Nine newsagents have contacted me over the last three days to talk through the process of handing back their runs following my posts here a week ago. Most cite falling returns and heavy newspapers as their reasons. If the newsagents go through with their plans it will add to the woes of publishers in NSW with home delivery runs without a newsagent operator.
I felt special to receive this Fortune Privilege Card – until I realised the card itself gave me nothing. It is a bit of froth to make me feel special enough to sign up for 68% off the cover price of purchasing Fortune at a newsagency.
The first publisher to engage commercially with newsagents and offer attractive deals for long term newsagent putaway commitment will realise the value of locking in loyal retail customers. While some will argue that the retail supply chain has a higher cost than the direct subscription model, I suspect that the cost is far lower than the 68% the publisher claims to give away with this Fortune offer.
Smart newsagents offer a professionally managed putaway service which includes SMS alerts to customers when their titles arrive, care for the titles so they are in mint condition when collected, barcode tracking of each customer’s copy when collected and up sell offers driven by the technology to help increase customer spend.
Newsagents are smarter and more capable in the magazine putaway area than these expensive and almost random mailings from publishers such as Fortune.
My message for publishers – work direct with me so, together, we can sell more magazines.
These are four of the hip hop / urban music titles we carry. At any point in time we have as many as eight. We usually receive one or two copies of each title. Sales are no more than one and often none. We request that titles are stopped and, eventually, they come back.
There is nothing unusual in what I have described – every newsagent could tell the same story.
These hip hop titles are a perfect example of why we need to collude to drive a better magazine supply model. While individuals request titles are stopped, the weak model allows titles back there or in another newsagency.
I understand that the distributors are working with the MPA on an agreed supply code. Unless newsagents control the titles which have access to their real-estate and labour asset problems will continue. We need to assert ourselves on this issue. The result would be, I suspect, greater success for the top selling titles and death for the very bottom end of the marketplace in all but newsagencies where these ultra specialist titles work extremely well.
Interesting to see UK wholesaler Smiths News testing the supply of a fixed range of titles with a group of independent retailers. Like Australian newsagents, independent magazine retailers in the UK complain about range creep where more titles are pushed into a category than warranted to service consumer demand.
The only way such an arrangement would work in Australia is if the magazine distributors agreed to work together to rules established by newsagents.
News Ltd appears to gave kicked an own goal in NSW with their Travel Australia DVD giveaway at the weekend. Newsagents are hunting down space copies so they can satisfy customer requests. The TV advertising appears to have been less than clear as Jarryd Moore comments at his blog. Newspaper promotions are meant to support not damage a brand.
In Melbourne it was a different story – News Ltd gave away the Make Poverty History DVD with the Saturday Herald Sun. Customers loved it. In our newsagency we had plenty of stock and enough spares for customers coming in today even to collect their free copy – nothing unusual in that since most News Ltd Victorian promotions are well managed.
We were fortunate enough to take delivery of another five boxes of AFL Footy Cards late last week and we are almost out again. Had supply not restricted for the footy cards this year we could have easily sold three times what we have been supplied. While we understand that the nature of the cards requires that they are rationed, it is difficult to have to tell young kids that we are out of stock.
Newsagents are excited by the promotional opportunities of Kachingo, a soon to launch customer rewards program unlike any other currently operating in Australia. Given the newsagent interest and the opportunity for solid business growth being driven by Kachingo, we are ensuring that the Tower Systems newsagent software supports Kachingo from launch. The appropriate link will be released as part of a software update and at no cost to newsagents.
This is our first crack at strengthening our offering around our copying service. The copier is hidden behind the magazine displays. While not ideal, this is better than leaving the copier technology open with no up sell pitch around it. We are still working on the design of fixturing which would surround the copier make for a more professional presentation and display appropriate accompanying product.
Steve is a village Sub Postmaster and with his wife runs a village shop and post office in Sussex, England. He blogs about this and the changing face of retail in the UK at his excellent blog, Village Counter Talk. This is a must read for newsagents.
It is wonderful to find a newspaper and magazine retailer across the other side of the world writing about many topics covered here. I am especially interested in his posts about the weight of newspapers. Australian distribution newsagents would do well to read his comments – especially the fee scale for inserts and how some publishers and advertisers stay inside the trigger point weight for inserts.
Steve posted some comments at my blog yesterday which will resonate with Australian newsagents:
I am a news & magazine retailer trading in West Sussex, England. You identify one of my great frustrations with our trade, that is the wholesalers and publishers hold the whip hand and given a chance stuff what ever they like out to us retailers.
Reading Steve’s blog, it soon become apparent that at our collective independent end of the newspaper and magazine supply chain we have common problems regardless of location. The solution lives on a strong collusive stance which puts our businesses first.
Gerard Munday was thinking about his newsagency of the future years ago. Patterson Road, Patterson, Victoria, where his newsagency is located, was dying with little commercial activity to bring business or consumers to the area. He had to do something.
