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

Why I refuse to join Toyworld in discounting

A Toyworld has opened near the newsagency, three shops away, and has started discounting lines we stock. One major licence range is being discounted 28.5% off suggested retail. Theses a range that easily sells at suggested retail. We never have to discount. Nor to the three other retailers with the same products in the shopping centre.

I am not matching the discount being offered by Toyworld as I know it is a mug’s game. Any customer they will win because of the discount will not stick with them, unless they continue to discount, which they cannot do as they are in a major shopping centre with shopping centre rents.

We will beat Toyworld by having a better range, displayed more appealingly, backed by a loved loyalty offer and supported with excellent shop floor customer service. The whole experience will be different.

Comparing the two shops as dispassionately as I could on Sunday, our offer is visually more appealing from outside the shop. We have the same products promoted with context that will appeal to the target shopper. At Toyworld, price comes first and a long distance, in terms of visual focus, than the product itself.

It is a tough call to not match the Toyworld discount as matching them or beating them is the easy move to make. However, as I say, it would be a mug’s move that does not serve the long term plans and needs of the business.

We have invested considerably in providing a premium retail experience and this commitment is paying off. Reacting to an ignorant small business competitor who thinks price is a good strategy is not for us. We confronted a similar situation with a discount ink outlet that opened three metres from our front door. We saw them off.

Specialty retail is a long game. Discounting is not a long game. We need to create stores that are interesting, entertaining and remembered for more than price. We want customers happy when they think about us and our stores.

Shoppers who remember a shop sole because of price are not shoppers delivering the level of margin dollars one needs in an expensive shopping centre situation in my view.

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Newsagency challenges

Leveraging the 3M Command TV campaign in the newsagency

IMG_87113M has a TV commercial on the air at the moment that newsagents ought to leverage. Shining a light on Command products, the TVC is an excellent opportunity to promote these products off-location to connect with people who recall the TVC.

A goal of advertising is to raise brand awareness. Our job as retailers is to make the most we can from this, to benefit from heightened awareness.

If you sell Command products, please set yourself up to make money from the TV investment by 3M for you.

I suggest placement of several Command products at the counter or some other high traffic eyeball location in-store. It does not have to be a big display – this suggestion is more about being tactical.

If you have a screen in-store, do a search online and load one of the many Command TVCs available to bring the range further to life in the business. However, ensure you have the products in the video.

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newsagency marketing

The closure of Famous continues the tough year for print

The announcement yesterday from Pacific Magazines that the current issue of Famous magazine is the last print edition from the publisher is not unexpected. The falling circulation numbers coupled with the toughest ad market in years meant tough decisions were ahead.

While it is easy for some to say what should or should not have been done about famous or any other of the print publication closures this year, the reality is we are in unchartered territory as we confront better disruption from mobile and online in terms of how we access content, how advertisers can promote their wares and whether people will pay any more for what they used to pay for.

Looking specifically at Famous, anyone interested in celeb gossip from the US will be easily satisfied with TMZ or myriad other similar websites and apps.

This competition is not confided to celebrity news. Every magazine is being confronted with online competition. The only ay to compete with that is to not compete, to change, dramatically, what you print. Achieving that requires a complete reconfiguration of a publisher’s business.

The newsagent reality is that we are confronting the same challenges. Well, old school newsagents are at least – those with businesses relying on magazine, newspaper, lottery and stationery generated traffic. If they are your core, most important, categories, your model needs to change for your business to avoid closure.

My hope is that announcements such as that from Fairfax last week and that from Pacific yesterday encourage newsagents to act. While actions should have started years ago, it is not too late to act if you are fast.

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magazines

Being relevant with magazines in the newsagency

IMG_8739The latest issue of Muscle & Fitness is a magazine newsagents can promote not as a magazine but as something appealing to lovers of the Batman v. Superman franchise. This is what we have been doing, promoting this magazine with our extensive range of Batman v. Superman merchandise.

While it takes time to look at magazine covers as act on opportunities you see, the result is usually worth it with incremental sales achieved.

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magazines

The front of the newsagency this week

FYI here is the front of the newsagency as it is set for this week. Being in a busy shopping centre, our entrance is the most important marketing activity for us. We set the front of the store to attract traditional shoppers and people who have never shopped with us. Fun and optimism key messages we are pitching here.

IMG_8722

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marketing

A perfect magazine to place with newspapers

IMG_8736I love the cover of The Chaser Quarterly and the tag: Can this man increase our sales figures if we put him on the cover!  I hope so. I have placed the magazine with our newspapers, with the Herald Sun actually as people buying it are more likely to be drawn by a Trump cover. As for the issue itself, it’s a lot of fun. I enjoyed reading it.

