I’m not sure when this happened: Ikea is in the social stationery business in a big way with colour-themed ranges. Their offer is a bit like Smiggle for a slightly older than Smuggle age group. Their n’store display and packaging is identical to what we can see in Coles right now for similar products.
Officeworks has changed its parcel delivery service and rebranded it Mailman.
The photo shows a Mailman kiosk in a Sydney Officeworks outlet. The Mailman website makes using the service look easy. The website and the kiosk combined encourage a feeling of trust and this is important in any parcel service.
Newsagents offering parcel services should research Mailman so they can be aware of this competitor and how it compares to their own offer. Look at the pricing, logistics and infrastructure.
Check out this video by Officeworks about Mailman.
Check out this video by someone not connected with Officeworks about Mailman.
It looks like Officeworks has invested considerably in Mailman, ensuring it is a force to be reckoned with.
UK newsagent group WH Smith has reported increased profits off of flat sales reports the Daily Mail. City AM has a similar report. Do your own search and you’ll see most reporters writing the same ‘assessment’. The group does not appear to be as adventurous in its UK newsagency businesses and some newsagents in Australia are in theirs.
WH Smith in Australia is really five businesses in one group and I am told they plan to keep the five businesses under their current names. However, I am also told they expect to significantly expand rooftops to provide outlets for their wholesale product lines.
What will be most interesting to watch in Australia is how card company John sands manages their apparent strong relationship with WH Smith while maintaining their strong relationship with the nextra group.
In Auckland Monday at Beresford Square I could choose to get a sandwich and coffee from six outlets, all within a minute of each other. I chose The Station because of the single difference on their sign over the others – good tunes.
All the outlets promoted good food and good coffee. The good tunes message was different. It suggested a funkiness which appealed. Sure enough, inside, they had tunes playing a perfect backdrop for a break from the day.
Sometimes two words on a chalk board are all you need to pitch the difference of your business over the others nearby.
I have complained to the AFL over their exclusive promotion of Micro-Figures with Coles timed for the start of the AFL season. Local newsagency businesses are key supporters and sponsors of local grass-roots football teams. The AFL should be careful about supporting Coles as it will make us wonder about the respect given to our local team support.
Given its reliance on local teams to feed passion for the game, the AFL should focus on local businesses for retail partnership.
Social media makes it easy for us to see what competitors are doing without becoming a stalker. You can follow them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and elsewhere. Don’t think it’s odd as they probably already follow you.
Following a competitor on social media can be inspiring – not so you can copy them but more to inspire you to do better yourself. This is true with the kikki K Twitter feed – it’s an excellent example of a feed to follow and from which to gain inspiration.
I was disappointed to see the floor display unit for the four-part Australia The Story of Us in Woolworths yesterday. The Woolworths branding suggests this is an exclusive display unit. Maybe Pacific Magazines expected this title to do better in supermarkets than newsagencies. Maybe Woolworths pushed for the unit. Either way, I’m disappointed that this display unit is not at the front entrance to many newsagencies in Australia. … unless I missed the offer and if I did then this post is wrong.
There are enough newsagency channel suppliers giving supermarkets favourite treatment. We don’t need more.
I was sent this photo yesterday of terrific floor display unit promoting the Disney Bring Home Some Magic promotion being run by News Corp. supporting The Daily Telegraph.
This is an excellent display unit. I wonder why Coles gets this and not newsagents.
Most newsagents I have spoken with were given posters, floor decals and blow-up figures – nothing for placing the product on the shop floor.
I expect Coles would have required a unit like this as they would not want to follow the approach newsagents have had to follow for years – carefully managing stock, checking coupons from behind the counter, imposing the rules.
This floor display unit is more space efficient and more effective than the bits and pieces newsagents have been given. It also makes it easier for people to purchase the Disney item without a newspaper – as many newsagents have found already from customers.
It is frustrating to see another example of double standards by a newsagency channel supplier. Such behaviour confuses shoppers and can only leave newsagents wondering why News Corp. is favouring Coles over newsagents.
Next time there is a promotion with a newspaper, I’ll be asking for a floor display unit like this.
As for this promotion, I will be looking at sales tomorrow, for justification of the considerable promotional space allocation.
The publisher of the NAB AFL Fantasy AFL Record has promoted newsagents on Twitter tweeting that it’s out now at newsagents and Coles nationally. While I’d prefer them to only promote newsagents, getting mentioned along with Coles is better than not being mentioned at all.
I responded to the tweet with: But buy it from your local newsagent. Support small business and not the giant Coles. Other newsagents on twitter could do this too and gain more attention for our channel. It’s not a rude response – merely a reminder that newsagents are the retailers to visit for this title.
The take over of Kennys Cardiology by the UK WH Smith group appears to not have been as complete as first thought. This photo is from the Kennys store at Westfield Southland in Victoria from the weekend. The card display has looked like this for several months. The gaps are not something WH Smith would have allowed to continue – especially in such a high-profile location. I suspect we will hear more about this at some point.
