Bark magazine likes the spotlight
Bark, the Australian dog lovers magazine, has been struggling at my newsagency so last week I put some extra copies in a stand (above) near our newspaper display. We’ve sold six copies from this stand in five days. Based on sales history, had Bark not been relocated we would not have sold one copy in that time. This move has helped us reconnect with our customers. Their purchase with a comment over the counter about other dog magazines may be enough to have them think of us next time.
It’s impossible to move all of our niche titles to high traffic locations as there is not enough space or days to cover the range in a month. We have a rotation program which uses high traffic space for fringe titles but it’s not enough. It’s also labour intensive.
There is an opportunity to structure promotion of fringe titles in newsagencies. One company did this but they only promoted titles they were paid to promote and they were often titles which did not warrant such support.
I see an opportunity for a group of newsagents to choose a selection of fringe titles and promote them a week at a time with high profile real estate and measure the results. It may be that we discover an ideal win win for fringe title publishers and newsagents and through that better rewards all round.
I like Bark magazine as do my customers when they remember to buy it.
Newspaper newsletter closes due to bad news
Independent newspaper analyst John Morton and media economist Miles Groves have announced they will cease publication of their well-respected Morton-Groves Newspaper Newsletter. Forbes has the story including this quote from Groves writing in the final issue:
Instead of making the technology, personnel, marketing and product investments critical for success, industry leaders have accepted that desirable circulation levels are not sustainable and circulation declines are inevitable.
Many working with newsagents would not want news like this to be reported. My view is that the sooner newsagents accept that fundamental and far reaching change is impacting their core business the better. The change is an opportunity.
SMH whacks Debnam on the masthead
I’m told the Sydney Morning Herald today had a post it note type ad stuck across the masthead saying Don’t risk Debnam. 20,000 job costs to public services. Workplace laws to Canberra. Similar to the pitch at the SMH website (see above). Whacking a post it type ad on the front of the paper like this – for the State election this weekend – over the masthead really pushes the envelope in terms of brand damage. It politicizes the newspaper more than a traditional print ad.
Magazine and newspaper slump blamed on Internet uptake
Menzies Distribution experienced tough trading conditions with underlying operating profit down 23% to £23.7m, mainly as a result a rapidly changing marketplace, particularly in monthly magazines and partworks.
A quote from the preliminary results released on Tuesday by newspaper and magazine distribution business John Menzies plc. The results provide an insight into newspaper and magazine sales in the UK. Further on in the results is the following:
We are seeing structural changes in the magazine sector. As broadband penetration increases and on-line content becomes more sophisticated, consumers are spending more time on the internet and less time on printed media. We believe this contributed significantly to a 7% drop in lfl sales of monthly magazines. Partwork sales, which peaked in 2004, have now returned to 2002 sales levels. In 2006 lfl partwork sales fell
by 35%. Although gross profit from weekly magazine sales was flat, lfl sales rose by 3% as some consumers moved from monthly to weekly titles.Newspapers volumes continued their steady decline but this reduction was offset by a number of price increases, particularly on Sunday titles.
Australian newsagents are fortunate to have access to this information from the UK and similar insights from the US. The trends reflected in the results are not isolated to those countries. We will experience them here, if not in 2007 then in 2008.
Publishers and distributors cannot continue to deny to newsagents that retail sales of newspapers and magazines are challenged. I see the situation as presenting an opportunity. While publishers seem to want to address the challenge by putting their product in every possible retail outlet, my feeling is they would be better served by reducing retail outlets and supporting specialists like newsagents.
Mutual support between newsagents and publishers for newspapers and magazines could buffer the impact the Internet has on newspaper and magazine sales in Australia.
I hope that leaders representing both sides pursue this opportunity.
Getting out of newspaper home delivery
It is six months since we sold our newspaper home delivery business. Time has shown this to be a wise decision for us.
We have eliminated the weekly loss generated by the home delivery business, freed up employees by not having to fix mistakes and lost newspapers, eased management effort by eliminating four employees and benefited by specialising in retail as opposed to splitting our attention. We have also eliminated some over the counter frustration.
Prior to the decision to sell, we had sought for some time to acquire other runs so we could grow a profitable distribution business. We had just over 600 home delivery customers but not all were seven days. Our financial modeling suggested that we needed around 1,200 with better than average street penetration to make the home delivery model viable.
Since we were unsuccessful in acquisition, selling was something we considered. For a year we thought about but could not bring ourselves to disconnect from the core newsagent function of newspaper home delivery. It was like we expected the world to end when we sold the run.
Selling the run did not bring our world to an end. The opposite has happened. Our retail business has flourished. Our old delivery customers still shop with us. None complain about the change in service provider. We’re better off and our customers are better off.
Given what I see as an inexorable march toward lower margin home delivery business I am glad to not have to balance the competing needs of home delivery and retail. I am sure that both will prosper but more as separate businesses than we have seen in the past.
