With Powerball not going off tonight, first division next Thursday will now be worth at least $50 million. Tattslotto on Saturday is a superdraw worth $19 million, Tuesday’s OzLotto game has jackpotted to $10 million and Wednesday’s Tattslotto has jackpotted to $2.175 million. This is the best week of jackpots and superdraws I can recall. Brilliant.
The Powerball jackpot tonight is generating excellent business for us. It is a traffic and sales bonanza and we are certainly making the most of the opportunity. My excitement is somewhat dampened by the news from Manaccom about their online OzLotteries deal with ACP. Theirs is an interesting play since it is outside the sites built directly by the lottery businesses themselves. They attract customers we cannot reach from bricks and mortar businesses. They also provide a convenience offer to current bricks and mortar customers who will want to migrate their purchases online. This has to make us work harder on customer service – to prove the value of face to face sales of lottery products.
I was interested to see press stories talk about the value this week especially because of the jackpot.
Victorian Gaming Minister ignores lottery agents
The State Government of Victoria has made significant changes to the sale of lottery product this year. Newsagents and other lottery agents were looking forward to meeting the Minister for Gaming at a meeting organised for earlier today in
That said, people bleating about the changes ought to move on. The time to be concerned was prior to the decision when the Lottery Agents Association sat on their hands and said all was well.
Newsagents have an opportunity to reconnect with customers over the next seven days thanks to the Powerball jackpot reaching $40 million. Key to making the most of the opportunity is action:
Dazzle with customer service.
Connecting with their dream – the motivation for the purchase
Offer an up-sell (either to sell the Powerball or to sell another add on product)
Offer a bonus gift which connects with other products in store – come on suppliers, help us out.
Reminding the customer where they shopped.
This jackpot is not a chore, it is an opportunity. The more of us who seize this opportunity the more we reinforce to consumers and supplier why the newsagent channel is a viable business partner.
Some Victorian newsagents start training on the new Intralot lottery offer next week. The considerable change this will bring to our businesses will be welcome. Beyond having new products backed by an advertising and marketing campaign, there is the change in mindset Intralot is bringing to the lottery space and newsagencies more generally.
Since newsagencies were created we have lived with a territorial mindset. Our discussions with suppliers and our views of our colleague newsagents have been through the prism of territories. In 1999 that was broken but not really since the new contracts from newspaper and magazine publishers and distributors maintained the territories – albeit with some changes.
Intralot changes that for Victorian newsagents. There is no territory. I see this as a good thing because it treats us like other business people. Whereas previously we could rely on geographic exclusivity to drive traffic to our Tattersalls counter, for the Intralot products our efforts as retailers will be more important. The smart operators will pick up this opportunity and run as fast as they can to beat other Intralot outlets.
While some newsagents (and others) are angry at the changes in the lotteries playing field, I suspect we will look back on the non-territorial position Intralot has adopted as being the wake-up call newsagents needed. We are business people after all and the best exclusivity or territory we can have for our businesses is the one we make and own for ourselves.
We have set a Powerball sales target of a 50% increase on last week. If we reach this there is a bonus for each team member working more than a couple of shifts in the week.
While Tattersalls wants us to increase our sales as much as possible, without a specific target the goal is vague. By declaring the 50% target, we know specifically what we are working toward – with every sale.
Goal setting is important in retail, especially in the lottery category where a small but consistent investment of personal effort can easily achieve incremental sales.
I’ve been reading the latest Tattersalls rankings with interest. While it is good to compare your sales with others around you, it’s better to compare against your previous rankings. I think of most business people as competitive and these regular sales rankings, benchmarks really, fuel that competitive streak.
Now if only there was a stretch component to this, bonus revenue for above average performance. This would make the additional promotions, displays and other over and above activity which gets lottery outlets performing above average. Sure there is additional commission made from additional sales but this does not make us see the additional sales as something to work significantly harder for.
We are a sales channel. rewarding us as a sales channel would see more newsagents going the extra mile and competition heat up on the regular rankings reports.
The more newsagents are treated as business people and only as bsiness people the more we will act the part.
Since my posts here about the $40 million oZlotto jckpot several newsagents have reviewed their numbers and have contacted mt to agree that a jackpot above $20 million is when significant traffic and sales growth starts. The Powerball jackpot this coming week, while good, is one we hope does not go off.
If it does not go off the jackpot will reach $30 million next and then we retailers in for a good time. that said, we’re pushing the $20 million jackpot hard.
