phone recharge

Several newsagents have taken to Twitter this week to complain about the 25% margin cut being applied by Optus against small business newsagents. The more tweets the better for our campaign to get the telco giant to take notice.

it’s great to see newsagents engaged in a campaign like this. It’s disappointing, however, that newsagent associations have not hit social media to complain about the pay cut being meted out against us by Optus.

I am planning more tweets as I live in hope that one day Optus will realise that our channel is important to them and deserves better treatment.

Some disappointing news for newsagents selling Optus mobile recharge. Optus is cutting margin while our costs of providing the service is increasing. How Optus can justify cutting margin is beyond me.

If their costs have gone up they should deal with it in call charged and not by clawing margin from small businesses like ours.

I’d also like Optus to be transparent with us on the commission they pay Coles and Woolworths.

Here is what ePay is advising retailers:

epay Australia has received written notification from Optus/Prepaid Services advising that your new margin for all Optus products is 3%.

The new margins will come into effect on Monday 16th December 2013. Please update your internal systems as appropriate to avoid complications in reconciliation.

As an agent of Optus/PPS delivering electronic recharge services, epay Australia is contractually obliged to activate the new margin structure, as advised to us, on the above date.

Now that Vodafone mobile recharge is available from Touch, newsagents are making the move from what I am hearing. The ease with which Touch can be accessed through various systems and the Australian based support services from Touch are helping newsagents make Touch a compelling proposition.

Newsagents will be thrilled to learn that Touch networks now provides access to Vodafone recharge. Read the announcement here.

Accessible by newsagents directly from within their Point of Sale software and for no setup of additional fee, the arrival of Vodafone to Touch will make many newsagents happy.

I’ve had several newsagents and people from one of my own newsagencies tell me that the calls and visits from Optus trying to get them to sign up to sell Optus products in-store are pressure-focuses. They don’t take no for an answer. Nothing like the Jenlist relationship at all.

As well as product and marketing ideas, newsXpress shared discount product opportunities for newsXpress members from some of our preferred supplier colleagues – providing even more opportunities for raising average achieved gross profit through the winter months.

Take a moment to participate in the four question phone recharge survey. I’ll leave it up for another day. We’re at more than 100 responses so far.

I have prepared a quick four-question survey for newsagents on selling mobile phone recharge. You can participate in the survey here. I created the survey because of the increasing number of newsagents I hear saying they will quit the product category given falling commission.  I’ll publish the results here.

In 2005 I wrote here about  a copy of a Vodafone mobile phone recharge invoice for a major supermarket showing their commission was 16% while for newsagents we were on 5%.  I suspect the difference between what supermarkets get and what we get continues.

Kudos to Jenlist for landing an Optus recharge margin opportunity for all newsagents.  This deal gives newsagents an opportunity to grow margin from 5% for Optus recharge to 7% and even 10%.

While it sounds like I am promoting this … I am – but not for commercial reasons. I heard about it and thought it’s something all newsagents should know about. Since we see more than 1,000 visitors a day here more newsagents will be aware of the opportunity.

James Simadas, Managing Director of Jenlist, has provided some details:

This is a fabulous offer that took quite some time to get over the line with Optus… the pay-off being it is across all Newsagents as one group.

A great win for the industry!

Newsagents are able to increase their Optus, Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile Electronic margin from 4% to 7% by simply taking the SIM Stand offer 1, which is absolutely FREE to the newsagent. ($120 retail value)

If they choose offer 2, they will be able to go to 10% margin by simply purchasing the Offer 2 pack ($500 stock) which offers $157 profit for the purchased stock plus the sale of the SIM Pack included. The Offer 2 pack includes  the Offer 1 SIMS stand as well.

Check out the ad which ran on the back page of mx newspaper in Brisbane yesterday.  Coles is making mobile recharge about price, showing that they can’t win on service and other differentiation points with other retailers offering recharge, like newsagents.

I am surprised that Telstra is connected with this campaign with Coles.  Newsagents do more to support Telstra and drive sales of handsets and new Telstra than Coles.  I bet we sell more recharge than Coles too.

The implied 20% discount offered by Coles of smacks of desperation.

To counter this latest push from Coles, newsagents in the recharge space,, and that is most of us, we should look at handset and other opportunities to leverage off their campaign.  We should also remind our team members to offer recharge over the counter.  So many times just asking for the business can win it for you.

The ACCC has commenced legal action against CardCall Pty Ltd for alleged contravention of the Trade Practices Act in relation to the sale of their Talk Tomato, Daybreak, OZcall and Green pre-paid phonecards.

We have heard of problems vending Vodafone recharge through Tafmo (Touch) facilities.  eziPass, pulling product direct from e-pay, is vending Vodafone recharge without an issue.  Vodafone last month announced the appointment of e-pay as its exclusive distributor.

eziPass is available free to all newsagents – except the 300 running the POS Browser software.

e-pay has just announced that new contracts with newsagents will not have any break penalty. This makes it even easier for newsagents to sell e-pay mobile phone and other electronic voucher products through eziPass platform. To sign up, please go to the retailer sign up page on the eziPass website.

eziPass is integrated with Tower Systems newsagency management software. From within the Tower software you can easily sell mobile recharge for all the major telcos. This integrated solution cuts keystrokes, eliminates mistakes and makes selling easier. Long lines are eliminated as you can sell from any computer on the network.

Newsagents selling Vodafone recharge from the TAFMO / Touch computer based platform will need to move quickly to establish a supply relationship with e-pay as Vodafone recharge is about to be exclusive distributed by e-pay.  The sign-up process can take two weeks because of the checks involved.

These generic posters we made to promote mobile recharge are helping to drive sales in our shops.  They take less space than branded posters.  Placed appropriately, they remind customers and you can see them add a recharge to a sale.  If you would like some of these A3 posters, drop me an email. I will arrange for them to be posted to you.  You can also download them.  I am happy for anyone to use these posters.

Vodafone has announced that it has appointed e-pay Australia as its exclusive distributor of Vodafone prepaid recharge products via retail channels. For some months Vodafone has also supplied through TAFMO. This relationship appears to be at an end. Newsagents using the eziPass platform from my software company can access Vodafone recharge product direct from e-pay.