As a result of a promotion in the group there is an opportunity at newsXpress Southland in a store manager role. I am looking for someone keen to lead and leverage the excellent work already done in the growing business. This is 80% a gift and collectibles shop. No lotteries. No tobacco. If you know someone who may be interested, please have them email me at mark@newsxpress.com.au.
Stack is a fascinating business, one we newsagents should take note of. Stack costs £7 per month. For that they will send you a different independent special interest magazine each month. It is a fascinating model, one that I think could work here in Australia.
Their website is excellent, pricing good and pitch compelling. They have done an excellent job creating an offer for people who love the magazine medium and those who buy gifts for those people.
The challenge for us is that if they get this right and if it travels further afield, the specialisation of our businesses in the rich magazine space will be challenged. While they do ship internationally today, it is not obvious and not easily found through a Google search in Australia, yet.
The CEO explains the motivation behind developing the service:
I started Stack because I think people want something better to read. There are piles of fantastic magazines out there just waiting to be discovered, and Stack makes it cheaper and easier than ever for people to find and enjoy them.
Finding quality independent magazines can be difficult – most people don’t live near a great magazine shop, and there are so many options online that it’s easy to get lost amongst the pixels. Stack acts as a filter, selecting the best independent titles and supplying them at the best price via our subscription service and our weekly Sampler offers.
Their pitch on their about page is excellent:
It’s a surprise!
Every month that big brown envelope will thump onto your doormat, containing one of the world’s best independent magazines. You never know what you’re going to get next, but you do know it will be a beautiful, intelligent magazine you probably wouldn’t otherwise have come across.It’s top quality
The magazines we send out mix quality writing with cutting-edge design and the most exacting production values to guarantee that you’ll want to keep them on your shelf long after you’ve finished reading.It’s great value for money
We want the best magazines to be available to all so we keep our prices low – a subscription to Stack costs £7 per month, or even less if you sign up for an annual plan. Most Stack titles cost £10 or more in the shops, so you could have them delivered to your door while saving more than 30% off the cover price.It’s totally up to date
We only send out the current issue of any magazine, so you can be sure you’re right up to date with the latest independent publishing. Every delivery comes with a letter from me, explaining why I picked the magazine and telling you more about it, giving you an extra glimpse into the world of independent publishing.And it makes a great gift
Buying Stack as a gift subscription is a great way to tell somebody you think they’re an interesting person who looks beyond the mainstream. Sign up for somebody else and we’ll start you off with a gift card you can give to them before the magazines arrive.
Of course, this risk of writing about this here is that it pitches Stack to indie magazine publishers who are looking for other routes to market. I’m okay with that as Stack is a sampler offer. The more people buying special interest magazines the better for us.
With AFL cards set to his your Gotch account in one chunk and in a way that is financially unfair to newsagency businesses, early returns of magazine titles not currently paying their way, of that have been oversupplied, is one way to mitigate the impact on cash flow.
To the magazine publishers concerned about this – the Gotch approach leaves newsagents no choice.
I bought a $20 Powerball ticket in Seattle Friday last week and filmed it, so you can see how easy it is and how they do the age check.
US retailers in the card / gift / convenience space upsell at the counter well, through structured displays that regularly change. Here is one unit I particularly like, with ideal impulse purchase items:
Earlier this week, Australia Post promoted Click Frenzy Junior, an online only sales and marketing event for online business partners of Australia Post. It is a partner event to the bigger Click Frenzy, the main event run online.
Since it was the first time for this event, noise on social media was small. I suspect sales were small too. You have to start somewhere.
This event is on of plenty of online only marketing events, reaching out to prospects purely online with no representation in-store of the online offer.
I mention this today as another example of competitor sales event marketing that you in competitive retail may never see. The campaign was targeted by Australia Post to focus on brands that partner with their online fulfilment platform.
Plenty of retailers I speak with say that they are not affected by online that much. This is a common comment among regional and rural retailers. The reality is quite different to this perception.
Talk to any major online business in Australia and they will tell you the geographic coverage of sales is in line with population spread.
I appreciate it may feel too hard to compete online. That should not be a barrier to having a crack.
Doing nothing online is no longer an option for high street retailers.
While the takeaways from the Shoptalk conference are considerable, here are some early insights I’d like to share here as I think they are relevant to newsagents:
Many years ago newsagents and many other retailers placed high importance on technology for the back room of the business. Typically, it was used for arriving new stock, doing returns, running reports and general management.
Today, I see little value in a retail business like a Newsagency for technology in the back room. This is something I have said here and elsewhere for some years.
At the massive Shoptalk retail conference in Las Vegas this week I was in a session where this was a focus call to action to retailers – to shops tech investment from the back room to the shop floor.
In my own shops we have done this for some years, moved to the shop floor work usually done in the back office. All product arrival, product returns, reporting and day to day management is done from the shop floor and sales counter.
