Author: Mark Fletcher

Since I published this item about shoplifting here last week, Crikey.com.au has run two stories about my report the theft of a TV Guide newspaper insert in our shop and ABC 702 has run an interview with me on the subject. That’s the public stuff. Privately I’ve received emails slamming me decision to publish the footage. Not one of these correspondents has identified themselves. They say I am a “vigilante”, a “bully” and “disreputable”. They are entitled to their views.

The fact is that the woman in question stole the TV Guide, not only on the day filmed but others. The best way to stop being featured in the video footage is for her not to steal.

By publishing the image I am drawing attention to the high cost of theft in independently owned businesses like by newsagency. Hopefully this will make would be crooks think again before they steal the newspaper, magazine or greeting card. My preference is that I don’t have to resort to publicly shaming people but I’ll do it again if I get video footage of theft.

It is nonsense to label me a bully. I am reasonably protecting my business, my employees and my customers from the risks of this type of theft.

The message for all shoplifters is that more and more stores have camera systems and more business owners like me will publish faces of people caught red-handed.

Father’s Day is usually one of the softest of the major seasons in newsagencies: Christmas, Back to School, Valentine’s Day, Easter, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. This year our card sales are up 61% on last year. I’d say this is due to our moving of cards from the traditional card aisle approach you see in most newsagencies to the front of the store. Our sales data shows a flow on across other departments – all thanks to the card display.

What surprises me about Father’s Day is the lack of significant promotional activity through magazine titles. At Mother’s Day there are all manner of features. This helps sell gift packs and annual subscriptions. At Father’s Day – very little activity.

We received a ton of these calendars from a magazine distributor yesterday. RRP – $9.95. Wholesale – 40% off. The trouble is that we already have stock direct from the calendar company. Wholesale – 60% off. Magazine distributors have enough trouble getting magazine supply right – they ought to not rip cash-flow out of the newsagent channel through flawed calendar scale out. The calendar company gives me longer to pay than the magazine disgtributor. The magazine distributor gives me 30 days.

[Footnote] 04/04/06 My earlier posting noted an incorrect commission and payment timing to the magazine distributor.

Just over an hour ago our TV Guide thief was back in the shop and stealing the TV Guide from the Herald Sun. Thanks sharp work from our team and video footage from last week we caught her. The thief paid for last week’s paper and returned the insert from today. It was clear from the discussion this is not recent activity for her. She had all sorts of excuses as to why she was taking the TV Guide. None made any sense.

You really have to wonder why people risk their reputation by stealing a newspaper insert.

Every newsagent should be on the lookout next Wednesday for this woman.

Click on the image and watch this lady walk down the card aisle with a copy of the Herald Sun, remove the TV guide and place it in her bag before returning the rest of the newspaper to the stand and walking out of the shop. This happened in our shop on Wednesday last week. We’re expecting her back today. This time we will be ready thanks to the footage from our security system. (The original we have is much better quality.)

Customer theft is a high cost problem in newsagencies so if you can catch and humiliate someone it is satisfying.

I’m pleased to have contributed to this discussion at PBS about the old ways of doing things in media compared with the new ways being discussed/explored. The discussion came as a result of Mark Glaser’s Oldthink vs. Newthink post at his PBS Media Shift blog.

Many Australian mainstream media companies are embracing the shift in one way or another. Radio stations (led by the ABC) are aggressively playing with podcasting; newspapers are bringing more blogger content into their printed and online editions and most have reinvented their online presence; some magazines are leveraging exceptional value from their websites. TV is the slowest of the four media channels to undertake anything which could be called ‘newthink’ – announcing a link to more material at the end of a show is not ‘new’.

Newsagents are not embracing the Media Shift. While some are reinventing their businesses, the vast majority are not. They act more as servants of publishers than the entrepreneurs and business people they ought to be. The Media Shift is impacting newsagents. Newspapers are being sold in more locations, magazines are being sold in more locations, magazine subscription sales are increasing, more stationery is being purchased online.

In the spirit of Oldthink Vs. Newthink and in the context of newsagents I’d suggest, for starters:

Oldthink: Newsagents expect others to create their future.
Newthink: Newsagents take charge of their businesses.

Oldthink: Newsagents being rewarded for following publisher rules.
Newthink: Newsagents being rewarded for sales growth.

Oldthink: Newspapers at the front of the shop.
Newthink: Newspapers located where they sell the best.

Oldthink: Magazine supply being determined by magazine distributors.
Newthink: Newsagents only paying for magazines as they sell.

Oldthink: Newsagents carrying upwards of 5,000 stationery lines.
Newthink: Newsagents carry the top 750 sellers with a rapid fulfillment strategy for the long tail.