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magazines

Good cover to get a stamp magazine in the spotlight

IMG_8735This latest issue of Australian Stamps Professional is one to get out in the spotlight thanks to the Robert Menzies cover shot. Browsing the title yesterday I felt the title would appeal to people who might not even know Australian Stamps Professional exists. So, I chose it as a title to promote on the business Facebook page to try and reach people who may not usually shop with us.

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magazines

Pitching the Candy Crush magazine

IMG_8713We are promoting the Candy Crush puzzle magazine from Puzzler with our weekly magazines rather than in the puzzle section as people will not be looking for the title as it is new to us. It does look like a puzzle title people who do not regularly purchase puzzle titles might consider.

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crosswords

Sunday newsagency marketing tip: what do your bags say about your business?

Look at the bags into which you place customer purchases. What do they say about your business/ What do you put in the bags to entice customers back?

If your bags are generic, not of the brand of your business then you are not marketing your brand effectively. If the bags only have the purchases then you are missing an opportunity to entice shoppers.

If you are concerned about declining traffic and or revenue, managing bags as a marketing activity could help you improve your situation.

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marketing

Sunday newsagency management tip: review your fax service pricing

Fewer businesses offer a fax service today than a year ago. This increased scarcity coupled with increased rent and labour costs are reason enough for newsagents to review pricing.

My suggestion is you check the pricing of your nearest major competitor and peg your price slightly above theirs. In several newsagency businesses I have discussed this with recently, they would increase their priced by a third or more. As long as volume is maintained, that is a nice bump to the bottom line.

Providing a fax service costs time and money. It needs to be price and run as a profit centre for the business.

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Management tip

Are you frustrated with the Tatts handling of instant scratch ticket scanning?

I have been asked by several newsagents to raise here their frustration with processes implemented by Tatts for handling the scanning if instant scratch tickets. When you scan the first and last tickets of a book it presents problems when people scan a free ticket I’m told. My understanding is the changes will result in apparently inactive instant scratch tickets being in circulation.

Let others know what you think about the situation.

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Lotteries

Marketing opportunities in magazine covers

IMG_7092More and more I am using photos of parts of magazine covers in marketing of magazines for the newsagency. Rather than all the text and masthead pulling focus from the hero of the cover, the food dish or the icon, such as David Bowie, I am finding it more effective in attracting interest in a niche title by decluttering the image.

While most retailers promoting magazines online use the full covers, I am finding the use of tight shot photos of part of a cover works better. I say this based on feedback. It is certainly a point of difference at the moment.

This David Bowie photo from a magazine in February is a good example. The image is stunning, haunting. It is more effective in this form for online marketing than on the full magazine cover.

If you are promoting magazines on social media you need a point of difference to drive attention. Doing what everyone else does dilutes your effort.

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magazines

Analysts rate WH Smith – our growing competitor

Click here for a comparison of ratings given WH Smith by a bunch of stock analysts in the UK. regardless of what one may think of their UK stores, they are growing in their presence in Australia and as a new business here they are leveraging the freedom of that to reinvent their model. The analyst ratings speak to their strength and the risk they pose for us.

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Competition

The challenge for magazines in newsagencies

Screen Shot 2016-03-30 at 11.30.58 pmWhile rent and labour costs for newsagencies increase 5% year on year, magazine revenue continues to fall. Newsagents are responding by cutting space allocated to magazines. Publishers can’t complain as they are making their own arrangements in this rapidly changing world as this tweet shows for Ride magazine. They are doing what they must for their business. As should we by cutting overheads for magazines, such as reducing the space allocated. Publishers can encourage our support for magazines is – get out of all retail channels except newsagencies.

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magazines

Fairfax announces regional newspaper closures

Fairfax today announced the closure of two regional newspapers and changes for others.

Under the plan, print editions and websites of the Cooma-Monaro Express and the Summit Sun at Jindabyne will be discontinued, The Queanbeyan Age will be relaunched as a free weekly newspaper and the content and distribution of the Braidwood Times will be extended to serve the growing community of Bungendore.

Fairfax also announced the Canberra Times is to be redesigned into a compact format.

None of these moves should surprise newsagents who have been focussed on the future. There is no upside for print newspapers if they remain focused on news as the news is well and truly old by the time the presses start to role the night before we get the products in-store.

While I understand publishers need to promote and in most Australian cities justify production, this is now a rapidly changing space. Whereas publishers were asleep for decades, two or three years ago they started to act and moved on cover price and cut operating costs. It is too little too late in my view. Now, they need to act ahead of the massive wave that is building out in the ocean, so they are not drowned.

Today, we have newspapers that are too thin to justify the higher charge. Ask any newsagent and they will have stories of customers complaining about poor value for money some days.

