock is being mailed back to NDD and short paying invoices for this month by the quantity involved. I would be interested to hear from other newsagents about this title.
OfficeMax in the US has signed a deal to distribute its branded stationery products through Safeway supermarkets. See Reuters for more details. This deal wold be like Officeworks selling its branded products through Coles – except that would be easier since they are part of the same company.
The newsXpress Hot Ink flyer we have sent to 20,000 homes around each of our newsagencies has well and truly hit, bringing in valuable new customers. Consistency has been important in building our ink sales – consistency in promoting value, a brand based range and marketing. The brochures bring people in for ink and they walk out with this and other items in their basket. Ink is very efficient for our business like that. It amazes me that some newsagents don’t stock ink at all.
Promoting on price is also good given the economic news. It pitches our shops as places where you can find a good deal.
The timing of this latest Hot Ink promotion is good for us at Forest Hill where a Dick Smith store is set to open shortly and while we will compete on price, we won’t compete on marketing noise.
We have been working with a visual merchandising company on a couple of projects and they passed on a tip which has proceed to be a great help. They told us that florist supply businesses are an excellent source of visual merchandising materials. It’s true, we have found some excellent resources for inexpensive displays.
I am regularly contacted by suppliers about what I write (and have written in the past) here – usually because of a negative comment. Some of this contact results in good dialogue and even sees issues resolved while other contact is a complaint that I dare to complain publicly. Other contact is to suggest that I not complain about them publicly.
Suppliers who care about the channel would focus on the complaint rather than that it is public. They would look at newsagent data and engage resolving the problems shown in the data.
OzLotto sales have been strong on the back of a $20 million jackpot. Selfishly, I hope it does not go off tonight. A couple more jackpots would work nicely for us leading into Christmas sales, very nicely indeed. As I travel around newsagencies I am seeing softening in trade – a lottery jackpot could slow that and give us an opportunity at a good Christmas.
I am interested to read that O at Home is ceasing publication. While we would sell one or two copies, we can put the saves pocket to better use promoting more successful titles in the category such as Notebook and Real Living. Newsagents are at the centre of a conflict between top selling locally published titles and imported product. Some of the latter starve us of space, and cash and make us less competitive.
I have been reliably informed of the following and publish it here for the benefit of Victorian newsagents in advance of the VANA meeting today.
The information put by VANA to its members about the ANF and related matters recently is incomplete. By not being open with members, Victorian newsagents remain ill-informed. Even the VANA Board is kept in the dark on some of these matters.
QNF/NANA & VANA have spoken at length about restructuring the ANF. VANA proposed the QNF model when it met with the ANF yet it put a different position to members recently.
VANA appears to be trying to please everyone in terms of the ANF. Their representative agrees with QNF and NANA and then agrees with the ANF and then flip-flops again. This flip-flopping is about politics and not newsagents.
QNF & NANA want a Secretariat model, to represent newsagents on national issues. This has a lower cost than an expensive national office. The Secretariat would focus solely on policy and national representation issues. It would not be conflicted by commercial arrangements.
The current ANF structure is expensive and ineffective. Its commercial arrangements put its interests ahead of newsagent interests – the two are not the same. Remember Bill Express? The ANF made money off every Bill Express transaction and this was more important in decision making than serving its members.
QNF & NANA would welcome VANA & ANF being involved in creating the new leaner national representation model but will go it alone, recruiting members from all states.
NANA & QNF are not-for-profit associations which aim to help newsagents. Their membership has grown considerably over the last year. They feel they can no longer watch this industry fall apart in national representation.
The new national secretariat would focus on serving newsagents on national issues and not of making a commission on newsagent sales as the ANF did with Bill Express and other enterprises.
That VANA has not called the meeting in a way which enables members to compel the Boards to act denies an opportunity for democracy and demonstrates a lack of respect for newsagents.
Vogue this month has a free gift in a sleeve on the side of the magazine meaning it needs around 15% more shelf width than usual. With space so tight newsagents have no choice but to jam the package in, thereby risking damaging the free gift and diluting the value. The other challenge with the latest issue of Vogue is the length of the plastic bag in which they have the magazine. This steals cover space from any magazine above in the fixturing.
These may seem like small points. We are magazine specialists as as such we try and present all magazines professionally. Publishers trying to steal space from others makes our job more difficult. The alternative to being frustrated about this behaviour by publishers is to not care about the category.
Our team at Frankston has created a display promoting health and fitness magazines around the theme of getting fit for summer. This display is next to the counter and is seen by most customers. It gets people browsing titles they would otherwise not have seen – newspaper customers especially who get no more than three metres into the body of the shop. The range on the stand demonstrates our depth of range as well as our commitment to promoting magazines.
In between the magazines we are promoting the Fit Deck fitness cards.
The battle between Linux and Windows has gone on forever, it is worse than the Carlton / Collingwood hatred or the Melbourne / Sydney rivalry. To mess with their heads we put Linux Made Easy on the shelf next to The Windows XP magazine. It was the headline All you need to dump Windows for good! which made us do this. It is good to have laugh sometimes.
Turn to page 35 of TV Week which went on sale today and see a full page ad supporting newsagents. ACP Magazines has funded this ad in support the TV campaign Tower Systems has been running promoting newsagents.
Having ACP back this campaign in one of their weeklies is most welcome. I am hopeful of more coverage soon including from other publishers who respect newsagents and the vital role they play in the magazine and newspaper categories.
As the ad says: SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL NEWSAGENT AND KEEP BUSINESS LOCAL.
As part of their Climate Smart program the Queensland Government ran a giveaway through the Sunday Mail newspaper yesterday – buy the newspaper, clip the coupon and take it to a participating newsagent for two free energy saving light bulbs. The promotion ran off the rails when newsagents did not receive enough globes. I have head from several newsagents in Queensland who did not receive any globes at all. Newsagents will know that when you can’t honor a promotion like this the customer blames you. So thanks to either the Queensland Government or the folks at the Courier Mail this promotion made newsagents look bad.
But, wait, there’s more. Queensland Premier Anna Bligh told people last night that if they could not get the energy saving bulbs they could go to Australia Post where they have plenty of stock. Thanks Anna – you have effectively blamed newsagents for the light bulb undersupply. If newsagents had been supplied sufficient stock in the first place Anna would not have had reason to endorse Australia Post.
Anna Bligh owes newsagents an apology. What a mess!
A government concerned about small business would not have given a big business competitor like Australia Post suich a free kick against newsagents as has happened in Queensland.
UPDATE: Part of the supply problem appears to relate to some newsagents (sub agents actually) not being given any stock. Here in Victoria publishers tend to supply promotional materials direct to all retail outlets regardless of the newspaper supply model.
Promotions are only good if they are popular and build customer. Customer loyalty to some newsagencies has been hurt by this promotion.