A blog on issues affecting Australia's newsagents, media and small business generally. More ...

Author: Mark

Fairfax takes the only option available

The announcement today by Fairfax to make cuts is the only decision available to the newspaper publisher.  More changes will be essential if the company is to weather the changes it is having to deal with.  Fairfax is not alone, all newspaper publishers are seeing a shift reader engagement and a shift in revenue … on the back of considerable cost pressures.

While I feel for those losing their jobs from today’s announcement and the announcements to come, the company has no choice but to reconfigure its operation in response to today’s marketplace.

Newsagents need to be making similar moves, changing the core of our businesses to make them more responsive to today’s marketplace.  If we were making the tough decisions like Fairfax management has just made we would:

  1. Cut the magazine department in our retail stores to something between 700 and 900 titles in all but a few newsagencies.
  2. Set the terms for which magazines can be supplied to our businesses.
  3. Quit home delivery.
  4. Cut all stationery lines which are not cash flow positive.
  5. Remove full time managers from newsagencies with retail sales (outside of lotteries) of less than $1M a year.
  6. Expand into new product categories which fit with the traditional newsagent customer.
  7. Start making business decisions based on real numbers.

There is more I could add to this list.  What I have written is a start.

Like the folks at Fairfax have discovered, now is the time for some tough decisions in newsagencies across Australia.  The opportunities are tremendous if we seize them.

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Newsagency management

EFTPOS fee briefing paper released by the ANF

The ANF has released an EFTPOS fee issue briefing paper to help newsagents in their engagement on this important issue.  Click here for a copy of the briefing paper which the ANF has given permission to publish.

I urge newsagents to download, print and read this briefing paper.  Then, I urge newsagents to engage: contact your local federal member, contact senators for your state, contact your local newspaper, talk to fellow small and independent retail, traders.

Any newsagent does not engage will have no right to complain when they are hit with new fees.  Now is the time for us to act.

I appreciate the ANF engaging and giving permission to share this paper.

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EFTPOS fees

Newsagents: make the most of the news today

With the death of Osama Bin Laden we have a great opportunity today to promote the news aspect of our newsagency businesses.  I’d suggest that newsagents:

  1. Ensure newspapers are in a prominent, traffic generating, position.  They have tended to drift to the back of newsagencies in recent years.
  2. Engage in co-location to drive incremental business.  In addition to their usual location: with weekly magazines, at the counter.
  3. Encourage team members to offer the up-sell.  Maybe consider a deal.

Too often now newspapers are sold not on the basis of news but for competitions, celebrity coverage and other reasons.  Today we have a chance to sell newspapers based on news.

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Newsagency opportunities

A relaunch for MasterChef magazine

mc-displmay2011.JPGWe have a terrific new display unit for promoting MasterChef to coincide with the launch of the latest TV series on Sunday night.  We’ve placed the display unit at the counter, next to newspapers, to make the most of the opportunity.

The display unit, additional collateral and supply boost equate to a re-launch, of sorts, of the MasterChef title.  Given the ratings for Sunday’s show I am happy to have the material necessary to connect with the brand.

The display unit is great because it is easily moved and holds plenty of stock.  This helps us make the most of the opportunity without high labour or floor-space overheads.

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magazines

GRAZIA shines!

grazia-may11.JPGGRAZIA magazine shines this week with its Royal Wedding coverage.  We have customers specifically asking for it, something I cannot recall happening for this struggling title.  This tells me that people understand where the title sits in the marketplace.  Maybe it’s that we don’t have enough every-woman glam our events to drive weekly sales.  We are promoting GRAZIA in multiple locations to make the most of the heightened interest.

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magazines

Making the most of Royal Wedding opportunities

royalweddispl.JPGWe have been promoting New Idea and Woman’s Day next to each other given that the Royal Wedding coverage is more likely to drive customers buying both titles in the one sale.  We have made sure to do this throughout the store, not only for New Idea and Woman’s Day together but also for other Royal Wedding titles – where we still have stock.

I am keen to grow total magazine sales and not just one title taking sales from another.  Hence the importance of ensuring the titles are placed together.  Newsagents don’t win from such churn.

Yesterday was frustrating with both magazine distributors, Gordon and Gotch and Network Services, saying they were out of stock of the Royal Wedding issues.  The demand appears to have been a surprise to everyone.  Thankfully, I was able to find some floor stock for those in need.

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magazines

Kobo e-reader a popular Mother’s Day prize

reader.JPGWe are giving away a Kobo e-reader to one lucky Mother’s Day Hallmark card customer this year.  There is strong interest in the Kobo prize, especially among younger shoppers.  I served one customer yesterday in her teens who thought it would be really cool to win this for her mum.  A few minutes later she dragged her brother in to buy his Mother’s Day card from us. They shared a laugh about teaching their mum how to use it.

