Some low-life stole the top from the the soft toy on the right. How pathetic is that?
It’s no wonder newsagents and other retailers become bitter about browsers sometimes. Behavior like this – stealing a top off a soft toy – is appalling. It is difficult to stop.
Oh well, we’ll offer the naked soft toy for a discount and if that fails it will go to a local charity for their op shop.
I am not the only newsagent complaining that since ACP Magazines took an investment position in OK! magazine Australia, supplies had been cut back. Some newsagents complain of selling out. OK! is a title with a slow decay over the seven day on-sale period – slower than other weeklies. This slower decay in newsagencies means that having good supplies until the end of the on-sale is important – otherwise we cannot adequately display the title and draw interest.
If the publishers of OK! want to grow sales in newsagencies they need ot go back to the supply model of prior to the ACP investment.
This Detox Cookbook now in newsagencies across Australia is a timely offer from ACP – right after the indulgences of Christmas and New Year.
We have created a display at the counter of our newsagencies to tap into the guilt. I’d rather sell out quickly than have the title linger on the shelves too long.
I was talking with a customer at our boxed Christmas card table today and she was telling me how pleased she was that more card companies offered boxed cards as a fund raiser for charities. Her preference was for the Smith Family and thankfully we helped her support them.
My conversation this morning made me wonder what this move by the major card companies has had on traditional charity card outlets? It also reminded me that for Christmas 2008 we need to find a more practical way to connect with the charities for which card sales raise funds. I have a couple of ideas we might try.
By the way – boxed Christmas cards continue to sell well!
I am curious as to how a ‘production error’ with the latest issue of Unique Cars can result in newsagent supply being cut back and that of their competitors not. Maybe I am jumping at shadows. If I am, given the noise among newsagents about the cost of lost sales, these are expensive shadows.
Why are newsagents starved of stock of top sellers by ACP yet their distribution subsidiary, Network Services, oversupplies newsagents with bottom selling titles. It’s all about cash I guess, that and the weakness of newsagents.
If ACP Magazines wants to kill the newsagency channel then it going about it the right way. Emotive? Sure. ACP execs ought to buy a newsagency and experience life on the other side. I guarantee it would change home they deal with newsagents.
Good to see the Herald Sun provide coverage this morning to moves by the Victorian State Government to cut revenue earned by newsagents for selling transport tickets.
The anti-small business moves by the Victorian Government follow those of State Governments in New South Wales, Queensland and elsewhere. To these governments, their profit is more important than fairness for small business. Indeed, the decisions by each of the State Governments have jobs at risk.
The challenge for newsagents is that a key retail competitor, 7-Eleven has signed to sell Myki cards and top-up. The TTA has made it easier for 7-Eleven by integrating with their software. Newsagents are yet to see progress on this. This is important since reducing operational costs like this at the newsagency could help make the cut to income more palatable.
My comments on Myki since the announcement in September 2006 can be found here.
There was a time when address books and other social stationery items such as special-purpose and generic were popular in newsagencies. Today, thanks to poor ranging by many newsagents and some suppliers and greater competition from other retailers, we are not the go to place for social stationery we once were. We are certainly not making the sales we could.
This category is a good example of how the actions of some newsagents impact others. If enough poorly range and manage social stationery then those who do it well will not be considered by customers who have had a bad experience elsewhere. Sure, those who do it well will grow sales to their customers and those who do find them, but people looking for an interesting address book and walking past their store for the first time are not likely to consider checking the range.
Getting a bigger share of the social stationery marketplace would require concerted effort by newsagents not in the space and traditional newsagent suppliers. We have no one to blame but ourselves if we are not happy with the current situation.
I have picked on social stationery because it’s a category we should be doing better in and one which we could easily fix. All it takes is for us, collectively, to act as retailers.
Outside the newsagency the signage promotes one brand of newsagency marketing group while inside posters and other materials promote another. This appears to be happening more often – newsagencies trading under two competing brands. No wonder customers get confused.
I cannot understand why marketing groups would accept money from newsagencies promoted under another brand. Does it mean the newsagent does not want to be known as the other brand? Does it mean both brands are undisciplined?
Lack of discipline is a huge challenge at the store level and for our channel nationally.
Heights scare me. No, they freak me out.
Two days ago, on I walked the Tahune Forest Air Walk, and survived.
It was while I was hanging on for dear life, thinking that with the next sway the structure would collapse and I crash to the ground, that I wondered why many newsagents do not feel the fear I fear when it comes to the future of our channel? Don’t get me wrong, the fear is not debilitating, I see change as an opportunity, something to embrace.
All around us are signs that our traditional model is challenged: publishers are spending big on moving their readers from print to online; newspaper publishers are chasing more outlets and playing with free models as print advertising revenue falls in relevance compared to online; Gerry Harvey is about to enter the stationery retail space; lotteries are no longer a monopoly; Australia Post is pushing further into the traditional newsagent domain; and our key suppliers appear unprepared to help us cut costs out of our business model and thereby deny us the opportunity of fair competition.