By doing work somewhere on the shop floor that you might otherwise do in the back office you immediately increase the opportunity for shopper interaction. More opportunities for shopper interaction = more sales in most businesses.
A shopper can’t ask you a question in the back office.
A shopper will not notice new product you are arriving, unpacking and pricing in the back office.
These are just two tasks you can move to the shop floor and easily boost business as a result.
At Shoptalk examples were presented off retailers systematically moving back office tasks to the shop floor and tracking sales growth as a result.
Key to doing this is your tech investment, ensuring you have the right tech for the tasks so that it does not intrude on or hinder the shopper experience. Indeed, the right tech will enhance the shopper experience and enable efficient execution of the work on the shop floor.
In a newsagency, the tasks that could be shop floor or counter (and not back office) tasks include: product arrival, pricing and returns, reporting, ordering, supplier queries, rostering and more.
It is vital we change how we work in our businesses, seizing every opportunity possible to increase shopper engagement on their shop floor, and to embrace this with delight. Shoppers will reward you with sales growth.
Footnote: A common message I hear from retailers is surprise that shoppers purchase items they are unpacking on the shop floor. The thing is, once retailers experience this, they do it more, seeking that impulse purchases are repeated.
I have revised my previous Easter marketing ideas and offer them here for retailers looking to take a different, non-traditional) approach to marketing this season of increasing value:
Easter is considered by many to be a small season. I see it as full of opportunity and primed for fun in the newsagency.
I have been contacted by two newsagents in the last week about them receiving fake $50 notes in their businesses. Both are from New South Wales, but hours apart.
The reserve Back website has excellent details on how to spot fake Australian banknotes. I urge you to print this and ensure all team members have read and understand it.
I am grateful for the opportunity to spend St Patricks Day 2018 in New York. It was fun, loud, sloppy and memorable.
In retail, it was good to see the range of celebration products available, including greeting cards. In many stores they were sold out. The photo is from a large CVS (drug store) near my hotel, taken two days before. See the extent of the space allocated.
The range of captions offered was broad.
It is a massive day here and the city is 100% behind it, along with retailers. Stores and team members were dressed, to identify with the occasion. I am not suggesting we can do this in Australia, my interest is more about the extent of support in retail for a city-wide celebration.
It was only when I got to see the march that I understood the extent of support for this emotional and celebratory day in the calendar.
Here are several Easter displays from US stores that I like, for inspiration…
The post on green shoots being experienced by some newsagents has a small group of people in a lather.
The reality is that what transacts under a newsagency shingle has changed dramatically for many in recent years. So mush so for some that the shingle is almost all that remains of the old business.
Online is a big factor for many. In a typical business with a good online presence, online revenue accounts for less than 25% of the revenue generated by a website with 75% being transacted in-store thanks to what people discover from the store’s online site.
What is selling online? Plush, gifts, homewares, books, collectibles, pop culture and plenty more.
This image shows sales data, transaction count and revenue, from online sales achieved by some newsagency businesses. It is a selection mid way through a report of sales for the last year from one of seven different websites for online connected newsXpress businesses.
The numbers are online revenue from this one website, selling one product category, and do not reflect in-store revenue where shoppers use the site to inform in-store purchases they make.
Almost every sale was to someone who had not shopped with the shop before.
My core point here is: what newsagents sell, how they sell, when they sell and to whom they sell has changed and will continue to change. Being online engaged is key. This is one reason I say any newsagent can grow their business – with the right strategies and tools.
I have heard from several newsagents in recent weeks of issues with IPS an, in particular, data. My understanding is that IPS has been no help in resolving the matters. I have posted this, here, so people may comment about their experiences with IPS.
This dropped into my Twitter feed yesterday …
Further to my earlier post about the toy opportunity, Toys R Us has announced all US and UK stores will close. Toy retail around the world will be impacted.
It is easy to promote the $1.50 over mitts available with this week’s That’s Life with terrific social media collateral. This is an excellent offer. Note: Facebook is likely to reject a boosted post. Request a manual review and they will pass it.
Inspiration can come in many forms. Speaking at the opening of the newsXpress conference in Melbourne last week I shared this video as a moment of inspiration.
The video was shot at a backers workshop for the now hit movie, The Greatest Showman. A backers workshop is where songs and / or scenes from a movie or piece of theatre are performed to get financial backers on board.
If you watch the first part you get the context in a brief interview. Keala Settle, the performer, was nervous about stepping out from the podium and there, at around 1:47 into the video she does it. Over the next couple of minutes Keala expresses herself through the song in a way that reaches amazing new heights, being very much in the moment … bringing to the song something that it is a privilege to see. This moment of breaking free, to realise awesome potential, is what we I hope for all small business owners.
