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

Author: Mark Fletcher

Gourmet Traveller restaurant guide

fhn_gourmet_sep08.JPGThe 2009 Restaurant Guide which comes free with the latest issue of Gourmet Traveller qualifies it for premium counter space at Forest Hill this week. It is a happy coincidence that our pick is also being promoted through the ACP Connections program – hence providing excellent collateral material for our use.

This front counter space continues to deliver good results for us, helping to reinforce our pitch as magazine specialists and to drive good sales outcomes.

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magazines

New title for working mums

working_mums.JPGACP Magazines launched The working mums guide to happy kids today.  This is a timely release given that parenting titles are enjoying strong sales.  We have placed working mums in the parenting segment as well as next to Woman’s Day – we figured this was logical given the brand connection.  Parenting is a challenging segment to locate.  Like health titles, I am sure a co-location strategy would deliver good results.

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magazines

Missing the magazine

retro.JPGThere are four magazines in this photo.  With three you can see the masthead but with the fourth, just below EGM, there is no idea as to the title.  It is actually a collection from Retro Gamer.  This is why we placed it next to the parent title.  If we had not picked this up it would have risked being lost in the sea of titles.  As it is, browsers will need to pick up the title.

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magazines

Branding the store

branding.JPGThe stand I remember most from the GNS Market Fair in Melbourne two weekends ago is the stand by Vodafone – not because it was opposite out stand but because it’s branding was the strongest. They are in control of the visual in a bold and memorable way.

While we can make excuses as to why newsagencies are not as well branded, the reality is that many newsagents do not look at and work on the branding of their businesses. Too often, we follow the rules laid down by suppliers and create billboards for them rather than our own businesses. We do this out of laziness, ignorance or fear.  I have found suppliers willing to embrace new ideas around in-store promotion which respect store brand ahead of a supplier brand.

While we cannot brand our businesses around a single offer such as Vodafone, the strength of their visual must give us reason to pause and look at our own businesses.

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marketing

Father’s Day marketing

sr_fd3.JPGThe photo shows the Father’s Day marketing collateral we have created for our Sophie Randall card and gift businesses – the sign on the left side of the photo.  They are the result of a collaborative effort and reflect the style we feel best represents the Sophie Randall brand around the Father’s Day season.  The small signs are easy to install – they have a fold out stand at the back.  By completing the design to finished art in-house we have been able to contain costs for our group of four stores.

The Sophie experience continues to open opportunities in our newsagencies, beyond what one might expect.  We are appreciating learning about brand management, multi-store operations management and merchandising. We have a long way to go.  Father’s Day is the first season in a year and a half at this that we feel we are close to where we would like to be.

One decision we made early on which we remain happy with today is that our brand is most important. This is why you will see Father’s Day collateral around our brand and not that of another supplier.  While I applaud supplier support in the from of good marketing collateral for newsagencies, sometimes the visual noise from supplier competition for attention is overwhelming.  Hence, our decision in the Sophie businesses for a more constrained approach.

Customer reaction of the Father’s Day collateral has been excellent.

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marketing

Promoting Who with the CD

who_counter.JPGWho magazine comes with a free CD this week.  It is an excellent giveaway but with counter space already taken we have created space at our main lottery counter to promote the title.  While this is not as bold as our usual promotional display, I expect sales will reflect good results for us in this premium counter placement.

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magazines

Strawberry shortcake part series

strawbshort.JPGWhile I am pleased to see TV promotion for the Strawberry Shortcake part series, I am disappointed that this is not tagged to newsagents as is usually the case for part series advertising. We are actively promoting this product in-store.  Sales would be better if the advertising directed consumer interest to newsagencies.

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Newsagency challenges

Promoting newspapers

In the Newsagency Sales benchmark Report which was published last week I listed some ideas for promoting newspapers in newsagencies. I re-publish them here for interest. Consider these ideas a start. A big risk to newspaper sales in newsagencies is lack of action by newsagents.

  • Co-locate your top selling newspaper. In addition to the main newspaper display, consider a stand next to your busiest counter. Be sure to move this stand around – regular customers become store blind. Some publishers will supply you the stand for this.
  • Find a way to display a feature magazine above each of your major daily newspapers.
  • Find a way to display a magazine category feature next to your newspaper display – change this at least every two weeks. The display should feature a category which speaks to the typical newspaper customer. Categories which work well are crosswords, cooking, cars and weeklies. This approach helps you get more value from newspaper traffic.
  • Move your newspaper display. Consider using a unit on castors so moving can be easily achieved.
  • Once three months create a major display around a newspaper. Choose a time when there is appropriate coverage such as: the Olympics, football finals, school holidays. Find a reason to embrace, promote and feature newspapers rather than treating them as a chore to the business.
  • Talk to your newspaper representative about a giveaway promotion. They usually have showbags and other marketing tools available to help you drive better sales.
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marketing

Dad’s magazines

fhn_fday_mags.JPGContinuing with tradition, our team at Forest Hill has created a display of Dad’s magazines as part of our Father’s Day offer. We have included a variety of titles to appeal to different ages of Dads as to serve different interests. This display is as important to us as our displays of cards and gifts.