A nice looking shop (part 2)
The reaction from people about my blog post yesterday about the new Watermark store at Sydney airport has been surprising. Is response to requests here is another photo looking into the shop from another angle.
What I like about this design is that it supposts a huge range of stock yet remains calm, easy to navigate and allows the product to speak for itself.
Online classifieds site passes milestone
Our Find It online classifieds site passed 10,000 live ads overnight. While 10,000 is small compared to sites from PBL, Fairfax, News, Telstra and eBay, it’s a great milestone because it has been achieved without a multi million dollar ad campaign.
Part of the Find It mission is to provide newsagents with access to revenue from online advertising. We are the only online classifieds site offering this to newsagents.
Fast pasta and fast vegies sell fast
This new Australian Women’s Weekly cookbook series from ACP has sold out. As a firm sale item we went in nervous and have today ordered more stock because of this early success.
What is surprising is that the $19.95 price point has not been the barrier we expected. We are enjoying good success with food related titles displayed at the counter.
A nice looking shop
Checkout the new Watermark store at the Qantas terminal at Sydney airport. This is a very impressive store anchored around books. Magazines, greeting cards, social stationery and office suppliers are covered with limited space allocated. At the back of the shop is a café. This is a classy looking business and an ideal balance for the Newslink stores in the same mall. Newslink and Watermark have the same owner.
Zodiac coffee and a roll of the dice
At a coffee vendor on George Street in Sydney this morning I noticed they cut the zodiac from the Daily Telegraph and stuck it on the coffee machine where people line up to collect their daily grind. I noticed it because there was a group of people reading how their day would go. What a great add on with coffee!
Up the road a few places a coffee shop has an offer where you could win a free coffee in the afternoon based on the roll of dice. They’re not as busy as the cart.
Of the two marketing tactics the first is more interesting to me. It makes the wait for coffee more interesting and it adds value to those interested. The second feels like lazy marketing. It’s got me thinking of what we can do at our lottery counter for those who find themselves waiting.
Scratch me a winner
A common frustration among newsagents is the customers who ask you to check their instant lottery tickets when they know they have not won. Newsagents are frustrated because the checking takes time and often customers don’t buy anything. The icing on the cake comes when you say: “sorry, it didn’t win anything†and they responds with “I know but I wanted to be sureâ€.
Rather than wallow in frustration we are experimenting with trying to turn the prize check request into an opportunity. We give them one of our Magazine Club Cards with the pitch of: sorry, but you’re a winner if you buy your magazines from us! Then we hand them the Magazine Card which pitches our loyalty discount. Okay it’s corny. The idea is to embrace the opportunity and make it positive for us. The worst response we could get is a grunt and the best is that they wander into our magazine area and make a purchase.
Newsagents are blessed every day with fantastic traffic for newspapers, magazines and lotteries and we have to work hard to make every pair of feet worth as much to our businesses as possible.
Trying to turn ‘dead business’ – the lottery ticket check – into a browse and purchase elsewhere in the business is what retail is about.
This is how strong businesses are grown. Transaction by transaction, customer by customer.
Twitter noise, twitter bludge
I don’t get twitter. Just about everyone is blogging about it and I don’t get it. Okay, I get that you can use Twitter to send messages to anyone saying what you are doing but, why? Technorati is tracking 27,092 blog results for Twitter. Oh, make that 27,093. Google is currently tracking 58,158 blog entries.
Bloggers say there’s a buzz about Twitter. Okay, it’s hip, but what’s the point? Is it that Twitter gives us another way of connecting or is it that it’s a nice free diversion? There are a lot of diversions on the Internet, all impacting on the work day let alone personal time when we used to talk to each other in person and on the telephone.
I just don’t see the point of using Twitter to communicate. I’m sure companies will block access once they see how much time can be lost by geeks saying, to anyone with the time on their hands to read, that they are eating, reading, thinking, bludging … yeah, bludging.
Do people really want to know what I am doing right now?
mX free newspaper distribution in sydney
I was surprised to see this stack of the free daily newspaper mX in front of a newsagency in Sydney this afternoon. There was another stack right in front of the newspapers. Some newsagents have asked me whether newsagents are involved in distributing the free papers. Based on this I’d say yes, some are. I’m not sure of the financial arrangements but I would expect something to be flowing back to the newsagent.
I was fascinated by the energy of some of the mX distribution folk, particularly down by circular quay. I saw one hand out 50 copies in a minute – he was really enjoying his job. Admittedly it was peak hour but 50 is great going. Even the best people I saw in London last year didn’t get close to that.
My office is not in the city and I have not seen the mX distribution process first hand until today. This afternoon was an eye-opener. Many commuters really do want want their free paper. mX is clearly well established in Sydney. One surprise, however, was lack of distribution points at the major bus stops I saw. There were over 100 people and no mX copies in sight.
Poor uptake of Adelaide Crows and Port Power car flag promotion
The customer uptake for the Adelaide Crows and Port Power car flag promotion run by the Adelaide Advertiser exclusively through BP and On The Run outlets has been so low that they are repeating it in today’s Advertiser.