While some may question the value of a business which relies on print giving away an e-reader as a prize, I like it because the prize shows we are being relevant in today’s marketplace, it demonstrates innovation as well as good value.

Promotions like this are vitally important in reinforcing the premium nature of our card offer over supermarkets, discount stores and other outlets.

There several hundred Hallmark newsagents each giving away Kobo e-reader this Mother’s Day.

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Greeting Cards

The Osama Bin Laden newspaper opportunity

While is may appear ghoulish, it will be interesting to see what the news of Osama Bin Laden’s death does for newspaper sales tomorrow.  This is the type of story which newspapers cover well with plenty of analysis and commentary.  It is an excellent opportunity for the medium.  So, I wonder if the opportunity will be seized.  For our part, we will take extra care to ensure that more visitors to our newsagencies see the cover stories.

UPDATE (4:50PM) The herald and Weekly Times has advised a supply boost tomorrow in light of this story.

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Newspapers

John Sands loses $1.6M on Allied Brands collapse

Greeting card company John Sands has lost $1,600,371.53 million from the collapse of Allied Brands last year according the to Notice to Creditors dated April 11, 2011.  This large loss is thought to primarily relate to the Kenny’s Cardiology business owned by Allied Brands – Kenny’s as since been sold to new interests who are rebuilding the group.  $1.6 million is a large loss to absorb.

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Newsagency challenges

Another politician engages on EFTPOS issue

Alan Tudge, The Federal Member for Aston, the electorate covering one of my newsagencies has responded on the EFTPOS issue.

I appreciate how this can affect a small business like yours in a significant way. I do not know if there is anything that the government can do about it if the company is actually legally. There may be ACCC issues or other issues that I have not considered. I will approach both the Minister and Shadow Minister in relation to your concerns and seek their action on it.

The more newsagents who engage on this issue the greater the chance of it getting the necessary attention to affect change.  Have you written to your local member of parliament?

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EFTPOS fees

Promoting the Woman’s Day Royal Wedding Special Edition

royalwedding-disp.JPGWe were fortunate to receive our Woman’s Day and other ACP magazines yesterday (sorry Queenslanders) and made the most of the opportunity.  Our team put together a Royal Wedding display unit and placed on the lease line facing into the mall.  They also created a well as this terrific display behind the sales counter (see photo) plus tactical placement with newspapers and the magazines in their usual location.

Customer engagement was good.  We certainly sold magazines to weekend shoppers we do not see during the week.

There will be pressure on display space today with New Idea and more titles in – we will be adjusting displays as a result.

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magazines

My Kitchen Rules one-shot performs well

mkr.JPGWhile sales have tapered off, we have been happy with the performance of the My Kitchen Rules on-shot from Pacific Magazines.  The title worked best for us when pushed at the front of the newsagency early in the on-sale.  We sold more than first allocated thanks to additional stock we sourced.  Sales could have been stronger with more marketing collateral – a pretty bland poster was not enough to make the most.  We re-purposed a display unit so that we could be more tactical in our approach with the title.

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magazines

ACP stuffs up Royal Wedding opportunity for Queensland newsagents

Newsagents in Queensland have not received their supply of Royal Wedding feature magazines from ACP today as promised last week.  Curiously, supermarkets in Queensland appear to be unaffected.

The (justified) anger of newsagents directed at ACP is heightened when you consider that tomorrow is a public holiday and traffic is expected to be down.

This is a right royal stuff by ACP.  To be fair, they have sent out an email today to try an explain the situation:

Please be advised that due to production difficulties there has been some delays to the scheduled early (Sunday) delivery of Woman’s Day (Bipad 01135) today.

To maximise the sales opportunity associated with the Royal wedding some production was shifted to QLD. Unfortunately this facility is running behind schedule. Trucks were held back as long as possible but ultimately many had to be dispatched without Woman’s Day.

Based on the latest production schedule Network Services plans to deliver your Woman’s Day stock tomorrow morning (Monday 02/05/2011). Please hold off reporting any shortages until then as at this stage we anticipate supplying you in full.

On behalf of ACP Magazines we apologise for any inconvenience caused.

While ACP often tells newsagents that they are a vitally important channel, that they have delivered today to supermarkets and not newsagents shows otherwise.  This is inexcusable.  The email today should not have been sent.  Why offer an apology without a reasonable explanation of how and why you have given a competitor such a free kick?

The ACP team decided to go early with it’s magazines today.  They promoted this to newsagents last week. Many newsagents made plans accordingly, even bringing resources so that they could create displays to make the most of the opportunity.  They then spend hours chasing answers as to why they did not receive magazines while their competitors did. At 10:43am they get their answer.

