Bangkok Post and stuck-on ads
I am grateful to a colleague for this photo of an ad stuck on the front cover of the Bangkok Post. The Visa advertisement covered up a front page news story and was much bigger than the stuck on ads
Magazine performance standards
In February 2005 I spoke at a breakfast meeting of publishers in Sydney and presented a suggested list of magazine key performance indicators. In cleaning up last night I found the list and thought I’d publish it here for comment.
- Scale out to reflect title performance in that outlet with proposed supply to be no more than 25% above recent sell through rates except in exceptional circumstances where the additional product is expected to sell due to cover feature or special promotion. With higher scale out to be accepted for an additional fee paid to the newsagent.
- Offering of a carrying fee for titles which do not meet minimum performance criteria so that the newsagent is paid to carry the title. The carrying fee to cover labour, real-estate and any other fixed costs.
- Introduction of a penalty payment to newsagents for any issue with a sell through of less than 50% on an escalating scale based on a falling sell through.
- Newsagent to be able to easily and electronically alter order quantities (i.e. without having to call a call centre and wait on line for too long) and with no maximum number of titles to be adjusted each week or month.
- Newsagent changed supply figures not to be altered without reference to newsagent unless such change absolutely supported by sales data.
- No cut of supply below current recorded net sales.
- No reissue within six months of last issue of a title.
- Delayed billing of at least 30 days for any new title.
- Returns to be credited within 48 hours of provision of electronic returns data or 7 days of provision of physical returns form.
- Returns to be called no later than the date of the next issue of the same title going on sale.
Magazine KPIs are mainly needed for titles outside the top 200. Inside the top 200 the supply model is, overall, good – although somtimes I would like to be abl to get extra stock more easily. Th real problem is the titles which generate around 20% of our revenue. These titles are cash flow negative. The KPIs I suggest above, if adopted, would make them at least cashflow neutral. The cash saved would help us have more resources to reinvest in our businesses.
I provided this to the ANF for their work on magazine performance KPIs at the time.
Promoting Men’s Health
We know from the circulation figures released last week that sales of Men’s Health magazine have increased 10% January to June 2008 over the same period in 2007. We are leveraging that growth this week with a display at our main counter of the latest issue of Men’s Health which comes with two free shampoos. I expect we will sell out quickly. The display actually looks much better in person than in the photo.
Blocking magazines
It is frustrating that publishers use our retail space to try and trump others. The folks at Health Smart this month have had a header inserted behind their title which obscures part of the title above and part of the title to the right. While this may help Health Smart it hinders the other titles. I’d accept one encroachment but not both the header and the signpost.
WH Smith bans plastic bags
UK newsagewnt chain WH Smith has scrapped plastic bags following a successful trial. The Daily Mail has more.
We need a casual employee pool
I don’t know about other states but a flu-like virus is ripping through workplaces in Victoria and knocking out several people at once, for days at a time. Retail businesses with little spare capacity in their roster are finding it tough asnd often run grossly understaffed because they don’t have access to anyone who can cover at short notice.
I wonder if there is an opportunity here to create an agency which offers access to people prepared to work in a newsagency at short notice. I suspect there would be people at home willing to take on the odd day here or there. One of our teamfirst suggested this six months ago when juggling a roster while many people were off.
If we could ensure a good understanding of newsagency products, answers to common questions and knowledge of common technology an agency service could work.
Sure, there would be a considerable premium cost for what would be an on-call service. However, it would be worth the premium if it meant customer service standards were maintained.
This is the kind of commercial service an Association could run for newsagents but since they haven’t a commercial venture could start up. It would make more sense than selling cheap stationery.
Truth about mobile recharge
The 300 or so newsagents using the Pos Browser software may want to contact the company about their claim today that they print mobile phone recharge vouchers through their software.
Tower Systems is currently the only newsagent software supplier able to offer mobile phone and phonecard vouchers, including for Optus and Vodafone, from within newsagent point of sale software.
UPDATE: Bernard Zimmermann has subsequently edited his blog post yet the implication remains that they print vouchers from their software.
The magazine opportunity
While the January to June magazine circulation figures released late last week contain plenty of red ink, they also offer opportunities to newsagents. The first opportunity is with growing titles and categories and the second is with down on their luck high volume titles.
The growth opportunities relate to titles such as Better Homes and
I see some down on their luck titles as an opportunity because they still command a huge audience. Take Cosmopolitan and Cleo. They sell 165,000 and 149,000 copies each month respectively. While we can worry about their double digit drop, we are better off focusing on how we can make each of our businesses go against the trend.
At our Forest Hill store, looking at the 20 titles delivering the biggest circulation falls, in 75% of cases we achieved better than the total market. This encourages me to continue to obsess about magazines and that this obsession can help us swim against the tide.
I’d encourage newsagents to get a copy of the circulation figures and compare their store with key titles. Understand where you sit compared to the national figures. If you use the Tower Systems software, use the MPA Magazine Management report to get title by title year on year data.
FNQ newsagents
I have been fortunate to participate in the Cairns and Townsville roadshows for newsagents and organised by the Queensland Newsagents’ Federation on Sunday and Tuesday of this week respectively. Attendance was excellent – showing that newsagents enjoy an opportunity to work on their businesses by learning and networking.
My sense is that the further from capital cities newsagents are located the more entrepreneurial they are. In Townsville yesterday, I talked with newsagents keen to develop new categories in pursuit of new customers and new revenue. They were open to try almost anything.
