A blog on issues affecting Australia's newsagents, media and small business generally. More ...

Q4 2017 newsagency benchmark study under way

On January 1 I emailed newsagents inviting their participation in the Q4 newsagency sales benchmark study. The call for data will be open for the next three weeks.

I am reviewing data as it comes in. The dataset already has data from more than thirty newsagencies. More than half the participants so far are new to the study. This is okay in that they provide 2016 data and 207 data, making the year on year comparison useful.

While there is not enough data to draw conclusions for the channel and its sub groups, the results suggest a possible slow down in decline of magazine sales but less than ideal Christmas card results. As I noted, the dataset is small at this point though.

For those interested in the call for participation, here is the email I sent to newsagents January 1:

Q4 2017 NEWSAGENCY SALES BENCHMARK STUDY.
I am preparing a new benchmark study for the newsagency channel to look at the latest sales trends overall and in key product categories for the fourth quarter of 2017. This quarterly newsagency sales performance study will help newsagents see the future based on the data trends. Click here for my last report.

How to participate.

  1. Please run a Monthly Sales Comparison Report for 01/10/2017 – 31/12/2017 compared to 01/10/2016 – 31/12/2016.
  2. Tick the category box. IMPORTANT.
  3. Tick to exclude home delivery and sub agent data.
  4. DO NOT tick the supplier box.
  5. Preview the report on the screen. Save as a PDF and email this to me at mark@towersystems.com.au.
  6. Read the report yourself and see what it shows you about your business.

I will email the results to all participating newsagents and publish the results on theAustralian Newsagency Blog as a service for all newsagents.

My work with this channel goes back to 1981 when I wrote newsagency software to manage newspaper home deliveries. That software evolved into Point of Sale software and has been rewritten as software technology has changed. 

I own and run three newsagencies. Over the years I have had three others. I am a 50% shareholder in and CEO of newsXpress, the newsagency marketing group.

Tower Systems serves 1,750+ newsagents with best practice newsagency software. Overall, Tower Systems serves in excess of 3,500 small business retailers.

Mark Fletcher
M | 0418 321 338

12 likes
Newsagency management

It’s 2018 and News Corp. continues to publish propaganda

This front page of the Herald Sun today is ridiculous. They have given over their front page to an attack on politicians for taking annual leave in January. There is far more important news today. But the Herald Sun pushes real news further into its pages. They prefer to given their front page to telling people what to think.

In my view, this is not a newspaper, it is political trash. sadly, we have to sell it.

14 likes
Newspapers

Newsagency management tip: end of year declutter

If you are working this weekend and not in a busy Summer holiday location, things are bound to be quiet. My suggestion is to take the opportunity to declutter.

At this time of year in retail, decluttering to me means quitting a product, category or even department that is not relevant to how you will see your business in 2018.

The departments that could be vulnerable based on data I see from a bunch of businesses:

  1. Everyday confectionery.
  2. Tobacco.
  3. Ink and toner.
  4. Low performing stationery.
  5. Transport tickets.
  6. Newspapers.

It is easy to get data for your business, to be driven by the numbers. By this I mean, look at the GP the target product / category / department is generating, consider the space and labour costs. This process will soon reveal if you should quitting any.

This is a good, practical, project for a quieter trading day.

11 likes
Management tip

Reducing magazine floorspace allocation in the newsagency

We have moved magazines off the floor, to the back wall of this newsagency. While it is the back wall, it is a feature, and easily shopable. It is also not too far from the front of the shop. This magazine wall can be see from outside the shop – this is important to us.

To cover the range of magazine titles we want we have, in some sections we have three titles where we would usually have two, and four sometimes where we would have two.

This move reduces the cost overhead of magazines to the business. This is essential with any product category that is at the low end of product margins in the business.

This latest most is another step in the regular dance of shop floor changes. In this shop, over the last three years, we have changes magazine floorspace allocation six times. Each was considered based on the data and reflecting what we want the business to become.

The days of traditional floorspace allocation based on traditional newsagency layout and operation are over. We are in a world of ever-increasing rent and labour costs, tougher competition from other retailers and tougher competition from online.

The extent and pace of change in our businesses needs to reflect these factors. It also needs to reflect how we pitch our businesses.

In the case of the store I am writing abut here, it identifies as a newsagency. Hence the extent of the magazine offer on the back wall. However, it is clearly a newsagency that is some distance from traditional as the majority of the floorspace is allocated to gifts, collectibles, cards and other high margin lines.

23 likes
magazines

The value of older employees in retail today

Older employees can being terrific value to a retail business that is keen bring change to the business. Young employees cost less and this is a common appeal among retail business owners.