For years now Gerard has focused on growing the business outside his four walls. Last year he took this to a new level by creating a website: pattersonroad.com.au – establishing the street in which the business is located as the brand. In an online sense, he owns the entire street. This is a brilliant move – completely logical when you consider how the deep local connection of a newsagency.
The overarching brand of Patterson Road is used for their tobacco wholesale, distribution and retail businesses with each also having their own identity.
Gerard has now branched out further, offering website development services to other newsagents. He and his team are able to provide website development and hosting from basic facilities through to full-on ecommerce facilities.
Take a look at the website for Gerard’s newsagency and the home delivery account payment facilities. Gerard says this side of the business is growing every day – better serving existing customers and bringing in new customers.
I know from my own experience with Inkfast that a web presence can attract a broader and more profitable customer base that retail alone.
Newsagents establishing websites like Gerard offers will have contact with new customers and for a fraction of traditional marketing costs. Key to makaing this work is to take the opportunity to extend your business and therefore your relevance.
Check out the websites Gerard’s team has developed for Bell Park Newsagency and Blackburn South Newsagency.
You can contact Gerard by email.
Footnote: Gerard has been a customer of my software company, Tower Systems, for around fifteen years. He also manages our mail services.
We decided to give Famous magazine a kick along this week and placed it next to our main newspaper stand. The result has been excellent – I’d expect a sell through of 90% by the end of today.
The display next to the newspaper stand is usually reserved for Alpha but since it sold out we thought we would give Famous a crack. I like locating it next to the newspaper because so many other retailers now have a magazine of the week or a feature magazine display on the counter – so much so that consumers are, I suspect, blind to them.
While we have two magazine aisle ends strongly promoting titles as well as two front of shop second location displays for popular titles, famous often misses out because it is not in our pool of top performing titles.
This week’s experience shows that it may be getting lost in the regular display space and that an occasional promotion like this may help it better connect with our customers.
While newspaper professionals in the US debate whether to include advertisements on the front page, the advertising department at The Age demonstrates, again, its dominance over design and editorial with a bold post it note type ad stuck over the masthead for the Mt Buller ski resort. Customers hate these ads. They increase trash and the damage the product when ripped off.
You know your marketing is working when a customers walk in clutching a flyer you have distributed and they ask for a specific item listed. You feel especially chuffed when the item they want is something you would not usually carry. This has happened several times during our Tax Time Savings promotion over the last month.
This week, a customer came in wanting to purchase the Fellows shredder. There was no hesitation on their part: it was a known brand, the product was well represented on the brochure and the price was competitive. The sale was easy.
Playing in the home office space has been a challenge for many newsagents. The new regular stationery marketing program we are part is showing good signs of success. It is certainly broadening our range and delivering new customers to our shop.
It took off like a bushfire and customers embraced it. Now we are overloaded. The publishers who were there first, Lovatts and Puzzler, remain but have been joined by a ton of copycats and this is seeing many newsagents overserviced in the Sudoku segment.
Just another case for the magazine czar. Half the Sudoku titles sent to newsagents should not have permission to be supplied.
If you believe that newspapers have a bright future then you will not want to read A Perfect Storm, and excellent blog post by Mark Potts at his Recovering Journalist Blog.
We are insulated in Australia in terms of newspaper sales. Strong state based titles with good home delivery penetration mean we do not see the numbers publishers in the US and seeing regularly now. To be concerned about the future of print newspapers is not to criticise the product but, rather, to acknowledge that new technology will impact on how and where we consumer news and information. Potts has posts some good suggestions.
What frustrates me is that every newspaper publisher executive I have heard talking with Australian small business newsagents say it is business as usual, keep investing, we are your partner. Well, the reality is that what is happening in the US will happen here, not tomorrow but it will happen. This is why Australian publishers are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in online businesses.
Interesting to see the New York Times in the promotional material for Apple’s iPhone. The example shows how the iPhone can be used to read the newspaper. Who needs a print edition?
Newspapers have a deadline. But online media does not have a deadline, only story births. If any of my staff mention the word deadline, I will fire them.
Kowit Sanandang, Digital Media Director of the Bangkok Post. Source: AsiaMedia.
Fairfax newspapers The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald today run stories about the ACCC legal action against Google and the Trading Post. It is disappointing that Fairfax is quick to list other companies which may be guilty of similar behaviour but not any company associated with them. As I have documented here before, Fairfax’s RSVP used a campaign based on fudging search results where people were looking for 3loves, a free online dating business I own – connected with the Find It online classifieds business.
The Fairfax reporting today demonstrates, at best, sloppy reporting and at worst, bias.
I know Fairfax was embarrassed by my revealing here six months ago the campaign from which they benefited – they immediately took down the campaign. No apology. No acknowledgement. And, now, they are prepared to finger others yet not themselves. The original post about the Fairfax/RSVP scam can be found here.
