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

Author: Mark Fletcher

Synergy in the A&R Borders plan

The announcement yesterday to the NZSX by A&R Whitcoulls about their takeover of the Borders assets sheds some light on their plan:

A&R Whitcoulls Group Managing Director, Ian Draper, said that the Borders business is complementary to the Company’s existing assets, offering a different format from Angus & Robertson in Australia and Whitcoulls in NewZealand.

“Borders’ experience-based model invites customers to browse books,magazines, music and DVDs, with cafes in most stores. It’s a model which has proven popular in the local market, and targets a different demographic with its premium format and wide range of products.”

The transaction is valued at up to A$110 million and is expected to be finalised early next week.

“The acquisition creates a strategic footprint for the group which comprises different formats and provides a foundation for growth and innovation. We are pleased to bring these businesses together and excited about the opportunities presented by this transaction,” said Mr Draper.

“The combined experience, skills and scale of the enlarged Group will create a platform for an expanded and more diverse customer offering across a number of strong brands. The Borders management team have a demonstrated track record of innovation and will be able to make a valuable contribution to the development of the broader group”

Had newsagents established a newsagent owned public company commercial platform years ago as they had planned to do and had this been run on strict commercial terms, it could be newsagents making announcements of strategic expansion plans.  Smart businesses operate multiple formats which seemingly compete yet cleverly support each other.

The A&R Whitcoulls acquisition of Borders means newsagents must revisit their business plans.  I certainly am.

0 likes
Book retailing

iGizmo a hit in the UK

Dennis Publishing’s iGizmo ezine is a hit according to the numbers from the company, launching with 100,000 subscribers. iGizmo is for boys who love gadgets and consumer technology. It’s from the people who publish Monkey – a hugely successful ezine.

Think about it newsagents, two magazine brands and not a drop of ink or a sheet of paper involved. No distribution channel. No retailers. It surprises me that few in our channel talk about these developments. One day we will and with some interesting hindsight.

While I do not think that the Dennis Publishing ezine model will replace print titles in the next few years, it will slow launches, especially to the always-online Gen Y demographic. This is where newsagents and other stakeholders in the print model will feel an impact and why we need to be aware of the disruption caused by these new offers.

0 likes
magazines

Chat crossword titles

chat_june08.JPGThe Chat branded crossword titles are not good sellers in any of our newsagencies.  We are giving them a final chance by placing them away from the crossword section and with the Chat weekly magazine.  With our crossword category growing more than 20% year on year and these Chat titles going nowhere this latest move is their only hope of staying with us.

0 likes
magazines

4 Ingredients cookbook

4_ingred.JPG4 Ingredients is one popular cookbook, according to our customers. Every couple of days we are asked if we have 4 Ingredients in stock. The question leads to a sure sale.

Once we realised its popularity with our demographic we moved 4 Ingredients to the counter from our cookbook area to try and shake out more sales.  The success of this booksays something about word of mouth.

0 likes
marketing

Renovation magazines

renovate_mags.JPGAt our Frankston newsagency we are promoting renovation magazines at the counter. The stand carries twelve to sixteen different titles from the category – all titles which would not usually be promoted at the counter.The idea behind this type of display, besides selling magazines, is to showcase that we are a local business – as opposed to a corporate which does pretty and clinical display.

0 likes
magazines

End of financial year marketing

Here are some sales and marketing tips newsagents could consider in the lead up to the end of the financial year on June 30:

  • End of Financial Year Sale. Nothing too special or complex in this idea. Get together items which are slow movers, bring them to the front of the shop on a table. Pitch them with a healthy discount.
  • Grab a deduction Sale. Put together items for which a tax deduction could be claimed. These items could be certain magazines, business stationery, even newspapers.
  • Prepay and save. Invite your local business customers to prepay for newspaper pickup for months in advance or for photocopying in advance. These expenses can be claimed this year even though the services are rendered next year. There are tax Office rules around the value which can be prepaid.
  • Tax Pack sale. Newsagents give away Tax Packs for the Tax Office. Display these toward the front of the shop with a special stationery offer nearby.
  • Tax Time Clinic. Invite a local accountant or tax agent in for a session of tax advice (with appropriate disclaimers around the advice). They could sit at a able in your newsagency somewhere and take individual questions for, say, five minutes at a time.
  • Tax free lottery. Build a promotion of lottery product around the tax theme. Since prize money is tax free.
  • New Year party. Dress up the shop around June 30 and have a big old celebration. With streamers, poppers and helium filled balloons it could bring some warmth to an otherwise cold winter.
  • New Year resolutions. Setup a white board or some butchers paper and invite customers to write down their new financial year resolutions.
  • New Year coupon. Make up a small business card size discount coupon – 25% off greeting cards, 10% of a magazine … any discount you think will speak to your customer. Call it your Happy New Financial Year Discount. While most customers will not care about the new financial year, enough are sure to engage with your efforts around this.

There are plenty more simple ideas like these. The idea is to seize the opportunity to bring some excitement to the business. Subtly, these promotions remind your customers of your connection with the New Year – diaries, new financial books and other items people are likely to buy around this time.

0 likes
newsagency marketing

Sex and the city in newsagencies

Sex and the city is the hot movie this weekend. We now have four magazines with Sex and the city themed covers and, I am sure, more on the way. One of our stores is on the prowl for a mannequin to bring Sarah Jessica Parker to life in-store.

0 likes
magazines

Questions about Bill Express

The anger of newsagents about the Bill Express mess continues to grow. If what I hear, more groups are forming looking at legal action and more individual newsagents are seeking their own legal advice.

While some are focusing on the agreements newsagents signed, others are focusing on representations made which guided newsagents to sign these agreements. It is this latter focus which is interesting but more complex to consider.

Newsagents preparing to seek advice could benefit from:

  1. Gathering all documentation they have about Bill Express: Agreements, brochures, magazines with articles about Bill Express, letters, file notes and records of phone calls. For example, if you relied on the information in any Express Shop Update such as Issue 3 on July 14 which stated explicitly on page 3 that the $210 a month national advertising screen rebate is a “guaranteed commitment”.
  2. Recalling and recording details of Bill Express related events attended: who invited you, how, what did they say to invite you. Who spoke at the meeting and what did they say.
  3. Recalling and recording details of any other information and or advice upon which you relied in making your decision to go with Bill Express.

Who said what and when in encouraging your decision top commit to Bill Express could be considered of interest by your legal adviser if the information on which you relied has subsequently turned out to be false or misleading.

Newsagents need to present all possible information to those advising them through the current Bill Express issues. Too narrow a focus could result in a missed opportunity.

0 likes
Bill Express

Early art sale

artsale_june08.JPGWe have gone out with an art sale – a couple of weeks earlier than planned because we have space on our “dance floor” calendar.

This is the first time we have promoted our new range at the front of the shop and in the 48 hours since it was put up interest has been good. Change in retail, any change, is good – regulars find products they did not know you have and new customers are drawn to your business.

0 likes
art supplies

A&R to buy Borders?

If CNN Money (and a bunch of other news services) is right, A&R Whitcoulls, the business owned by Pacific Equity Partners and which owns Supanews, is set to acquire the the Borders Australian, New Zealand and Singaporean businesses.  The implications of this move for newsagents is significant and I am sure will be felt for years to come.

0 likes
Book retailing

Good Health magazine at the counter

We have put Good Health at the front counter with its free

fhn_ghealth.JPG

Now we hav this counter space well settled promoting titles with a good giveaway and with more titles to promote, we are looking for additional display opportunities which will work as well.