An older employee could bring more value to the business, they could leverage a better return on labour investment for the business. Here are other benefits that can be available depending on the background, skill set and work interest of the older employee:

  • Maturity. An older employee understand work.
  • Appreciation. If they have been to of work for a while they are more likely to appreciate then job and could therefore invest more in it.
  • Experience. An older employee could have experience in a field from which the business can benefit. I am not thin king here about retail experience. rather, they may have business management skills, special interests or experience that you can leverage as you change the business.
  • Flexibility. With less focus on establishing themselves and a social life they could be more available and this could help the roster.
  • Communication. An older employee is more likely to be better with oral communication given they had less tech when they were younger. While this is a rash generalisation, I’d back it to be likely.

When you are looking to fill a vacancy or a new role in the business, consider older person for these and other reasons you can think of. The could bring to the business skills and interest the you can leverage more valuably than the skills and interest of a younger lower cost employee.

Of course, the value of any employee depends on your hiring, training, management and motivation of them.

The post of this post is to suggest that next time you hire you think about an older employee.

Note: The federal government jobactive restart program can help Australian businesses that hire older employees financially:

Restart is a financial incentive of up to $10,000 (GST inclusive) to encourage businesses to hire and retain mature age employees who are 50 years of age and over.

Older employees can bring new insights and energy to a business. The right hire could be just want the business needs to explore new traffic opportunities.

18 likes
Newsagency management

Many businesses closed over the Christmas / New Year break

It is now tradition that many suppliers to retail and newsagency businesses are closed in these days between Christmas and New Year.

With so many in business saying how tough things are, seizing every opportunity possible to serve customers is important.

I know of several suppliers benefiting from being open this week while competitors are closed. The same is true for newsagencies. I know of newsagency businesses that are closed this week – yes, all of this week. That does not make sense to me, especially if they sell lottery products.

In my own case at my newsagencies are open and at my newsagency software company, every day newsagency businesses are open they need access to support. The challenge is that with some suppliers closed you get queries that they should have got.

With online playing such a big role in business today, those with strong online businesses are never really closed. Given that business today is a race to the cash, being always open is necessary.

17 likes
Newsagency management

Notes for school leavers joining the full-time workforce

I have some advice for school leavers joining the full-time workforce:

  1. Learn as much as you can.
  2. If you are not sure of something, ask. Don’t assume.
  3. Work out how to love your job, because if you don’t, working there will not be good for you or the business.
  4. Be as low maintenance as possible. Your employer is not an ATM you can tap every time you feel like sleeping in.
  5. How far you go in a business, and in your career, is up to you. You get out what you put it.
  6. Add value. If you do this a business will want to keep you and that gives you leverage in this job and your next.
  7. Every day, it is up to you.

If you are a business owner and hiring school leavers, step up to the responsibility seriously. You hire them, train them, manage them and determine their value to the business as as the value of the business to them. Oh, and being their friend is not an ideal step to good management.

20 likes
Management tip

Embracing the Boxing Day opportunity

I am embracing the Boxing Day opportunity in my shopping centre based stores today, as I’ve done for years. The keys to leveraging the traffic surge is to:

  • Not look like a newsagency
  • Have bought for the opportunity.
  • Removed Christmas decorations as that season is over.
  • Pitching competitive propositions.

Well managed, it is easy to maintain close to a 50% GP average for non circuits elation product through there Boxing Day sale season.

Like the days leading up to Christmas, the next few days are opportunities to connect with some shoppers who will return.

While I get that most high street and regional businesses are closed, for those os us in centres the next few days are as important as the lead up to Christmas.

7 likes
Newsagency opportunities

If you are open Christmas Day

I love what Shashi and Pallu Patel, the owners of Meet and Deep newsagents in Twickenham are doing for Christmas Day and I love that Twitter enabled me to discover this wonderful story. Read the full report here.

10 likes
Newsagency management

Christmas Eve trade

While I said yesterday would be the biggest day of the year, today will demonstrate the value of Sunday trading for centre based newsagencies. Whereas many high street shops, including newsagencies, will be closed today, those of us in centres will be open. I expect it will be a good trading day, but not and good as yesterday. However, it would be terrific to be wrong.

Part of the work today is to ensure everything is ready for the BOXING DAY SALE that starts December 26. We have bought especially for this, as we do every year. Given the excellent retail conditions we are experiencing right now, I am excited for the sale.

7 likes
Newsagency management

1974

I love this photo that came up in my Twitter feed today. It shows a couple standing out the front of their Seacroft, Leeds, UK newsagent business in 1974.

10 likes
History

The busiest retail day of the year

For those of us with newsagencies in shipping centres today is likely to be the busiest day of the year. It is the day late Christmas shoppers start, the day kids (usually boys) tend to shop and the day early shoppers fill gaps in what they have.

Good luck everyone. I hope today is stunning in business with record-breaking results.

