By placing certain magazine categories next to each other in our businesses we are able to drive sales of both. Take wedding and hair – they sit naturally next to each other yet I have seen newsagencies where they are some distance apart.
By considering and managing magazine adjacencies newsagents are able to drive sales efficiency from the department and bank more margin dollars from magazine sales.
We have been promoting the latest issue of Weight Watcher’s magazine in the usual location with women’s health titles as well as this impulse location placement at the front of the magazine department. Every time we bring this title out from itss usual location we achieve incremental sales – I’d encourage other newsagents to try this. the sales are there. it’s a matter of the cover being seen by someone at the right point in their consideration of weight related matters. It’s an easy impulse purchase because of the trust in the brand. In addition to this placement with weeklies we also give it a run with newspapers when space and time permit.
We have been enjoying terrific success with a display unit of the Smurf themed Kinder Surprise at our main sales counter. With the movie opening last Thursday we received stock in ideal time to leverage interest.
The first unit sold through quickly and we’re well into our second unit. The new Smurf movie is proving to be one of the best movie merchandise opportunities we have had for some years – generating nice new traffic and excellent impulse purchase business.
It’s terrific to see Mark McInnes speaking out about gouging by landlords as reported by The Age today. Landlords are killing the Australian newsagency with their current 5% rent increase for a channel where the price of much of what we sell is outside our control. See what I said about this a few weeks ago.
I completed a magazine relay in one of my newsagencies on Saturday, moving every title in all but two categories. I am not talking about slight moves, no, this was a major shakeup to reshape the magazine shopper experience and to drive basket depth.
Men’s magazines, for example, were moved from an aisle into what I call a nook space – a reading area toward the rear of the store. Very shopper friendly. Plenty of space to gather and chat. We now have more full face covers on display – showing off the full cover pitch from publishers. It’s a reading smorgasbord for guys.
The photo does not do the display justice. You can see four bays – the whole area actually has six bays. Where we think shoppers will be prepared to look for titles we have fanned them so that we fit three or four titles where we would usually fit two titles.
I am very happy with the new look for magazines in this newsagency. Now we wait to see the impact on sales.
For newsagents wondering about a relay, I recommend a relay at least once a year which some tactical changes in between times. The goal here is to keep the magazine offer fresh for shoppers and for your team. One of the most important ways to reflect your point of difference is in your magazine layout.
We have been running a promotion of Lovatts crossword and puzzle titles on an aisle end facing toward the front of the newsagency. This display was setup to coincide with a magazine relay which resulted in all bar two small categories of magazines being moved. Once the display comes down we will maintain a co-location strategy for crossword titles in with our women’s weeklies titles – the business driven from this additional placement is excellent.
The display in the photo, while simple, is effective. we know from pocket counting that it is driving sales.
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Newsagents have attended the Reed Gift Fair in Sydney this past weekend in huge numbers, far more than previous years. The Tower Systems stand has engaged with many newsagents – we have been at this show regularly for years and so are in a position to gauge the jump in newsagent attendance. It has been terrific to see such a massive increase in newsagent participation. This shows that many in the channel are embracing change.
The Gift Fair is important because of the diversity of product on offer and the variety of business owners you get to mix with.
I am surprised that more newsagent suppliers do not embrace the Gift Fair opportunity … their loss I guess.
A few weeks ago I put together a document I called Tips For Newsagents in Tough Times. I created this in response to requests for help from newsagents doing it tough. While some of the content is of more use to newsagents using the Tower Systems newsagency software, the seven pages of notes, tips and ideas could be useful to any newsagent.
We, each of us business owners, are accountable for our business position. Making excuses will result in us taking our eye off the ball and fixing what needs to be fixed.
If your business is experiencing tough times, you need to implements considerable personal and business changes to turn the situation around. If you change nothing, nothing will change for you. I firmly believe that we make our own success.
If you would like a copy of the document, please email me at mark@towersystems.com.au. It’s free. All I ask is that you let me know if the information share is of use.
LivingSocial deals site members received an email late last week offering 20 weeks of the Herald Sun on Saturdays and Sundays for just $24. That’s 60 cents per newspaper delivered, just about what it will cost the newsagent to do the delivery. The trouble is, I suspect that the distribution newsagent will not get this much from each delivery. I expect that they will ‘partner’ with News Limited on this loss making campaign.
A just sixty cents a newspaper I wonder how much interest there will be among subscribers in each of the newspapers delivered and the advertising they carry. I bet that some of the 2,440 who had signed up when I checked the site figured that $24 was such a small amount no matter if they would not have time to read every issue.
Steep discounting is a losers game. I think that newspaper publishers would be better off stopping all deep discount deals and thereby understand exactly where they stand in terms of genuine reader interest. Deals like this one lead to a false view of sales and readership.
The other issue for advertisers is the number of people who take the deal and then neglect to redeem the voucher they purchase. Is this counted as a sale of the newspaper for the 20 weeks?