0 likes
magazines

The good and bad of lottery change

ilot1.JPGNo sooner had Intralot installed the equipment for their new lottery offer to launch July 1 and Tattersalls were in telling us that Intralot cannot have access to any of their space. If we do what Tattersalls want we will have to reduce our counter space by 30%. This is despite Tattersalls having less product than previously. I sure hope that commonsense prevails. Tattersalls is more concerned about rules than commercial outcomes. We give them tremendous coverage outside their area and this drives sales but they don’t care. All they are worried about is Intralot getting some of their space.  We could follow their rules and, at the same time, stop our extra promotion, they’d lose at least 20% of our sales.  Sure we would suffer but Tattersalls would be happy.  Tattersalls ought to treat this as a business decision and treat us as business people.

0 likes
Lotteries

A waste of paper

pc_user_review.JPGThe special edition of PC User – Year’s Best Reviews is a waste of paper.  In many cases, the reviews were out of date when they were first printed.  This reprint collection is even more out of date.  People interested in computer reviews are m ore likely to access reviews online in forums and blogs than buying this magazine.

0 likes
magazines

Starting over

Oh well, Powerball went off.  First division reached $58 million.  That’s some prize.  next week it will be winter between-season retail as usual.  While the OzLotto lottery has jackpotted to $13 million, it’s not enought to generate much interest.

0 likes
Lotteries

The Powerball jackpot hope

I hope that Powerball does not go off tonight. I know that we should want a winner and cheer if that happens but selfishly, another jackpot would be wonderful. The first division prize would reach at least $60 million and possibly as much as $70 million.

A $70 million division one prize would drive newsagencies and other lottery outlets nuts in the next week -good nuts that is.

While I am thrilled with the sales kick this week, another week or two would be fantastic – we are between seasons after all. With Mother’s Day a distant memory, the next major retail activity will be around school holidays and mid year sales. So, the Powerball jackpot is hitting at an excellent time for us. The add-on sales are excellent. Every department in the business is buzzing. Newspaper publishers, magazine publishers, greeting card publishers and other suppliers to newsagents should see a positive impact in their numbers.

Yes, I hope that Powerball does not go off tonight.

0 likes
Lotteries

Powerball magazine promotion

powerball_magazines.JPGThe photo shows the magazine display our team created next to one of our lottery counters at the front of our newsagency.

Each of the magazines connects with the dream and aspirations of winning the $50 million Powerball jackpot.  BRW Rich 200, Wealth, Vacations, Airliner, Mercedes etc.

The jackpot is a good opportunity to show titles which would otherwise not make it to the front of our shop.  I’m not sure what magazines we will display if Powerball does not go off and it jackpots.

We’ll take any tie-in opportunity like this since other magazine retailers – supermarkets and convenience stores – do the bare minimum.

0 likes
magazines

Madonna and SJP and magazine retailing

faces_magazines.JPGWith Madonna on the cover of Vanity Fair and Elle and Sarah Jessica Parker on the cover of Cosmopolitan and Mindfood, it makes sense to place the titles together. This way, fans of the star on the cover are encouraged to buy both titles. Changing magazine placement based on the cover as we have done in the photo is retail 101. The editors choose the stars because of their pulling power right now. We’d be silly to not leverage that for all it is worth. A salable star is more important than the masthead under which they appear.

With the new sex In the City film starting Thursday we are expecting to need a Sarah Jessica Parker section.

0 likes
magazines

The Monthly’s covers

monthly_turnbull.JPGThe Monthly has a track record for successful tips fro recent covers:  Kevin Rudd, Barack Obama, John Howard (exiting) Maxine McKew.  The latest issue has Malcolm Turnbull on the cover.  I wonder if the tradition continues.  Sales wise, The Monthly is traveling well.  Recent audit results show it is a rapidly growing title.  We leverage that by pl;acing it above The Age for the first week of on-sale.

0 likes
magazines

Vogue India a hit

vogue_india.JPGWe decided to add Vogue India to our range of Vogue titles and received our first stock yesterday.  We have one left out of three copies of the current issue.  I’m happy with that and we still four weeks of the on-sale left.

We are working at carefully expanding our magazine range around the categories which we see working – hence the decision to take on Vogue India.   We see ourselves as a magazine specialist.,  If we are to be true to this self applied label we have to constantly expand our range.  I hope all our moves work as well as Vogue India.