The Advertiser has a track record for ignoring retail newsagents with such promotions – to their peril it would seem. Hopefully, the poor uptake of the AFL flags promotion will encourage them to ditch BP and On The Run and go back to newsagents were they enjoyed greater success.
Promotions such as the AFL car flags in Adelaide and the AFL cards currently running in Melbourne at the moment are as important for the sponsoring newspaper as they are for the AFL and AFL clubs. The Adelaide clubs and the AFL would have to be concerned with the poor uptake – that’s if they know about it.
Newsagents are better connected with their community and more likely to get behind promotions like this. Also, they see more regular traffic than petrol and convenience outlets. How many times do you go to a petrol outlet in a week versus how many times to a newsagency? Some newspaper and magazine publishers have done a disservice to customers and their promotions partners by driving customers away from the channel not to mention the disrespect to the newsagents who have served them well.
To Advertiser Newspapers marketing people – you need to update your website to indicate that you’re having a second crack at this promotion today.
Photo courtesy of Advertiser Newspapers’ Adelaide Now website.
State of (US) News Media 2007
The State of the News Media 2007 report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism makes for compelling reading. While it provides a thorough analysis of all news media, the chapter on newspapers will be of particular interest. The Editors Weblog has published a neat summary of the report including this insight into free newspapers:
“A question for the future may be whether mainstream papers will consider doing away with paid circulation — giving papers away — or charge only for the convenience of home delivery,†says the report. According to it, these free models might actually be beneficial, since they could boost circulation and cut costs in the circulation and distribution work force.
With successful free daily newspapers in Melbourne and Sydney and the recent launch of mX in Brisbane it is timely for us to ask about the future of these products and their likely impact on paid sales.
Newsagents rely on paid newspaper traffic every day. This is why they (we) must research and understand overseas trends. While publisher representatives tell us that Australia is not the US or Europe, we do know that trends offshore will impact decisions here eventually. The more newsagents research these trends and consider their implication the better informed their capital decisions will be.
Unlike newspaper distribution in any other country, the Australian newspaper distribution model is deeply entrenched with publishers, thousands of families rely on publishers to make decisions mindful of the history and capital investment by newsagents it often dictated by the publishers.
Legal defence for covering adult magazines
Check out this story from Utah in the US about legislation protecting retailers who cover up adult magazines. Seems to me that they are legislating morality in Utah.
Newspaper distraction
I was in a petrol outlet this morning when a customer came in and asked if they had the AFL cards with today’s Herald Sun. The owner told the customer they had to go to the newsagent. The customer put the newspaper down and walked out. The owner then said to me that these newspaper promotions were “a waste of money”.
My takeaway was that newspapers are a distraction for this chap. He’s clearly frustrated with the product. His is a petrol outlet after all.
Publishers in their push to get into more retail outlets see their product treated as a poor cousin to the main product and while they may still get some impulse purchases, it is with the brand supporting promotions where they miss out.
Magazine online growth
The Magazine Publishers of America website lists the Top 10 websites associated with magazine brands based on recent pageview data. It would be interesting to track similar data for Australian titles and correlate this with over the counter sales of the related titles. Take a look at PC World for example. 38 million pageviews in a month. That’s an extraordinary number.
Supanews takes back two franchises?
Supanews has reportedly reached a settlement with the former franchisee of their Frankston store which the company locked them out of just before Christmas. The same source tells me that Supanews, or parties close to Supanews, have reportedly agreed to purchase a franchisee outlet in NSW. The franchisee advertised the business for $80,000 so no wonder they wanted this out of the newspapers.
Representatives of Supanews are talking to some newsagents about purchasing their businesses. Newsagents are skeptical, worried that the interest is only so they can access business data in advance of directly approaching the landlord. At least one newsagent has refused to sign the Supanews offered confidentiality agreement. It’s a tough situation for newsagents because the prospect of selling for a good price will make them very interested. However, it is important that they access appropriate legal; advice and ensure that their interests are well protected in the event of such an approach.
If the Supanews reports noted above are right, there will be some interesting discussions going among the new partners in Supanews, especially from the Angus & Robertson / Whitcoulls side I’d expect.
No one noticed Sensis Bidsmart was down for five days
I’m surprised that this was not covered anywhere and that I didn’t notice it. Sensis. BidSmart service was down from March 10 through 15. We have a small BidSmart campaign running for our Inkfast online ink and toner business – this runs separately to our retail newsagency and easily accounts for more ink and toner sales in a week than our shop processes in a month.
If Google AdWords was down I’m sure there would be reports. It’s a bit like someone turning off your marketing campaign. But we didn’t notice. Frankly, the BidSmart campaign was all but forgotten. Until Sensis emails us to advice that it had been off the air. Their apology email resulted in us logging in and revising the campaign. If we didn’t miss it surely there is a problem?
While I was playing with BidSmart today I saw some amazing traffic stats for some keywords which newsagents could play with – I’m not about to go into details here though.