13 likes
Newsagency management

Pitching by magazine brand

Whenever we get magazine titles connected to a single masthead brand we place them together, as we have done with these That’s Life related titles in-store. This proximity placement is the best way to leverage the masthead connection and thereby increase the opportunity of impulse purchase of the one-shots especially.

5 likes
magazines

Helping get the papers out to customers

Looking at some recent comments here I realised that some newsagents may not understand how engaged the newsagency software companies can be beyond software support. Here is one example from this week.

A newsagent unexpectedly walked away from their business, appointing a liquidator, without notice to anyone including newspaper publishers. The liquidator seized the computers of the business, moving them hundreds of kilometres away, before anyone realised. This was planned, but to the detriment of customers and other stakeholders. On those computers is newspaper home delivery details.

The newspaper publisher cannot serve their customers without access to customer data.

The team at Tower Systems has been working with the publisher to access data files with some assistance from the liquidator. The files have been checked and daily run lists produced. Then the data was loaded to a virtual cloud based instance of the Tower software so data access through Christmas can be provided, to ensure papers continue to be delivered.

It has been a time consuming process but one which has been done as this is what the Tower team do regularly. The work has been done without charge.

All through the focus has been serving the newspaper home delivery customers of the now closed business. While this for sure benefits the publisher, it also benefits the channel as it shows the channel responding to ensure that newsagent customers do not lose out when a newsagent walks away.

This story reflects one of several not obviously software company matters the team at Tower has been dealing with this week, other software companies will have similar stories. Close to half the work of the help desk is outside traditional software assistance.

20 likes
Newsagency management

Coles shows how to pitch Christmas in destination retail

Supermarkets are destination shops, shoppers walk in with items they are there that day to purchase. I suspect it is rare people say oh let’s go to the supermarket for a browse. Good supermarket managers leverage destination shopping for valuable impulse purchases.

At my local Coles supermarket they are leveraging destination shopping with key Christmas items capping major aisles. In this photo you can see three such placements: games and two card stands.

We can do the same in our businesses, especially in more traditionally laid out newsagencies that serve destination shoppers. In these types of businesses key destination traffic for papers, magazines, cards and / or lotteries will rarely see products outside their destination category.

Disrupting destination traffic with an appropriate impulse offer is key to maximising the shopper visit opportunity. While the Coles aisle ends are not as disruptive as they could be, they are right for a busy supermarket. In a less busy newsagency you could disrupt the straight line destination shopper, so they have to step around what you want them to see.

While supermarkets are frustrating giant competitors, the actions they take on the shop floor can be instructive to us in small business retail.

My suggestion is to take a look at your shop and look at where Christmas is pitched. Could you increase engagement with a Coles type approach. While there will be plenty here who done;t have the space or where it would not work for other reasons, there are some for whom this approach could work.

10 likes
Newsagency management

Asking can I help you is not good shop floor customer service 

There was a time when asking a shopper can I help you? was good customer service. Those days were simpler in retail. 

Today, with competition tougher than ever and shoppers more informed and more powerful than ever, our shop floor engagement has to be different to back when the simple question was good. 

Today, we have to engage with shoppers in more creative and appreciated ways. Get it right and sales will flow. Get is wrong and you will turn shoppers away. 

It is the gift / toy / homewares and related spaces where shop floor engagement is key as that is where our competition is toughest. 

My advice is to develop shop floor shopper engagement tactics that are right for products you have and that you train your team members. Telling them to go talk to customers is not enough. Telling them to say to customers can I help you? is not enough. 

Work on it with team members. Role play.  

Here are some tips that may help.

  • Send a team member to the shop floor with a new product in hand, something you are sure will sell well. It has to me new to the business. Send them out with a simple opening line: Hey take a look at this, we just got it in today and I reckon it is very cool. The best way to work out words you are comfortable with is to start somewhere. 
  • Demonstrate products.
  • Use the products on the shop floor and encourage shoppers to do this with you.
  • Unpack and price on the shop floor.
  • Move products.

Active engagement on the shop floor of any sort with products can drive shopper interest and from this flows sales.

12 likes
Newsagency management

New Yorker promoting subscriptions in Australia

The New Yorker is running a sizeable campaign on Facebook inn Australia pitching twelve weeks of the weekly magazine for $6.00.

This is a stunning offer not only because of the price but because of the direct to consumer offer from a US publishing company.

While the title has narrow appeal, at that price the appeal would be broader than usual for it.

If you click sign up you see the offers available. The headline offer is for digital only. However, twelve weeks home delivered for $8.00 is still a sweet offer.

There is no countering this. I anticipate we will see more publishers of overseas niche titles making similar pitches, especially for digital editions.

2 likes
Magazine subscriptions

Ink, the Murdoch play

I am grateful for the opportunity to see Ink, a play about the arrival of Rupert Murdoch on London’s Fleet Street in the late 1960s, recently in London.