0 likes
magazines

International Father’s Day

ifather.JPGWe are promoting International Father’s Day. It is one of the many ‘minor’ seasons to which we are committed to as a greeting card specialist. Wikipedia has an excellent list of when Father’s Day occurs around the world – the list of countries noted to celebrate on the third Sunday in June is considerable.

0 likes
Greeting Cards

Geelong Bride and the newsagent / publisher relationship

bride_geelong.JPGI was in Geelong last night speaking at a newsagent group meeting, sharing strategies for growing magazine sales. The meeting was held at the offices of the Geelong Advertiser. I was impressed with the relationship between the Geelong area newsagents and the Geelong Advertiser. There is clear healthy mutual respect. While the Advertiser does not have a monopoly on such a relation ship with newsagents, it is rare.

Demonstrating the value of the good relationship was Circulation Director Geoff Smith’s pitch about the Advertiser’s Bride magazine. Newsagent commission is 45%. There are reasons for this which Geoff explained. Where other publishers would have understood reasons to pay a premium, they would have stuck with 25% believing that newsagents would complain but do nothing.

The mutual respect in Geelong sees a win win – the publisher hs Bride magazine well represented in the area and newsagents have an opportunity to make additional margin.

I’d like to see newsagents somehow share information among themselves, across regions, about their publisher relationships. I see this encouraging those less fortunate to approach their publisher relationship is a more proactive way and, hopefully, unlock the value I see being experienced in Geelong. As I understand it, several newsagents have nurtured this relationship with the Advertiser. Doing this outside of a more formal Association push might be more useful.

Better relationships with publishers are more likely in regional and rural areas because the mutual dependence is stronger. That said, some newsagents have bee able to leverage good relationships with capital city publishers – but not enough.

0 likes
magazines

Bill Express to do a Lazarus?

A report on Page 62 of today’s Australian Financial Review suggests that the company is close to sorting its woes out. I am interested that the key quotes from Ian Christiansen, CEO of Bill Express, relate to newsagents and that the company compensates us for non performance. Hmm, Bill Express established the terms around which it acquired newsagent locations and it was through these terms that it trained newsagents on the compensation model for taking the Bill Express equipment.

The AFR article tales about possible legal action by newsagents against Bill Express. I am aware of five groups of newsagents working with lawyers and at least another fifteen working individually with lawyers. I’d expect ASIC, the ACCC, the NSW CTTT and several other statutory bodies to be looking closely at Bill Express and, in particular, how newsagents were recruited.

Mobile phone recharge is the largest volume product category sold in newsagencies through the Bill Express equipment. I’d expect that the troubles of the company over the last two months have resulted in a considerable fall in mobile recharge revenue. Many newsagents have gone elsewhere – to ePay, banks and our own eziPass – regardless of the continuing cost of their Bill Express equipment.

0 likes
Bill Express

Mobile recharge marketing collateral

recharge_here.JPGNot much has changed in marketing collateral around mobile phone recharge in newsagencies for years. I see this as a barrier to newsagents achieving better growth from the category.

As with any offer pitched in a retail environment, change is essential. This is even more true in the visually noisy environment of a newsasgency.

To support the ezipass platform in newsagencies, we have started developing several collateral options. Th photo shows one prototype for which we hope to get carrier approval from Telstra, 3 mobile and Virgin mobile. It is a “wobbler” which connects to the back of a register or some other hardware in a high traffic area.

We have four quite diffrent collateral strategies in development and eachhas several execution options. The whole kit, if we roll it out, will bring regular change to how newsagents promote mobile recharge and, we hope, result in a considerable lift in sales.

We are fortunate to have a marketing team in-house creating this and other material.

0 likes
phone recharge
Trending Articles

Fairfax changes approach to TV Guide, disrespects newsagents

Published on April 20, 2011

What do you think of the Powerball changes?

Published on February 16, 2018

IPS releases new magazine contracts

Published on June 21, 2011