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newsagency marketing

Promoting school holiday opportunities

We put together a display promoting products just for school holiday shoppers and it worked a treat.  Craft items, toys, kites, games, party supplies, Halloween items … they all work as part of the school holiday opportunity.  This promotion is deliberately not about price … as the marketing collateral indicates.  No, it’s about letting parents know that we have a range of products which can help families through the school holiday period.  The collateral we are using connects beautifully with the opportunity.

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newsagency marketing

Newsagents need to embrace multi channel marketing

Grant Harrod, CEO of Salmat, writing in the Australian Financial Review on Monday called on retailers to use multiple channels when promoting to consumers.

While much has been made of the rise of online retailing and explosion of new media, the reality is that people have diverse media habits and purchasing preference.

I agree with this and most of what Harrod has to say.

Newsagents are competing in a tough retail marketplace in tough economic conditions.  We cannot rely on what we have always done to drive traffic.  Just one or two campaigns a year are not enough.

No, we need a consistently delivered multi-channel approach if we are to have any hope of competing with the major retailers which offer what we sell.

In my own newsagencies I embrace the multifaceted newsXpress marketing: catalogues delivered to homes every six to eight weeks, commercial TV advertising, commercial print media advertising, monthly customer newsletter, a fresh flyer out the front of the businesses every month, in-store radio, a social media campaign, a local online yellow pages like campaign and a word of mouth driven campaign.

I see this mix as the bare minimum for any newsagency group.  I like the diversity as it means that the business is not relying on one activity to drive new shopper traffic.

For individual newsagents there is a challenge as the costs can be prohibitive.  That said, there are some options which could fit into a single store budget, especially in regional and rural areas.

Now more than ever we need to market our businesses and do this via more channels than we used to in the past. Changing times demand we change our approach to so much of what we do, including marketing.

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marketing

The newsagent position re magazines is stronger

mags-overallsmall.jpgRecent (welcome) moves by Express Publications offering greater commission for all newsagents plus other commercial moves by some publishers reflect a shift in the newsagent / magazine publisher relationship. Publishers are demonstrating that they get the importance of our channel and are prepared to negotiate terms which reflect this.

While we have a way to go to achieve what supermarkets achieve with their various methods of compensation, the recent moves show that we are in a period of change, welcome change.

The newsagents best positioned to leverage the commercial benefits which could be available to us are those who manage their magazine department professionally and with great care from the top of the business down.

While I have noted here previously the challenges for magazine sales, they remain one of the most in not the most important product category in our stores.

Newsagents who leave managing magazines to a junior or unengaged employee do so at their own peril.

I obsess about magazines because I know that a good magazine department drives traffic and sales basket efficiency.

Publishers will treat newsagents differently. Those who engage are set to make more money than those who do not.

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magazines

Help for newsagents doing it tough

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.

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Newsagency challenges

Marketing Tip: Award a Newsagent For a Day

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.

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marketing tip

Opportunity to leverage interest in Justin Beiber

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.

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magazines

Interesting newsagency model in Malaysia

mynews.jpgI was in Kuala Lumpur earlier this week in time to see the opening of the new myNEWS store at Bukit Bintang in downtown Kuala Lumpar.  This is a very interesting store, a nice evolution from the more traditional myNEWS model.  To us here in Australia it is like a 7-Eleven store with a much stronger traditional newsagency product mix and customer service focus.

The layout is terrific, inviting.  The shop looks as visually clean inside as it does outside.  Each area, magazines, confectionery, stationery and convenience lines, is well signposted.  The store has at least ten times the range of magazines you would see in a 7-Eleven store.

I got to see several of these myNEWS stores this visit and you can see the evolution represented in this latest store.  It leverages the convenience model without detracting from being a destination for key categories.