Beyond promoting magazines as a good Father’s Day gift, this display reinforces our pitch around magazine range – a pitch which is crucial if we are to consider ourselves magazine specialists.

We have been promoting magazines as Father’s Day gifts for years with great succes, often leading to sell-out situations for issues for which there would otherwise be returns.

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magazines

Promoting That’s Life

tlt5_box.JPGIt was a smart move by Pacific Magazines to provide a display unit to newsagents for That’s Life. With That’s Life and Take 5 looking so similar, this display unit draws attention to That’s Life. If other newsagencies are like mine, around 60% of sales see both titles sold together.

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magazines

Congratulations to ANF Board for repaying overpayments

I am glad to be in a position where I can congratulate the Board of the Australian Newsagents’ Federation for repaying overpayments made during May 2008 in respect of daily sitting fees.

ANF Board members are paid for $250 each sitting day for every Board meeting conducted.

This fee was approved several years ago by an annual general meeting of the ANF in accordance with Clause 32 of the Constitution.

It was suggested to me some weeks ago that all ANF Directors were paid for three sitting days in May, at the time of the ANF Convention on the Gold Coast, when the ANF Board in fact only sat for one day.

After representations from me, the matter was resolved by agreement to refund the overpayment to the ANF by not taking a sitting fee for the next Boards meeting.

I would welcome the ANF agreeing to having payments to Board members subject to independent audit.

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Newsagency challenges

Newsagents miss the training opportunity

I think it is time newsagents took ownership of the training delivered about running a newsagency. The five day training course run by the ANF sees the bulk of the money paid by newsagents to the ANF flow to the trainer who, as I understand it, owns much of the course content. Some of the content itself is, as one recent attendee told me, not practical to running a newsagency. I’d like to us develop genuinely valuable training which we as a channel own.

The training I envisage would be in addition to a more formal Certificate IV in Retail, it would be newsagency specific and focus on our unique processes with a goal of helping new newsagents and new managers to better manage their businesses.  It is training which could be delivered in modules and be useful through the life of a newsagent.

The content would be newsagent (and not supplier) controlled.

Too many newsagents are doing the ANF training and hitting a brick wall six months later when facing issues they training did not cover yet which are common to our businesses.

The current ANF training has served its purpose and it is time for newsagents to take control.

We introduced online training at Tower Systems earlier this year.  Our magazine management workshop has been particularly successful.  It covers the technical and operational aspects of managing magazines.  That it is online, single topic focused and relatively short in duration means newsagents are able to learn and apply in quick succession – knowing the course will be rerun in a few days if they want a refresher or to discuss what they have done and ask questions.

By the end of this year, Tower will have run more than 130 online training workshops for newsagents.  This speaks to the success of online as a delivery platform for newsagent training.  Of interest to some will be news that we are about to launch a Mandarin online training course.

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Customer Service

The Father’s Day pitch

frank_dad2.JPGThe photo shows one of our Father’s Day displays in our Frankston newsagency. This particular display is for our range of Morish confectionery including the popular Dad’s Nuts bag. I like the products and the display because they pitch a significant point of difference from the retailers around us and a significant departure from what one expects to see in a newsagency. Differentiation is vitally important in any business, even more so in newsagencies. As more retailers have taken on products traditionally exclusive to newsagents we have neglected to chase differentiation.

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confectionary

Get ready for Staples

Staples now owns Corporate Express. I’d expect to see their brand have a local presence within the next year or so. An entry by Staples in the retail stationery channel would shake at Australian market up considerably. See the company’s latest press release for some more detail on international moves.

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Stationery

Bangkok Post and stuck-on ads

100_4079.JPGI 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 Fairfax has been using in Australia. The gum holding the ad to the newspaper caused less damage when the ad was removed.

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newspaper masthead desecration

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.

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. Newsagent changed supply figures not to be altered without reference to newsagent unless such change absolutely supported by sales data.
  6. No cut of supply below current recorded net sales.
  7. No reissue within six months of last issue of a title.
  8. Delayed billing of at least 30 days for any new title.
  9. Returns to be credited within 48 hours of provision of electronic returns data or 7 days of provision of physical returns form.
  10. 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.

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magazine distribution

Promoting Men’s Health

fhn_menshealth.JPGWe 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.

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magazines

Blocking magazines

blocking_others.JPGIt 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.

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magazines

Great Father’s Day Gift

waymore_dad_gift.JPGKwiknotes is a great Father’s Day gift our team has sourced from Waymore. It’s a small whiteboard which clips on the sun viros in a car. It sells for under $3.00 with a fantastic margin. It’s the kind of gift kids could buy from pocket money. I have no connection with Waymore.

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Gifts

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.

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Newsagency challenges

How animals have sex

animal_sex.JPGHow animals have sex is one of the books we had in our recent book sale. I thought it would cause complaints. Then I saw how a couple of older customers having a good laugh. The same is true with “dirty” cards. It is good seeing customers enjoying products on display.

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retail

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.

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Ethics

The magazine opportunity

fhn_mags_aug18.JPGWhile 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 Gardens, Australian handyman, Men’s Health, Women’s Health – these and other titles in the top 20. Plus categories like health, food and gardening. It is in managing and promoting these categories around the growth titles where newsagents can do well.

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.

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magazines
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