Ink is terrific theatre as it tells the story not only of Murdoch and his take over and what it means to Fleet Street but also about newspapers and how they are made.

It was fast-paced, funny, engrossing, thoroughly entertaining. From an Aussie perspective, the larrikin element was on show.

The full-house audience at the Duke of York’s Theatre loved it too.

What I enjoyed most was the story of disruption at the heart of the play. Indeed, this line from Murdoch talking about Fleet Street which was, at the time, the heart of newspaper publishing inn the UK: I want to disrupt this street.

It is interesting to me because Murdoch has been a disruptor. However, he quickly follows that with seeking protection. You only have to look at how Foxtel has been handled in Australia to see that.

But back to the play. If Ink comes to Australia seek it out if you love a good story ab0ut newspapers.

10 likes
Newspapers

XchangeIT and Gotch too late with title price change information

Disregard for newsagents and the software companies that serve them was on show today with the late announcement by XchangeIT and Gotch this morning of price changes affecting magazines that has been on sale for several hours.

For businesses that bemoan poor tech compliance by newsagents they set a poor example. Their late notice caused stress for some newsagents.

Title Woman’s Day Woman’s Day Woman’s Day Woman’s Day
Issue Description 18 December 1 January 8 January 15 January
Title Code 91135/14236 91135/14236 91135/14236 91135/14236
Issue Code 2140 2150 2160 2170
On Sale Mon – 11/12/17 Mon – 18/12/17 Thu – 28/12/17 Mon – 08/01/18
Cover Price $4.50 $4.99 $4.99 $4.50
Title New Idea New Idea New Idea New Idea
Issue Description 18 December 1 January 8 January 15 January
Title Code 12781 12781 12781 12781
Issue Code 8800 8810 8820 8830
On Sale Mon – 11/12/17 Mon – 18/12/17 Thu – 28/12/17 Mon – 08/01/18
Cover Price $4.50 $4.99 $4.99 $4.50
Title TV Week TV Week TV Week TV Week
Issue Description 16 December 30 December 6 January 19 January
Title Code 91400/91401 91400/91401 91400/91401 91400/91401
Issue Code 2140 2150 2160 2170
On Sale Mon – 11/12/17 Mon – 18/12/17 Thu – 28/12/17 Mon – 08/01/18
Cover Price $4.99 $5.99 $4.99 $4.99
Title NW NW NW NW
Issue Description 11 December 1 January 8 January 15 January
Title Code 91961 91961 91961 91961
Issue Code 2090 2100 2110 2120
On Sale Mon – 11/12/17 Mon – 18/12/17 Thu – 28/12/17 Mon – 08/01/18
WA/FNQ On Sale Thu – 14/12/17 Thu – 21/12/17 Thu – 28/12/17 Thu – 11/01/18
Cover Price $5.20 $5.20 $5.20 $5.20
Title OK OK OK OK
Issue Description 1 January 8 January 15 January 22 January
Title Code 91039 91039 91039 91039
Issue Code 2050 2060 2070 2080
On Sale Thu – 14/12/17 Thu – 28/12/17 Thu – 04/01/18 Thu – 11/01/18
SA/FNQ/TAS On Sale Mon – 18/12/17 Thu – 28/12/17 Mon – 08/01/18 Mon – 15/01/18
Cover Price $4.99 $4.99 $4.99 $4.99
Title Who Who Who Who
Issue Description 18 December 25 December 8 January 15 January
Title Code 88844 88844 88844 88844
Issue Code 7690 7700 7710 7720
On Sale Thu – 14/12/17 Thu – 21/12/17 Thu – 04/01/18 Thu – 11/01/18
WA/SA On Sale Mon – 18/12/17 Thu – 28/12/17 Mon – 08/01/18 Mon – 15/01/18
Cover Price $4.99 $4.99 $4.99 $4.99

 

16 likes
Ethics

Keeping the cards fresh key to sales this week

As last-minute shoppers venture out to start their Christmas shopping, keeping the Christmas card offer fresh, tidy and easily shopped is key to card sales success this week. This is especially true in newsagencies as we remain a key destination for key season card shopping.

While these shoppers are frustrating in that they expect the full Christmas range to be available to them in this last week of shopping, they are valuable in that price is less likely to be of concern to them. They tend to be less picky too. Quick decisions by shoppers can be valuable for us retailers.

In one of our stores, to leverage the last-minute shopper, we relocated cards to make shopping easier. We have gone for the three-sided display approach to make it easier for more people to shop at once.

In all stores, we are refreshing the card range from floor stock several times a day and tidying hourly, as I suspect everyone is doing.

Next to the cards and at the counter we have thoughtfully selected impulse purchase gifts for the last-minute shopper, to make it easier for them.

Oh, and we have not forgotten the importance of magazines as Christmas gift. They are part of the story too.

9 likes
Newsagency management
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