Oldthink: Newsagents let suppliers determine store layout rules.
Newthink: Newsagents take control of their own store layout.

Oldthink: Newsagents are paid for home delivery of newspapers according to publisher determined fees.
Newthink: Newsagents allowed to charge fees according to cost of service.

Oldthink: Newsagents manually process supplier accounts – costing on average 20 man-hours a month.
Newthink: Newsagents determine to only trade with suppliers who transact electronically.

The Australian Newsagents’ Federation wrote to newsagents Friday night to clarify their support for the ozjobfindit free employment classified offering. Unfortunately they created more problems for themselves and further confused newsagents. They have not explained why they are promoting the “johnny come lately” ozjobfindit while ignoring our Find It online classifieds model for the last eight to ten weeks.

The ANF statement Friday suggests that Ozjobfindit has been in development for over a year. The reality is that they registered their domain name three weeks ago in the United States. Given our registration here of www.findit.com.au we suspect a registration of such a similar name would have failed. A check of the site suggests this is a quickly thrown together site without a content acquisition plan.

The ANF statement also says that Ozjobfindit Pty Limited is a company registered in Victoria. No such company is currently registered according to ASIC.

More than 1,000 newsagents have got behind the Find It brand and the soon to publicly launch free online classifieds website. That their one national association is part of an online model which confuses other newsagents and consumers is disappointing. One has to wonder about their motivation. One also has to wonder about the quality of due diligence when you consider the lack of company registration and confusion over actual ownership of what the ANF is promoting.

Newsagents are the losers in this. The association ought to spend its time representing newsagents on more important matters rather than trying to harm my Find It initiative for newsagents.

This is our window display for Father’s Day. There are many newsagencies with similarly professional window displays. I post it here to demonstrate to regulars that newsagents are pulling themselves out of the 1970s and 1980s and creating contemporary window displays for the seasons. When you are in a shopping centre like we are and competing with Australia Post, K-Mart, Big W and Harris Scarfe you have to spend money on visual merchandising.

In the nine weeks our Find It online classified offering to newsagents the Australian Newsagents’ Federation has remained silent. Their silence has not stopped newsagents signing on to represent Find In their communities – we now have more than 1,000 newsagents signed up, making Find It the fastest uptake of a commercial initiative by newsagents. The ANF yesterday started promoting what could only be considered a spoiler operation – Ozjobfindit. A smart person would know that promoting Ozjobfindit to newsagents would confuse with the Find It business I have been promoting. Hmmm.

There are some problems with the ANF promoted business: The name the ANF promote in their announcement, Ozjobfindit Pty Limited, is not registered with ASIC; the website, www.ozjobfindit.com, would not pass registration in Australia because of its similarity to our domain name – www.findit.com.au.

The ANF has told newsagents that Ozjobfindit is “a fully owned subsidiary of the Barrington Group of Companies”. The Barrington website does not provide AC N or ABN details to research. A Google search took us to the National Training Information Service and lists an ACN which is not a valid number.

I originally offered the ANF all intellectual property of Find It back in mid 2004, long before any launch to newsagents. The offer was for all IP at no cost – a gift to the industry. The ANF did not act on the offer and in early 2005 I withdrew and further developed the business myself. The ANF could have owned a unique online classified website for newsagents and created what we are seeking to create today.

For newsagents, Find It is a traffic and revenue stream as customers will visit to pay for and even place ads. We treat newsagents as stakeholders by providing profit share and trail commission for customers they win. Ads by newsagents for their business and family can be posted at Find It at no cost.

It is disappointing that the ANF, of which I am a member through my newsXpress Forest Hill business, has been, at best sloppy, or at worst deliberately destructive in an effort to harm my Find It business.

There was a time newsagents used to get 6% commission for selling transport tickets for the NSW Government. That dropped to 3% a couple of years ago. The new commission for NSW transport tickets is set to be .5% – half of one percent. While there is no stock to carry for the new product, with a transaction taking around 60 seconds to complete, the government and their commercial partners reckon newsagents deserve just a couple of cents for their effort in selling, say, a $4.00 ticket. Not good form from a government trying to demonstrate its small business credentials.

At the annual newsagent trade show in NSW, the state and national associations, which signed a Memorandum of Understanding to jointly represent newsagents a couple of months ago, had separate stands. If the associations cannot unite at something as simple as a trade show, what hope is there for unity at a deeper level? It is no wonder that less than 20% of all newsagents are represented by an industry association. Egos are the barrier between real unity breaking out across the newsagency channel, as it has been for many years.