We are preparing to implement a makeover of this blog next week. We are aiming to make the blog more appealing to the eye and easier to navigate. There may be a few bumps as we transfer the 3,000 or so posts, comments and other details associated with the blog. We are also establishing an independent domain: www.newsagencyblog.com.au.
Today, we’re upgrading our blog software in advance of next week’s moves so please excuse any outage.
Higher end boxed pens are usually supplied with two price stickers. The RRP and a special price. We didn’t receive the special price stickers so put the pens out at full price. A month later when we realised we fixed this, we discovered that it didn’t matter. The pens are selling well at their RRP. A check of our sales team reveals that not one customer has queried the price. It turns out that no one nearby has our range so we are providing a service for which a premium appears to be accepted.
I am not suggesting that newsagents gouge on price. Rather that we understand our market position and take this into account on price. Oh, and just because a discount opportunity is available, it does not mean that we should always take it.
Putting the Christmas editions of Food Ideas, Good Taste and Table next to each other and next to our top selling weeklies is working a treat. They will sell out today or tomorrow.
When putting magazines in a such a premium space we look for titles which compliment each other and are likely to encourage multiple title purchase. Yes, we obsess about magazines. We see every unplanned purchase as a victory.
I have lost track of how many magazines have free calendars with them at the moment. Some are excellent value and others quite mediocre. Some are poorly attached and detract from the magazine.
I wonder if all these freebie calendars detract from calendar sales? Some newsagents think so. While there must be an impact of so many free calendars being available, I can’t quantify this in terms of sales of calendars in newsagencies.
I am not suggesting that publishers refrain from the calendar giveaway, I can see it makes sense. I guess the purpose of this post is to acknowledge that there are some unintended consequences.
Check out the list of US newspapers which have a subscription offer for the Amazon Kindle device. Prices range from US$5.99 a month for the San Francisco Chronicle to US$13.99 for the New York Times for a month. While I doubt the Kindle will catch on as a newspaper reading device, support from publishers of these newspapers will make it a device to at least watch from a newsagent perspective.
The range of Momiji dolls we put into Frankston two weeks ago is selling well. We were unsure how they would go in a newsagency setting – especially given that this location did not have much experience with premium gifts.
Momiji dolls fit the collectible category and we know that newsagencies are already well visited by people who collect things: partworks, magazines, trading cards… This focus on collectibles is driving other gift related ranging decisions for the Frankston business.
We also stock cows and horses in ther Frankston store and both have people working on the collection. At between $35.00 and $75.00 each, these are nice collections for people to work on.
Newsagents may want to check how many copied of Fisherman & Boatowner they received last week. We usually receive three copies. This month they sent six. On inquiry I was told it was a re-launch. Okay, that’s fine. Don’t use my cash to support the publisher’s efforts – not when we sell, on average, two copies of each issue.
Once in two years we have sold three copies – no justificati0on for a 100% increase in supply.
The photo shows a closer look at the ad stuck over the masthead of today’s Age newspaper. It offers a 300g bag of Darrell Lea liquorice for 80 cents.
It’s a good deal, but there is a catch. You have to go to the website to find the participating stores – as if people with the coupon in their hand have time for that. No, they will think of their closest Darrell Lea location.
My newsagency at Forest Hill is not listed as a participating store. In fact, I can’t see any newsagency listed as a participating store. From what I can tell the list is corporate stores only.
Maybe the marketing people at Darrell Lea are smarter than me because I would have thought that tying in this promotion with a newspaper and through outlets which sell newspapers and the Darrell Lea product would have been smart.,
I know we will get customers asking about the deal. Should I tell them to go to a Darrell Lea store? Of course not! Given the floorspace, labour and stock investment I have made in Darrell Lea for the last five years or so, I am not about to tell my customers to go elsewhere. Now, we’ll come up with a response which hopefully does not direct them elsewhere.
This is a disappointing offer from Darrell Lea which, on the surface, appears to disrespect its non corporate stores.
