New Idea has sold exceptionally well this week. While there is a $10,000 competition, I suspect the success in our stores is more to do with Kate Ritchie being on the cover. Sales of the weeklies are cover driven and in our small country we don’t have enough local celebrities so finding one who drives good sales is good for business.
We had a good October at Forest Hill. Overall, sales were up 6% on last year. This is despite magazines and lotteries recording a dip. Greeting cards delivered excellent growth.
What is most interesting is the continued shift away from what have been traditional lines for our newsagency. Gifts, books, calendars, art supplies and ink all delivered excellent growth. While calendars are a traditional line, we are taking a completely different approach to the past.
I mention these results as a balance for the doom and gloom being reported at present. There are excellent growth opportunities available. It is essential we energetically pursue change in our newsagencies. I am not the only newsagent playing with new product categories. Yes, some fail. More, however, succeed – as our October results are showing. The key is the pursuit of change – it’s better to chase it than have it surprise you form behind.
I expect that lotteries and magazines will bounce back. They are more affected by short term and other factors. Our year to date numbers are good.
Today is a perfect example of why the Federal Government should not own and operate the retail network of Australia Post shops. By closing Australia Post shops in Victoria today and avoiding penalty rates, the Government demonstrates, again, the advantage they have over newsagents.
While Government owned Post Offices are closed, newsagents in shopping centres are forced to remain open.
From around 2pm today, shopping malls across Victoria will be empty – the Melbourne Cup is the race that stops the nation after all.
While retailers around them will have received a letter, call and or fax from their landlord demanding that they are open for the entire hours which the centre is open, Australia Post can make their own rules. Their excuse is that they are a Government service.
Australia Post shops are more newsagency than Post Office. The government service side of the business is the lure to get people to their stores. More than 80% of their floorspace is used for selling products newsagents and other small independent retailers sell.
Their ability to close today saves a considerable sum of money. I wish I had the same option – not that I would use it. The double standards frustrate me.
I had hoped that the Rudd Labor Government would help small business and fix the abuse of Government ownership by Australia Post.
A&R Whitcoulls, the operator of the New Zealand Whitcoulls newsagency-like shops, Angus and Robertson in Australia, calendar Club and a joint venture partner in Supanews has announced a 9% increase in sales for the 2008 financial year. Given the nature of their business compared to an Australian newsagency, it would be reasonable for shopping centre newsagents to use this as a benchmark. This is a good result from Whitcoulls in a challenging trading year. What is most interesting in their announcement is their continued investment through acquisition as well as innovation – their print ofon demand strategy for example.
We have The Week on display at our busiest counter this week as well as the feature display in-store. Given their $5 million launch spend we figured we should seize every opportunity to pitch the new magazine. My only concern is that in Britain The Week is the most subscribed weekly magazine of any kind. I am only interested in investing time and space in future retail sales so I will watch the subscription offers in the magazine carefully.
I am visiting several cities this week presenting a workshop on how to build greater success in your newsagency. This is being delivered as part of the Tower Systems Spring User Meeting Tour. Any newsagent, regardless of the system they use, are are most welcome to attend. The details of where I will be speaking are:
My session is followed by a review of the latest version of the Tower Systems newsagency management software (retail and home delivery) which was released two weeks ago. This is followed by an open Q&A session.
We are breaking our own rules by placing the Australian Women’s Weekly Christmas & Holiday Entertaining cookbook at our counter position. Regulars here will know that we use this space for magazines with a free gift. We have placed the AWW Christmas book at the counter because it is something regular customers will buy on impulse. Since other retailers will have the title we are in a race to get the sale first, the earlier the better. The monochrome background works with the magazine better in real life than the photo shows.
I meant to post this last week – the photo shows a display created showing some of the magazines featuring Halloween themed content. In all, we had twelve magazines on display – not bad for what is considered a minor season. I have no doubt that Halloween will get bigger and bigger. Having embraced it for three years now we have a good head start on others.
Newsagents ought to mark next Sunday and the following Sunday in their diaries to listen to two lectures from Rupert Murdoch as part of his Boyer lecture series for the ABC. Next Sunday, the topic is Who’s afraid of new technology? and on the following Sunday the topic is The future of newspapers. While I suspect we know his position, the lectures are bound to make for interesting and relevant listening.
According to the Digital Magazine Blog, Dennis Publishing ( the UK company behind the launch of The Week here in Australia), has recorded tremendous success with their digital magazines based on the latest audit numbers:
These are digital magazines – connecting the publisher directly with the reader. No supply chain. Good on them. This is a smart move by the folks at Dennis.
We need to be aware of the growing success of digital magazines but not let ourselves get worked up about them, they are here and we cannot change that. What we can change is the focus of our newsagencies on today’s customers. This means working harder on our local area and offering products and services which attract them to our newsagencies.