In the Sunday Age on the weekend there was some poor reporting about the arrival of Intralot and their take over of some soft gambling products in newsagencies and other businesses. Change can be difficult to navigate. The key is to remain focused on the longer term goal. Worrying now about short term situations will waste too much time.
We, newsagents, Intralot and Tattersalls are navigating moving from a supplier who has owned the space for more than 10 years to someone who is just setting up in Victoria. All sides need to be accommodating. All sides are progressing the issues involved. More complete reporting by the Sunday Age would have uncovered this.
If you’re a regular here and are surprised by me saying I am looking forward to Intralot, I genuinely am. I’m a pragmatist. I was against them getting approval from the Government because of the threat to moving lottery sales outside the newsagency and small business channels. Once the decision was made it was time to move on. Now, I am excited by the opportunity the change affords us.
The graph to the left shows our OzLotto sales week by week from when the jackpot which went off earlier this week commenced up to the latest week(at the top). It is fascinating to see the growth over the ten weeks. $20 million is the sweet spot. I suspect had the prize not gone off this week and the first division reached around $60 million we would have seen another extraordinary sales jump.
Outside of the results shown on the graph is the flow-on benefit elsewhere in the newsagency. Some department fare better than others – it comes down to what we make of the opportunity.
The LIFE BEGINS AT $40 MILLION banner we have across our entrance is certainly attracting new customers into our newsagency for tickets in the $40 million jackpot. In addition to this we have posters at our counter and elsewhere as well as some enticing syndicate products. We back this at the counter with a reminder of the jackpot. So far we are on track for our self-established sales target.
Secretly, we hope OzLotto does not go off so we can try some of the wild ideas we’ve been thinking about if it jackpots to $50 million. Given that OzLotto is more likely to be won by one person, the jackpot seems to be more real than other lottery games. Here are some of our ideas:
Another reason we’d like the jackpot to continue is the flow-on benefit for Mother’s Day card sales. Already over the last few days we have seen an earlier than usual kick and I’d suggest this is, in part, due to the jackpot.
Now if only magazine publishers gave is something to give away to this extra traffic to educate them about magazine we sell.
Newsagent suppliers reading this blog would be well advised to leave newsagents who sell lottery products alone over the next week.
The OzLotto $40 million is the best jackpot opportunity we have had in a long time.
Each of us ought to be throwing every ounce of energy we have at additional sales – our stores will be filled with people who only buy tickets when an opportunity like this arises.
We asked our team to help drive OzLotto sales in last night’s $30 million jackpot. The result was a 40% kick in sales from the previous week when the prize was $25 million and from which we saw a 50% kick from the previous week.
Ben, Con, Toni and Jane, our full time team, did a tremendous job as did our casuals. Jason, our manager has double movie passes to hand out as a reward. Around two thirds of the growth on the previous week was achieved as add-on sales through over the counter conversation. No gimmicks, no challenges, just a comment about the $30 million.
Now that OzLotto jackpotted again we will kick the game up a notch.
OzLotto jackpotting to $30 million next Tuesday is a wonderful fillip for newsagents. who sell lottery products. The traffic boost gives us an opportunity to leverage sales through the business. We’re investing in dressing the store for the event and hoping it jackpots again. We’re refreshing our counter offers to ensure that even those who don’t browse beyond the lottery counter can boost other sales.
In our two newsagencies without lotteries we are refreshing our offer out of respect for the increased retail traffic primed by the jackpot.
I spent a couple of hours behind the counter today to help with superdraw sales. I struck me how significantly the arrival of Intralot will impact my lottery business and, I am sure, most others if the introduction does not go smoothly. Scratch tickets are a perfect up-sell, customers love the convenience of putting icing on their gambling purchase. Muck that up in any way and sales will be affected.
Between 13% and 19% of lottery sales include scratch ticket sales.
While briefings have started, there is not enough clarity on how Tattersalls and Intralot will work in with each other here in Victoria.
The folks at Intralot are well into the process of briefing Victorian newsagents and other interested retailer about their offer.
We are into the final countdown to the most significant change in the distribution of lottery products in Victoria in decades. There will be new retailers and new products. Several existing produce will cease. retail locations in existing retailers will change by necessity and new retailers will sell some lottery products.
The battle about Intralot is yesterday’s fight. Today the focus has to be on the opportunity the change brings.
I see the arrival of Intralot and the repositioning of Tattersalls as an opportunity for every newsagent to reinvent their lottery offer, to exploint the publicity and advertising and to re-engage with shoppers about our in-store offer. So, outside of everything Tattersalls and Intralot will do, we will engage and leverage the change for the maximum potential.