I noticed an older woman writing details of our range of inspirational booklets, cards and books at our Frankston newsagency last week and approached and asked if they would like some assistance. Her story was the kind of personal story newsagents hear regularly, one which reminded us of the personal nature of our businesses.
Our customer was writing the titles of the small inspirational books we sell so she could keep track and not duplicate the titles she was sending to her sister who had recently been diagnosed with cancer and was undergoing intensive treatment in another state. She was sending a booklet a week and wanted to plan her dispatches, to make sure that she did not break the link.
We were able to identify enough titles in the series for the next six months and this clearly relieved her. She was certain that the booklets and their motivational messages were important to her sister’s journey with cancer. We talked for a few minutes and she moved on about her day. Her story and that of her sister stayed with me for it reflects a connection we have with our customers which, I suspect, would be rare in a more corporate business.
My customer didn’t have to tell me her story. That she felt comfortable to do that and we were able to help with more product like she was looking for created a connection which I cherish – if I could put it that way without sounding over the top.
The biggest change in newspapers, magazines, cards and stationery over the last ten to fifteen years is that these categories have moved from our local, family-run, channel to corporate businesses where the dollar is all that matters. In those barns there is little time for stories like I heard last week – it’s not one of management’s KPIs. Thankfully, there are still enough independent small businesses – newsagencies, pharmacies, green grocers, florists and butchers – where there is enough time for personal stories.
It amazes, even shocks me sometimes, what customers talk about. This past week, the personal story my customer’s sister and her efforts to maintain a caring connection by distance touched me and reminded me of the humanity of retail and why engaging with customers without focusing on the dollar is rewarding.
Many newsagents will be pleased the election is over, they expect Christmas sales to kick in from this week. Not all have experienced a slow lead up to Christmas – probably 50% of the ones I have spoken with.
Thre are many theories as to why elections seem to slow business or at least stunt what we would have expected as a Christmas rush this time of the year. The one which makes sense to me is that since news is a key focus in our businesses and election news is often negative, it is hard to capture the spending spirit of the season.
I was in a Priceline store yesterday and noticed a magazine for sale on the counter. I wonder what the permitted use clause in their lease allows. Some newsagents were successful in blocking Gloria Jeans from offering newspapers because the lease did not list newspapers as a product they could sell. As publishers seek more outlets, shopping centre based newsagents will need to take up the lease issue.
We received some Women’s Weekly stock on Friday at Forest Hill (after their production problems caused us to miss our delivery Wednesday) but we will sell out over the weekend.
Unless we get more stock Monday, I’d say our performance this issue will be around 40% of usual for the Christmas issue. This will cost us around $600 in sales of the title and, I’d expect to lose at least that again in associated product sales.
On top of direct lost sales is the cost of lost customers – who knows whether a customer who purchases elsewhere stops coming to the newsagency as a result.
I appreciate the ACP did not want the production problems. However, to have all major competitors around my newsagency fully stocked and me not severely disadvantages my business and disrespect my customers.
At the Duxton hotel in Perth, this coming Wednesday between 2pm and 5pm we’re hosting a Newsagent Open Day where you can see home delivery, magazine management and point of sale software. I’ll be there along with several members of the Tower Systems team. The next day we are hosting a User Meeting of newsagents in WA using Tower Systems software – as part of our commitment to being accountable to our customers. Book for either session here.
I go on a bit about the need for the store to up sell rather than people behind the counter. This photo shops one unit we are experimenting with. Newspaper customers are presented with two magazine offers.
My feeling is that this type of unit is an effective way to get a magazine sale with a newspaper – the key is magazine title selection. We’re playing with three changes to the magazine titles during the week: Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
I suspect the title mix would be different based on demographics.
The size of our initial order of ink for our Frankston store resulted in ten MP4 players to giveaway. So, we’re running a promotion based around music and computer magazines. We figured that this market was more likely to enjoy the MP4 player and that a giveaway related to magazines underscored the core traffic of that business. Like the Duracell Bunny giveaway mentioned in the previous post, our goal is to have regular giveaways around product we sell to add value to the experience.