The performance speaks to me and the emotion of running our businesses as we navigate extraordinary changes, confront tough challenges and together try things outside our comfort zone. It is relevant to newsagents as we break further free from tradition and realise the potential of our own businesses in our own situations.
I hope you find it inspiring too…
With Toys R Us in the US set to close or shrink dramatically and some other national retailers in the same or closely related space reported to do the same, opportunities could rise for independent retailers, like newsagents.
While the major pain for suppliers to national retailers is in the US, the impact will be felt worldwide.
Suppliers are drawn to national retailers as there is one the head office to deal with. However, a crash of a national business can have far more of an impact than the crash of a single retailer. The downside is the cost of managing many smaller accounts is higher.
In my opinion, serving many small business customers is better for business than serving fewer much larger customers.
This is a pitch we in small business can make, especially to toy suppliers who may be in pain as a result of the Toys R Us situation, which will cost some many millions in uncollected debts and considerably more with the closure of retail outlets.
Revenue from toys is growing in engaged newsagency businesses, especially in the brand name area. Getting these products means dealing direct with the manufacturer or their authorised Australian distribution network.
The low end of toys, cheap unbranded toys, is flat with discount variety stores selling cheap product for low margin. This end of the market is of no interest to me.
On the lease line and at the counter. Excellent plush and card sales so far. A similar pitch for Valentine’s Day resulted in 11% year on year growth in card sales – in a highly competitive environment.
Unplug magazine was released in late January. We received 17 copies. We have sold two copies. This makes the title unprofitable for us. It is not even paying for the space necessary to store the seventeen, thick, copies.
There is no evidence in our data to justify being sent 17 copies of a launch issue in the crossword / puzzle space.
I am over magazine pub fishers using small business newsagency channels as their bank and business partner in the launch of new titles. Rather than testing and topping up if a title sells well, they load us, make us responsible and apply onto our businesses costs that see us carrying a financial burden that is unreasonable.
I would have preferred to receive no more than five copies of this launch issue. Given the transparency back to the publisher of sales, replenishing supply is easy. Instead, they load us and add to our costs of their launch.
On the magazine itself, I look at it and ask why was this even launched. We have been flooded with similar titles. Unplug looks like a copy of Breathe and others in this mindfulness puzzle segment. As a retailer looking at efficient assortment, I don’t see a need for the title. If I was a buyer in control of what I buy to stock in my business, given what I already have, I would not buy this title.
Unplug is not a bad magazine. However, it has entered a crowded segment, late. This is why I have no interest in stocking it.
We do not have the luxury of choosing the magazines to stock. This makes us weak. It positions us as victims. Okay I accept we get new titles. What frustrates me is the volume. The seventeen copies of Unplug is too many. It is an abuse of my business. Shame on the magazine model that allows it to happen.
It is 2018 people. More of this and more newsagents will cut back magazine space as doing this is the key step we can take to control what we receive.
Other magazine publishers need to take note.
Lovatts Media has increased supply of several titles in situations where data show there are consistent returns. I see no evidence in sale or return data supporting an increase in supply. I see no evidence in current issues indicating a supply increase was warranted.
Lovatts senior management had previously advised they do their own allocations. Assuming that is the case, Lovatts has failed my small business, and maybe many others. Check your data. If my assumption is wrong and Gotch controls allocations, then it is Gotch that has failed newsagents with unwarranted increases in supply.
Every magazine publisher needs to understand their situation on the shop floor in newsagency businesses. Every time a newsagent sees unjustified oversupply it encourages them to consider other steps to fight back. These other steps can include moving the location of magazines and cutting floorspace for magazines.
You could look at the screen cap I have included with this post and say: hey, it is only four extra copies. The is true. However, it is four extra copies soon top of what is being returned. This title from Lovatts has a 50% failure rate.
Their increase in supply increases the extent of the failure. It extends the financial risk to my business as I carry the cost fo theft. I also carry the cost of labour for product management and the cost of space for placement of the extra stock, which will not sell.
The problem here is a problem for every magazine publisher to contemplate and act on.
Newsagents are not the compliant agents of yesterday. Today, newsagents are more likely to be retailers looking carefully at what they make per square metre of floorspace. The failure of a single magazine to sell is far more a problem today than a few years ago. This is because more and more of what we sell has a GO% of 50%, sometimes more. The 25% from magazines puts the category more under the spotlight.
Lovatts needs to take control of this issue and immediately audit all supply situations. Given data available, Lovatts management could have an understanding of the scope of the problem in a few minutes. It will be interesting to see of Lovatts acts, to see if they care about newsagents.
Adam Joy, CEO of ALNA, has written for Convienence World making the case that newsagents are here to stay.
It is good to see the national association making this pitch on behalf of the channel.
The central thesis of the article is that newsagents embracing change are the ones with businesses that are here to stay. What the changes are will vary by business.
Click on the image to see a larger version.
