Yarn from old newspapers
Greetje van Tiem, a graduate from Design Academy Eindhoven, presented a project that turns old newspapers into yarn that can be woven into a fabric. One page results in 20 yards of twine.
Staples revises Corporate Express offer
Corporate Express has said it’s not happy with Staples’ revised offer. My interest in this courtship by Staples is the possible implications for Australia. Staples arriving here, through CE, would considerably change the stationery landscape.
Competing with ourselves
I’ve been reading the latest Tattersalls rankings with interest. While it is good to compare your sales with others around you, it’s better to compare against your previous rankings. I think of most business people as competitive and these regular sales rankings, benchmarks really, fuel that competitive streak.
Now if only there was a stretch component to this, bonus revenue for above average performance. This would make the additional promotions, displays and other over and above activity which gets lottery outlets performing above average. Sure there is additional commission made from additional sales but this does not make us see the additional sales as something to work significantly harder for.
We are a sales channel. rewarding us as a sales channel would see more newsagents going the extra mile and competition heat up on the regular rankings reports.
The more newsagents are treated as business people and only as bsiness people the more we will act the part.
The theatre of car magazines
The photo shows the latest magazine category promotion at Forest Hill.Â
This display is brilliant retail theatre. The red and blue lights on top of the display of car magazines flash. In the detail around the side are iconic images which connect with cars and those who love them. You notice it from the moment you enter the shop.
Jason and the team conceived and executed this display in-house. There is some competition emerging between Forest Hill and Frankston on these in-house displays.
The only downside is the battery use of the lights – they’re not the most efficient in the world but at $2.95 a light what can you expect?
The single title magazine display
I saw plenty of these metal display stands in
Jewish Living in Frankston
We have started carrying Jewish Living magazine in our Frankston newsagency. This may seem an odd choice for the Frankston demographic. We took the view that if represent ourselves as magazine specialists then titles like this are important to us. So, we now carry Jewish Living. We will watch with interest to see if it works over the next few issues. The only challenge is – where to locate the title.
Newsagency vacancy in Frankston
We’re looking for someone to join our Frankston team to help manage the magazine arrival work Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The total hours each week will be around twenty. I you know someone who is reliable and looking for a long term (i.e. more than two months!) role please have them email simonf@towersystems.com.au.
It is frustrating when you find someone good and they move on just when they get the hang of the intricacies of magazines. While you cannot make someone stay if they have a better offer elsewhere, the labour laws are quite one sided in this regard.Â
Paper vs. plastic for a magazine bag
Marie Claire (UK) is getting in of the environmental act with this issue I saw at Heathrow airport. The headline, This is not a plastic bag stood out, especially when near magazines which were in plastic bags. It takes more to product an environmentally friendly magazine than using a paper bag to hold a magazine and promotional product than just a paper bag. There’s the paper, ink and size to consider. Twelve of the thirties copies on the shelf had rips in their paper bag. It made the product look damaged.
Displaying travel edition titles
With more magazines coming in travel edition size retailers and publishers need to work on better merchandising options. As the photo shows, even in the
I’d prefer to try a travel edition display which supports the smaller size and is placed where the consumer interested in the offer is more likely to look.
Ryman the stationers
If you’re ever in the
I understand the difference in retail in the
The Ryman offer is fascinating, partly because of the stock they fit into a small space. On first glance the stores feel cramped and therefore difficult to shop. Soon, you feel so surrounded that there must be something here to buy. I like the cramped feel. It oozes range. I’ve certainly some away from today with some ideas.
A new way to display ink in-store
The photo shows how they sell ink at FedEx Kinkos in
The staff member I spoke with said they did this because of theft and to cut the time it takes to manage the ink stock. It makes sense, no one is going to steal a worthless tag. On the labour cost, keeping the stock in the back room reduces display time and space.
I am not sure I would go with this in a newsagency. There is something to be said for customers being able to see, touch and feel the products for themselves. Sure, theft will be higher but there are ways to manage for that.
Having the product on display in-store makes for a more impressive display than the tags you can see in the Kinkos display.
Music with your newspaper
There is irony in musicians using newspapers to distribute free copies of their work. Both channels (print and packaged music) are in transition as they face considerable disruption from new models. The Sunday Times today in London comes with a CD with 13 music tracks and bonus video. For Moby it’s a way of promoting his new CD, last night, and for the newspaper it continues their addiction on Sundays to giveaways.
Unlike in Australia, the CD is in the newspaper. It’s inside a sealed plastic bag packed with a magazines and brochures. There there is a second plastic bag with other parts of the newspaper. In all, The Sunday Times is made up of seventeen inserted items. This must be an awful problem for newsagents and other retailers as well as those delivering these over-sized products.
The Sunday Times is not the only oversized Sunday newspaper here in London. Most are as bloated. It is as if they are fighting relevance by being fat, thinking that size equates to value. Even before I saw a Sunday paper today I had more up to date news on my phone and from surfing a couple of news websites. The stories in print were out of date.
While a Moby CD is nice, I doubt it is enough to get enough people to buy a newspaper. The long term solution to that can be found in core content alone.
Displaying newspapers full face
This is a typical newspaper display in London supermarkets from what I have seen here today. The display of the entire front cover of newspapers on offer makes for a good display. I don’t see this working in a newsagency with considerable volume – restocking would be too expensive. But in a convenience store or a newsagency with low newspaper volume it could work. I’d also look at trying it as a co-location strategy, maybye on a stand I can move around the shop but still keeping the traditional flat stack. The stand would not have to be that wide given we have fewer dailies than here in London.
