We have an arrangement with The Flower Hut, a florist in Frankston. They have provided a nice display for our counter as a prize for a lucky customer. In return we promote their business in a good location in-store.  A prize like a bunch of flowers for Mother’s Day is great. It’s practical. Also, being local, there is a greater sense that one could win. It shows that you don;t need to go over the top with a seasonal promotion.
Seeing double early in the morning is not unusual but seeing triple? I really thought something was wrong. Three different versions of Real Living, who odd is that?
One is the regular copy, another is the value pack and the third is the same as the first but with a free set of notepads.
I’ve see the value pack before from ACP magazines for other titles. I’m not a fan. I think having two versions of a title on the shelf is confusing for the consumer. Also, how should we merchandise this to leverage the offer – and if we did this would it hurt traditional sales.
I don’t know what the deal is with three versions. We figured it deserved a display at the counter so that’s what the team did. I’m not sure if this achieves what ACP would like – looking at the display as a consumer it is confusing.
We have adjusted our display of weekly and top selling women’s magazines at Forest Hill.
The column of crossword titles next to Australian Women’s Weekly has been lifted and put into two rows across five titles. Replacing the crossword column is a selection of women’s health titles such as Women’s Health and Good Health. Above Notebook we have allocated three pockets to environment related titles – currently these display G and Real Simple.
We refresh the crossword and health titles weekly based on new product arrivals. The overall approach will be re-jigged again within two months.
Think Big is a magazine about leadership. I like it, a lot. What I don’t like is its physical size – it’s wider than most magazines and encroaches on titles placed next to it – as the photo shows.
This is a small but important point. For decades newsagents used to fan magazine out, almost on top of each other – because of lack of space. Now, we have allocated more space to enable us to display the full width of a cover. This is the best practice approach. Think Big makes that harder, they are stealing some of the next magazine’s space.
While they could argue that they are not the only wider-than-usual title, it’s them I am writing about here. They could also say the magazine is designed for display outside regular magazine racking, few newsagents can afford that.
My message for publishers is – understand the limitations of retail space allocation and design product which leverages this to your advantage without taking space from others.
I was in the kitchen at our newsXpress Forest Hill store yesterday for the first time in a while and admired the view through the window. Looking down on the water … mmm, very inviting. For a second or two I thought it was real. Behind the stuck on photo of the beach and curtains in the same old concrete wall we’ve had for years. Oh well, it’s good to dream.
The photo shows a small super-hero like figure I picked up at the trade show in Hong Kong earlier this week. At shows like this you are given many trinkets, pens, rulers and characters like this one. But he’s different – remove his head and you see that he’s a USB stick.
The company behind this product makes personalised USB sticks as corporate giveaways. They also make collectibles, especially around sporting teams.
So, we see USB sticks as a business tool. They see USB sticks as fashion and fun. This difference can be applied to many products in our newsagencies – we often treat and merchandise stationery as a chore when we cold treat and merchandise the department from a fashion and or fun perspective. It would change the mindset of our customers just as this action hero changed how I look at USB sticks.
I saw this Mother’s Day poster in the window of a gift shop I passed in Hong Kong earlier this week. I like the simplicity, it works well against the visually noisy background of a gift shop. The blue backing on which it has been placed helps frame the poster – without it I would have missed it.
This Mother’s Day poster would work well in a newsagency – with so much colour in our shops, often even the best designed posters get lost. I like that it’s has flowers stuck on – the photo does not do these justice.
I think we get too caught up in making pretty posters for seasons and other promotional times and forget where they will be situated and what they compete with for attention.
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.
For years we have had our travel magazines at one end of the shop and our maps just about at the other end. It was our new manager at Forest Hill, Jason, who spotted the mistake and brought them together. It was one of those moments when Homer Simpson’s D’oh! is all one can say. We should have done this years ago. It goes to show that for all the blogging in this place we make mistakes – sometimes very obvious mistakes. The impact of the move has been immediate for travel magazines – they are being browsed whereas in the past they were ignored.
More than 40 US and Canadian comic book publishers have got together to support Free Comic Book Day 2008 by offering free samples at participating comic book stores. This is a brilliant idea! Comic sales are down and there is no better way to attract new interest than a national campaign based around a free offer. The day is timed to coincide with the opening of the Iron Man movie in the US. ince the start of Free Comic Book day, more than 15 million free comics have been given away.
It is great to see publishers, distributors and retailers all behind this. Brilliant!
Many times over the last six years I have suggested to Australian magazine publishers, ACP, Pacific and Lovatts that they offer free sample product through newsagents. None has been interested enough to act. Lovatts offer free samples through their website but not through the retail network. If we want to grow the magazine marketplace we need to attract people and the free offer worth trying. I have been astounded each time the publishers ignored the idea – here’s a retailer wanting to grow the marketplace and they are not prepared to take the risk.
