Tower Systems has donated $5,000 to the Queensland Premier’s Flood Relief Appeal. The company is also providing a range of practical and financial support to individual newsagents impacted by the floods. Tower employees are also donating through a collection.
I encourage other newsagent suppliers to support the Premier’s Appeal.
All newsXpress stores across Australia have been provided with collateral for supporting the collection of cash donations from customers for depositing into the Premier’s Flood Appeal account. Click on the image to see a larger version of the poster which has been created. In support of transparency, newsXpress outlets will display receipts, showing the total amount of money raised in-store for the appeal. The same approach was used successfully to raise considerable funds for the Victorian Bushfire Appeal.
The NT News is donating 50 cents from every copy of the newspaper sold this Saturday to the Queensland Premier’s flood appeal. Good stuff.
Boxed Christmas card which support a charity are easily outselling boxed Christmas cards which do not support a charity based on what I am seeing in my stores this Christmas. You know you are on a winner if a customer asks for a specific item and only wants that item. This is what we are finding with charity Christmas cards.
I was with a couple of customers yesterday who wanted to buy eight boxes of cards. We did not have enough stock supporting a charity so they will be back in today or tomorrow once our next shipment arrives. They passed up the opportunity to buy and excellent range of boxed cards we had on display, not even looking at the designs. They were adamant that they would only buy Christmas cards which support a charity. They came to us because of our history of carrying a good range of charity Christmas cards.
While I have no research to back this, it feels to me as if Social Conscience Shopping is on the increase.
While the margin is awfully slim, I am happy to promote this book, Tyler, from the Herald Sun. It tells the story of Tyler Fishlock, a story which has grabbed the hearts of Victorians thanks to coverage in the Herald Sun newspaper and on radio 3AW. Just having the book on the shelves near the newspaper reinforces the difference between a newsagency (with a heart) selling newspapers and the coffee shops, supermarkets, petrol and convenience outlets which will not have this book in a prominent (expensive) position.
I know of three newsagents who have each had a heart attack in the last week. While they are on the mend, it is a reminder of the need to take steps to reduce risk.
With the hours newsagents work and with many handcuffed to their businesses out of necessity, achieving a healthy lifestyle can be a challenge. It is better that we act early, before warning signs (or worse) for the sake of our families, our friends and our businesses.
All of us in the channel should look at what we can do to improve our situation and that of colleagues.
It’s great to see people in the newsagency channel supporting Movember and raising money for men’s health. Here are three mo growers I am aware of. Click on their names to support their fund raising.
Ten cents from every copy of New Idea sold this week goes to support McHappy Day and we are very happy to be supporting this well known and respected charity. The collateral from Pacific Magazines makes it easy for us to support the promotion and connect with the fund raising.
I am keen to support all of these supplier fund raising intiatives as the customer feedback is excellent – just look at sales of charity supporing boxed Christmas cards versus those without such a connection.
We enjoy the opportunity of demonstrating our social conscience through the promotion of products in our newsagencies. Take the Amnesty International calendar. Making it a feature calendar for the week demonstrates our support for their work while at the same time providing an opportunity for supporters to support the cause. Yes, our support could be seen as commercially focused. However, if that were the case we would only promote calendars with cute dogs on the front as they sell the best. We have deliberately sourced a range of calendars which support causes about which we feel strongly. This calendar from Amnesty International is one from that range. We are proud to promote it.
We are promoting New Idea at the counter for the next few days because of thier tremendous support of Daffodil Day. 10 cents from every magazine sold goes to the Daffodil Day campaign. We have placed the remaining Daffodil Day merchandise next to the counter display for New Idea.
Pacific Magazines has a good track record for supporting charities by donating money from the sale of each copy of a magazine to an important cause. It is important that we newsagents tap into the spirit of the Pacific commitment and try and drive sales to maximise the donation.
We plan to keep the display up until Wednesday depending on sales.
We are proud to be promoting Henderson Greetings’ Mother’s Day cards since their sale raises much-needed funds for the McGrath Foundation.
Outside of the fundraising, the cards themselves are terrific, offering a broad range of price points, plenty of captions and a quality I am pleased to stock. You know you have a good product when customers comment positively.
That many of the cards are printed in Australia is a bonus in terms of keeping jobs local and in terms of carbon pollution.
Mother’s Day is a huge card season and having variety in the range if we are to be taken seriously as a greeting card outlet.
I am glad we have the 2010 edition of The Guide to Ethical Supermarket Shopping. This title was very popular last year. We have it at the counter – the best place for it based on past experience. While some people will look for the title, most copies will be sold on impulse – hence the counter placement. I was impressed to discover that the publisher, the Ethical Consumer Group, has a list of stockists for the title on their website. This very practical support for the retail channel shows a respect I like.
Registration is now open for the annual Tower Systems AFL Footy Tipping Competition this year. The competition is open to anyone.