Anyone buying Duracell batteries at our Forest Hill store goes in the running to win the Duracell Bunny. This was a freebie from our supplier based on our order size.
Now that our six laser printer giveaway is over, it’s good to have something to follow up.
Regular prizes add to the theatre of retail and underscore the value proposition we’re aiming to pitch. We are grateful that suppliers are willing to support with prizes and or bonus stock.
We are obsessive in chasing incremental sales off the back of our top selling items, especially for magazines. This started years ago when we had our old newspaper stand made and even though it is looking worn today, it still works in selling extra copies of whatever magazines we promote above the Herald Sun and The Age.
TV Week works well in this situation (as the photo shows) and we cycle it through every few weeks – in addition to being in the ACP basket builder stand and in the usual magazine aisle location.
Not all magazines respond to being placed in an impulse location. We only focus on strong brands which are well supported with advertising. We can’t have the impulse opportunity be a barrier.
I expect the latest issue of Limelight to sell out quickly given free limited edition Andre Rieu DVD which comes with each copy and the cover story about Music Personality of the Year, Jonathan Welch, choir master of the Choir of Hard Knocks.
We’re leveraging strong interest especially in Andre Rieu by putting the magazine at our busiest counter. In case you missed it, Rieu’s DVDs are dominating the DVD charts this year. Typically, he resonates with an older demographic.
This is our second day without the current issue of Women’s Weekly on the shelves while major competitors around us are well stocked. A representative of the ACP Connections program, a marketing arm within the publisher, visited our Forest Hill store yesterday and asked pointedly why we did not have the Women’s Weekly display material up for the new issue. It seems she was more concerned about poster placement than whether we had the stock to sell.
Some days I wonder if the one-way regulation imposed by publishers is worth it.
While car makers battle cheap imports and farmers battle a drought, newsagents are battling their own Government which appears intent on wrecking small family businesses. Despite robust representations, the Government has facilitated the push of the retail network it wons to take more revenue from newsagents. This is a scandal.
This new catalogue from Australia Post offers further evidence. Here we have over 800 government owned and protected retail outlets pushing deeper into categories previously well served by newsagents. Not one page of this sixteen page catalogue offers postage product (except for a subtle reference to postage) yet it relies heavily on the protected Australia Post brand.
I am all for competition, but not driven by a government owned and protected retail network which is operating, in my view, outside the provisions of the Postal Act.
Every dollar taken by an Australia Post government owned store for stationery, greeting cards, colouring books computer media and calendars is a dollar missing from a small business competitor. Where is the economic sense in Government shifting this revenue from private enterprise to its operation?
My software company, Tower Systems, is a proud financial supporter of the Choir of Hard Knocks. If you are in Melbourne on December 1, consider coming to their concert at Vodafone Arena.
I’ll see you there.
Receiving an application from someone working for a colleague newsagent presents an ethical dilemma on several fronts. Do you tell your colleague newsagent? Do you let the candidate know?
In the past I have had a policy of not hiring someone currently working for a newsagent I know without their knowledge. I can see this could be unfair to a candidate who does not want their current employer to know they are considering moving on.
On one occasion years ago I let a Tower Systems client newsagent know one of their employees had applied to us. He got grumpy so we did not even proceed to interview – even though the candidate seemed ideal for us. He sold the business a few months later and she was out of work.
We have developed a process for handling the situation. We let the candidate know that we know their employer and given them the opportunity to ask us to not contact them. This respects their privacy and offers an opportunity for them to put any issues on the table. We feel this is a better approach than talking, without their knowledge, to their current employer.
Women’s Weekly is missing from the three newsagencies in Melbourne with which I am directly involved. ACP said that Melbourne metro outlets would get a special delivery of stock. I assumed this would mean we would receive it later today. Unfortunately, no. So, we’re displaying the old issue while Coles, Safeway and our major competitors have the new issue. I feel like a second class citizen.
