I have see the TV commercial for the Classic Australian Movie Collection partwork series which is to launch July 16. Like other partwork TV commercial, it is designed to drive traffic exclusively for the newsagent channel. The first five movies are: The May From Snowy River, Gallipoli, Sunday Too Far Away, Rabbit Proof Fence and Picnic at Hanging Rock. This series has the potential to be HUGE and it is exclusive to newsagents!
Goal Weekly is a great weekly football newspaper. This Victorian publication is loved by football (soccer) fans. I like it because the publisher actively supports newsagents. Their website lists newsagencies where it can be purchased. What I really like about Goal Weekly is their radio ad, it explicitly says the newspaper is available from your newsagent. That’s us folks.
Here is a special interest newspaper promoting that we are their retail channel. That is why I love Goal Weekly. They wholeheartedly support us. In today’s deregulated marketplace such support for our shingle is rare. When I heard the radio ad I made sure I found the title in the shop so I could see how I could better support it in return for their support.
Years ago I saw that partwork titles were an opportunity for newsagents and pursued better management tools within our Tower Systems software. While the road has been occasionally rocky due to supply side issues, we have exclusive proprietary software which helps newsagents increase the sales of partworks, better manages the challenges and nurtures happier customers. This is not sales spin from the owner of a software company, no, it’s how I see it in my own newsagencies.
Partwork customers are efficient customers for a newsagency, considerably more so than any other magazine customers. I discovered this in our first basket research eight years ago. Partwork buyers are at least 33% more likely to purchase other product in your newsagency. Once I had that data it was imperative we help newsagents who want to drive better businesses to better manage the category. Now, with our exclusive partworks tools we have newsagents pulling customers away from other newsagents who see partworks as a chose they would be happier without.
Partwork publishers in the UK, their Australian agent and local magazine distributors like what we are doing. This is what helps us produce better outcomes in the partworks category for newsagents using Tower Systems software. It will drive further changes this year as we stay ahead of the game chasing better outcomes for newsagents who get behind the partwork opportunity.
There are no other magazine titles advertised on national TV where newsagents are the exclusive retail outlet. How many other suppliers advertise our channel like that? While some newsagents complain that we are used to drive subscription sales, the sales numbers and profitability of partwork titles in my newsagencies and others I work with is proof that the current model works – if you drive it hard and with the right technology at the store level.
We are business people and we need to run our newsagencies as business people. Partwork titles are an excellent business opportunity. Over the next month or so we will see Shrek, Dora Dress Up and Go, and, the Australian Movie Collection. Each one of these is an opportunity to connect with new customers because our newsagencies are known as the partwork title specialists in the area. Each new customer brings new opportunities.
Take the new Columbo partwork series. We sold out of issue 1 and have more on the way. We expect that between 5 and 8 regulars will emerge from the initial promotion. Multiple the value of their sales and the add on business and you can soon see the importance to the business of well managed partworks.
If this blog post reads to you as an advertisement, it is. I am proud that we are able to use the software we create to give newsagents a competitive edge. It is a competitive market after all.
Yesterday was the lucky day for one of our customers! Of all magazines to have an unexpected bonus it had to happen to Treasures of the Earth. Perfect!
One copy of issue #10 of Treasures of the Earth which arrived yesterday had sealed inside the package with the Galnea, a plastic shelf fixture – circled in yellow in the photo.
Now if only this piece of the warehouse shelving system was in the shape of a famous person or a religious icon. Then we could have sold it on eBay. It did give us a laugh though.
The Art of Knitting continues to be a great partworks success for us at Forest Hill. We have eleven committed putaway customers and, thankfully, we get all the stock we need to satisfy their orders. To be in this situation by issue 36 is excellent.
We’re not so luck on some other partworks. Under-supply means putaway customers cancel orders and we either lose the business or go into the backorder black hole and lose time, money and our reputation.
Partwork publishers, the importer and distributors need to look at our numbers for The Art of Knitting and understand the scope of the opportunity if they get the model right.
The Classic Carry On Film Collection is the latest part publication in newsagencies. It’s a good series for the baby boomers – I recall many a cold afternoon spent watching these hilarious films.
We’re promoting the Carry On series right at the front of the shop. We’re setting up a DVD so people get a taste for the humor.
The only downside is the TVC – there is no mention on audio of newsagencies. Anyone listening to the ad would miss that the Carry On collection is at newsagencies.
