Drought, Horse flu and newsagents
The drought has hit farmers hard over many many years. The Howard Government this week announced hundreds of millions of dollars more in funding and assistance for farmers.
Horse flu breached the federal Government’s quarantine controls and shut down horse related events pretty much everywhere for more than a month. The Howard Government announced tens of millions of dollars in support.
In 1999 the Howard Government managed the deregulation of the distribution of newspapers and magazines in Australia – taking away a monopoly of newsagents protected and supported by the Government. Since deregulation the Government owned Australia Post has moved more into areas previously dominated by newsagents. Newsagents, without the protection of monopoly in any category, are losing market share. The Government has offered no compensation.
I guess the thousands of families which own newsagencies and those who earn an income through newsagencies don’t matter as much as the farmers or racing folk.
In the case of newsagents there is clearly little political value in supporting small business so the Government facilitated the whack in 1999 and the death of a thousand cuts by allowing Australia Post to use its monopoly protected brand to grab sales from newsagents – for the benefit of the Government.
Labour, Liberal, National Party, Democrats, Green and Family First candidates need to do more than provide lip service on small business policy. Newsagents are not looking for charity – just a fair shake from a government that spends a lot of money telling us all how much they care.
She is a cheap magazine. $3.99 here in Australia – half the US price and a third of the UK price. I’m not sure what is going on there given the magazine She competes with. While I am no expert, I’d think the price devalues the product and makes potential customers second guess the purchase – what’s the catch?
New technology launched today allows all newsagents to sell phone recharge and other electronic voucher products direct from their point-of-sale computer, without the need for a complex long-term contract.
This is the display we have created at the counter to promote some of the British magazines we carry. It looks better in person than my my poor photo shows. Headed The Best of British we have printed some flags to highlight the promotion.
Time this week has a style and design magazine stuck on the back. It is frustrating that this is bigger than time – making the resulting double look a bit messy on the shelves. While the editorial and production folks for the Style and design issue probably have the size they want, the main Time product suffers – it’s too big for the usual location in our shelves and looks messy. The other side of this offer is how we display the product. Time is not a big seller for us so we’d just focus on the weekly and not the bonus title. None of these issues are big deals – just things we wish had been thought through.
This is a surprising deal from Nextra – 50% off John Sands and Ink Group cards for a week. While I’d expect Sands to be rebating newsagents at full retail, it is the message to the consumer which I question.
Which copy of Real Living and Table am I supposed to promote in my newsagency this month? The regular issue or the one hidden in a sealed bag proclaiming 20% off. I know which one customers will reach for first – the bagged copy.
It is interesting to see the 
As part of the ACP magazines Connections program we commit to weekly displays. Last week we received three display packs. Newsagents give over this display space for free – while supermarkets and others are paid for their real-estate commitment. We were able to do only one of the ACP displays since it was Grand Final week and we wanted to give the AFL Record prime position. This decision was right for our business yet it marks us down in the ACP Connections program. Anything which promotes newsagencies as the destination for magazines ought to be considered good and not just the efforts for one publisher.
Newsagents have two sizes of Girlfriend magazine this month: regular and compact. I think they are the same – the regular size is sealed and I am not about to open the pack to check. But they do have the same number of pages so I suspect the content is the same. The compact version is cheaper.
Ink is proving to be the hero category at the new newsXpress Watergardens store in which we are a partner.
High Performance Imports is another example of the magazine supply model letting newsagents down. With a sell through of between 30% and 30% we are not cut back – even though the performance of the title is well below reasonable benchmarks. I suspect supply is not cut because of distributor commitments to circulate all stock supplied to them. None of that respects or helps my business. Labour and real estate are abuse by this supply. While Network, the distributor responsible for this title, have improved this year, they have a way to go – in the meantime newsagents lose money on titles like this. What makes matters worse is that if I early return stock, I still sometimes have to jump through time wasting hoops to make sure I get the credit this month.
Newsagents should check their supply or British Homes and Gardens. If they are link me, sales are flat yet supply increases. I am happy to support a title to find new sales but the extra supply with this title does not make sense. The category is well served, space is limited. Magazine distributors ought not increase supply unless sales data absolutely supports such a move. But if you;re a regular here you have heard that from me regularly.
I have learnt a lot about cardboard this week – the kind we newsagents sell by the truckload for school projects, welcome home signs, protests … all manner of signs and things. I always thought cardboard was cardboard.