We setup book sales in Frankston and Forest Hill yesterday and as these things usually go, customers were buying stock as we opened the boxes. In each store we did close to $500. For a Tuesday without any external marketing this is good for setup day.
We know from our experience that the best way to sell books is on tables as shown in the photo.
Tattersalls withdrew all remaining instant scratch ticket stock in Victorian Monday, leaving 40% of the counter space allocated in our Forest Hill store empty with no prospects of new product. A threatening letter from their Senior Corporate Solicitor Monday indicates that they intend to fight to retain “their” space. Dead counter space is commercial suicide. I hope that commonsense prevails. In the meantime, Tony Robinson, the Minister for Gaming continues to sit on his hands.
VANA sent a fax to Victorian newsagents yesterday saying it was not involved in the newsagent meeting tomorrow about Bill Express. They could have been involved but they chose not to – probably because their agreement with the ANF precludes them acting against the ANF.
The ANF is pursuing one avenue of possible legal action on the Bill Express matter. There is advice to suggest newsagents may be well served with taking a less restricted view.
If you are a Victorian newsagent and you have Bill Express then I urge you to attend the meeting tomorrow:
Thursday June 19 at 11am
Crest on Barkly Hotel, Barkly Street St Kilda
There is news to report about a possible legal case based on advice which has not been nobbled. Thre is also news to report on ACCC activity around the Bill Express issue.
For more further information, please contact: Adam de Jong, Romsey News and Lotto. Mobile 0417 383 730 or Mark Fletcher, newsXpress Forest Hill. Mobile 0418 321 338.
We are lucky in Frankston to have three good magazine display opportunities otherwise Gourmet Traveller’s Wine magazine would miss this great display by Rhonda. While sales will not be amazing, it is important we promote titles like this to show that have diversity beyond what our demographic usually purchases. The cover of this issue of Wine makes for a bold display. Check out the wine bottle on the lower right corner.
To connect with the Melbourne Wedding and Bride Expo our Frankston team created this display of wedding magazines near our counter to connect with their popularity. It looks fantastic!
We are using a new stand which takes less space and allows for faster creation of these displays – important given the labour cost of the various displays newsagents complete every week.
We sell more than half our weeklies off the counter at Frankston and this display is right near this high-traffic weeklies area. The two feed off each other. This is the type of display I mean when I write that newsagencies need to up-sell in the store layout. Too many are set and forget businesses where customers become store blind.
The publisher of Inc. magazine tested a new pricing model with 5,000 potential subscribers by inviting them to decide the price they would pay for a subscription. Athena Schindelheim reports in Inc. that the test was a dud. It is an interesting test for a magazine publisher though.
We are promoting all the magazines connected with the Euro 2008 international soccer tournament at our newsXpress Forest Hill store. The display in the photo is on the front corner of our counter – the best spot in the shop.
This is a great opportunity to remind people visiting our shop of the range of soccer related titles we have in-store and that we’re up with Euro 2008 news.
The display supports not only magazine sales but also assists foreign language newspaper sales, Western Union transfers, ethnic card giving occasions and several other categories in-store. It demonstrates a connection which is hard to pitch in any other way.
I don’t see our efforts as anything other than what should be expected of a magazine specialist.
It was a tough choice as to which title-with-a-giveaway to promote in the real-estate we have set aside for this purpose. Famous, Madison and In Style all have excellent giveways appropriate to their demographic.
We have decided to promote In Style and the free fashion belt being given away with the magazine for our counter offer. We made the decision based on sales in our store and our assessment of ease of impulse purchase of this at the counter.
Madison did not miss out, it is featured on a power end as part of an ACP Connections promotion.
I’d be interested in hearing from any newsagents in Victoria who have received communication from Tattersalls in the last week or so about their in-store Tattersall’s Dedicated Area. You can reach me by email on mark@towersystems.com.au.
January-May at Forest Hill looks good compared to January-May 2007. Number of sales is up 4%; Average sale value is up 16% – as a result of selling more items and some for a better price. We focus on traffic, items and margin – nothing smart in that.
While of magazines are up 8%, we are relying less on this category thanks to expansion of Ink and Toner (up 63%), Art (up 130%), Books (up 247%), Bill Payment (up 31%) and
This analysis is important to us because we are our key competitor. While this should be true for every newsagency, that I blog here so much about what we do it is important to see that it is working.
There is some not so good news in the numbers: Newspapers are down 3%; Stationery down 5% and Confectionery down 7%. Stationery is the department we accept the most responsibility for. I’d note, however, that stationery sales are low and the 7% is under $5,000 in revenue.