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Newsagency management

Leveraging the greeting card sale

matz.jpgWe had this range of Rollmatz in-store for less than three months, as part of a broader toy offer, before selling out. They have proven to be a profitable line, easily sold when working with a customer on the shop floor who is looking for something for their kids to play with (on) or as a gift. Adding a $34.95 item (with a 50% margin) to a shopping basket containing a couple of greeting cards makes for a nice sale. I saw this happen last Saturday. A shopper wanted something difference for her niece’s birthday. The suggestion of the Rollmatz worked, doubling the value of the sale to that point.

Having gifts and other stock items which sell easily with the cards we carry is the smart way to leverage greeting card generated traffic to its full potential. This is where working with our customers is important, talking with them about what else they are looking for, listening for what could sell with their destination purchase.

The other key is to have products which are not easily price compared. This provides valuable margin opportunity.

I can think of plenty of reasons to not try Rollmatz in a newsagency. Our recent experience, however, encourages me to look for more items we might reject at first glance.

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marketing

Nice treatment of the Australian newsagency

newsagent-cartoon.JPGThe Nicholson cartoon in The Australian today (pg. 27) is a nice treatment of our channel, representing some of the key products we sell while having a crack at the current financial health of Fairfax.  I like that Nicholson has the shopper visiting a newsagency to purchase a newspaper, that there is a shopper looking at greeting cards for key occasions and that it acknowledges that we sell stationery for school.  Thanks Nicholson!

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Newsagency management

Marketing Tip: How to Use Competitions to Drive Sales in Your Newsagency

Winners are grinners as they say. Shoppers who win from a retail store are happy and they tell their friends. Whether it is a large or small prize, the value to the business of making winners of customers can be considerable.

An active and co-ordinated approach to competitions is a vital part of newsagency marketing.

The best competitions are those where a customer of the newsagency is guaranteed to win. That is, there the competition is store specific. While participating in larger national and state wide competitions around products brands and even franchise brands can be good for business, it is the local competitions which provide the best opportunity for local promotion and local leverage.

Here are some tips on how to use competitions effectively to promote your newsagency:

  1. Every competition needs a focus. Promote a specific product or product category or a certain level of spending. Competitions open to anyone without a tactical focus are likely to be less successful.
  2. Make entering easy for everyone. Ensure that the mechanics of the competition – how to enter – are easy and understood. You don’t want to slow down the sales counter or have customers reject entering the competition because of complexity.
  3. Promote well. Promote the competition well in the business from the front window throughout the store.
  4. Encourage participation. Get all employees actively promoting the competition. Offer a reward for the employee who achieves the most entries per hour worked.
  5. Drive impulse purchases. A good competition is one used to drive impulse purchases at the counter. They key here is that the item being sold, the trigger for a competition entry, must be easily understood.
  6. Show off the prize. If possible, show the prize of offer for the competition. This can drive people to engage in the behaviour you are promoting as they more easily understand the opportunity.
  7. Show off entries. If entry in the competition requires shopper activity like drawing or coloring, show off the entries as this will drive more traffic to the store.
  8. Promote winners. Take photos of competition winners, with their permission, and use these in newsletters and on a winners board in-store. This is how you can promote the store as a place where winners shop.
  9. Host and event around the prize draw. Make the drawing of the winner a special event with its own retail hooks to drive sales.
  10. Create a competition calendar. This can provide focus to the competition program throughout the year and ensure that they are a consistent part of the marketing mix.
  11. Engage with suppliers. Call of key suppliers to support the business with prizes for your competitions. This is more easily achieved if the competition connects with specific brands.
  12. Promote externally. Use the competition to promote the business externals in advertising and promotional flyers.

Competitions, regardless of size, can drive excellent results for a newsagency. Professional execution is the key from the planning stand right through to the drawing of the winner. Ensure that everyone involved including customers have fun with each competition you run.

When you find something which works, be sure to share it here.

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marketing

Watching supermarket competition

I noticed the announcement this week that Aldi is to open longer hours and release special deals twice a week in an effort to combat the work done by Coles and Woolworths over the last year which has seen them encroach on the Aldi end of the supermarket space.