Every week now I am seeing evidence that blogging here about poor scale our by NDD is achieving a better outcome for my newsagency that dealing with them through regular communication channels. Titles such as this school selection book are being supplied in numbers which reflect the sell through rate of previous issues – as it should be.
That I have to blog for such an outcome is unfortunate. Less than 10 newsagents have blogs so the opportunity of public humiliation of NDD to achieve an outcome is not available to the broader channel.
Key to what I have sought from NDD is equitable supply based on the sales data I send them daily. I am not unique. I trust that NDD has altered its behaviour for other newsagents as it has for my newsagency.
A NSW newsagent was recently ordered by the NSW Department of Fair Trading to refund a customer $1,000 for partworks purchased where the customer was not able to complete the series because of failings in the supply model through to newsagents. While the distributor involved, Gordon and Gotch, have agreed, after much pressure from the newsagent, to compensate the newsagent, the problem of partworks supply remains serious.
On the one hand newsagents are thrilled that they are the only retail channel in Australia offering partworks. That magazine distributors ignore data (see earlier post today) and deliberately short supply harms newsagents and gets their customers off side.
The partworks model can work if the importer, distributors and newsagents actively work together. Sadly, for many years now the words have been the same and follow-up action not forthcoming.
Maybe more customers need to pursue Consumer Affairs or Fair Trading. Alternatively the suppliers could work with newsagents on a fair and commercial basis – that way everyone wins.
Is one of Melbourne’s two newspapers about to engage major railway station based marketing initiative? A check of this ad posted yesterday afternoon at at seek.com.au suggests so.
We are currently on the hunt for new team members to assist one of our largest clients with their new customer program.
Work will be located at outer metropolitan train stations from 5.30am to 8.30am Monday to Friday. Acting as an ambassador for this iconic Melbourne media product, you will act as a contact point for commuters to purchase their daily news hit!
If you are looking for a role that has it all- working in the great outdoors, being a COMPLETE hero as you ensure the public get their favourite media product and finishing work just in time to watch everyone else start then apply now!
Work locations include: Bayswater, Berwick, Cranbourne, Hallam, Broadmeadows, Oak Park, Preston, Regent, Carnegie, Hughesdale, Albion, St Albans, Mooroolbark & Mt Waverley.
$20.00 per hour + available incentives to reward hard work and loyalty.
If this is for a newspaper why are they hiring and not the local newsagent?
When I first read the ad I wondered if it was to distribute MX (the free daily newspaper) in a morning edition. But the ad text makes it clear this is about selling something.
If my suspicions are right and this is for a newspaper publisher sales initiative then I’d be interested to understand where newsagents fit in the model and whether there has been consultation.
GNS, the stationery warehouse owned by newsagents has banned VANA, the Victorian newsagent association from having a stand at this year’s GNS Market Fair – the only trade show for newsagents. VANA has been involved in Market Fair since it began and indeed had ‘ownership’ over a decent chunk of the floor space sold at the trade show. VANA was involved in the Victorian newsagent trade show for years prior to the arrival of GNS in Victoria.
This decision and the decision to ban newsXpress exhibiting at GNS Market Fairs are proof of a Board out of touch with what newsagents want.
Magazine distributors have criticised newsagents for years about lack of compliance. Now, the ball is on the other foot. Part of the compliance regime is that newsagents supply distributors with pre-sold data – listing the number of each title for which the newsagent has a firm order. The idea was that the distributors would use this to ensure that at least minimum orders are fulfilled – essential for partworks.
The distributors are letting newsagents down. They are not using the data and newsagents are often, with partworks, supplied fewer copies than firm orders from customers of long standing.
Newsagents are rightly questioning the value of the much vaunted IT standards.
Newsagents using software from my company account for at least 75% of the compliant newsagents providing data – one distributor says we have an 85% share of compliant newsagents. I know from talks with some of these compliant newsagents that their clear and trusted data is being ignored by distributors. They are being supplied fewer copies of some titles than their firm orders. The magazine distributor involved knows that they are failing the system they helped create – they are making the newsagent look stupid.
Newsagents who were bereted into complying and promised better business outcomes are rightly asking whether the investment was worth it.
To the magazine distributor executives reading this – fix the problem, act commercially with newsagents, work with us and help us sell more magazines. You have the data.
Checking sales of a new wedding magazine, we were surprised to have sold six copies in a week. A 33% sell-through of a wedding title in a week in our demographic is excellent. The same check revealed we have had a copy stolen. That’s not such good news. I know from data I see at my software company that theft, shrinkage the experts call it, costs an average newsagency between 3% and 5% of turnover. While we mainly focus on processes to protect against employee theft, it is valuable to be reminded that customers can and do lift product.
Sure, other magazines are stolen – these are often away from the main traffic area. They are also smaller. This title is big – certainly not something you could slip inside a jacket or into a newspaper.
Maybe we need to frisk customers as they leave.