Newsagents promoting chocolate roses for Valentine’s Day need to be careful about their stock holding and price positioning given what I have seen in Woolworths this week. Take the product in the photo – $10 for 12 chocolate roses. It would be hard for any newsagent to beat this, especially if they were to create their own roses by wrapping chocolates themselves.
The photo is from a Woolworths in Melbourne. the display is at the main entrance – you can’t miss it. The product itself is a compelling offer, one many Valentine’s Day shoppers will find compelling.
While newsagents can compete with supermarkets for Valentine’s Day gifts, doing this depends on the product mix and the narrative – like shop local or shop small business – supporting them.
The Australian Financial Review today has an excellent piece outlining an overview of the strategy that is driving excellent success for the business. I urge newsagents to read it as it explains why Officeworks cannot be ignored.
Officeworks management know what their business is, what it stands for and how to pursue this to their profit. The niche they are pursuing is a niche that used to be owned by newsagents.
While we can complain that Officeworks is not as cheap as they claim or that our service is more personal, there is no denying their commercial success and recent terrific growth.
Two reasons Officeworks has been able to grow is that newsagents underestimated them and newsagents expect more shopper support than they actually get.
People will go where they perceive value. Newsagents can more effectively promote value and drive traffic and sales as a result. Value does not mean discounting.
Officeworks is promoting and extraordinary offer as part of their in-store, outpost and advertising Back to School pitch: find and identical item on a quoted school list at a lower price and we’ll beat it by 20%.
Newsagents competing with Back to School need to be aware of this and the conditions associated with it.
I don’t participate in Back to School as I find more profitable to invest in promotions others are not running this time of the year.
While I understand the theory that cheap Back to School product will show you as competitive, I am skeptical that those whoppers buying based on price will think first of you for their purchases through the year – unless you advertise on price all year round as Officeworks does.
Back to Officeworks: be aware of their offer and have a plan for competing with it.
I have heard from three suppliers in the last 24 hours that UK retail group WH Smith is in negotiation with an Australian newsagency group to acquire franchisor management control of that network and add it to its rapidly growing portfolio. We know from recent acquisitions that WH Smith prefer the franchise model over corporate stores.
If the reports lead to an acquisition, it will shake up the channel and considerably challenge several key newsagent suppliers.
I don’t have confirmation from the group so I will not name them here.
Further to my post Saturday about the low cost Tatts fit out at the On The Run convenience stores in South Australia, check out the magazine department in this same outlet.
This is competition folks, serious competition.
Convenience outlets usually focus on a small range of no more than thirty titles, top sellers. This location and others like it from this group have a far bigger magazine over, one that competes on range with local retail newsagencies.
Newsagents with businesses competing with On The Run locations need a comprehensive strategy for effective competition – this is a chain out for your everyday business given not only their magazine range but their lottery products, greeting cards as well as stationery.
I’m not writing this to scare you. I am writing this to better inform newsagents that convenience is the channel targeting us even more so than supermarkets. Each of us needs to reflect this in our own business planning if we are chasing the same convenience shopper.
I was browsing the Christmas card spinner at Typo in Brisbane late yesterday when a staff member said hey, right now our Christmas cards are five for $10, it’s a great deal. Her delivery was exceptional, if felt like a personal recommendation. It was perfect.
Christmas cards five for $10. These are hip cards too. They look like designer cards.
I wondered if Typo’s Christmas card sales were slow and this was their was of picking things up. Then I noticed the collateral promoting the offer – professionally printed, down the side of the spinner. No, this offer was part of a plan all along.
Typo is using Christmas to extend the reach of their businesses, to educate more that they are an ideal destination for people looking for greeting cards.
It’s working – from in front of the shop I could see it was packed. I counted twenty-five people shopping, all under 40.
If you get a chance, check out the tough competition at Typo, they are doing it well.
The Taronga Zoo Super Animals promotion running at Woolworths supermarkets appears to be a tremendous success. Super Animals looks at feels like a part series promotion with elements of building a collection.
Super Animals looks like something that would have traditionally been sold through newsagencies. But it’s being sold exclusively through Woolworths, driving impulse purchases and driving traffic for them.
While I have no inside knowledge, I do expect that the success of Super Animals will result is more kid-focussed collectibles like this from Woolworths and something similar from Coles.
Exclusive product is vital to driving traffic, especially in the collectible space. I know as I’ve had success over the last couple of years with a few exclusive lines in the collectible plush space.
With the publisher perpetually marking down the price of Mother & Baby magazine in Coles supermarkets I see no point in offering this title in the newsagency.
The saved pocket is better used to promote titles that are not seeking to make supermarkets look cheaper than newsagencies.
Hopefully one day the publisher will realise that their support of supermarkets over newsagencies is not the best move for their title.
It does not make sense to me that a widely available magazine title has dual pricing like this. They could only be doing it to make Coles look more appealing and all other retailers of the title more expensive.
Further to my report from the weekend that WH Smith is acquiring the Supanews business, I am told that Supanews outlets will be rebranded WH Smith.