The Age shows what it thinks of the Spring Racing Carnival today by placing post-it type ad over the top of a promotion of its racing coverage inside the paper. What is the point of printing a headline or masthead or teaser for a story inside if you are going to allow an advertiser to pay to cover it up?
At the River View Hotel in Brisbane on Friday, I received one of the best customer service experiences I can recall. What really excited me about the customer service experience is that it had nothing to do with personal service. No, this exceptional experience had to do with business standards and processes.
I was at the River View Hotel to present a session on How to Build a Stronger Newsagency as part of the Tower Systems Spring National Tour. I get to see many hotel functions rooms every year – the experience Friday was the best I can recall in a long time.
Beyond receiving what we had booked and paid for – the room, chairs and tables setup as we asked, a screen, power board, coffee, tea, cakes etc – they provided other items we had not requested, items which their back-office processes ensure are provided for each conference and meeting booked at the hotel.
Outside of the usual extras we see provided for meeting rooms such as pads, pens, mints and water for attendees, a white board and one or two markers (which often don’t work), they provided a fully stocked stationery kit with a full set of working whiteboard markers, whiteboard eraser, tape, scissors, a spare power cord, stapler, pens pencils and a host of other items which could be useful during a conference. They also provided fire evacuation information on the presenters table – this is usually hidden on a wall – as well as a clean rubbish bin. They also had a clearly market central place where messages are left – so as to not interrupt any session.
For these Tower Sessions we get to a range of venues from five star capital city hotels to country pubs. These extra items, no matter how small they may seem, demonstrate a level of thoughtfulness I rarely see in conference rooms. While you can often ask for them it was that they were there waiting for us as part of their process which impressed me.
On the flight on the way home I was thinking about this, the back-end processes in business, which ensure an exceptional customer experience. It is what fast food companies like McDonalds brought to Australia – back-end processes which improved the overall service.
My sense is that Australian newsagents can improve back-end processes to improve the customer service experience. I know that we can in the businesses I own. Here are some ideas I think we could implement at the back-end to improve the customer experience:
A good example of a change is either ensuring you have a credit card machine at every register or a wireless credit card machine so that customers don’t have to move from one point to another to enter a PIN number.
This is all about delivering an experience your customers enjoy and which is unexpected, an experience you can systemise in a way to ensure consistency and ease of delivery. If you can do this you will, have customers spreading good word of mouth as I am about the River View Hotel in Brisbane.
When customer service is your point of difference it where you need to make the biggest investment.
We have almost sold out of the latest issue of Delicious since we placed it at the counter position last week. Based on sales history for this title, I’d put the counter location being worth at least a four-fold increase in sales for the week. I am testing the value of the position this weekend with the placement of Weight Watchers magazine there today. Even though the latest issue has been on sale for three weeks, I am hopeful that we can sell another three or four copies of Weight Watchers over the weekend. If we do, it reinforces the value of promoting good value magazines here. The latest issue of Weight Watchers magazine has a free diet pad included with the title.
The Week launched in Australia this week and like many newsagents we have it a prime promotional position. The publishers have done a good job communicating with newsagents about the title and providing collateral which enables the creation of good in-store displays. I like their decision to run the first three issues at $2.00 before settling in at their planned regular price of $4.95 – this lets consumers try the title. It also helps us pitch this to our customers. I also like The Week because it enhances a category which has thinned since the demise of The Bulletin.
Halloween sales have been fantastic in our newsagencies – our best year yet. All this week we have had customers spending up on costumes, party items and trick or treat bags. It is great to have a sell-out, especially with good margin product! Yesterday, the team at our Frankston store really got into the swing of things with everyone in costume – the photo shows Sherrie, Sammi and Rhonda. I am told it was a lot of fun for the team and our customers.
newsXpress embraced Halloween three years ago. It sources products and provides excellent marketing collateral The offers and opportunities have increased every year. Sales in other departments benefit from the additional traffic the Halloween promotion brings. This is now an important season on our marketing calendar. It is an example of how a smart marketing group can help you find new customers and sell more to existing customers – and help you have fun at the same time.
The one learning from this year was with the gingerbread product we tried at two of our newsagencies. It did not work. The product is excellent and the price good. The challenge is that this type of product it unexpected in a newsagency and therefore less likely to sell. We are glad we tried it though.
Staples has announced overnight that it is changing the name of recently acquired Corporate Express operations around the world to Staples. Staples is well known in the US as a consumer brand as well as a business supply brand. I would expect the re-branding here in Australia to be followed by a consumer positioning offer. This may be through a retail network or online. Either way, the Staples brand is consumer friendly and its arrival here represents a further challenge to stationery retailers including newsagents.
Further to my post yesterday about strong greeting card sales, newsagents underperform in the gift packaging area. Newsagents have around 20% market share. Compare this to our close to 40% market share on cards and you can see that something is wrong.
Card company people I have spoken with suggest that our poor performance with gift packaging – wrap and boxes – is due to poor location in-store, poor range and poor interaction between the business and the category.