As the these three and other supermarket chains battle it out to own supermarket shopping in Australia, we can learn something from their fights.  For example, the decision by Aldo to release specials twice a week is interesting to me on a couple of fronts:

  1. Most newsagents don’t offer regular, weekly, specials which are marketed as such.
  2. Any who do probably have not changed their approach in years.

Specials are not about deep discounting for the sake of it.  In the supermarket model, specials are used to reinforce the overall value proposition of the supermarket to the consumer.  They lure shoppers who then purchase other items at regular price.  Specials almost always are funded by suppliers in a way which protects the supermarket margin.

But the approach to specials has changed in the last year with the down down and other campaigns.

The challenge to this non expert in the area is that through the focus over the last year on lower price, they have educated shoppers about price, that price is the most important point.  On products on which we compete, this presents us with a challenge.

Given that price is the easiest point of difference for a competitor to respond on, I would have thought that supermarkets would have been better of pursuing points of difference in other areas where competition is harder. I think this is why we need to focus on non-price competition points in our businesses, especially around products where we compete with supermarkets.

Blue Ocean Strategy is an excellent book to read about how businesses should differentiate.  I read it a few years ago and consider it to be one of the best business books I have read.  It talks down price as a point of competition and urges focus on competing in other, exclusive, ways.

With plenty of what we sell being also available from supermarkets, how do we position out businesses against their aggressive campaigns and this latest battle now joined by Aldi?  Do we try?  While many newsagents leave supermarkets to play their games, not seeing them as our competitors, we need to ensure we are aware as our retail channel is of tremendous interest to them.  We take close to one billion dollars in revenue which they would like to get through their registers.

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Newsagency management

Newsagency marketing on TV

newsXpress is the only newsagency marketing group with a full year TV advertising commitment.  The national TV ads started last month.  Ads are changed monthly, reflecting seasonal opportunities, special deals and other newsXpress specific opportunities.  They are as much about brand awareness as they are a call to action.

Here is the latest newsXpress TVC.

While I am a newsXpress Director and therefore conflicted, that newsXpress newsagencies are being promoted relentlessly and nationally on TV, 4,200+ spots over the next year, is good for newsXpress, its suppliers and the broader newsagency channel.

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newsagency marketing

Good start to 2011 calendar sales

caln-bartel.JPGOur Bartel 2012 range is selling well. This is the first start of our broader calendar offer which will hit the shop floor over the next few weeks.

Getting in early with good margin calendars is important in establishing your position in the category.

We will not discount calendars until January 1, 2012. I can’t think of any reason for newsagents to discount calendars before then.

This year many newsagents have a better opportunity with calendars following the collapse of REDGroup retail and their calendar Club operations. While I understand that Calendar Club will emerge, my understanding is that it will not be in as many location as in the past.

The collapse of Cardeaux will also help calendar sales in newsagencies, especially at this early stage as they were notorious for discounting from the start of the season.

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Calendars

South Australian newsagents upbeat despite News Limited

South Australian newsagents I spoke with at the Ancol Trade Expo in Adelaide yesterday were upbeat about business despite the uncertainty surrounding newspaper distribution caused y the News Limited ‘study’ into the future model of newspaper distribution.

Many newsagents now realise that they need not wait for news to decide since they can make decisions themselves about the future direction of their own businesses. It was good to hear of the proactive plans of some newsagents. It was also good to hear people ‘owning’ their future by embracing change before change hunts them down.

My only criticism of the day is that I would have liked to see magazine publishers and distributors represented.

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Newsagency challenges

The Important Community Connection – a Newsagency Marketing & Management Tip

When speaking at conferences and workshops I am often asked by newsagents to help them address flat sales. The discussion often come back to what the business stands for. When I ask what do we stand for? A common answer from independent retailers is community connection, being local. This is often said by newsagents with a less than complete community connection strategy.

Being connected with the local community is a good unique selling proposition when most of what is sold is available from other businesses, usually bigger businesses.