If I was affected I’d try and buy up tons of these magazines from the supermarkets.  Too not have these Royal Wedding titles available today would present too much of a risk to the business in my view.  While I shouldn’t have to do this I would.  I’d see no option.

In the meantime, maybe newsagents could consider some form of joint action against ACP for compensation.

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magazines

Frustrating sell out of newspapers by 12 noon

We were sold put of the Herald Sun by noon yesterday.  We chased more stock and our distribution newsagent said they could not get stock.  We bought up copies from Coles and they only lasted a few minutes.  Based on customer queries we could have sold at least double the usual number of copies of the Herald Sun.  By not long after noon at our centre every retail location was out of the Herald Sun.

We sold out of The Saturday Age by around 1:30.  The same deal.  No stock.

I am surprised that Fairfax and News did not see this coming given the extraordinary interest in the royal wedding.  But maybe they did – they make most of their money from advertising. Printing and distributing extra stock costs money.  We only make money from sales, extra stock is essential to us.

Very frustrating.

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Newspapers

Justin Bieber keeps selling stuff

biebermags.JPGHaving sold out of the Justin Forever one-shot from Pacific Magazines and being able to get yet another box of the Justin Bieber photo packs, we needed to maintain some presence at the counter and so we are using the current issue of MAD magazine and it’s Justin Bieber cover.  We have done very well out of Justin Bieber and will continue to do so until he stops delivering excellent sales.  I’d be curious to know if other newsagents have reordered Bieber stock when they have sold out – we have of each title and financially it has been well worth it.  We will even sell out of MAD magazine.

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magazines

Newsagents offered $1.00 for each extra copy of The Age sold

age-bonusdollars.jpgFairfax wrote to Victorian newsagents yesterday offering a bonus payment of $1.00 for each copy of The Saturday Age and The Sunday Age sold by beyond the retail sales target for the  newsagent.  This is an extraordinary and unprecedented offer by an Australian newspaper publisher, a generous offer for newsagents – $1.00 for every copy of the newspaper above the sales target and on the weekend of the Royal Wedding.

It is a pity that some distribution newsagents will not pass the offer on to their retail newsagents.  I heard that one newsagent said yesterday that it is not for sub agents.  Well, no, that is not true.  Fairfax has made it clear that the distribution newsagent will be paid based on all sales they achieve – through their own store and general retailers (sub agents). Read the letter.

Entrepreneurial newsagents will share the benefits of the bonus with sub agents to mamximise sales, delivering a classic win win.

Petty dinosaur newsagents who don’t understand or hate sub agents will refuse to share the bonus opportunity.  Sales of the Age will reflect this, delivering a classic and ignorant lose lose.

Fairfax should contact sub agents and find out if they were refused the opportunity.  I am sure that snubbed sub agents would dob in newsagents who refused to engage. I would be happy to.

Kudos to Fairfax for making the offer.  Now, if only they could make sure that all retail only newsagents could access this and show what could really be achieved.

Click on the image for a larger copy of the letter from Fairfax to newsagents.

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Newsagency management

Promoting New Idea Royal Wedding special

ni-royal.jpgWe are placing flyers at the counter promoting the Royal Wedding special edition of New Idea which comes out Monday. We felt that this was important given the peak of interest today following yesterday’s wedding and the arrival tomorrow of Woman’s Day, a day early.  Our interest is in overall magazine sales … we want to make the most of the royal wedding opportunity across the range of titles we carry.

This flyer for New Idea also works with the pre-orders we are taking for the royal wedding calendar – which are going well by the way.

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magazines

Check out the Australian Traveller TVC

Check out the which have been running on TV in support of the latest issue of Australian Traveller magazine. Kudos to another publisher telling people they can get their title in newsagencies.

This is another reason to support Australian Traveller. In one of my stores, we have tripled our sales – by promoting it at the counter.

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magazines

Driving country themed magazine sales

countrytitles.JPGCountry themed magazine titles continue to perform well.  We facilitate this by ensuring that the titles are placed together.  I am pretty anal about this. Too often I see newsagencies (and my own stores) where country titles have been allowed to drift away from each other.  Placing them together like this is more likely to result in two or more titles being purchased in the same sale.  That is what I have found over the years.

We regularly refresh the layout to share the full facing opportunity at the front of the display – covers of these titles are vital to driving sales.

We have also had success co-locating country titles with a weekly impulse display (or at the counter is space permits), achieving a nice jump in sales.  Breaking a category of titles, like country,  out of their usual location is tremendously valuable for reminding shoppers that you have titles in this space.

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magazines

Are these iPhone magazines from Media Factory cash-sucking junk?

iphoneguide.JPGMedia Factory and Network Services have some questions to answer following a review of The Essential iPhone Guide (3rd edition) published last year (on the left of the photo) and The Essential guide to iPhone (6th edition), published this year (on the right of the photo).

