Author: Mark Fletcher

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.

Newslink in the Virgin Blue terminal at melbourne airport has given over one aisle end to a line of cosmetics with a promotional tag of: as seen in In-Style. While I do not expect traditional newsagencies to make such a move, this is an interesting expansion of the usual Newslink offering.

MediaWeek reports that the team behind Men’s Journal has launched Tradie, a magazine aimed at tradesmen who work on building sites on the east coast of Australia. The print run is over 50,000 with copies being distributed through Mitre-10 stores and direct to building sites. From what I can find out online – through MySpace entries and other forums – Tradie is in the same genre as Zoo Weekly, Picture and People but from a tradesman’s perspective.

The photo shows the front and back to Dynamic Business. The challenge is which side do you give the facing to? Given how is arrived in the bundle our team thought it was an export title and considered it to be of little interest to our demographic. Flip it over and there is the better known masthead. While the label generated by the point of sale software provides the details.

Sometimes, on a busy magazine day, there is little time to read the detail of the labels. We sorted it out and now display Dynamic Business as opposed to some obscure export title – I wonder if others had the same experience. This is not the only title to have a dual cover. When publishers do that it would be good for newsagents to be provided a heads up which includes the reasoning behind the decision and suggested action.

As the Bakery Australia website says, The National Bread Day has been conceived to popularise the consumption of bread across the country by creating awareness of its dietary and nutritional values. Brilliant.

As I blogged here a month ago, in the UK they have Magazine Week for similar reasons – to popularise magazines. Indeed, at their website they say: We started Magazine Week because we wanted everyone to know just how big and diverse the UK magazine industry is, with a magazine for every available lifestyle, hobby or interest. Brilliant again!

Newsagents could launch magazine week and own the concept in consumer’s minds. If we got the pitch right we should see a sales kick and greater loyalty to our channel compared to the other channels selling magazines. Key to such a week or a day is to have the pitch right and consistent across the channel and to support this with a giveaway – like the Bakers Delight booklet given free to every customer today (see photo). Brilliant.

If we are the magazine specialists we need to find a way to own that concept. A Magazine Week or a Magazine Day could do the trick. If publishers, the MPA or associations get behind this, I’d love to be involved.

We capped our magazine area with over thirty metres of light boxes for magazine posters when we moved to our current location five years ago. While I’d prefer to have LCD screens capping magazines, these light boxes still work well. They look especially good when publishers make sure we have sufficient poster material to boldly promote a title. The issue of Australian Womens Weekly out today is a good example.

As is the current issue of Better Homes and Gardens.

This is bold in-store support above and beyond the aisle end displays, co-location and front of house posters demonstrate the difference between a newsagency and, say, a supermarket or convenience outlet selling magazines.

Publishers need to keep good quantities of these materials flowing for without them newsagents cannot create good display and fill their light boxes.

Eleven years ago when I bought my newsagency we had one and a half metres of adult magazines. Today, we barely have one column – not counting the column with Zoo Weekly, Ralph and FHM.

The photo shows the new adult section as I see it in an average newsagency.

While different demographics will require a different range, sales data I see from other newsagencies suggests that a column or less is all that is needed to service the adult category. The Internet and the establishment of petrol outlets as a viable magazine channel mean that adult is not the category it was for newsagents eleven years ago.

It is disappointing that some distributors continue to overload some newsagents in the adult category by supplying more product than can be justified by the sales data. Often, when this is brought to their attention, they fix the problem. This should not have to happen, distributors ought to scale back based on the sales data and not a complaint from a noisy bugger like me.