By trading off the local connection, independent retailers connect with others who are community-minded.

In just about any retail business, more could be done to connect with the community. Here are some questions you could ask yourself to test the community connection of your independent retail business:

  1. What local charities does the business support?
  2. What local schools does the business support?
  3. What local organisations is the business connected with?
  4. What local events does the business actively participate in?
  5. Have you compared the savings of shopping locally at your business compared to further away? Do you communicate this?
  6. Do you buy from local businesses where possible? Do you promote this?
  7. Do you promote your business with other local businesses?
  8. Does a representative of the business attend events and charities supported by the business to make awards?
  9. Do you hold events in the business for local groups – art shows, competition entries and the like?
  10. Do you participate in local government business forums?
  11. Are your employees encouraged to share in your community involvement?
  12. Are you part of the local traders association?
  13. Are local organisations able to publicise events in the window or using other resources of the business?
  14. If your newsagency closed, would the community care?

This last question is the real question: If your neewsagency closed, would the community care? Would what you perceive as your value be lost and noticed? If the answer is no then your community connection is not as good as it could be.

Connecting your business to the local community is not something you can fake. It must be genuine from the owner of the business right through. You need to pursue as many touch points as possible for the sake of the business and to demonstrate and drive value for the community.

There are initiatives independent retailers can take to help the local community and build a mutually beneficial community connection. Here are 20 ideas for your consideration:

  1. Establish a what’s on noticeboard in your window or on a wall for promoting local events.
  2. Sponsor a locally focused newsletter which covers issues of local interest. Create this as a forum for local groups to use.
  3. Link to local clubs and groups on your business website.
  4. Talk to your local council – they are bound to have suggestions on ways you can connect with the local community.
  5. Create or support a local traders website.
  6. Collect change from customers for local charities. Track what you collect and keep your customers aware of the value reinvested in the community.
  7. Talk to local schools, do they have activities which you can support and for which they promote your business?
  8. Sponsor an annual encouragement award at a local school and present the award yourself.
  9. Talk to local health and nursing facilities. Do they have needs which you can meet with excess stock?
  10. Create a newcomer pack with other businesses and deliver this to families new to the area.
  11. Support at least one local sports club. This is best done through either uniform sponsorship or sponsoring a regular award.
  12. If appropriate to your product mix, offer products from local businesses and individuals.
  13. Offer to sit on local boards and committees for groups known for doing good work in the community.
  14. Offer space in-store for community groups to promote their work.
  15. Office space in front of your store for community groups to run a sales stall.
  16. Offer your front window a couple of time a year for a community group to promote their work.
  17. Support local causes – offer to have petitions available for customers to sign in your store.
  18. Write to the local newspaper about local issues – let your passion be seen.
  19. Run local events which connect with the local community. The nature of the event will depend on your business niche and skills of locals nearby. For example, you could sponsor a local art show.
  20. Price compare popular items in your shop with bigger businesses further away. Promote your savings for the local community as a point of difference.

Newsagents with consistently strong community connections can rely on this to deliver better business. The return for the community is greater support from the business for community activities.

I suspect there is a big difference between the community connection of a retail business in the city compared to a regional area. Regional businesses tend to be more community focused as they pull their customers from a smaller pool.

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marketing tip

Kudos to VANA for Love Your Newsagent campaign

VANA is funding radio commercials, in-store signage and an outdoor advertising campaign around the theme – Love Your Newsagent. This is a ballsy thing for an Association to undertake. It demonstrates in a practical way their assistance for newsagents. Click on the link above to the website with more details about the campaign.

The ANF gave this campaign good presence at the ANF Conference in Melbourne this week.

Here is a video which explains how Victorian newsagents can engage.

Kudos to VANA for this initiative. It’s a good start. Hopefully more associations engage in such practical in support of newsagents.

