We were fortunate enough to take delivery of another five boxes of AFL Footy Cards late last week and we are almost out again. Had supply not restricted for the footy cards this year we could have easily sold three times what we have been supplied. While we understand that the nature of the cards requires that they are rationed, it is difficult to have to tell young kids that we are out of stock.
We have been selling more mobile phone recharge and calling card access and have tracked this to the direct link from our point of sale registers – we don’t have to queue at the Dialtime terminal any more. It also means we can sell multiple cards per sale and sell other items in a sale.
What’s interesting is that the easier sell and time saved appears to have combined to drive the growth.
The eftpos poll is three days old. Of the 147 who have voted so far, 100 of those voting, hopefully newsagents, say they do not charge any eftpos fees. 36 charge under 50 cents, 8 charge a percentage and 3 charge $1.00 or less. I am surprised at the range and that so many newsagents do charge a fee. Here is the link if you have not voted yet:
We lost $150.00 in a cash-change scam in my Sophie Randall Cards and Gifts business yesterday. This is a photo taken from our security footage. We have blurred the face on advice – something about protecting the innocent. Anyway, the scam was straightforward – seeking to change notes mid way through a sale. We should have known better. As a result we are adjusting our processes and improving team training to ensure this does not happen again.
The raw security video files, from four angles, are crisp and enable easy identification. We are providing the files to the Police this afternoon. We have also made these available to security within our centre.
I may load the video footage tomorrow.
I get queries from many people through this blog asking about software for newsagents. Click here for current pricing from my Tower Systems business. More than 1,400 newsagents use this software. We also have pricing for newsagents switching from other systems.
newsXpress has announced its first free seminar for people considering buying a newsagency. An ad is in The Age today. Anyone prospective newsagent is welcome to attend. Registration is done my emailing sales@newsXpress.com.au.
I am a Director and shareholder in newsXpress. The idea behind these seminars is to provide some insights into newsagencies and their operation prior to reaching a purchasing decision. With more than 100 stores in the newsXpress group we have a broad range of experience and expertise on which to draw in developing the content for these seminars.
Under the headline Lotto agents cheat alert, Kelvin Bissett, Investigations Editor for the Daily Telegraph demonstrates poor reporting skills. It’s what I’d call cut and paste journalism – there was no investigation. I’d say that someone had fed Mr Bissett the story and that he has published it without adequate investigation.
Is there a problem with newsagents cheating lottery customers and NSW lotteries? No!
Have agents been convicted? No!
So, what’s going on here? NSW Lotteries has always had control over the process of paying out major prizes. Their processes have been found to be flawed. Yet I the face of evidence of the flaws, NSW Lotteries did not act. Lottery licencees in other states did not and do not have the same process flaws as NSW Lotteries. NSW Lotteries knew this yet they persisted for years with prize claim processes which made it difficult for newsagents to protect customers.
NSW Lotteries has acknowledged culpability in this area by changing its prize claim processes in the last year. While the changes bring more certainty to the situation, they are not as robust as, say, Tattersalls where the customer must deal direct with Tattersalls for any major prize – over, say, $4,000.
A professional investigation by a professional journalist would have revealed that there is more to this story. They would have also uncovered other problems with lotteries, system problems at their end, which also have resulted in prize claim disputes.
no, this report in the Daily Telegraph reads like it has been placed. Maybe it is an attempt to spin public perception following the recent court case in NSW.
Newsagents are honest hard working small business people. Shame on the Daily Telegraph for running a half baked story targeting this small business group and ignoring the role played by the State Government owned NSW Lotteries.
Why was Bissett fed the story and by whom? What is really playing out here?
We have lodged an application for investigation and mediation with the Small Business Commissioner of Victoria over the three and a half month disruption to our newsagency during major construction in and directly abutting our tenancy. The cost to us of lost trade and damaged stock from two floods is approaching $100,000. The Commissioner is charged with mediating disputes such as this in Victoria.
I spent this morning at the ANF Conference on the Gold Coast. Part of that time was delivering a presentation on using best practice IT to navigate to the newsagency of the future. The mood at the conference was upbeat with newsagents keen to talk about moves they are making in their businesses in pursuit of a brighter future.
Unfortunately I had to return to Melbourne this afternoon for a couple of important meetings. This is a crazy busy time at Tower Systems at present, which is great, and the day off between main ANF conference days is too much time away for me so I will fly back into the Gold Coast for my second presentation first thing Wednesday.
Daniel Kenny joined Tower Systems on Monday of this week to work out of our Brisbane office. Dan has spent time this week working behind the counter at our newsXpress Forest Hill store. I bought this newsagency in February 1996 to provide practical experience to me and the team at Tower as we pursued better software for newsagents. Daniel is the latest of many from the Tower Systems team to be trained at Forest Hill. Usually, new team members like Daniel have several stints at Forest Hill before we let them loose with clients. This practical experience augments the more formal training in our software and serves to provide valuable context for what we do.
Every few days I hear from a manufacturer, importer or some other supplier keen to access the newsagency channel. Some express frustration with existing supply chain access points while others are not aware of the various supply chains serving newsagents.
What is interesting to me is their keenness to connect with newsagents. They like our geographic spread and the traffic they see in our stores. Some of these potential newsagent suppliers have excellent products just waiting to connect with a strong national network of stores. The key is achieving that access at a low price so that everyone involves makes a fair return.
I have a standard approach which includes being transparent about the various channels to our stores: warehouses, distributors and the like.
The most exciting approaches come from people making products unlike any we have seen in newsagencies before yet which suit our customers and fit within existing categories. I appreciate that I am not being specific in detailing products – in many cases I agree to confidentiality so that appropriate arrangements can be negotiated.