Rebranding the Supanews stores as WH Smith would make sense as it would strengthen the presence of the WH Smith brand in Australia. WH Smith branding is important as it would make their push here more meaningful internationally.
The core benefit to WH Smith of the Supanews acquisition on top of their Wild and Kennys acquisitions is more outlets through which to offer their considerable range of home brand products. I’m told Wild franchisees are navigating the pitch of home brand product and WH Smith sourced product at the moment.
From a newsagents perspective, the Supanews acquisition is the most important indication yet of their intentions for Australia.
I got to see the Exclusive to Woolworths gift with purchase stand from Bauer first hand this week. It’s impressive in terms of the stand itself and the gift. While I am not a consumer of the promoted titles, I expect the promotion to work for Bauer and Woolworths.
This practical and shopper focussed offer is what Bauer should promote in newsagencies and not the Connections points program. Giving Woolworths a competitive advantage will not end well.
This stand promoting a range of News Life media and the terrific gift with purchase of any of the titles which I saw in Woolworths gives the supermarket chain a valuable advantage over newsagents for the promoted titles. The stand is Woolworths branded – making me think this is a offer exclusive to them.
Note: I had to pout four titles in the stand for the photo as the pockets were empty – such is their lazy approach to managing magazines.
I missed the SMH article – Supermarkets major players in magazine market with readers hungry for free food content – when it was published two weeks ago. It looks at an important competitor to magazines we sell and offers telling statistics:
The figures mirror Roy Morgan Research, which said Coles Magazine was the best-read magazine in the year to June, with 2.9 million readers per average issue, while readership of Fresh was up 30 per cent year-on-year to 2.2 million.
Thank you for sending your sales data.
Based on the information you have provided, we have raised an extra order on your behalf.
This order will be delivered to you on the next available delivery day.
Outlined below is a list of what the order will contain.
This is the opening of an email this week from Bauer to a newsagent. The Sales Based Replenishment (SBR) system / experts at Bauer advised he was getting two additional copies of Top Gear. The problem is, he has only sold two copies and has four copies of the initial supply in-store. The sales data sent to Bauer was for the two copies. This is not evidence to support the Bauer claim to supply more. Their email is wrong, it makes this newsagent trust them even less.
It’s not the first time Bauer has said the sales data made them do it to justify sending extra stock. Nor is this newsagency the only one in Australia to receive such an email from Bauer where there is no evidence in the sales data to support the claim.
This action makes Bauer’s systems look broken and their allocations people stupid or deliberately abusing newsagents to serve the company.
My suspicion is that the Bauer SBR system, if it is a system, is broken and raising new allocations without any evidence – causing newsagents to incur more costs over which they have no control and for which they are 100% liable.
This is unfair. It disadvantages our channel. It makes us less competitive against supermarkets.
Looking at Top Gear sales for this newsagency for 2014, I see no evidence in the data for the newsagent to be suppliers more than three copies each month yet the initial Bauer allocation is six copies. Then, weeks into the month, they allocate two more.
No wonder this newsagent does not trust Bauer. The data informs his position on this.
This is another example that makes a mockery of the pressure newsagents are put under by XchangeIT for data accuracy. There is no evidence of magazine distributors being put under similar pressure.
For years there have been differences between how suppliers who supply newsagents and supermarkets with the same products treat these competing retail channels. While newsagents have complained, they have done nothing about it. I think we are approaching a time when we will need to act.
The challenges now are about much more than better gifts with purchase for supermarket shoppers.
The supply model used today disadvantages newsagents as it encumbers our businesses with financial,. labour and space costs that our competitors do not have. But even that is not why I say we are approaching a tipping point.
Price is the issue. More and more I am seeing different pricing in supermarkets for titles we sell in newsagencies. News Life Media and Bauer Media are the main publishers engaged in this. They must be doing it to drive traffic to supermarkets and away from newsagents for their products. Why else would they make their products so much cheaper in our competitors?
Why price Inside Out $2.00 less in Coles than the newsagency 50 metres away?
Why bundle weekly Bauer titles in supermarkets at a discount to nearby newsagents?
The only reason can be to drive supermarket sales.
Think abut the long-term implications – either newsagencies close or they reduce their reliance on magazines. What that may not hurt many of the titles sold by Bauer and News Life Media, it will hurt them and it will hurt many other publishers.
Today, the Australian newsagency channel is the largest single magazine retail channel in the country. But for how much longer? Those publishers who appear hell-bent on directing shoppers away from us need to consider the bigger picture for all publishers as well as for small business newsagents and the vital and quintessentially Australian role they play in there communities. Thankfully, not all publishers are so inclined to kill our channel.
Publishers: every action you take against us makes magazines less profitable for us and informs our own actions. Every time you facilitate supermarkets presenting your product as better value from them you harm our businesses. You’ll blame us when we are less interested in your products or quit as you have blamed us in the past, not thinking for a moment about the role you played in us deciding as we have done.
Every benefit you give supermarkets, every time you make them more appealing than newsagents is another decision against the future of the Australian newsagency channel. Shame on you as we have served you well. It is newsagents who have been key to your success and newsagents off of whom you make more money.