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Newsagency management

Promoting healthy living magazines at the counter

mags-heealthy-counter.JPGWe are promoting a range of health related magazine titles at the counter this week.  We are using the popular Diabetic Living to draw attention to the display – but we have a good range of titles on offer here.   Up behind the counter, at eye level, we still have Annette Sym’s range of Symply Too Good To Be True cookbooks.  Both displays support each other in terms of the healthy lifestyle theme.

Both displays will come down at the end of the week.  I am sure that the effort will have been worth it in terms of sales.

We have to get magazines out from the traditional magazine department and into the store if we are to lift sales from average for everyone else.  With supermarkets and others reinventing their approach to magazines, we need to be more engaged as a channel.

This move we made at the counter for health related titles was pretty simple.  It;s working for us.  I’d encourage all newsagent to try it.

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magazines

Good start to GNS Market Fair in Melbourne

The first day of the GNS Market Fair in Melbourne yesterday was terrific.  While there will be some who say the numbers were down, my experience was that the quality and level of engagement was up.

I floated between the Tower Systems and newsXpress stands and these were located across from the VANA stand.  You can tell a lot about a newsagency trade show by the business of the association stand.  The VANA stand was constantly busy.  I know that both Tower and newsXpress had a good first day too.

Newsagents attending the GNS Market Fair yesterday were upbeat … I saw lots of smiles.

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Newsagency management

Marketing tip: What is the upside of your newsagency?

People considering the purchase of any business (including a newsagency) look at, among other things, the upside opportunity for the business. While they will often have their own view of the upside, they also often ask the vendor what upside they see.  Having an answer is important.

This is a good question for newsagents to consider: What is the upside for your newsagency?

Your answer to this question could be vital in building the confidence and interest of a prospective purchaser.

Beyond that, however, your answer to this most important of questions could open your eyes to opportunities which have need been top of mind for you. I say this because the next logical question is – if these are genuine upside opportunities for the future, why not engage with them in your newsagency now?

Think about it. Take your time. Let the question – What is the upside for your newsagency? – rest with you for a few days and nights. Make notes of every idea which comes to you. Talk to others and make notes of their comments.   Think about this question as if the answer is critical to you being able to sell your newsagency, that your answer will unlock excitement in your prospective buyer. It could / should unlock excitement for you on things you can do in your business.

When you have an answer, which is hopefully several answers, you then have an opportunity to think about the next question and consider whether you act on any of these opportunities yourself.

I can think of plenty of general upside opportunities for newsagents and several for my own businesses. Each newsagent is in their own unique situation, facing unique challenges and certain to have unique upside opportunities.

What is the upside for your newsagency?

PS.  I have called this a marketing tip because I am hoping that by thinking about your business through a different prism you discover opportunities which you can leverage for success in the short to medium term.  One way to respond to an upside opportunity is to do it, make the change, innovate … in pursuit of the upside.

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marketing tip

Productivity Commission calls on retailers to work smarter: here’s how newsagents can

Buried in the recent draft report, Economic Structure and Performance of the Australian Retail Industry, by the Productivity Commission is a call on retailers to improve productivity.

Newsagents can improve productivity and cut wages, cut waste, reduce theft and drive better business decisions.

Hang on, think about that last sentence. Don’t move on until you go back, read it again and think about how you would feel if you really did achieve these benefits in your newsagency.

Seriously. I mean it. Read the sentence again. Here it is…

Newsagents can improve productivity and cut wages, cut waste, reduce theft and drive better business decisions.

Too many newsagents do not have these as goals. Too often they blame others when they realise that they want and need the benefits embedded in the goals.

