I have received six to eight over the last ten days emails from The New York Times promoting digital subscriptions. One email is okay but I now have so many they appear desperate. The US$2 a week offer for digital access does not feel like good value in that I can access few news from plenty of sites. Paying US$2 a week for their opinions is not appealing. This is the same reason I don;t pay News Corp. a fee to be told by their opinion writers what to think.
I love this display of pens that I saw a couple of days ago. The bottom two photos show an approach to colour blocking and organisation within the fixtures that makes the display work.
Maybe when the shop is closed one night or early morning and with the lights off so people cannot see you, get on your hands and knees and crawl through your business to see what kids see.
I am serious. Try it. What can kids see?
Kids are shoppers, important shoppers. Their pester power can help drive sales.
Supermarkets and other retailers obsess about what to put at a height level for kids to see, engage with and pester parents about.
I am encouraging you to crawl through your business because it is cheaper than bringing in a retail expert to provide you with advice.
When you are on your hands and knees, probably picking up rubbish and rearranging the shelves as you go, think about product placement for your youngest shoppers. This is especially important near the counter.
What new products could you bring in for kids? What products could you move from elsewhere for kids? What can you change to improve the value to you of kids shopping with parents in your business? This is business after all.
Yes, you will feel odd. Give it a go and see what deliberate changes you make. Track the results. Hopefully they are such that they get you on your hands and knees again.
The success of your retail newsagency depends on you having the best people working in the business, including you. Rate everyone, including you. If they are not the best, if they are not what you need, your challenge is to address this. No one else will, it is up to you.
Once of the best displays at the Toy Fair from a retail perspective was this display of Hawthorn AFL merchandise at Korimco. Putting all hawthorn product together like this tells a better story to hawthorn shoppers than leaving the products in each product stand with all other AFL teams covered in each product group. Small steps honing in with a narrow focus can create a better impression. This image reflects what telling a story can look like.
I have been working with a newsagent on addressing the cost of shopper theft in the business. Here are tips they found useful:
While there are other steps you could take, these seven are most valuable from years of working with retailers in a range of retail channels:
The more likely people are to be caught the less likely you are to experience shopper theft.
The news of the fatal attack on newsagent Asad Shah following his posting of an Easter message on social media is shocking. UK news outlets are providing comprehensive coverage.
Take a moment to think of the Shah family and their grief.
Australian newsagents are as ethnically diverse as our UK colleagues. Inside and outside our channel, sadly, prejudices can be seen. We ought to resist this and call out those who ignorantly attack based on ethnicity, religion or sexuality.
Sometimes there are magazine covers newsagents can place to make statements in addition to chasing sales. Here are two out now that I particularly like. Sadly, I don’t get Fortune. If I did, this issue would be at the counter.
There is no doubt about the value of going out early with a broad range of Easter product pays off, especially for higher-end items people plan to purchase or LayBy over time.
My experience is that grandparents especially like to shop early for something special beyond the eggs and usual Easter fare you see in so many other stores. This is taken into account in developing the displays and positioning product. I have found a good way to encourage grandparents and regulars is to move the Easter display through the season.
The more you interrupt traffic flow the better.
Easter is a season that should be growing in our channel regardless of the more commercial and chocolate focussed retailers out there.
I am often asked how to promote everyday greeting cards on Facebook. Here is one example of something I did recently as part of a series of themed posts about cards to like. The post was simple, engaging and speaking to a popular interest. Here is exactly how it looked. It took me less than a minute:
This type of marketing of cards and the business on social media, not only Facebook, is easy. I urge all newsagents to try it.
Most newsagents will get tomorrow off. Have a good break even if you find your mind on the business even when you are away from it.
Happy Easter whatever the season means to and for you.
A newsagent advised me of delays in getting the $250 a month rebate from Hubbed. Despite contact many times the issue was unresolved, until yesterday. The time the newsagent had to spend chasing Hubbed was considerable. I agreed to raise the issue here to see if anyone else is challenged with Hubbed.
newsXpress held the first of two national conferences for 2016 on Tuesday in Melbourne, at the MCG. 135 newsXpress members attended as well as plenty of suppliers. The conference itself followed a full day at the Toy Fair being briefed by suppliers and leveraging group buying.