I think we are close to seeing one or more capital city dailies moving away from seven day production schedules. I don;t want that but paid circulation and falling ad revenue make it inevitable.

We have to run our businesses expecting falling newspaper traffic and revenue otherwise we will be in shock when it stops and wonder what to do, and by then it will be too late.

Today’s announcements by Fairfax are announcements the company needed to make. Our challenge is to respond thoughtfully and appropriately for our own respective futures. Hopefully, many newsagents reading this started acting long ago.

While newspapers remain important to many newsagencies today, business growth can be achieved without them. This is where our attention ought be.

Newsagents need to be chasing new traffic, shoppers who do not come to the business today. This is hard work. It involves you being a retailer and not an agent. This is a fundamental mindset change, but one many have made with terrific success.

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Media disruption

Some newsagency suppliers need to understand the importance of barcodes on products

It frustrates me when I hear of a newsagency supplier using the same barcode on multiple products. Retailers cannot adequately track sales in such a situation. Suppliers who do this deny newsagents the opportunity to understand what is happening in their business.

How do you understand the performance of your card department with, say, 800 different designs, where a barcode is shared with fifty to one hundreds designs? You can’t! Only the card company can analyse performance in such a situation.

This is poor service of the retail newsagents by the supplier, the card company in my example above. It is disrespectful and not best practice.

While newsagents can produce their own barcodes for cards, they should not have to as doing so would be an extra cost and take extra labour.

We need to be more demanding of our suppliers on these matters.

The more suppliers help me more easily understand the performance of inventory in my business the better for me and for them, and the better for my customers.

We are not cottage industry retailers. We are a strong national channel competing with many national retailers. One way we can effectively compete is with data and business tools of a standard equal to our competitors.

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supplier arrogance

Batman vs. Superman products popular for the newsagency

IMG_7674We have the Hallmark Batman vs. Superman stand on the lease line to leverage interest in the franchise following the release of the movie and the extraordinary publicity surrounding it. The stand is working along with products from other suppliers. The best way to leverage licenced product is to go deep across several suppliers. Range matters in the licenced space.

If you have the stand, place it at the door, in the window or on the lease line.

This is another good news story for engaged newsagents: leveraging a popular current licence through a range of suppliers to drive new traffic for our businesses.

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Greeting Cards

Why are post offices selling so much crappy stuff these days?

IMG_7464How is this for a tweet to re-tweet? I love it, especially in relation to the government owned post offices – retail businesses they should not operate except from offering basic postal services.

Peter Ford has 10,000 Twitter followers. I responded to him as did others at the time of his tweet.

I would not be surprised to see Australia Post rethink its approach to retail as we have seen the ABC do in recent months. If they do, there will be more opportunities for newsagents.

Why are post offices selling so much crappy stuff these days? My answer is – because they have lost their way, they no longer know what they stand for. That is reflected in their broad an disconnected range of food.

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Australia Post

Do I think a newsagency is a good business to buy?

Further to my post yesterday, the question do you think a newsagency is a good business to buy? is one I am also asked regularly.

Any newsagency is a good business to buy to the right purchaser, the person most suited for that business.

The answer really does come back to the purchaser because they may have skills ideal for a specific business. Equally, they may lack skills essential to a particular business – making them not the right purchaser.

The question demands an answer thoughtfully considers and takes into account who is asking, their skills, their resources, their experience, their fitness, their desire and their hopes and plans for the future.

While the business they are asking about is important, I see the answer as relying more on the person themselves. This is why I say any newsagency can be a good business to buy and often is.

I have a lot of confidence in the channel even though what the channel stood for in the past is changing rapidly, faster than ever before, to the extent that the channel is not the channel. But all of that is good in my view for I love change and the opportunities in change.

So, for the right purchaser, yes, a newsagency is a good business to buy.

Where it is not is if you are not interested in retail, not prepared for change, not appropriately resourced and expecting an easy ride. Yes, if you are lazy, a newsagency is not a business for you.

I say all of this as someone keen for more new blood in our ‘channel’. But it has to be good blood from energetic and optimistic retailers … because it is you who will help give us a terrific future.

Now is a great time to buy a newsagency if you want to participate in a time of great change and great opportunity that comes with great change.

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buying a newsagency

Terrific News Corp. coin promotion coming in April

I like the ANZAC to Afghanistan Medallions – Commemorative Coins promotion announced to Victorian newsagents by News Corp. last week. All News Corp. metro dailies are engaged in the promotion from what I understand.

I expect the promotion will be a hit because of the demographic of newspaper readers, the theme, each coin being legal tender and the connection with the Mint and Legacy.

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Newspapers
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