The opther suggestion I made was that publishers like Lovatts, with their timeless crossword product, provide giveaways for newsagents to use on weeks like the last one when lottery traffic was through the roof because of the OzLotto $40 million jackpot.
We could give away samples as part of a National Magazine Week. They have one in the UK and understand it’s a ripper of a success.
I’d expect most newsagents to wholeheartedly embrace a national magazine promotion which supported by publishers. I’d expect the return to far outweigh the cost. Meanwhile, kudos to comic publishers in the US and Canada for their entrepreneurial initiative.
With close to 4,000 exhibitors from 40 countries and booths covering 78,000 square metres this is the biggest gift fair in the world. From 9am the floors were packed with people looking for products. While there is junk, there are many good items worth considering.
While I am here looking for gift related items, I have found myself looking at products which may work in newsagencies which we do not carry today. Some good new opportunities to expand our retail offer and to leverage the lower manufacturing cost of China production. The booths here are packed with items we would not see at newsagent trade shows in Australia. And the prices!
As is always the case with Hong Kong trade shows, it’s a huge eye opener. Secretly, I like listening to the questions European and American buyers ask – fascinating!
We’re taking a different approach with the second issue of Mindfood, this time promoting it at the counter in the space usually reserved for titles which come with a free gift.Given that the title is being launched with no advertising budget we have to be more creating in chasing consumer interest.
With a title like this, one which does not neatly fit into a single category, we’re up for trying various locations until we find one which is viable for us. We figured that with Madonna on the cover this issue of Mindfood is sure to appeal to a wide demographic and, hopefully, drive impulse purchases.
Your Mortgage, Money and other titles in the mortgage / personal finance space have come into their own with the credit crunch and increasing interest rates. To leverage the fear around increasing mortgage rates we are placing these titles in a more prominent position so people who would have an interest in the issue but not the overall category see them and, buy.
The Tattersalls kiosk outside our Frankston newsagency was closed yesterday when the rest of the centre was open from 1pm. Their closure was odd because of the $40 million OzLotto Jackpot. They would have done well. Instead, their closure meant people walked to the lottery outlet on the other side of the centre – this happens to also be a newsagency.  We rely on the Tattersalls kiosk as much as they rely on us. Their closure, again, let us down.
With over 1,000 titles in an average newsagency it is a challenge for consumers to know what is fresh and what is not.
In the crafts, crossword and special interest categories I encounter people all the time asking when a title came in or if it is the latest issue.
newsXpress has come up with an industry first, an idea to help newsXpress newsagents show customers what titles are just in.
The newsXpress branded bookmark in the photo is placed in a small selection of new titles in categories where consumers are most likely to have the question about what is new. The crossword title is a good example. With many Lovatts products on the shelves, people in front of our display can see that BIG Crosswords is just in.
Things like the bookmarks are another way we differentiate ourselves from other magazine retailers including other newsagencies. In an open marketplace even the smallest difference like these bookmarks can mean a customer choosing to return to us for their magazines.
I have been deeply involved in bank eftpos bank rates for a few weeks, talking to several banks and getting deeply into the deals they offer to retailers. Every day has been a discovery of something new about the intricacies of bank charges, where money is made and by whom in the fees levied against retailers for processing credit and debit cards.
This space is changing rapidly. Some banks are introducing new fees based on the type of card being presented by the consumer for a transaction. One sale could have a debit card fee for the newsagent of .7% and the next could have a fee of 1.5% or more.
It does not make sense to me that the retailer carries the cost of the more expensive cards. If banks want to chase these customers they ought to carry the risk. While they will say they carry the risk already, it’s not enough if I as the retailer have to cop a 100% penalty on the card fee.
The agreement reached with St George Bank / Bank SA means a common fee regardless of the card used.
The State and Federal governments missed an opportunity to lead yesterday by not reaching agreement on the plastic shopping bag issue. As I blogged here a month ago, many consumers prefer plastic bags. This is why most retailers don’t levy a charge. Government action makes enforcement easier. While I am not keen on regulation, the only way to dramatically reduce plastic bag usage is through leadership from government.
The photo shows our latest use of a cardboard magazine fixture we received late last year. Shop Til You Drop from ACP Magazines is the latest title to benefit from our reincarnation project. We love this little cardboard unit because we can use it anywhere – right now it’s in the middle of the dance floor, every customer sees it as they enter the shop. This is the perfect place to promote Shop Til You Drop.
Since it’s not a power end, however, the publisher won’t see this as a valuable display in terms of how we’re measured. All that matters to us is sales and this stand will work a treat. If only newsagents were treated us an business people and rewarded for results.
We moved the ACP basket builder magazine stand in our newsXpress Forest Hill location on the weekend – away from the front of the shop and down next to our busiest counter.