While there are many successful newsagents experiencing excellent growth, I’d estimate this group to be less than 5% of the total newsagent community. Hence my surprise that so many are doing it tough hey they do not share my fear. Is it because they don’t see the changes I see or is it ignorance? I wish I knew.
When I was high in the air I could see what scared me. Newsagents often tell me they would rather not know about the impact of the Internet on newspaper and magazine sales. They say knowing this does not help their business.
The changes I mentioned – Gerry Harvey, Australia Post, newspaper sales falling, lotteries, etc can be handled if we, collectively, see and understand them and leverage or existing assets for ourselves. Ignorance is not bliss.
This means being tougher with suppliers who want to access our channel and forcing old practices to be replaced with fairer and more competitive practices. Magazine distributors, especially, need to understand that we are their asset and not their bank!
This is how to overcome fear, face it and crash through. I survived the Air Walk (barely) – and highly recommend it if you are in Tasmania – and am committed to helping newsagents find more just and efficient trading terms in 2008 for a bright future.
Checkout DiscountMags.com for an interesting approach to selling discounted magazine subscriptions.
The basket analysis work I am doing for around fifty newsagents shows an increase in newspaper sales between November 2006 and November 2007 for some newsagencies but a decrease for most. While some of these newsagencies will have shifted some retail customers to less profitable home delivery arrangements, many have lost sales to either other retail outlets or as newspaper customers altogether.
What is most interesting is the tracking of newspaper sales against sales of other categories – seeking an understanding of the importance of newspapers for pulling customers into newsagencies. For years newsagents have accepted flat earnings from newspapers – no increase in cover price, no change in profit – because of the view they were crucial to pulling traffic. Seeing growth elsewhere in a newsagency and a fall in newspaper sales suggests newspapers are not as important as we thought.
Publishers demonstrate our relevance by participating in more flexible marketing strategies in other retail outlets.
I’ve noticed fine tuning of supply of Zoo Weekly since ACP magazines took over and while it may be coincidental, it is unfortunate. In one of my stores, Zoo fluctuates. Not having enough stock to co-locate – as is now the case due to recent supply cuts – means some weeks we are not able to reach our sales potential. This will push supply down … the spiral continues. Zoo Weekly is one title I am happy to be oversupplied, within reason.
To those who have commented on my ramblings here publicly and privately this year, thank you. I hope that this place is, in some small way, a useful resource for newsagents, would-be newsagents and suppliers who want to help newsagents grow.
I’ve been working with newsagents since February 1981 and have owned my own newsagency since February 1996. I am honored to count more than 1,400 newsagents as customers.
I love our channel and the point of difference we offer Australians. Our role in this society is more important than we often give ourselves credit for. Our connection with our customers is unique and important to this country.
Our biggest challenge is from national retailers including Australia Post. They move as one and we move as 4,500+ Managing Directors. However, it is our local ownership and commitment which is also our biggest asset – if only we can turn that into a powerhouse for our benefit.
2008, in my view, ought to be about once and for all achieving equity in the magazine supply model for newsagents – cutting the financial and labour resources needed to support magazines – so that we can invest the savings elsewhere in our businesses so that we can compete on stationery and other product categories. We need to band together to stop over and under supply and stop supply in unfair terms. We need to have the balls necessary for this fight because years of diplomacy have failed.
Have a Happy New Year. May 2008 bring good things to you, your family, your co-workers and those who depend on your business.
The photo shows our latest themed magazine promotion – located right next to our busiest register point.
Our New Year resolutions magazine offer focuses on health on the left and financial success on the right. Several of us participated in selecting the titles to ensure broad appeal from the promotion.
The display was put up Friday and already by late yesterday (Sunday) product had been purchased off the stand.
While we continue to create title based displays in high-traffic parts of the shop and feature top selling titles at the front of the shop, we see this space we have created as ours to play with. The success it generates is considerable. Most important to us is that we represent a range of publishers in our themed displays.
As I say here often, we obsess about magazines. As my post yesterday indicated, our growth in magazines is ahead of the national and state average. When publishers ask why, and they do, we say it’s because we are obsessive. You have to be when facing tough competition.
We have the process of creating these displays down pat – grabbing artwork from online resources (free) printing in-store and setting the display up in less than ten minutes.
We have had an excellent December in magazines at Forest Hill. Here are some of the increases (in unit sales): Crosswords 10%, Music 18%, Special Interest 23%, Food 6%, Adult 7% and Women’s Weeklies 3%.
What is interesting about this is that the overall number of sales including magazines did not grow as much. Most of the growth came through basket growth and this has been achieved through newsXpress strategies and our own obsession with magazines and driving every up-sell possibility.
Our focus is to have the store up-sell itself – based on layout, displays and obsessive moving of stock. I would pit our approach against the over the counter US style up-sell script pitch others tell newsagents they should use any day.
Some of us who love magazines have voted the cover of this issue of Delicious magazine as Magazine Cover of the Year for 2007.
