Uncategorized

I wish everyone passing by today all the best for a happy, safe and heart-warming Christmas. Newsagents, enjoy the day off.  Anyone else taking a longer break … relax and stay safe.

Check out the poster sent out with The Daily Telegraph today, making newsagents part of what I am guessing is a paid for advertising campaign with Coles.

Why would a newsagent put this poster out? Coles sells newspapers. The last thing newsagents need is to drive newspaper shoppers to Coles and feed the uncompetitive supermarket duopoly in this country.

We moved a bunch of products during the week including this range of items targeted it kids.

In placing these items at the counter, we are targeting kids shopping with parents as well as grandparents who are busy purchasing stocking stuffers for Christmas.

With space very limited, plenty of time is spent each week moving items around – a bit like one of those puzzles we did as kids … chasing the perfect fit.

We have the latest issue of Harpers Bazaar magazine being promoted at the entrance to our main women’s magazine aisle with this display.

The pack of 10 Bazaar gift cards which comes with the magazine is a nice gift and while we don’t want to pull focus from our excellent range of greeting cards, we have strategically placed this display next to our card department.

We’ll run this display for a week before giving any remaining stock prominence in our women’s interests section.

The mini crossword titles from Puzzler in the UK get lost in newsagency fixtures.  Check out the photo I took of a mini Puzzler title on top of a mini format Lovatts title.

Lovatts provide a holder for their mini titles so they fit into traditional magazine fixtures.  Puzzler need to address this if they want their titles to be easily seen by shoppers. Without physical support, they will not achieve what they could.

We are promoting Valentine’s Day behind the counter are one of my stores this week.  This display is what customers see as they present to pay for their purchases.  It’s a practical and attractive display promoting cards and some other Valentine’s Day items.  Too often, cards are not part of gift and seasonal displays in stores.  Yet it is greeting cards which deliver a superior margin.  So, we have a good range of Valentine’s Day cards in our display behind the counter.

The extent of the size and potential impact of Cyclone Yasi which is bearing down on far North Queensland is illustrated by a graphic published by News Limited, superimposing the cyclone and its trail on a map of the USA.

My thoughts and I am sure the thoughts of others who visit this place are with colleague newsagents and suppliers in the line of Yasi tonight and tomorrow.

What a tough start to 2011 for many!

Check out the story online about a temporary restaurant installation in New York.  The idea of the team is to transform the restaurant every thirty days. What caught my eye about this story is how those involved are collaborating and embracing change through the course of the nine month project.  Fascinating.

I wonder what sort of newsagency we would come up with in this situation – low budget, built by a passionate team and with the knowledge that it is temporary.  I wonder what innovation we would see every thirty days if those involved committed to the same level of change as those behind the New York restaurant idea.

Merry Christmas to one and all who pass by this place.  Have a great day with family and friends.  For those opening for Boxing Day Sale business, enjoy your one day off.

We are promoting The Australian Women’s Weekly in our prime women’s magazine section as well as next to our newspapers this week.

This newspaper location is working a treat for us – generating good sales from a simple and tactical display.

While this space is premium, AWW is earning its keep.  It’s great to see someone come in for a  newspaper and purchase AWW on impulse.  It’s better that we get the sale than a supermarket or some other retail channel.  I’d encourage other newsagents to try this co-location approach.

The magazine numbers in the newsagency sales benchmark results which I published earlier this week were confirmed yesterday with the release of audit numbers.  While I did not break out magazine sales by category, the results from the benchmark study pool indicated a year on year average decline for weeklies of 5%.

Famous is the only weekly delivering growth.  I’d put this down to its content focus, excellent retail marketing tactics and price.

Grazia is in critical condition with a 17% decline in sales.   Who is performing better than OK! in the Friday on-sale stakes reporting a decline of 4.7% compared to 15.2%.

The heavy hitters of Woman’s Day and New Idea both reported declines of 3.9% and 4.5% respectively.  While not ideal, not at the bad end of the declines announced.

Take 5 and That’s Life also reported declines: 8.3% and 8.7% respectively.

Four other weeklies with concerning declines are:  TV Week (12.7%), Picture (10.4%) and People (9.1%).

Check out the report at B&T for details.

A note to magazine publishers: I think you are missing an opportunity with the newsagency channel by taking an out of date cookie cutter approach to marketing.   You send posters and expect billboard type displays.  You do not reward genuine creativity nor do you reward tactical effort.

Newsagencies are your best retail outlet.  We are individuals, business people, who know best how to engage with customers in our stores.  Find a way to connect with this and you may turn around your sales decline. Accept that your current approach is not working as well as it might.

While any turnaround must start on the pages on your products, the next step is to engage with newsagents in a fresh and commercially respectful way.

I thin you would find plenty of newsagents keen for a fresh approach.  We want what you want – more sales.  This is because magazines are important to us.  Our competitors, supermarkets, petrol, convenience and majors see magazines as cream.  To us, magazines are bread and butter.

Newsagents are your more important partners and your best opportunity.

Many newsagents using software from Tower Systems will have spoken with Raul Rodriguez.  He was part of our help desk team. Raul passed away suddenly and unexpectedly Wednesday night at home.  Our thoughts are with Raul’s wife Maite at this time.  For more on this and tributes from some customers please click here.

Ron Geyer was an institution among newsagents and suppliers in Victoria.  As the owner of Sunbury Newsagency, Ron presided over many changes to the business, often leading into areas new for newsagents.  His passing is a loss for his personal family and the wider newsagent family.