While I am a Director of newsXpress and sure to speak positively about the experience, I want to take a moment to speak about newsXpress members. Their optimism is wonderful. Their engagement is pursuing new traffic and above-average gross profit is exemplary.
Retailers from businesses large and small, in the city and country, on the high street and in shopping centres, they all mixed and engaged in a series of business sessions focused back on their businesses. I want to note again the optimism at the heart of every session, every discussion.
Magazines were part of the discussion too thanks to a terrific Pacific Magazines presentation that included terrific marketing initiatives.
The mood of the room reminded me of the Barack Obama slogan from 2008 of Yes We Can. Hearing newsagents explain to newsagents about how to embrace change, the fun they will have, the success they can have, is always a thrill.
I talked with several people who have recently joined and their common comment was they had no idea what the group really did. They mentioned that it was completely different to what was expected. Having been with Newspower for years and a shareholder in Nextra prior to being involved with newsXpress, I wanted to be part of something that was different.
There is no one group for the newsagency channel nor should there be. Competition is important and healthy. To me, the most important factor is that newsagents in a group and those running a group work hard and 100% together on common goals for shared mutual benefit.
Here are some photos from the conference itself and the dinner at Bamboo House Tuesday night. The whole event was free to newsXpress members thanks to supplier funding. All interstate travellers received financial assistance for flights and hotels.
Further to my post below. While it does not work in regional and rural towns, the local editions of Monopoly are a treat for businesses in the cities covered – not only for local shoppers but also as gifts for visitors when they arrive or leave. Sometimes we have to show and tell customers what to buy and why as not all its,ms are purchased for one reason.
One way to maximise visitors in town and in your shop is to have products that connect them with being there. Whereas for ages postcards were the best local item, there is now a broad range of products: bags, stubby holders, magnets, hoodies, singlets, thongs, rulers, pens, pads and, yes, delicious and locally branded chocolate.
The more unique the better, especially if the products feel locally made – whether they are or not is not the point.
Nothing says you are a local business better than if you have products with the name of the town. Even locals will love this when looking for products to send to friends of to give to guests who may be staying with them.
Sourcing products that bear the name of the town of the region is a terrific way to position your newsagency as not only being locally connected but also supporting the town or the area. It shows you as being a proud local.
While revenue for digital access to news sites is only a fraction of what publishers for viable business models, a tweet a few hours ago explains the heart of their challenge.
This tweet on Twitter three days ago is hilarious. It’s from someone in the UK and referring to the experience there.
My question for convenience focussed newsagents – do you sell chia seeds? If you do, how well do they sell?
The tweet gave me a good laugh as I hope it does for you.
The Melbourne Toy Fair has been terrific again this year. Finishing today mid afternoon, the attendee mix has been varied: toy retailers, gift retailers, newsagent retailers and more. The supplier mix exhibiting has been equally diverse covering toy, hobby, collectible, art, gift, game and other products. This is a valuable trade show for retailers and for suppliers and especially valuable for newsagents looking for an educational event that can open them prospective new shoppers.
Many suppliers use the show to educate retailers about new shopper traffic opportunities. This is part of what makes the Toy Fair and important event, far better than any single channel specific event.
With the walls between specialty retail channels crumbling, it is more important than ever for newsagents and other specialty retailers to look beyond what is traditional for their channel. This also means looking at what appears to be traditional product through fresh eyes. For example, with one supplier you are confronted by model kits and may dismiss them as an out of date product whereas what you make appeals to a niche interest making them saleable not as model kits but as collector items in that niche. I hope this makes sense.
Sometimes it is only when you dig deep with a supplier and discover a back story opportunity that you can unlock a value from a range that otherwise may have been missing for you.
If you are dismissing the toy fair because of the word toy in the title you’d be missing an opportunity. This event was about far more than toys.
I was at the fair for my software company Tower Systems on the weekend and on Monday with a group of 100 newsXpress members who had group appointments with various suppliers – who blocked off their stands for the group. The group, moving as a group, through the fair caused plenty of discussion among exhibitors and attendees. It demonstrated the value of working as a group. It certainly focusses the minds of suppliers when they have 100 retailers on their stand all interested in the same mix of products.