Entry is free. I have put up prizes for the competition: First $250.00; Second $100.00; Third $50.00.
Sorry, but this year we are running the AFL competition only as we have missed the start of the NRL season. Apologies, to all the NRL fans.
To join the AFL tipping competition, please follow these instructions:
Each week, go to the Tower Systems’ web site – www.towersystems.com.au – click on the AFL button, enter your username and password and tip away.
Rules:
Tabcorp announced on Friday a new agreement with Australia Post to deliver over-the counter TAB betting account services. From early December, Tabcorp TAB account holders will be able to deposit, withdraw and obtain balances of their betting accounts at most Australia Post retail outlets. Read the Sydney Morning Herald piece from this morning on this.
I have a couple of issues with this: connecting the government owned brand with gambling (where will they stop?) and the further strengthening of Australia Post retail traffic. Government should not own such a commercial business in a well-serviced and competitive marketplace.
Australia Post government stores are the toughest competitors for newsagents. They get their traffic through government protected customer traffic. They leverage this by competing directly with us on a growing range of fronts. It is Government policy which has allowed their model to diversify over the last ten years.
We found ourselves with space at our prime counter display for a few days so our team at Forest Hill created a display of the excellent socially responsible range from the Noah’s Ark group in Northern India. Rather than go with the usual product focused display, our team put together details on the back story – why this product is important. Knowing this is as important as the items themselves. Indeed, the back story can drive the sale. Click on the photo for a larger version of the display.
The items are selling well. They make great Christmas gifts. Their work in local villages has been checked out and endorsed by Oxfam and Tear Fund. The credibility of this encouraged us to take on the product. I am thrilled the team at Forest Hill is supportig the product.
I was saddened to hear the news that Neville Lyons of Mitty’s Newsagency in the heart of Melbourne passed away a week ago. Neville was a character in the Victorian newsagency channel. I first met him more than twenty years ago. Always ready with encouragement, Neville was an old hand who represented publishers well at the top end of the city of Melbourne.
There has been considerable discussion in the US this week about the financial health of newspaper publishers. Suffering fron significant advertising and circulation declines, the Newspaper Association of America told Congress yesterday that publishers may need government assistance. President Obama has bought into the discussion. Newspapers are covering this story widely, as you’d expect.
While I don’t live in the US, my view is that the government ought not bail out newspapers or other businesses in hard times unless they are prepared to do this across all business sectors. The cherry picking by governments for bail out funds over the years has led to inefficient industries. Look at the auto sector around the world. Look at banks even here in Australia and the support they received over the last year yet the massive profits they continue to report.
Small businesses, like newsagencies, are never on the bail out radar. We are too small and insignificant to be of interest yet we punch above our weight in terms of economic contribution.
So, my view is that governments should stop bailing out businesses, even newspapers if it comes to that. We are in the free market economy which big business wants after all.
NANA, the NSW Newsagents Association of NSW & ACT, has thanked the newsagency industry suppliers who have worked together to help the Lin family reopen their newsagency following the tragic death or Min Lin, his wife and three other family members. NANA has done a terrific job co-ordinating the suppliers in difficult circumstances. I am speaking from personal experience of what they have done. NANA’s work is an excellent example of what an industry association is about. They have done this work without promoting it or seeking to use it as a membership drive. Well done NANA.
This is a reminder to all newsagents to rally support for the daughter of slain Epping newsagent Min Lin and his wife and two children. Click here for a copy of the letter sent to newsagents in NSW and the ACT about the trust fund established by NANA to support the daughter of the slain newsagents.
Click here for a copy of the letter sent yesterday to newsagents in NSW and the ACT about the trust fund established by NANA to support the daughter of the slain newsagents. Please support this – individuals and newsagents reading this blog post.
NANA, the Association of newsagents in NSW, will announce tomorrow details of a fund to which newsagents and their customers can contribute to to raise funds to support the daughter of Min Lin and Yun Li Lin, newsagents from Epping in NSW who were slain several days ago along with two of their children and a relative. I will publish details here once they are released by NANA. I hope newsagents across the country get behind this.
Now more than ever, displaying the community connection is important – because people are more likely to shop locally to save costs and because people appreciate support for local groups at a time when raising funds is difficult. Like other newsagents, we are regularly thanked for donations.
One of the best I have seen the letter and photo from Mt Pleasant Road Primary School in Nunawading. The photo with the letter is an engaging way to say thank you, one we will proudly show in-store. They invited us to an open day to see the difference donations like ours made – this invitation is appreciated.
Community involvement must be two-way. Thank you letters and transparency on the positive impact of support are important for businesses which give to give and not to make the person requesting a donation to go away.
The folks at the Kinglake Relief Centre had let us know that they are in need of warm blankets and good quality weather proof jackets. This is the centre to which we sent spare calendars, diaries and stationery items following a call from them for these. Click here for the latest Murrindindi Shire Council Bushfire newsletter with contact details.