Promoting magazines in the UK
Check out the video produced by the Periodical Publishers Association in the UK to promote Magazine Week.
Magazine Week (Sept. 29 – Oct. 5) this year links with The National Year of Reading in an effort to boost literacy.Magazine Week is a great initiative. It boosts attention on magazines and the literacy connection underscores value beyond guilty pleasure.
How we do business
I have been in communication with a business in India and considering purchasing some products from them. It is interesting to experience different business customs in emails and on the phone. A good example of this is an email I received from this supplier yesterday. It was a reminder to consider their products. However, before they got down to business they had a Mother’s day message:
A man stopped at a flower shop to order some flowers, to be wired to his mother who lived 200 miles away. As he got out of his car, he noticed a young girl sitting on the curb sobbing. He asked her what was wrong and she replied , I wanted to buy a red rose for my mother. But I only have 75 cents and a rose costs 2 dollars. The man smiled and said, bœcome in with me, I’ll buy you a rose.
He bought the little girl her rose and ordered his own mother flowers. As they were leaving , he offered her ride home. She said, yes please, you can take me to my mother.â€Â She directed him to a cemetery, where she placed the rose on a freshly dug grave.
The man returned to the flower shop, canceled the wire order, picked up a bouquet and drove the 200 miles to his mother’s house.
There is a sensitivity in how business is conducted in some countries which makes me pause some days. Sure, I’ve been sent similar emails to the one copied above, but not by someone I am discussing business with…
Two approaches to promoting Good Health
In our Frankston store we have displayed Good Health magazine next to one of the Mother’s Day card displays we have in store. We co-locate Mother’s Day cards to drive sales and we wanted a non-traditional add on gift. hence the decision to display Good Health. We know from the demographic buying the magazine that it is a good fit. We have a promotional table with Mother’s Day gifts nearer to our main card display – the display in the photo is right to the front of the store and is designed for rushed shoppers.
At our Forest Hill store we have Good Health displayed at our counter, in the position reserved for titles with what we consider to be good free gifts. The display in the photo was put up yesterday.
How the Net clobbered U.S. media
Alan Mutter has a must read post on how inexpensive broadband in the US is clobbering the newspaper business. Broadband knows no boundaries. Australian newsagents and publishers cannot ignore what is happening in the US.
Why stationery is the perfect gift
Check our Michelle’s Bumpercards stationery blog for a post about why stationery is truly the perfect gift at any age. There are several ideas of reasons to promote stationery – thank you cards and other social stationery items – in a demographic pitch. Once you’re read the ideas about stationery, look at the products she designs – funky!
Powerball almost sweet
Since my posts here about the $40 million oZlotto jckpot several newsagents have reviewed their numbers and have contacted mt to agree that a jackpot above $20 million is when significant traffic and sales growth starts. The Powerball jackpot this coming week, while good, is one we hope does not go off.
If it does not go off the jackpot will reach $30 million next and then we retailers in for a good time. that said, we’re pushing the $20 million jackpot hard.
Bill Express’ BOPO platform down
A customer loaded their BOPO card here in Australia with cash. Their friend overseas tried to withdraw cash from the BOPO account, as they have done previously, without success. Several calls later, the customer has been told by BOPO representatives that the platform is down. This is just another challenge for Bill Express – the BOPO operation is a subsidiary of the company – in what is a very difficult time for the company.
UPDATE: The withdrawal has now worked. So, the customers remain nervous but are happy they could access their cash once again.
Running out of instant lottery tickets
In the Sunday Age on the weekend there was some poor reporting about the arrival of Intralot and their take over of some soft gambling products in newsagencies and other businesses. Change can be difficult to navigate. The key is to remain focused on the longer term goal. Worrying now about short term situations will waste too much time.
We, newsagents, Intralot and Tattersalls are navigating moving from a supplier who has owned the space for more than 10 years to someone who is just setting up in Victoria. All sides need to be accommodating. All sides are progressing the issues involved. More complete reporting by the Sunday Age would have uncovered this.
If you’re a regular here and are surprised by me saying I am looking forward to Intralot, I genuinely am. I’m a pragmatist. I was against them getting approval from the Government because of the threat to moving lottery sales outside the newsagency and small business channels. Once the decision was made it was time to move on. Now, I am excited by the opportunity the change affords us.
Who TV campaign
It’s great to see Pacific Magazines getting behind Who magazine with a major TV campaign. This gives us something to play in-store to draw attention to the title and connect with what consumers will have seen on TV.
Who is an important title not only for the product itself but also its Friday release. This drives additional weekend traffic.
Great counter up-sell
Dogs and cats can sell anything. Take these tiny pads we have at the counter. At $1.00 each they are more valuable than any candy and they sell like candy – great stock turn, great GP. While bigger ticket items can be more interesting, these loose-change items can provide a better return. While it may seem odd to take time to write about small cheap pads in a newsagency, the reality is that the return achieved makes them valuable and the success worth sharing.
Green office products
OfficeMax in the US has announced that they will carry a range of “green” office products from Terra Cycle. Made from recycled materials, these products are as good for the OfficeMax image as they are for the environment. The story of getting good media attention in the US.
In Hong Kong last week I noticed several stationery products suppliers offering green ranges. These products are available to us.
This is a space in which newsagents should be playing – not only carrying green stationery and home office products but talking about it in the media as OfficeMax in the US has done this mast week. We should lead on this in Australia.
Plastic bags are not the only environment related issue for retailers, it’s about the products we sell. We can demonstrate leadership fropm our shop floor through the choices we provide consumers.