So, here are some productivity gain ideas and opportunities for newsagents:

  1. Cut magazine returns time. Take the returns out of the back office where it is a specialist function and move it to the front counter, being done every day by any employee. A newsagency with $500K a year in magazine sales should spend no more than two to three hours a week on magazine returns including counting, topping, bundling and dealing with distributors.
  2. Cut other labour intensive work. Stop manual reordering of stock. Use your computer system. In an average newsagency, going from manual reordering to computer based reordering usually saves between four and six man-hours a week. Eliminate all manual business performance reporting. Get rid of your manual roster – do it using the roster facilities in your software. Stop manually managing magazine putaways. There are plenty more ideas like these. Use integrated EFTPOS and save time on every sale.
  3. Cut waste. Reorder stock using your computer system (yes, this is a repeat idea) and find that you will have less stock which does not sell. Look at your sales by time and roster accordingly. The roster often has wasted hours. Look at product sales and quit what’s not working before it becomes a loss making boat anchor. If a rep says you need more of a product, check their claim with your business data, let your data guide your decision.Reps want to get stock to your store, they are often paid to achieve this.
  4. Cut theft. Use employee initials or a code for every sale. Balance your cash every day. Have a zero tolerance policy (I’ve written about this before here and elsewhere). Do spot stock takes. Use the theft management tools in your software. Use stock control throughout but especially on cigarettes, greeting cards, ink, phone cards and other highly negotiable items.  A newsagency without professional theft management processes should be able to increase net profit by as much as 10% in the first year.
  5. Make better business decisions. Make more fact based decisions based on accurate business data. Stop gut feel decisions. Your business data can guide you to more profit than how you feel at any time. Stop using department keys to record sales – scan everything. No excuses, scan everything. Build better data and use this to improve your business.

I know of a newsagent who has just successfully cut $34,000 from their annual wages bill by switching software systems (yes, to my Tower Systems) and implementing our time focused approach to magazine management. There are plenty of other examples like this one.

I am confident that every newsagency business in Australia can improve productivity. Yes, it’s a challenge. The benefits are substantial: reduced wages, reduced waste, reduced theft and better quality and more valuable business decisions.

Imagine how powerful our newsagency channel would be if we all did these simple things. I do. I imagine a strong, growing and productive newsagency channel leading small business retailers and powering ahead against the reports of tough times.

We can do this. We can improve productivity – individually and as a channel. We have the tools. All we need is the will.

I have been sharing specific advice with newsagents using the Tower Systems newsagency software – I have written a 2,300 article with specific business building tips and I share this with newsagents who ask.  Email me at mark@towersystems.com.au if you would like a copy.

As I noted earlier, these are some ideas. Share yours with your fellow newsagents.

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marketing tip

Newsagency sales benchmark results

Analysing the newsagency sales benchmark data for the April – June quarter has been difficult because of the greater than usual difference in numbers between newsagencies.

This difference indicates that it risky to present data to speak for the whole channel. For example, where many newsagents are tracking a decline in magazine sales of 8% and more for the quarter, there is an equal number tracking growth of 6% and more for the same period compared against their performance a year earlier.

The group of newsagents delivering the most challenged results are those in capital city shopping centres. Shopping malls appear to be feeling the pain of retail, just talk to fashion retailers and look at recent news reports.  Those experiencing the best numbers are newsagencies located in regional centres.

I am upbeat about the future as this benchmark study and other indicators are that newsagents who take an entrepreneurial approach to their businesses will reap rewards in sales.   Being average is a mugs game.  Working the conveyor belt will not lift your business.

Here are the headline benchmark numbers:

  • Magazines. Magazine sales fell, on average, 2% (in unit sales) in the April through June 2011 quarter over the same period last year. Just on half newsagents reported a decline in magazine sales. Looking just at April and May, just about all newsagents reported sales growth. June was a very tough month, wiping out many of the gains of the previous two months.  The newsagencies delivering growth are more engaged with the category.
  • Greeting cards. Greeting card sales grew, on average, 2% (unit sales) in the quarter. 70% of newsagents reported growth. I’d say that such of this growth is due to product innovation. Sound cards continue to do well.  Lifestyle appears quite challenged in some areas.
  • Stationery. 60% of newsagents reported a decline in stationery revenue (not including ink) with the average decline 1%.  While I’d need to research this more, I’d say that most newsagents could turn stationery around by getting serious about managing the category. Average does not cut it in this markeplace.
  • Ink. 45% of stores participating in the study have a separate ink department. 90% of these stores reported growth in ink revenue of 3%.
  • Gifts. 55% of the stores in this study have a gift department. 60% of these reported an average sales increase of 3% in gift revenue. Those with a gift department almost the same value as stationery (8% of stores in the benchmark study) reported growth of 10% and more.
  • Newspapers. 80% of participants report an average newspaper sales growth of 2%. This could be due to promotions as they are often bundled in the newspaper dept.
  • Basket size. Basket size did not measurably change.
  • Traffic. 30% of newsagents served 2% more customers than in the 2010 period.