I was thrilled to receive a comment from Harry Carey Jr, an actor who worked with John Wayne. Carey’s website is a fascinating place to visit for movie buffs, John Wayne fans and, more generally, people interested in westerns. One cannot get much closer to the source of John Wayne stories than Harry Carey Jr.
Partwork publications are for collectors. So are many magazines in our newsagencies. Knowing something extra, to pass on, can help demonstrate a connection with a topic one could only find in a business like ours.
For our John Wayne partwork customers, we now have some information to share and the Harry Carey Jr website to point them to.
The Elvis partwork is proving to be a huge success in each of our newsagencies. It’s great to hear customers comment that they saw the ad on TV. Marketing people say it’s important to connect with TV campaigns. This is one reason we go hard with new partworks right at the front of the shop.
As the photo shows, we have taken space on our dance floor to promote the Elvis, Star Trek, Treasurers of the Earth and BBC drama partworks which are all receiving strong attention at the moment.
While there is nothing exceptionally pretty about these displays they work because they show our strength. As retailers often say, stack em high, watch em fly.
Tower Systems earlier today released advice for its 1,450 newsagent users on how to handle the variable price model for the new Elvis partwork. This advice sheet, N5.1 at the Tower website, provides a data management standard to help ensure consistently accurate pricing for retail sales and putaways.
We have been able to develop this useful advice since we own two newsagencies and have a significant share in a third.
Elvis has arrived. We’re thrilled to have the new Official Collectors Edition of Elvis artefacts and other items now in-store. This partwork will go off like a rocket with Elvis fans. Issue #1 is only $2.95 we we have it on display at the front of the shop.
With the TV campaign driving people exclusively to newsagencies it makes sense that we promote the Elvis partwork aggressively. The distributor is comitted to ensuring we have stock for customers who commit beyond the first issue – so we’re busy signing people up. Newsagent exclusivity covers for most of the frustrations of the supply model.
Star Trek fans will be happy to see the original series has been repackaged into a definitive magazine and DVD collection.
We are promoting the Star Trek partwork series at the front of our newsagencies.
As we do with all partworks, we offer a putaway service with issue #1 and navigate this carefully (noisily) with the distributor to ensure that we can serve our loyal customers.
We know from basket data that partworks customers are commercially efficient, valuable, for newsagents – hence our front of shop promotion of series like this Star Trek launch.
Given the high rotation TV commercials running at the moment for the Treasures of the Earth partwork series, we decided to give it prime space at the corner of our counter at Forest Hill. As always happens when working in the shop, we sold two as we were setting up the display. One customer ssaid to her daughter – there it is, I told you they’d have it. You can’t get a better response to a TV commercial than that.
We will leave this display in place for two weeks and then decide whether to re-locate.
The partworks year kicked off yesterday with a couple of launches. The one we are most interested in is BBC Classic Drama as we feel it best connects with our demographic.
To promote Classic Drama we have created a display in the entrance which sees 80% of traffic into and out of our store. It stands alone with good space on either side.
There is no point in promoting this in the usual partworks area – new issue partworks are high impulse purchases, hence the location.
Partworks customers are efficient in newsagencies. A couple of years ago I collated data from more than 100 stores and found partworks customers to be twice as likely to purcahse other items in a newsagency compared to those purchasing a regular magazine. This is a key reason we are happy to heavily promote new partworks.
Some reading this will want to comment about supply issues as causing too much grief for partworks. I agree it is a problem. However, I am confident that more effort is being brought to the table to resolve this than at any time in the past.
I was pleased to have an opportunity to meet a week ago with Dorian Watkins, Sales Director for DeAgostini UK. DeAgostina is one of the largest partwork publishers in the UK. It was good to talk about the UK magazine marketplace and the newsagency channel in particular and compare Dorian’s perspective with what he had seen on his latest Australian trip.
We also talked about the challenges of certainty of supply for newsagents who actively support partworks. Dorian was with Peter Bissett, his Australian distributor, and a senior management representative of Gordon and Gotch, distributor to newsagents. I know there is some good work being done between all parties to improve the supply model of partworks and better support newsagents who get behind new releases. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to add to the conversation.
The John Wayne Collection and Movie Musicals partworks series continue to enjoy good success, months after the first issues hit the shelves.
The sales patterns for these titles are different to what we usually see for partworks as customers are stepping in and out of the series based on the title of the film on offer.
The latest Movie Musicals issue – Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – is a good example. The film is a much loved classic and it’s not surprising to see people buy that issue who have not purchased any other in the part series. Our challenge is how we display these, long after the launch, so we get the impulse purchase based on a specific title.