The content on twenty-nine pages of The Essential guide to iPhone appears to have been lifted from The Essential iPhone Guide.  This is odd since the 2011 publication claims that its content is “fully updated for 2011”.  I wonder what the ACCC or Fair Trading would make of this claim with such a large amount of old content.  I am surprised that Network Services did not pick up on the recycled content.

Go to pages 92 and 93 of both titles and the content is so close to identical that it is not funny.  The same on pages 94 and 95, 96 and 97 … on twenty-nine pages of this.

Besides duplicate content across the two titles, the content itself is, well, mediocre.  It is what I would expect from an overseas content factory where you pay as little as US$7.50 for an original 500 word article.  Certainly not essential or valuable content.

As I have written previously, Media Factory and Network Services have a track record of recirculating under-performing Media Factory titles to unsuspecting newsagents, sucking up cash and space, causing us to incur costs for freight (for returns) and to carry the risk of theft.

This looks to me like a never ending line of credit model with newsagents as the bankers.  There is a constant recycling of cheap content, keeping a valuable chunk of newsagent cash flowing to Media Factory through Network Services.  As I said, a never ending line of credit.

Network Services has legal and ethical obligations to newsagents.  They control what we receive.  Their decisions incur expenses which we cannot avoid.  Their supply actions play a role in how we are perceived by shoppers.  Personally, I don’t think that they should be distributing these titles.

These two Media Factory titles look to me like recycled cheap junk.  Given the quality titles available in this same space, I do not see any merit for newsagents or consumers in the distribution of these titles.

Newsagents – go and check your shelves and see if you have these titles.  I am not receiving them, thankfully.  If I did, I would be returning them and requesting that Network cease supply of all Media Factory titles.

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magazine distribution

Promoting Girlfriend magazine and Justin Bieber

gf-bieber.JPGWe are promoting Girlfriend magazine along with the Justin Bieber one-shot at the counter as they both appeal to the same demographic. This counter location works well for us for teen girl titles, driving excellent impulse business from girls and their parents.

We have had terrific success with the Bieber title – ordering additional stock certainly paid off.

Connecting the two titles as we have should pay off for both titles, especially Girlfriend early in the on-sale.

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magazines

Royal Wedding drives magazine delivery changes

Here is advice from my newsagent software company Tower Systems for its newsagent customers on how to handle the changes to magazine deliveries by Network Services tomorrow and on the weekend which have been brought on by the royal wedding:

Friday 29/4
Cosmopolitan and Australian House and Garden will be delivered tomorrow however the physical invoice and EDI file will be dated 1st May. Once you have received this invoice through Invoice Arrivals your subagents will be automatically allocated orders dated on the 1/5 or 2/5 depending systems settings). However you may wish to deliver this stock to all or selected Subagents on Friday/Saturday. To do this you will need to change the date of the order in the Subagent Order Screen. Once in this screen go to the All Subagents Tab and enter the PLU for the title you wish to change. You will need to change the week ending date for the for the week that includes the 1st May. This will then display the titles and change the dates on the orders for each subagent to your desired delivery date.

Sunday 1/5
Most agents (All VIC, NSW, SE QLD, Metro WA) will receive their entire Monday Deliver on Sunday in order to capitalise on the Royal Wedding. This should not cause you any concerns the only thing to remember is when asked “If you want to change the Delivery Day” that you answer YES. This will ensure the Customer and Suborders are changed and dockets and runlists are correct.

I am blogging about the changes here to try and reach the widest community possible so that newsagents can prepare for the impact of the one-off changes.

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magazine distribution

Re-launching Large magazine – an opportunity for newsagents

large.jpgHarry Rekas, the publisher of Large magazine, has contacted me seeking feedback from newsagents in advance of the re-launch of this quarterly ($10) title.  This is an excellent opportunity for newsagents to engage directly with the publisher prior to launch.  I see Large as presenting some excellent opportunities for city based and some regional newsagents.

As Harry says …

Large is provocative in nature with a blend of irony, satire, politics, images, essays, fashion, interviews and stories…. Vice and virtue done in an irreverent manner

The launch issue of the new Large has a political satire/cartoon theme featuring a photographic interpretation of one of Robert Crumb’s illustrations on the cover. The magazine will be packaged in a brown paper bag (not sealed) with the ‘piss boy’ logo on the bag which I hope will differentiate the product and via its use in the marketing and PR will help make the product standout and recognised on the shelves

While not for every newsagent, Large is a title with which we can show off our point of difference over other retailers of magazines.  I’d certainly give the title a crack in my newsagencies.  I like that it comes in a brown paper bag – this will make it stand out and attract browsing.

Harry would appreciate your feedback on the title.  Click here for the media kit.  Click here to email Harry.

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magazines
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