Parallel to this study I have looked at magazine sell through rates. In the first six months of this year they have declined yet newsagent invoices from magazine distributors have not declined. This is a core problem for newsagents and magazine publishers. In the face of evidence of sales challenges, Gotch and Network are not acting responding responsibly.

The performance data is from the Tower Systems Sales Benchmark Study. With 1,752 newsagents currently using the Tower newsagency software, Tower Systems is well positioned to undertake these studies on behalf of newsagents. This three month study is based on sales data from 103 newsagencies, trading under four different banners plus independents, businesses in capital city regional and rural situations.

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Newsagency benchmark

Your opportunity to support suppliers who support newsagents

gnsmarketfair.JPGThe GNS Market Fairs start this weekend with the Perth Market Fair on Sunday at Challenge Stadium in Mt Claremont. These trade shows provide an excellent opportunity for newsagents to engage with suppliers who support the channel.

You can see the suppliers supporting the GNS Market Fairs if you turn to the back page of the latest GNS Group News newsletter – the July 2011 issue. There, on the back page, are the logos of newsagent suppliers supporting the GNS Market Fairs and through this GNS and the newsagency channel more widely.

Newsagents can reasonably question the support of stationery, marketing group and software companies not supporting newsagents by supporting the GNS Market Fairs.

GNS is owned by newsagents. This is our company. It depends on newsagent and supplier support. This is why it is important for newsagents to know which suppliers support GNS and through this support the millions of dollars of newsagent funds invested in GNS.

Newsagents who want a strong newsagent owned stationery wholesaler should question dealing with stationery suppliers, marketing groups and software companies which do not support GNS. You can’t have one without the other. GNS relies not only on newsagent purchases but supplier support in other ways – such as at the GNS Market Fairs.

So, check out the back page of the GNS Group News newsletter and note the suppliers supporting the Australian newsagent channel through the GNS Market Fairs.  Better still, come along to the Fair in your state.

For the record, I own newsagent software Tower Systems which currently serves 1,752 newsagents and half of newsXpress which serves more than 170 newsagents. Both companies are thrilled to be participating in all GNS Market Fairs this year.

So, yes, I am conflicted in writing about this.  However, every supplier has had an opportunity to support GNS and newsagents more broadly.

Newsagents want to be treated as a channel.  They (we) want to leverage the strength of  numbers.  A great rallying place for this is GNS.  This is why supplier support for GNS and the Market Fairs is a fair point of judgment for stationery suppliers, marketing groups and marketing groups.

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Newsagency management

Tweeting the new issue of a magazine

magtweet.JPGKudos to the publisher of Adelaide Hills magazine for tweeting that the latest issue of the magazine is now available from newsagents. Supporting newsagents in this way, in any way, when promoting a magazine is terrific to see.

With 2,200 followers receiving their @AdelHillsMag tweets, using Twitter in this way is cost effective and smart for the publisher.  Twitter connected newsagents should / will re tweet, getting the message of the latest issue even further coverage.

Twitter is becoming more valuable to businesses for promoting directly to those interested in their products and services.  I’d encourage newsagents to engage.  It’s easy to sign up and free.  Besides your followers, people find your tweets based on what you write and how you tag your tweet.

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