While there is nothing much in the move, too often in newsagencies we have a set and forget approach to fixtures like the ACP basket builder. Regular customers get as store blind as us and the promotional stand soon loses its value of the business.
By moving it we have revived interest and boosted the value of the stand. The move is part of the regular cycle of change in the shop, a cycle which keeps us fresh and helps drive good sales.
The only downside of the move is that sometimes the police from ACP will not be happy with the location. My answer to that would be that daylight loses it’s appeal if that is all you get.
The free oven mit with the latest issue of Australian Country Collections magazine is why we are featuring it in the premium display at our counter this week.
Even though the title has a (long) shelf life of two months, our goal is to sell out in two weeks or less.
We have Madison and another title ready to follow in this counter location which we use exclusively for titles with free gifts.
While the publisher would argue that I should order extra stock if I sell out, the reality is that an early sell out works out much better for me than a top up order which leaves me with stock to return.
It was a real team effort Thursday, relaying the wrap category at Forest Hill. We moved it from the front of the card area to the rear, next to flat wrap. The change was part of our commitment to keep moving categories within the store. What you see in the photo will change in the next few months.
The impact of the move has been immediate. Up to last night, sales of wrap have increased by 50% – compared to the average of the last year of Fridays (out of seasons) and in comparison to the last four Fridays. Ths increase is because regulars see it whereas before they had become ‘blind’ to it. Sure, it is early days. We are all certain the increase will be sustained.
As a consequence of moving wrap, we moved four other categories and they are enjoying increased sales as well. This goes back to my comments here a couple of months ago about stationery – just by taking everything off, cleaning and putting it back in a different place sales will increase. This work of moving stock is more valuable for a newsagent than much of the paperwork suppliers want us to complete.
We’re having some fun and promoting Holden and Ford branded magazines at the same time at our Frankston location.
On the stand in the photo we have a bunch of Ford magazines on the left and a bunch of Holden magazines on the right.
In the middle of the stand we’re inviting our customers to vote for the car maker they prefer – this is the bit I really like, customer interaction!
We’ve had shopping trolley tokens in our Frankston store for a just on a week and have all but sold out. They are proving to be an excellent counter impulse item. Small footprint. Good margin. An easy sell. We have ordered more and will run them for another few weeks before resting them. In terms of return on space and return on investment the first shipment of tokens easily beat everything else at the counter.
As I blogged Tuesday I visited the new Harvey Norman Ofis stationery business in Auburn (NSW) on Tuesday.While it’s not fair to assess a new business which is barely a few days old, this is a Harvey Norman enterprise. These people know retail. They have time to get this right. Given their size and the bucket of cash available to support the new enterprise I think an early days assessment is fair. Their marketing suggests they are ready for such scrutiny.
I went to Harvey Norman Ofis expecting to see a next generation model of stationery and office retailing., something which would make put them ahead of OfficeWorks, the main national brand player in this space today. I didn’t see that. far from it. This was a clone of Officeworks. No generational change. Nothing special.
The customer service was exceptional and the feature displays attractive but the core of the business was nothing special. Laptops were laid our like Officeworks and Harvey Norman. Ink and toner the same. I wanted to see innovation driving sales. Instead, the focus in on creating a sense that this is the place for a good price deal. There is nothing new in that. Especilly when the prices are not amazing.
As I said, the customer service was excellent. If this is maintained then that is a huge point of difference with Officeworks.
The store itself felt, well, bland. The pink logo is the strong visual but even then it’s only in the uniforms, plastic bags and at the front. In-store signage, which may be temporary, was not the bold message I expected.
To support the opening they give you a brown paper bag and anything you can fit inside during your shop you get 15% off. While it’s not a new idea, the execution at Ofis is good – I was offered the bag three times and told to fill it up. I know the idea has been used in at least one stationery outlet in the US with good success.
So, what does Ofis mean for newsagents? If Harvey Norman is committed for the long haul, and I am yet to be convinced of this given what I saw, newsagents need to be prepared for more competition in the stationery space. We need to get back to basics – the best range, keen prices, exceptional service and marketing our offer outside our four walls.
Our Frankston newsagency has a pole right near the counter, a big ugly pole.
We have tried several approaches to hide the pole and or work around it. In each case we were making excuses. We found that by embracing the pole, making it the hero, it works for us beautifully.
Last week we made the pole a feature of our new plush display. We kept access either side easy and this helps our customers see the new range. This was important since we are positioning ourselves outside the traditional newsagency range – if we had buried the plush inside the store, we risked losing focus.
This display is seen by everyone. It demonstrates we’re evolving the business, makes the newsagency look more appealing to kids and a place parents can find gifts.
The display is important on another front, in pursuing an excellent rang of plush we are pursuing a better margin, better than average for a newsagency. Plush is not the only new category we are pursuing as part of our margin play, it’s a start.
Once we take the plush display off the pole we will replace it with something else which continues to respct the pole as the hero.