Maybe the difference is that the pioneer spirit which populated country areas is alive and well in newsagencies. There is certainly a different attitude and it is energising.
Sharing the prize
I love this winner notification card Hallmark provided for as a follow up to our big bear giveaway as part of Care and Friendship Month. The card is important transparency on our part. It also gives us a way to promote the giveaway after the prize has been won, further showing that winners shop at our newsagency. While these may seem small points, they are important in creating an aura around our business.
Tatts vs. Intralot
It is interesting to see how Neil Mitchell at 3AW is handling Intralot, the new lottery entrant in Victoria. He had another crack today and while he can run whatever stories he wants, I would prefer to see balance.
Intralot is a start up business. It has built a network of 700 locations in a couple of months, trained the retail team and introduced the biggest product shake up in lottery products here in decades. The teething challenges have been minimal given the scope of the project.
Tattersalls, on the other hand, continues to harm small business, demanding we keep space vacant (see photo – we have two of these bays at our counters) for products they may get. They use a heavy legal stick if you challenge them. From a consumer perspective, Tattersalls forces us to be poor retailers.
The State Government created this problem. The Gaming Minister has been useless in resolving issues. Leaving Tattersalls to treat us in a less than fair way.
I wish Neil Mitchell would take a broader approach on these issues and not just bash Intralot. He is better than the job he has done so far.
GNS Sydney Market Fair this weekend
Tower Systems will have a stand at the GNS Market Fair in Sydney this weekend. We will have support and sales people on hand to answer questions and help you move to the software twice as many newsagents use as any other. We will be demonstrating our new mobile software as well as answering questions on our ePay integration which delivers Optus, Vodafone, Telstra and other mobile product recharge direct to your point of sale softwasre. We are the only software company offering this to newsagents.
The basket builder from behind
The photo on the left is the back of the ACP basket builder stand which I wrote about in my previous blog post this morning. Once we moved this stand yesterday, we realised we have to make good use of the back otherwise it would be dead space in a high traffic area. The result is this display for Men’s Style magazine. While it is nothing too special, we have made it easy for people to buy off the stand – something too often forgotten in retail displays. Once we created the display we realised that we only ever looked at this ACP stand from the front and for too long had missed the opportunity of using the back.
Moving the basket builder stand
We are fortunate to have a basket builder stand from ACP Magazines. This is a stand in which we place popular ACP titles as part of a co-location strategy. The stand is usually at the front of our Frankston store, to attract passers-by. The risk in using the same location is that customers get store blind. Yesterday, we moved the stand to next to the main newspaper display. (Excuse the photo, it’s not the best.) While it partially blocks the entrance to an aisle, we figured this was worth the opportunity of more customers browsing the stand. Change in a business like ours is crucial. We have great traffic but most of it is for a single purpose each visit. Anything we can to to break that and get an extra sale is money in the bank.
Promoting Cleo with gifts
Cleo gets front counter promotion with the exclusive music CD and two eye pencils which come with the latest issue. While we could wait for the publisher promotional push which usually comes in the second week, I’d rather go early. We did this last week with Notebook and sold three times our usual week one number in just three days. This counter position works well for us. We can create a display in less than ten minutes and bank the results.
Optus mobile recharge for eziPass
Click here to see the announcement being sent to all newsagents this afternoon about important developments which will bring Optus mobile recharge to the eziPass platform. This announcement is the culmination of a considerable amount of work involving e-pay Australia, Optus and Tower Systems. It delivers an operational outcome for newsagents which is better than was available through the Bill Express / DialTime terminal. eziPass is available free to all newsagents.
Good Food launches
The Australian edition of BBC Good Food was launched today. The marketing collateral supporting the launch is excellent. It is a good publication, keenly priced and features Gordon Ramsay so it’s bound to do well. I have high expectations that Good Food will shake up the food category as Top Gear has the motoring category. Like with Top Gear, we are chasing more product so we can do the launch justice and run an aggressive co-location strategy and not just at the aisle end.
7-Eleven asks newsagents to stand still
7-Eleven has sent a fax to newsagents today suggesting that they do not commit to any long-term contracts with alternative suppliers should they wish to have the option of resuming the Bill Express service. The letter advises that they expect to know if it is possible for them to take on the business and resume operations within weeks and that they would try and get the network operating shortly thereafter.
I suspect that this communication is reaching newsagents and other merchants too late.
Personal development magazines
The personal development segment of magazines is growing. em power is the latest title to be sent to some newsagents. These are challenging titles to locate. I have seen them in women’s titles and in with business titles in other newsagencies. The supply model is a mystery to me. Lack of range makes it hard to break the various personal development titles out into their own display.
Last call for photos of newsagents
If you want your newsagency represented in the TV commercial I am producing to promote the channel, please send in a high res digital photo ASAP. One daily newspaper has offered to run a full page print version of the ad in several issues free as has a major magazine publisher. This supplier support for the advertising initiative is most welcome.
Foreign newspapers the hero category
Newspapers delivered poor results in the latest sales benchmark study which I published here Friday. The results for the department would have been worse had I extracted foreign newspapers. In more than 60% of newsagencies I have data for they delivered growth. In our Forest Hill store, where we offer more than 30 titles, foreign newspapers delivered a 10% increase in unit sales year on year – excellent growth by any measure. Foreign newspapers are too often regarded as the poor cousins to the capital city dailies. The sales data suggests their readers are more loyal. Foreign newspapers is a category newsagents could do well to research and grow.