This is the fourth toy fair newsXpress has done as a group with suppliers closing off stands to other retailers for set appointments. It is being repeated each year because of the commercial success for the retailers and the suppliers.
There is no doubt that toy and related product is a growth category.
I love the note from the editor of Cryptic Crosswords. It explains that while they have withdrawn from subscriptions, the title is still available in newsagents.
We ought to support Cryptic Crosswords and other titles from Puzzle People. This is a local Victorian published magazine that helps us pitch a point of difference to other magazine retailers.
The editor is supporting the newsagency channel. We should support them.
Go and grab copies of the latest issue:
Let’s get behind this magazine and help it enjoy a bright future and through it promote a difference between our businesses and other magazine retailers.
This is an opportunity for us to do good for us and another independent small Australian business.
Take a moment to check out their website to understand their pitch: All first-time publications Products of our compilers’ minds. They are NOT computer produced! Founded in 1989, at a time when imported puzzles dominated the local market, Puzzle People identified the need for a high-quality, locally compiled product, published on a regular and reliable schedule.
Newsagents were paid by News Corp. to hand out the 100 page The House of Wellness magazine with newspapers last week. The compensation did not cover the cost of the service. The product itself was pitched as a “gift with purchase”.
I looked through the magazine on the weekend. This is no gift. It’s an advertising catalogue with articles promoting advertisers. While I am not the target consumer, I found little value in the publication.
Any supplier wanting newsagents to promote a gift with purchase ought to ensure the gift is a genuine gift – rather than an extension of their advertising platform for which newsagents are poorly paid to distribute.
Knowing your competitors is vital for any business that wants to grow. Often, competitors can be more than the obvious. For example, to a growing and changing newsagency, competitors could be local toy, gift and other shops.
With growing newsagency businesses reliant on new traffic outside of what is traditional for our channel, it is vital we take a broad view when contemplating who our competitors are. This broad view will help inform our competitive positioning.
Tough as it is, we have to look at businesses near ours we can take customers from. It is business after all.
The most valuable competitive options available to us today are those where we target single category businesses are they are more likely to be weak. Our diverse traffic mix is a strength. We need to play to this through this period of transition as we diversify the appeal of our businesses.
Yes, competition is tough, brutal. How hard you fight, how hard you compete, depends on how much you want a future for your business.
Stand at the entrance to your business and count the marketing messages confronting shoppers as they enter?
How many do you have?
Pare back. Choose two, maybe three, messages you want to land with shoppers. Make sure they pop. Do this by removing altogether or muting all other messages.
Too many newsagencies are so visually noisy no message lands.
Invite team members to choose a product or range of products not working in the business and to quit using any means they choose. Hopefully, they reveal methods you have not used before, methods that work and help you clear space for more successful product.
We are finding the packaging of copies of The Art of Crochet to be sub-standard with magazines and wool falling off the backing card of issue one due to inadequate taping. I am curious if others are experiencing this. It is frustrating having to spent time making the law margin stock merchantable.
Years ago, displaying a magazine as shown in the photo was called a waterfall. Now, if it is the only title in a section like this, it is called beacon branding. This is where you use a single brand to draw attention to a magazine title, where the title itself signposts part of the magazine department.
Beacon branding is a best-practice approach to magazine displays in a newsagency where time is invested to arrest the decline in magazine sales.
The keys to successful beacon branding are to not overdo it with more than one per major section of the magazine department, choose the right titles to beacon brand and to change each title regularly – weekly.
The days of the old waterfall display are over with the cost of the retail space higher than ever and the total magazine floorspace allocation being cut. This means we have to make tougher decisions about space allocation. Beacon branding is more special and considered as a result. I think this helps raise effectiveness of the approach.
Once you work out how to do beacon branding in your business it becomes part of your weekly magazine management approach. Done well, it can differentiate your business from the supermarkets that are out to take magazine revenue from you.
It is easy to be frustrated with magazines, the low margin and supply challenges. My advice is to not focus on this. rather, focus on opportunities for growth. beacon branding is one such opportunity.