We’re getting push-back from customers over the price for this Movie Musicals partwork series as well as the John Wayne Movies partwork series. It is the first time I can recall customers saying that a partwork series is too expensive. I agree. At $19.95 for a Chitty Chitty Bang Bang when I can buy it elsewhere for half the price, it is expensive.
It seems I am writing a bit about newsagencies being expensive at the moment. We need to hold our suppliers to account on price. With a 25% GP on these partworks, newsagents have no room to move on price. Given my knowledge of the partworks supply chain, I suspect that is the publisher in the UK influencing the retail price.
Ideally, I would like to see the Movie Musicals and similar partworks retail at $9.95. At that price we’re close to being competitive.
Simon, manager of our Frankston store has come up with the idea of using this box to promote partworks in a second location in the store. While we have a feature partworks display elsewhere, customers not regularly buying partworks are likely to miss this.
By copying some partworks covers and sticking them on this box we have at least something to move around the shop and find new partworks sales.
We know the partworks box is working because we see people browsing titles from the box and that is the first step to purchase.
The Art of Knitting partwork is still strong many weeks in. It is by far the most successful partwork I have seen this year.
We are fortunate to not have the supply issues of others and so our view of the title benefits from the protection of good supply – but this goes to show what a good title can achieve if challenges in the partworks supply chain – from UK publisher through – are addressed.
Newsagents want what publishers and distributors want – to sell more magazines. The current model which cuts supply to lower than presold quantities works against all stakeholders. While I understand significant moves are being made to address supply issues, these cannot happen soon enough.
It is frustrating to have plenty of stock for a new release such as the Movie Musicals partwork and no display material, not even two days later. We, like many other newsagents proactive about partworks, have to wait too long for promotional material.
We reserved an aisle end to launch Movie Musicals and now it looks barren waiting for the posters and other material.
This is a deficiency with current merchandising arrangements for partworks and other new launches.
Some newsagencies have access to excellent display skills in-house so why force them to wait for a merchandiser trip. We ought to be sent materials with the product – otherwise the launch loses its feature space and sales are affected.
I am sure there will be an excuse – there always is when it comes to partworks. If only the publishers, importers and distributors would realise that newsagent complaints are because they want partworks to be more successful and that “the system” is denying them that commercial opportunity.
I received a call late yesterday from an avid collectorof the James Bond car series. He found me through a Google search and landed at this blog. We talked for fifteen minutes or so about the challenges associated with buying partworks – through a newsagency versus via subscription. He has purchased through two newsagencies in Melbourne.
With one part of the James Bond series, the case is damaged. Now that the backing card is no longer provided it is difficult to maintain the product to the quality a collector expects.
I enjoyed talking with an avid partworks collector – it was a privilege to access his insights and learn of his experiences.
The conversation highlighted the considerable difference in service between newsagencies. Partworks are exclusive to newsagents, we ought to respect them with amazing customer service. If a newsagent is not interested in delivering such service they can choose to not receive any partworks.
The conversation also highlighted the value of a collector. This gentleman wanted each partwork issue to be available in pristine condition when purchased. Fair enough I think given the total amount invested in the series. This is why newsagents in the partworks space need good processes to protect the collections – down to using removable labels rather than permanent labels some use. Small points like this matter.
I know I bang on here about partworks – the commercial data is proof that they are financially rewarding across multiple categories in newsagencies.
For around six weeks we have had partworks displayed on our dance floor in an area we use for promotional displays. Yesterday, we compacted the display and moved three titles into the location in the photo in front of one of our lottery counters. While minor in effort, it is moves like this which are important to newsagencies.
Allocating time every morning to move product in the front part of the shop maintains a fresh feel and helps the newsagency itself drive upselling for you. Whether it is this partworks display or something else, it is essential we regularly change our upsell pitch at this entrance – it is this constant change which drives sales and basket efficiency.
I see this work as far more valuable and reliable than asking employees to ask customers if they want fries with their purchase. By making the store itself do the upselling your counter team can focus on being with the customer rather than pushing product onto them.
The first five movies to be released through Australian newsagents in the Classic John Wayne Collection part series are: Part 1 – The Searchers; Part 2 – Rooster Cogburn; Part 3 – Hell Fighters; Part 4 – Rio Bravo; Part 5 – Stage Coach. I am told that some rights are still being negotiated – hence the lack of a complete list.
