Author: Mark Fletcher

Sales of the various Just titles are flat in some areas and falling in others. Such is the impact of all manner of websites offering more timely service. I took a look at the sales after noticing less browsing on Saturdays – the busiest browsing day of car, bike and parts related titles in my newsagency. I talked with several others yesterday and their sales figures match mine.

I am not complaining. I see it an inevitable change. The challenge is to respond to change over here by driving change elsewhere. Car and related title browsing was habit based for decades. We need to replace the traffic with other habit based business. This is why I and others are focusing on art supplies, ink and toner, beefing up home office coverage and partworks. All are currently strong categories – a strong presence will deliver good habit based traffic.

Rupert Murdoch on the cover of Time magazine and Wendi Deng on the cover of The Monthly.

The decision by Pacific Magazines, part of the Seven Media Group, to Who, Practical Parenting and Bride To Be and to licence InStyle is good news for then titles and good news for newsagents. Pacific has an excellent track record supporting the newsagency channel and newsagents respond by providing good support for Pacific titles.

I am no brand expert but I would have thought that the current BRW offering would confuse consumers. As this photo from Saturday shows, we currently have three BRW issues on the shelf. The Rich List issue dominates but has been there long enough to make browsers blind to the offering. The new flagship edition is to be on the shelf for a month. Under that we and this week’s edition – lost in the mix I’d say.

Sales decay data for my shop shows that the flagship editions do not warrant such a long shelf life.

I like BRW. It’s a good magazine. However, I suspect that the brand has lost its way with these various flagship editions. Certainly from a retail perspective they pull focus from the weekly sale.

I wonder if Australians are done with Paris Hilton. I ask because sales for Who in my newsagency this week are the lowest I have seen in months for the first two on sale days.

It was a comment from a customer yesterday which made me check. I overhead one girl talking to a friend who picked Who up to purchase, don’t get that, who wants to read about her, she said.

We are promoting Who in the usual way, co-locating in the regular display as well as in a high traffic area at the front of the shop. Sales of other titles are steady so what is happening with Who is unique to that title. Of course, there could be other reasons but I would be interested to see sales data nationally for this issue. Maybe we are over Paris Hilton. Not a bad thing I’d suggest.

On Who itself, the redesign looks great.

Newsagencies are traditional businesses, built on more than 100 years of regulation. This is why many in our community take the regulation (protection) route in making business decisions. For so many years newsagents have fought for their territory, whether territory refers to a geographic area or a product category connection. Unfortunately, some in our channel remain focused on regulation to the detriment of commercial reality. I would call these folks the traditionalists. Others chase opportunities regardless of boundaries. They put their business and its stakeholders ahead of tradition. I would call these folks the commercial realists. But I digress.

I have been wondering these past few days whether to jump into the magazine subscriptions pond. I mean really jump and offer subscriptions for just about any title. Should I use my retail newsagency to aggressively sell subscriptions?

The traditionalists will say no – why take a lesser commission when you could make full commission on the retail sales. Why take business off another newsagent. Every subscription sold is a sale lost to the newsagent channel – even if the subscription and therefore the sale are outside my territory.

To a commercial realist, business is business. Their approach would be to take what you can when you can. They would say that a lesser than retail commission for a full year on a product you would not otherwise sell to that person is good business for your business.

While I respect the traditionalist newsagents, I must say that I am drawn to the views of the commercial realists as it is in their world in which we operate today. In each of our core categories: newspapers, magazines, stationery, lotteries and greeting cards we have businesses competing with us in commercial terms. If we reject these terms and opportunities associated with them in favour of a more traditional approach then we are likely to be left behind.

So, what do I do about magazine subscriptions? I am not sure yet as I have some more research to do in order to package the best over the counter offer in a way which is easy to pitch and a dream to manage. It may be that this research results in barriers which suggest that subscriptions are not an appropriate over the counter offering.

In navigating toward thenewsagency of the future, newsagents need to decide if they are to be a traditionalist or to be a commercial realist. The former, while to be respected, will find business tougher.