Many newsagents I know look at their numbers once a year when the accountant has done the figures. Any good point of sale system can produce the kind of comparison I use in seconds. It’s essential to good newsagency management.
While the growth we are tracking is good, it is soon eaten up by annual rises in wages and rent. These days we need to innovate just to cover the growing cost of doing business.
The phones have run hot today following the announcement of a newsagent only meeting in Melbourne this Thursday, June 19, to discuss Bill Express. The most common feedback is – at last newsagents are doing something. Some newsagents who cannot make the meeting are pledging an amount they are happy to contribute to independent legal representation.
A newsagent-only meeting about Bill Express has been organised for Thursday of this week. The purpose of the meeting is to provide newsagents with information and a forum through which a course of action can be considered. The meeting details are:
Thursday June 19 at 11am
Crest on Barkly Hotel, Barkly Street St Kilda
The planned agenda for the meeting is:
The meeting is anticipated to run for 90 minutes. While everyone has their own stories about Bill Express, this meeting will be focused on achieving group wide consensus and moving forward collectively as quickly as possible on the best outcome for newsagents.
As this is a newsagent only meeting, attendees will be required to register on arrival.
Newsagents are asked to bring to the meeting photocopies in a folder marked with your details evidence which we could provide to a lawyer should the meeting decide to proceed: Bill Express related agreements, promotional literature, of notes of conversations with anyone who recommended Bill Express to you.
For more further information, please contact: Adam de Jong, Romsey News and Lotto. Mobile 0417 383 730 or Mark Fletcher, newsXpress Forest Hill. Mobile 0418 321 338.
We pitch Time and Newsweek with our newspapers for at least a couple of days a week. It is real hit and miss though. For years sales of these and other current affairs titles used to be consistent. Now, with their content available online, sales are cover driven – hence our placement above our two home-town daily newspapers.
New Idea comes with a free pack of breakfast cereal today include the magazine, making it quite bulky and difficult to display in traditional fixturing.
We are using this as an opportunity to place New Idea right at the front of the shop and to help us out with a display issue – we can;t fit all the stock on our shelves as would usually be the case.
Note the display unit – it’s now seven months old and is still holding up well.
Two of our newsagencies have recently started selling Met tickets – the tickets used for public transport here in Victoria. This move is part of the advance work for retailers who plan to sell Myki cards and top ups. What is intresting to me is the sales growth in Met tickets in each newsagency. Without any serious promotion, sales have grown quickly in a short time. More than 50% of the time tickets are sold with other items. This adds to their efficiency and makes the micro margin easier to digest.
Retail as being about balance. It is up to us to drive sales of higher margin items to Met ticket customers. the same is true for lottery sales, bill payment and mobile phone recharge. While I could easily refuse small margin service type items, my view is that we are better off with them and the traffic they bring than to risk losing the traffic altogether. I appreciate that this means we may be abused. To counter that we work harder at making the most of it.
The extended Tower Systems family grew today with the arrival of Gypsy Rose May, a second child for Simon May, our Technical Services Manager, and his wife April. Gypsy is a welcome sister for James. Born this morning at 9:41am, Gypsy weighs 3.2Kg and measures 47cm. Gypsy and Mum are well. Dad is over the moon!
Apologies if you read this at the Tower Blog already.
Hardly a day goes by at Forest Hill without a customer asking how Luke is doing. They’re referring to Luke Corbin who left to teach English in Vietnam and travel the world. Luke managed magazines for us at Forest Hill for two years, putting him in touch with most of our customers over that time. He juggled near full time work with studies at LaTrobe University.
In retail, you are only as good as your last customer service contact. Luke was exceptional in the eyes of our customers. They are genuine in their interest in his travels and whether he will return. Judging by his blog, Vietnam is proving to be everything he hoped.
Years ago I saw that partwork titles were an opportunity for newsagents and pursued better management tools within our Tower Systems software. While the road has been occasionally rocky due to supply side issues, we have exclusive proprietary software which helps newsagents increase the sales of partworks, better manages the challenges and nurtures happier customers. This is not sales spin from the owner of a software company, no, it’s how I see it in my own newsagencies.
Partwork customers are efficient customers for a newsagency, considerably more so than any other magazine customers. I discovered this in our first basket research eight years ago. Partwork buyers are at least 33% more likely to purchase other product in your newsagency. Once I had that data it was imperative we help newsagents who want to drive better businesses to better manage the category. Now, with our exclusive partworks tools we have newsagents pulling customers away from other newsagents who see partworks as a chose they would be happier without.