It would be good for the industry to establish a supplier entry point and bring some structure to these approaches. While groups such as newsXpress can do it for its 110 members, there are some products which are more appropriate to mass roll out.
Being first has its rewards. Newsagents are choosing Tower Systems software because of a commercial advantage exclusively delivered months ago.
Earlier this year, following extensive testing, we released a live link from within our newsagency point of sale software for the sale of Dialtime phone recharge vouchers. This means that our newsagent clients can sell Optus, Telstra, Vodafone, 3 Mobile and Virgin mobile phone top up from any register in their store. They can also sell many different calling cards from their POS registers.
What is clever about this is that at the sales counter a newsagent employee can hit a couple of touch screen buttons and in a second or two the voucher with the recharge serial number is printed. Our software links real-time to Dialtime, transacts the voucher and delivers it to the receipt printer in the newsagency. We’re saving between 30 and 90 seconds a transaction. With some newsagencies doing between 50 and 100 transactions a day the time saving is significant.
The benefits for newsagents are that they no longer have to queue at the one Dialtime terminal at their counter for these sales and there is less room of data re-keying error. By integrating within our POS software, newsagents save time, enjoy the process more and are happy to sell more mobile phone recharge and calling card product.
This is another Tower Advantage for newsagents.
I am in Bangkok on business and planned to get out tonight to take some photos of newsstands. Hotel security has been persuasive against it because of a high alert. It was odd getting searched checking into a hotel and the hotel’s own car being checked for bombs.
The newspaper and magazine marketplace over here is not as sophisticated as in Australia yet it is equally robust and sales driven. More later.
I noticed in a Google search today that the folks at News to Business are paying for an ad to appear when people search with the string “newsagency blog”. While they are paying for the newsagency term as well, testing of other valid words with newsagency come with nothing – telling me they are specifically targeting the blog. I guess its complimentary to, in part, market your business based on a blog.
More than a third of our newsagency floor space is blocked off today as a result of the flooding we experienced yesterday. The cleanup has been hampered by more leakage overnight and this morning – causing more stock losses and further flooring damage.
To ‘fix’ the problem, the business and the landlord have proposed bringing forward the pouring of the two large concrete columns in our shop. This will start tomorrow morning at 6am and run through the day. We’ve been told to expect noise, dirt and the usual challenges which go with major construction.
Water came pouring into my newsagency during a storm in Melbourne today. The roof of the shopping centre was open above our shop due to construction works. I guess they did not check the weather report.
From the back room into the body of the shop water cascaded down the walls and poured between ceiling tiles. Here’s a view down one stationery aisle – the boxed are at the rear is part of the construction they are doing:
While we scrambled to remove stock, I estimate that we will write off thousands of dollars worth – ink cartridges, copy paper, A2 colour paper – out entire stock is wiped out, Cristina re papers, art supplies and some circulation product. Add to this the thousands of dollars damage to computers, cameras, paint, flooring and other fixtures.
Here’s the view across a magazine aisle toward stationery:
This construction project has now cost water damage; loss of sales due to severe noise (including the day before Mother’s day), sever dust/grime damage (earlier this week when they removed one of our internal columns), loss of phone and internet access for half a day; loss of power for several hours and, constant interruption by builders and others working on the project.
Our shop is the worst affected in the centre as it is in a key corner where two major supporting columns in the 35 year old centre are to be replaced. It’s all part of the refurbishment in advance of Target arriving later this year.
At the height of the water crisis today we have fifteen people from the builder and landlord working on the problem – moving sock, covering other stock with plastic and vacuuming up puddles of water in the shop and the back room.
At the counter, the focus was on keeping those customers who did venture into what looked like a bomb site happy. Tonight is a $30 million Powerball jackpot but it didn’t feel like it at newsXpress Forest Hill.
6:15PM UPDATE: we have massive dryers howling up a racket in the store to try and dry the floor. This and that the plastic is still covering much of our stock is keeping people away. It will be a quiet night of late night shopping tonight.
I travel a lot and experience all manner of service levels in airport newsagencies. Most of the times at the Newslink counter you can watch as they tick off the required steps of a sale in their head. No emotion, no genuine engagement. Today at Newslink is Townsville I encountered exceptional customer service. It was as if I really mattered to their business. My only disappointment is that I have to travel so far from the major airports to get such great customer service.
Dotspotter is an online offering aimed at the traditional weekly gossip magazine reader. It you want to see one of the online competitors to New Idea, Woman’s Day, NW, Who, Famous and OK! check it out.
It’s been six weeks since we opened our Sophie Randall Cards and Gifts business in the same centre as our newsagency. The planning for this start-up is bearing good results. Sales are tracking well across all categories.
The average sale value is $12.50. Single item sales occur less than 20% of the time. Labour costs are under control as are other overheads. GP is above our target. We’re finding the business delivering a significantly more efficient business model.
We’ve experiences some shrinkage and have installed a camera system to help address this. We’re doing more lay-by business than expected.
Importantly, we’re not experiencing any cannibalisation of our newsagency which is on the level above.
We are working on another case of employee theft in a newsagency. The employee had a $200 a day budget and made that every day for the last year and a half, plus their wages. Tracking the evidence is straightforward. The police have what they need to send the patter to the DPP for consideration. The cost to the business could have been reduced had the newsagent checked GP or used the audit tools in their software. Managing theft is usually done best once you’ve been hit – until then it’s always someone else who is affected.
Maybe it’s just Forest Hill but the Pauline Hanson autobiography is a dud. One copy sold in a month despite a good display in a high traffic area.