Author: Mark Fletcher

In the majority of newsagencies around the country traffic is up this week thanks to the $21 million superdraw. I know in my own situation, today will be up between 10% and 15% and tomorrow at least 20%. This is one of the six or seven planned superdraws each year, meaning that it would be easy for other suppliers to build offers around this traffic boost. That’s what I’d like to see in 2007 – other suppliers using knowledge of the superdraw dates to create additional revenue opportunities for themselves and newsagents. The bonus traffic is there so why not make use of it? We have offers ourselves but something driven by a publisher would be better as it connects more appropriately with the newsagent offering.

newsXpress Shellharbour Kiosk were the unfortunate victims of a ram raid over the weekend and need kiosk friednly fixtures if you kow of any available. Contact me and I will pass on their details.

I’ve seen a letter from Communications Minister Helen Coonan to a colleague last week in which ducks and weaves about the impact the Australia Post is having on small business. When queried about the impact of the 850 or so Government owned stores, Coonan talks about Australia Post’s 3000 licenced owned post offices and completely ignores the government owned stores.

The government hides constantly behind the privately owned LPOs which it is the government owned stores which pull in the big dollars. It is the government owned stores which are sucking millions of dollars away from the newsagent channel. My own store is a perfect example. The government competes with me for the sale of stationery, calendars, greeting cards, ink and toner – none of which relates to, in my view, products and services allowed under the Act.

This government needs to wake up to itself. Australia Post is using the respected Australia Post brand and its government ownership to steal business from small businesses like mine. My profits are down as a result. This impacts the tax I pay. It impacts how many people I can employ.

The lack of interest by the Government on this matter is a disgrace.

Just a few months after signing agreements to unify newsagent associations, the national body, the Australian Newsagents’ Federation, had done a dummy spit and told newsagents in NSW and QLD to quit the state bodies and join the national body. The ANF says the NSW and QLD State Associations are duds. I’d copy the dummy spit email here if it were not, in my view, defamatory. In the same email, the ANF announces that ANF CEO, Rayma Creswell has resigned because of “her inability to continue to work with industry Associations representing NSW and Qld”.

The road to unified national representation of newsagents has been long and rocky. Every day the national and state associations continue brawling is another day of opportunity to those who compete with newsagents. The communication from the ANF could have been more professionally written and therefore more likely to be read and digested.

The ANF and state associations have signed agreements which lay out how they are to co-exist. Newsagents would be well served if all parties adhered to the agreements. In the meantime, the ANF Board could consider hiring a CEO with solid national association experience.

Sunday. 11am. We’re out of the Herald Sun encyclopedia CDs. Customers are angry. We start writing up backorders in a book. Between our newsagency and the next one open are ten closed newsagencies. It’s nuts we do not have more CD stock.

The Herald Sun is running an excellent CD promotion over five or six weeks. Today, due to lack of supply of the promotional CDs 50 customers who came into our shop wanting to buy the CD turned and walked out. It’s the first thing they ask. We know from experience that if we say yes, at least half grab the CD and make other purchases. The knock on effect of lack of supply is significant. Beyond the 50 lost customers another 60 ordered the CD on backorder. This takes a couple of minutes per order – another significant cost for micro margin product.

I love the promotion. Blind freddy would have known that it would be exceptionally successful. I wish the scale out was more appropriate to need. In my case, being open all weekend, I need more than a high street newsagency.

POS Solutions, in marketing material to newsagents last week, claims that their POS Browser software is “a leader in magazine management”. I am not sure how they measure leadership. To me it means providing state of the art facilities which help newsagents achieve better commercial results from their magazine category. This means better supplier interfaces, better stock control, better over and under supply warning facilities and better business performance tracking. Oh, and being first to market.

Newsagents switching to my company, Tower Systems, tell me they switched because they want better magazine management facilities than they had in POS Browser.

POS has only recently passed industry compliance tests – two years after their competitors. Sadly, they have left, by my estimation, 70% of their users behind since the cost of moving from the POS DOS software to the POS Windows software is prohibitive.

Are the POS claims to be “a leader in magazine management” accurate. In my view they are not. POS Solutions is not a leader in this or any other area of newsagent operation.

POS Solutions names newsagents in their brochure – I wonder how they feel about the software they use? How do they feel that they have been held back for more than a year from sending magazine returns data electronically? I know from my own newsagency that this alone delivers hundreds of dollars in benefits a month.

Caveat emptor.

Disclosure: I own Tower Systems.

A week ago News Ltd’s Adelaide Newspapers refused to use newsagents to raise money for the Steve Irwin Wildlife Warriors charity. They preferred to deal with BP. They also ignored newsagents for their robot sales promotion – another exclusive through BP. Next week, they flip flop and use newsagents to push their Moments In Time publication – ignoring BP; or is BP ignoring them? Moments In Time sells for $39.95. Stocks were delivered to newsagents this week. Newsagents were billed this week even though the title does not go on sale until next week. Sales history suggests a sell-through of 40%. This will leave newsagents cash-flow negative for three months – three critical months. If Advertiser Newspapers is so keen on dealing with BP why not foist this book on them? News Ltd needs to decide where it stands with retail newsagents. In my state of Victoria it is a healthy and mutually respectful relationship. In SA, newsagents are being abused.

The folks at the Adelaide Advertiser decided to use BP outlets to sell their green wrist bands instead of newsagents. Data I have seen suggests that this was a mistake. I know that newsagents in Victoria and New South Wales actively promoted the fund raising – many sold out of the bands and raised good amounts for Wildlife Warriors. From South Australia I have heard of between 35% and 70% of the bands being returned. Whoever decided to use BP for this fundraiser obviously was not focused on raising the maximum amount possible.

Publishers have a perfect channel in newsagents for all masthead related promotions. The more the use the likes of BP the less interest newsagents will have in publisher needs and the less successful their masthead related will enjoy. The SA Steve Irwin green bands are a perfect example.