Partwork publishers in the UK, their Australian agent and local magazine distributors like what we are doing. This is what helps us produce better outcomes in the partworks category for newsagents using Tower Systems software. It will drive further changes this year as we stay ahead of the game chasing better outcomes for newsagents who get behind the partwork opportunity.
There are no other magazine titles advertised on national TV where newsagents are the exclusive retail outlet. How many other suppliers advertise our channel like that? While some newsagents complain that we are used to drive subscription sales, the sales numbers and profitability of partwork titles in my newsagencies and others I work with is proof that the current model works – if you drive it hard and with the right technology at the store level.
We are business people and we need to run our newsagencies as business people. Partwork titles are an excellent business opportunity. Over the next month or so we will see Shrek, Dora Dress Up and Go, and, the Australian Movie Collection. Each one of these is an opportunity to connect with new customers because our newsagencies are known as the partwork title specialists in the area. Each new customer brings new opportunities.
Take the new Columbo partwork series. We sold out of issue 1 and have more on the way. We expect that between 5 and 8 regulars will emerge from the initial promotion. Multiple the value of their sales and the add on business and you can soon see the importance to the business of well managed partworks.
If this blog post reads to you as an advertisement, it is. I am proud that we are able to use the software we create to give newsagents a competitive edge. It is a competitive market after all.
Talking retail reports that Irish newsagents are angry that the publisher of the Belfast Telegraph has taken home delivery away from them in favour of a direct to consumer approach. The publisher is offering a “modest” fee for home delivery data from newsagents. It’s all about cutting costs in the supply chain.
Bill Express (BXP) owes me close to $2,000 in unpaid fees for each of my newsagencies. These debts are growing by an estimated $500 a month across the two businesses. In the four months that Bill Express has not paid the Advertising Rebate it guaranteed in writing in 2003, its indebtedness to newsagents for this has increased by at least $3 million. Its indebtedness is considerably higher if you add in the rebate tied to the equipment lease – estimated to be at least $3.5 million.
While the Bill Express directors will argue to the ANZ and other key creditors that they do not owe the money to newsagents, courts will be left to decide that. Newsagents are stumping up cash to fund various legal moves against Bill Express. With in excess of $6 million at stake and this accruing by more than $1 million a month it is no wonder newsagents are prepared to fund legal action.
My speculation is that the question over the company’s growing financial exposure to newsagents is one reason their mooted restructure has been stalled. I would expect that creditors would want to know that the Bill Express hole is not getting deeper by the month before they agree to new financing arrangements. Creditors would be well advised to talk direct to newsagents.
When I signed for Bill Express I did so on the basis that the Advertising Rebate of $210 was guaranteed. The company stopped paying this guaranteed rebate in February without reason. At the same time it advised it would withhold around 30% of my bill payment commission to advertise the service. No advertising has been done. I want the 30% back so I can put it to better use in my business.
In the meantime, I am contributing to a group legal action against the company.
We are out if instant scratch tickets as are most newsagents and other lottery outlets in Victoria. Tattersalls say we cannot use the space for anything else even though they do not have new product approved by the State Government for this space. Premium counter real-estate is left looking pathetic – see the photo I took yesterday.
Tattersalls is not responding to our concerns nor is the State Government. While these two parties ignore the problem, retailers are left looking bad to their customers. I think we will have to take matters into our own hands if we are to maintain a professional retail presence at the counter.
Steve Outing writing at reinventingclassifieds.com speculates that the Apple iPhone could be a good platform through which to deliver access to smart classifieds. His Garage Sale example demonstrates how the iPhone and other similarly enabled devices can kill many categories of print classifieds once handset use is widespread:
Design a garage sale iPhone app that will pull in ads for local garage sales and map them. (This app would — no, must — bring in ads from the local newspaper AND other sources, especially free-classifieds sites like Craigslist and Kijiji.) Utilizing iPhone 3G’s new GPS functionality and ability to show map directions, the app would be a fantastic tool when driving around on a Saturday morning looking for garage sales.
The arrival o the iPhone in Australia is very exciting. It is a disruptive device to old media businesses like newsagencies and maybe we will start to take notice of how the world is changing.
The eziPass stand alone product, a platform competitive to Dialtime from Bill Express, was shipped a week ago to 50 newsagencies in advance of wider release. This is in addition to the 500+ Tower newsagents using eziPass integrated with their point of sale software. The free eziPass platform can be installed on just about any Windows computer with a broadband connection. It turns the computer into the equivalent of a Dialtime or ePay type terminal – dispensing phone cards and other product.