What does this mean? Better in-store displays, more local promotions, education aimed at our demographic and more fun!
The $20 million OzLotto jackpot this Tuesday is pulling focus from the $19 million Tattslotto Saturday coming up superdraw. It’s hard to upsell customers to a superdraw with an average first division payout of $1 million or less compared to the jackpot with an average first division payout ten times that. Oz is harder to win and fewer share in then first devision. Lottery customers know this and shop accordingly. I’d love Tattersalls and their national lottery partners to undertake in-store research as background to developing an alternative to the Saturday superdraw approach – we need something which works for the whole lottery category.
The High Court decision this week about Betfair is expected to further open the gambling space. Newsagents already have a connection with Betfair having been offered the opportunity to undertake over the counter ID checks for people wanting to open Betfair accounts.
Newsagents have long relied on the traffic generated by lottery and instant scratch ticket gambling. Just as that was facing disruption due to more outlets selling gambling and the arrival, in Victoria at least, of Intralot who will sell through other outlets as well as newsagencies, Betfair is unshackled by the High Court.
I have lottery products in one newsagency and not in two others. While they alter the traffic dynamic and present some challenges in this regard, having them makes your business a destination and this is what matters. Some of the challenges will change thanks to competition. In Victoria, for example, one Intralot starts trading I’d expect to see a more relaxed approach from Tattersalls. This will make it easier for newsagents to be entrepreneurial in the gambling category.
If I have an opportunity to offer broader Betfair services such as account recharge and payout I’d consider it.
Further to my post on Monday about the Tattersalls kiosk outside my newsagency in Frankston being closed on the public holiday, the problem is bigger than I actually wrote. Not just this kiosk in Frankston but many others, it would seem from what I am told, close all public holidays as well as Sundays.
I am surprised Tattersalls permits this. Of course, I’m selfish and would like the kiosk to be open so it pulls more traffic to near my newsagency. I am sure they like it that I pull traffic for them through the week. There ought to be more mutual support.
The broad smile on the face of some customers when you tell them they have won $25 or $30 is worth the grumpiness of some who have won much more. While many of the big winners I encounter are angry that they have had to share the pool with other winning division 1 tickets, a higher percentage of winners of small prizes are happy with their lot. It’s as if you have given the winnings out of your own pocket. Their happiness is a great feeling.
The Tattersalls kiosk right outside my newsagency in Frankston is closed today – Labor day in Victoria. Most of the rest of the Bayside Shopping Centre is open. The mall is busy with holiday shoppers.
The Tattersalls kiosk being closed gives our shoppers who want a lottery ticket a reason to try the Tattersalls outlet up at Supanews – our competitor at the other end of the centre. Why the operators of the kiosk would want to give a competitor a free kick the day before a jackpot OzLotto draw is beyond me.
If you’re in a shopping centre you cop that it’s a 7 day a week business. You can’t do an Australia Post and work public service hours. This is retail! We need to be open days like today.
The owner of the Tattersalls kiosk will say that they can’t afford the wages or that it’s not fair on them to work such hours. Either excuse would be wrong in my view. In today’s market a retail business in a centre can’t afford to not open if the rest of the centre is open. Being closed demonstrates a lack of care for customers and for the surrounding businesses. Maybe it’s time they got out of the game.
Victorian newsagents are facing a choice: do they pursue a relationship with Intralot or not? Those with Tattersalls lottery products have space and some operational challenges to navigate. Newsagents without lotteries have the issue of fear of becoming a slave to a different retail dynamic to consider.
I think we (newsagents) sometimes overthink these things and end up missing out on opportunities. Maybe I am naive but as I see it pursuing a relationship with Intralot is important. They will want to make a splash when they go live. Being part of the network they promote when they make that splash will be good for business. Being part of something new could be the refresh some newsagents to look to the future – we spend a lot of time on past related issues.
At the very least, a decision about Intralot is about change. Embracing it has to be what we do. Others are around us and to the impact of our businesses so we need to play the change game ourselves. Intralot is an opportunity too good to pass. But, then again, maybe I am being naive.
Our Wednesday lottery syndicates tick along nicely for what is a soft lottery night. From what customers tell us, we are unique in our area offering the syndicates and while the margin is not enough to retire on, it reinforces a point of difference and a commitment to lottery customers and to Tattersalls. It certainly drives additional traffic for us. We don’t use corporate type syndicates, we prefer our home-grown approach – this works for our customers.