There is a tribute page at heraldsun.com.au.

The Wrap is reporting that News Corp is considering bidding for the Texas Rangers Major League Baseball team and has bid for the Dallas Stars a National Hockey League team. Makes sense given the success they have had owning Australian NRL teams and half the NRL itself.

The Cairns Post yesterday promoted a competition with an iPad as the prize.  Entry was by liking the Cairns Post on Facebook.

There are a couple of things which interested me about this: The Cairns Post does not currently have an iPad app; and, it took a bit of work to find their Facebook page since the tip in the ad was inaccurate.  I found the link by reading the story about the competition online.

The above points aside, a newspaper in a regional centre running a competition with an iPad as a prize is interesting.  Newspaper publishers still say to newsagents that it’s business as usual.  Now, three weeks into my own iPad experience, I’d say that’s not true.  It is not business as usual for the distribution of news and information.

If I were involved in the Cairns Post promotion I’d make sure that my Facebook page is easily found.  I’d also make sure that I have an iPad presence – to connect the promotion to innovation on the iPad.  Otherwise, why promote the new distribution channel when you are not there yet?

That’s Life Reader Recipies has been a runaway success for us, selling 40 copies in a couple of weeks up to last night.  We have it placed with That’s Life and at the counter as shown in the photo.  It had worked very well as an impulse purchase because customers know the brand (clever of the publisher to use the That’s Life colours) and it is priced well.

Placement at the counter has been the best move.  I am sure that had we left this title in regular magazine fixturing it would not have sold as well.  Customers need to see the bright full cover.

Given the success of the title we are using it to sell other titles – like the calorie counter shown in the photo.  However, when placing this and other titles at the counter, we are careful to not clutter the space and confuse the message.  Newsagency counters are often too cluttered.  Less is more as they say.

Please excuse this off-topic indulgence.  I thought I’d share a photo I took last week of a business I drive past regularly of The Compassionate Hair Studio. What a brilliant name. Does this make other hairdressers not compassionate?  Are they compassionate in their cutting?  In how they treat customers?  Jokes aside, they stand out and I remember them.

Newsagents are mourning the tragic killing of Min Lin, his wife Yun Li Lin and their two sons and another female relative at the weekend.  The family owned and operated the Rawson Street Newsagency in Epping Shopping Centre.  They have been clients of my software company since they bought the business years ago.  Those of us who had contact with them found them to good people to deal with.

I have opened this post for others who may want to comment.

The government owned Australia Post shop opposite our newsagency at Forest Hill is offering 50% off all greeting cards until May 31.  They are promoting this in the window and in-store.  If this were any other retailer I would not be concerned.  That it is the Government owned post office with access to various privileges associated with such ownership and that they are so blatantly targeting an independently owned small business is appalling behavior.

This 50% off card deal is not just at our location.

Talking with customers at our Epping Sophie Randall store we discovered that bushfire victims were buying calendars to replace those which were lost in the fires. Through the relief centre at Kinglake, we have donated calendar stock we had left for distribution as they see a need. I am sure that newsagents with spare calendar stock would find welcome homes through the Kinglake or other relief centres.

I am in Perth tonight and was fortunate to witness a glorious sunset.  The sky rolled through grey, pink, red, orange and, finally, black.

Sunsets for me are like smelling roses can be for others.  Outside our four walls, life goes on.

Congratulations to East Ringwood Newsagency for winning Victorian Distribution Newsagent of the Year on Saturday night.  This is a good story as the winner started as a paperboy.  Congratulations to Morwell Newsagency for winning Victorian Retail Newsagent of the Year.  Employee of the year was won by a team member from yarrawonga Newsagency.

The dispute between magazine publishers and wholesalers in the US is hotting up.  Billboard.com has a good summary of the story as it stands today including these two paragraphs:

Source argues in the letter that while the magazine publishers characterize the brouhaha as a dispute over seven cents, the whole situation is actually a part of bigger picture negotiations to “secure necessary financial adjustments to outdated distribution agreements.”

According to a story on businesstn.com, retailers like Wal-Mart are increasingly turning to scanned-based-trading (SBT), which means they pay for magazines when the products are scanned at the check out counter, rather than purchasing them in bulk from wholesalers like Anderson and Source Interlink on the front-end. This new business model impacts cashflow and squeezes liquidity for wholesalers and inflates inventory on their balance sheet.

I have called for scanned based trading (SBT) on this blog for Australian newsagents for years.  See my Nov. 21, 2005 post.  It is the fairest way for our resources to be used to sell and distribute magazines.  The technology exists.  It it were used, newsagents would be more motivated than ever before to transact their business is a compliane way.  Magazine distributors will not implement SBT here because the could no longer use newsagents to financially prop up their distribution model inefficiencies.

Until newsagents take firm action the opportunity and benefits of SBT will remain locked away and in the banks for magazine distributors.

Mediaweek also covers the mess in the US including speculation that two magazine wholesalers were set to close and therefore put the distribution of many magazines at risk.

If you know this person please let us know so we can pass his details on to the police to assist with their enquiries.

The gift of jam from the folks at Better Homes and Gardens is a nice treat in our kitchen.  Small things like this count in a channel flooded with products.  It also gives our team another reference point to the title – this is important because it is easy to suggest products to people who are browsing.