Our criteria was simple: representation of and relevance to the content; pleasure to look at; and, likelihood, in our personal view, to drive sales – therefore driving a desire for newsagents to display the whole cover and not just the masthead as usually happens.
While the title of magazine Cover of the Year means nothing outside this blog, it represents our interest in magazines beyond being a stock item. This is a reflection of our obsession with magazines and a driver of our above average success in the category. If you don’t like a product how can you achieve maximum success from it?
Well done Delicious!
Two years ago I lamented here about a disastrous year with calendars. Last year was good thanks to joining calendarXpress. This year is good too – again thanks to calendarXpress. The calendarXpress model is driving better range decisions and better margin and turning calendars into a valuable seasonal promotion – considerably more valuable in my Forest Hill store than back to school. This success is, in part, a commentary on the demographic and, in part, a commentary on the different labour and capital investments in calendars compared to stationery.
While I have been a shareholder in newsXpress since 2005 it was only last year that I embraced the calendarXpress side of the business having had a bad calendar experience a year or two earlier. What I am finding now is that the mistakes I made are eliminated and I am archiving a better margin than before. Plus new customers are being attracted to the business. This is because of the 140 or so calendarXpress locations – not all of which are newsXpress locations – and the benefits of negotiating as a group.
I don’t mean this to sound like an ad for calendarXpress because it’s not. People reading here over the last three years will know something of the journey I have been on with calendars at Forest Hill. Having stumbled taking a typical newsagent approach it is good to see the discipline of the calendarXpress approach work for the second year in a row.
I have updated my advice for newsagents looking for a computer system. Any newsagent or soon-to-be newsagent will find it useful in guiding their choice in point of sale software.
Even though I own Tower Systems, this guide to newsagency software will stand rigorous assessment for fairness. The most important advice is to visit the software company you are considering buying from – there is no better way for you to assess whether they can serve your needs than by spending time in their offices and watching how they serve their customers. Stay a while and listen in of support calls. Such transparency can be invaluable.
This Epson Holiday Pack has been a good seller over the last month or so. With six inks and 50 sheets of photo paper, it’s hard to go past the $89 price tag. What’s even better is that there is margin in this for us.
Having packaged deals like this one from Epson an the twin packs from HP demonstrates that we’re mainstream when it comes to ink and toner – this builds confidence and drives repeat business.
Often newsagents have thought that discounting is what is necessary to drive growth. The ink and toner strategy shows that range and relevance are key. Sure price plays a role but it is not the main game.
Inside Retailing magazine, a must-read title for landlords and major retailers, has published a feature on newsXpress and the Watergardens concept store which opened a few months ago.
This Digital Photography Pocket Guide ought never have been distributed through newsagents. Besides being too expensive for the slim content, the six month on sale means we make a loss on the title.
This title is a good example of where newsagents paying on scanned sales would work – it would b at least better than us paying up front to fund the title and fund theft. It’s another example of why newsagents need to collude to stop titles like this getting through.
The folks at The Age have angered customers with a thin holiday edition today – to cover for tomorrow too. Today’s newspaper is, according to one customer, thinner than yesterday’s yet it is almost twice the price. Another customer wondered if news would take a rest given that the folks at The Age expect what they printed last night to be useful tomorrow.
While there are bound to be economic reasons for printing a holiday edition of the newspaper to cover two days, it is damaging their reputation and causing newsagency staff to have put up the complaints on what is a very busy retail day.
Out of the blue the customer standing next to me said: It’s a gamble buying Christmas cards a year early at my age. The laugh which followed was infectious. But I figure that if I buy them now, him upstairs will give me another year. Another laugh!
I was out the front of the shop yesterday, tidying the table of discounted boxed Christmas cards and my new best friend was full of wit and wisdom. It was her deal with God which made me and others around laugh. This seventy something shopper was buying her way to a healthy and happy year.
Others soon joined in and over the course of ten minutes or so I gained more insight into post-Christmas card sales than I could have got from a paid focus group.
Outside of the business context, it was wonderful talking with someone so full of life and happy to laugh at themselves. Customers are one of the best aspects of owning a newsagency…
With no collateral from ACP Magazines’ Connections program this week, we have given our prime display spot to New Idea. The sales kick is a reminder of the value of balancing between publishers in this prime space.
I bet many newsagents are like me and give preference to the ACP displays because a full kit of display material arrives every Monday – making display decisions easy. The success of this New Idea display tells me we ought to program our use of this space to ensure balance across the magazine category and not just ACP titles.
I’d love more regular and appropriate display materials for other titles. Oh, and rewards based on year on year sales growth and not pretty displays. This week, while ACP snoozes, Pacific Magazines wins.
This blog post by This Melbourne Nanny is a salient reminder about providing excellent customer service every time.
I welcome magazine browsers – they can take as long as they like as long as they don’t sit on the magazines, tear pages out, photocopy from them and put them back in a tidy manner.
Gone are the days of signs such as This is NOT a Library or complaints to customers when they have browsed for a few minutes. As retailers we are at the mercy of our browsers every day, in the hope they will convert to customers. Upset one and you rick impacting the reputation of all newsagents.