Newsagencies with good growth in the packaging area tend to have it at the front of the shop, well displayed and offering a good range. They also train staff to invite shoppers to consider the wrap.
Overseas, packaging displays tend to be built more strongly around the occasion than we see here.
This is another area of our businesses where we can be more engaged and achieve a better return as a result.
Giving away the first chapter of a book is obvious and smart marketing. Allen & Unwin are doing this with ICE by Louis Nowra and The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas. Magazine publishers could use this approach in newsagencies. With around 50% of all newsagency customers not buying a magazine, we ought to promote the category through giving away samples.
Sampler marketing could work well for crosswords, fashion, food, travel, cars, health, craft and special interest categories. I have pitched the idea to several publishers without success. Budget is the main issue – production, diostribution and the expectation that newsagents would want a fee for in-store management of the giveaway.
I would give this a crack for free, to see if the promotion works – as long as the trial product offers genuine value. For example, take Good Food from ACP Magazines. An A6 size eight-page sampler of some excellent recipes and an article by Gordon Ramsay could result in greater interest in the magazine. Newsagencies are the only outlets where such a promotion could be run. We can track how many samplers were given away, when and what was in each basket included with the sampler. This data could be used to track uptake and better target promotion of the magazine.
Magazine publishers could learn from the approach taken by Allen & Unwin. Putting a sample of a product into the hand of a prospect is, in my mind, more valuable than a billboard, TV ad or some other more traditional form of advertising.
Just as foreign language newspapers are popular in newsagencies so too are foreign language Christmas cards. It makes sense to sell the cards since we have the market with newspapers. My only minor beef is the range – it would be good to have better quality designs and more of a range from which to choose. That said, this is the kind of product newsagents excel with as it connects with existing customer traffic. It is another way to demonstrate a community connection which is second to none.
I have been fortunate to see some up to date sales data for greeting cards comparing the performance of newsagencies to department stores, supermarkets, card shops and discount retailers. The newsagency channel has achieved more growth than the other greeting card channels. We remain the number one consumer preferred destination for greeting cards with just above 35% market share. While this has fallen over the last ten years, it has increased over the last two years.
It is important that we understand our positioning and respect our leadership in this category. Too often we leave greeting card management to our suppliers. By engaging more, we could grow sales and make greeting cards even more profitable for us. Such engagement needs to go beyond looking at new ranges or having a coffee with a card rep. We need to actively work on the in-store experience, staff training and external marketing to drive card sales to their full potential.
A lawyer has suggested to me that newsagents who have continued to make lease payments for the now useless Bill Express equipment on the basis of advice from the ANF ought to approach them for a refund – on the basis of the action commenced in the Federal Court on yesterday by the ACCC about this matter.
Robert Scoble, in his column in Fast Company, exhorts to newspaper publishers to experiment in response to the challenges they face. Scoble’s words apply equally to newsagents. We all need to experiment as this is the only we will find new customers, new revenue and new opportunities out of which will emerge our future.,
Opposite the Halloween display, near greeting cards, at our Frankston newsagency one of the team members placed a large snake. It’s all part of the theatre of Halloween and having some fun in the shop. Halloween is great for that – engaging with the shop and customers for some light relief. It is also a very successful NEW season for newsagents and other retailers. The key is to know how to leverage the success. At the risk of sounding like plugging a business I am involved with – newsXpress does this very well by sourcing product and excellent marketing collateral.
The local version of Popular Science has been launched with a good mix of in-store and external marketing. I especially like the reward for achieving a 50%+ sell-through. Engaging with newsagents is important and the folks behind Popular Science have worked hard to understand key levers to use to drive good outcomes with and for newsagents. This new title is a bit like Top gear – it defies traditional placement. It needs to be placed with men’s magazines, science titles and at the counter to grab impulse business.
VANA has sent out a bulletin today referring to my post yesterday about them calling in the Australian Electoral Commission to manage the election of an Executive positions. The bulletin says this is the same process VANA has used in the past. My understanding is that this is not accurate. It has been put to me that in recent years executive positions have been filled by a ring around and without a vote and therefore no involvement of the Electoral Commission.
My understanding is that VANA decided to use the Electoral Commission for the executive election once the results of the results of the poll were known last week. So, I content that the use of the Commission for the executive election is last minute.
All of this matters because just like the ANF, VANA has been caught out on the Bill Express matter. For most of this year, VANA stood by the ANF and told newsagents to pay for the Bill Express equipment. It was only after a pubolic meeting not organised by VANA that Victorian newsagents learned oflegal advice that they should cancel the Bill Express direct debit arrangements. Witin VANA there are fingers pointing everywhere about who was responsible.
The situation is that the VANA Board has failed its members for years. Now that there is an opportunity for change, the potential change makers have been gazumped by more wily political operators. Victorian newsagents, in the meantime, have an association which is failing them.