The Sunday Herald Sun yesterday had a post-it note type ad for tourism in NSW and Qantas Holidays stuck over a headline for their report on the Carlton / West Coast Eagles match. The placement of the ad says a lot to the AFL and AFL fans in Victoria. There were plenty of comments yesterday – customers hated it. We agree with them. Covering up editorial content in this way damages the brand. It also indicates that publishers care less about editorial content.
Our promotion of Better Homes and Gardens at the counter, next to newspapers, has worked again this weekend. I don’t know why more newsagents don’t take the opportunity of this placement. It’s easy money. As the photo shows we also took the opportunity to promote the new ACP mini cookbook – Caio Bella in this high profile location.
Our promotion of the latest issue of Harper’s Bazaar magazine by opening out to show off the free canvas tote bag gift is working, delivering a nice kick in sales. This is really the only way to display gifts which are packaged with magazines in this way. we have made sure that we have space, especially in our women’s fashion section where gifts are so common.
Shake things up for your business and appoint one of your customers the Newsagent for a Day. Get them into the business, behind the counter and into the back room. Their fresh-eyes insights could let you see opportunities you are missing.
An alternative to this opportunity is awarding the status to one of your team members, probably a junior who is more likely to have challenging ideas.
The idea here is to get you shaken up, to see what you may not see in your day to day work … you know, wood for the trees.
I have to confess that I don;t regularly check out Dolly and Girlfriend magazine. This is why I missed the opportunity with the latest issues – they both feature Selena Gomez on the cover. Selena and Justin are dating, apparently. This presents us with an opportunity to promote both titles in a good impulse purchase location, especially in newsagencies where Beiber products sell. This is what we will do.
Check out this report in The Sydney Morning Herald about fashion retailer Asos coming to Australia. On the one hand fashion retailers have tough economic conditions and nervous consumers and on the other they have extraordinarily successful retailers, offline and online, from overseas taking on our marketplace. I mention this because we think that our tiny retail patch is tough … I wouldn’t be a fashion retailer for quids.
We have been promoting Simply Salads as we do every new ACP cookbook, by placing some stock next to our daily newspapers. While we also display all new titles in our cookbook section, it is this tacttical placement with newspapers which generates the best response. Newsagents have an excellent opportunity with these cookbooks as they are released to us weeks ahead of them being placed in supermarkets.
The Reed Gift Fair starts in Sydney today. If you can get to Darling Harbor over the next four days I suggest you do. This fair is set to be attended by more newsagents than any recent newsagent trade show – gifts are now that important to our channel and the range of products on the trade show floor are that diverse, well beyond what you might calls gifts.
I love the variety of product, the challenge to redefine what a newsagency can sell. The next four days are an excellent opportunity for newsagents who want to chase growth and change.
The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday reported on support among advertisers for the Fairfax plan to cut unprofitable circulation. I like the quote in the report from the CEO of UM, Mat Baxter:
For me the real issue here is the credibility of newspapers with advertisers, tricks like subsidising the cost of papers through ‘educational issues’ at schools or promotional issues at gyms and Starbucks scream of desperation.
Cutting free and subsidised deliveries helps retail newsagents reinforce the position in terms of newspapers. It helps distribution newsagents cut unprofitable deliveries. I’d note, however, that not all these subsdised deliveries are unprofitable for newsagents.
It has been interesting to see people get into a lather about the media inquiry announced this week. For what it’s worth I don’t think the terms of reference go far enough. One only has to look at reporting of matters of vital importance to see that some outlets prefer to publish more spin than professional journalism.
We may have an opportunity to engage in the discussion about the impact of technology on the distribution of media – it remains to me seen.
From a newsagent perspective I would welcome an inquiry into the distribution of print media. This was deregulated in 1999 under the direction of the Howard government and done in such a way that the job was not completed.
While magazines and newspapers are certainly in more outlets – a win for consumers – newsagents have been left with ma magazine distribution model which makes them less competitive than other retailers – a loss for consumers.
I’d welcome an inquiry reviewing deregulation and the impact on our 4,000 or so mum and dad businesses.
It won’t happen because it does not suit the politicians and because the magazine distributors are the masters of spin when challenged by authorities on the damage of their model to family run newsagencies.
On the back of an excellent launch issue, we are supporting issue two of Feast magazine with this aisle end display in a good traffic location as well as with placement with food titles and with weeklies. With sales better than delicious magazine, we are pushing to follow up the launch success and cement our newsagency as the place to shop for this title. While growth in sales of food titles is down on last year, it is still a strong and important category for us. Feast is a welcome addition.
I was pleased to see that the full bench of fair Work Australia dismissed an appeal by the main union covering shop workers against an earlier decision permitting shifts shorter than 3 hours for school kids. This is particularly helpful in newsagencies where after school work provides an excellent learning opportunity for students.
