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

Why did News Corp. cut newspaper supply to small business newsagents?

Why did News Corp. allocations experts cut the supply of newspapers on the launch day of the Dr Seuss national promotion being run by the company to increase the sale of newspapers?

The cynic in me wonders if this is to do with shifting traffic from newsagents to supermarkets.

I heard from several newsagents yesterday about cuts to their supply. Some were cut to a lower supply than their average net sales over recent weeks. There is no evidence in sales data for the cost, hence the cynical wonder.

The Dr Seuss promotion is excellent: timely and popular. Right now is when supply ought to be boosted rather than cut – especially in newsagencies where engagement is far more professional and whole of business.

Footnote: it is usually after I publish a post like this that I get a call or an email along the lines of – I don’t read your blog but someone told me to look at this blah blah blah. The thing is, I know publishers read the blog. Who cares? What matters is that what I have written has happened. It is real. No, I will not tell you the names of the newsagents. Go to your ‘smart’ allocations people and ask for a list of all newsagents for whom they cut supply yesterday and this week, ask them why.

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Ethics

Sunday newsagency challenge: compare suppliers

IMG_5465Use your newsagency software to compare suppliers that compete in a department or category.  Do this based on brand even if all are through one wholesales, like pens.

Compare the performance of Artline, Pilot, Bic and Uniball, see which provides the better stock turn, return on space and ROI.

Compare your suppliers and focus more on those that perform better for you.

Your data is more important to your business that data from your suppliers about what they have sold to you.

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Management tip

Sunday newsagency management tip: product knowledge drives Pilot Frixion sales

IMG_5465The Pilot Friction pen range offers more than the TV commercial pitches. If art or writing done with a Friction pen is left in the sun it fades. Place it in the freezer and it comes back. This is a ‘magic’ pen kids will love. Ensure all team members knows what the pen can do – and sell more. We sold 20 to one customer as a result of product knowledge.

The Pilot website has more information on this product.

My tip today is tossed out product knowledge from sales reps, the supplier website and online forms – and ensure your team members have this knowledge so they can professionally engage with shoppers on the shop floor.

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Management tip

Promoting jigsaws in the newsagency

Here is the jigsaw wall that did so well for us in the newsagency through January. It stood out, easily attracting shoppers from outside the business. Promoting jigsaws in a non traditional (for a newsagency) way and challenging the shopper perception of the business.

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Gifts

Trashing the newspaper

Check out how the Herald Sun looked for one newsagent today. The sticker stuck on the front page is for the Dr Seuss promotion. Being half stuck like this looks bad. I know plenty of customers who would look for an undamaged copy.  On a copy I saw earlier today, the sticker was obscuring a chunk of the photo about the main news story. Dreadful.

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newspaper masthead desecration

Pitching products for impulse purchase at the newsagency counter

IMG_0232I love the way this gift and card shop in the US handles an impulse purchase pitch at the counter. It makes good use of space between two customer serving locations, using what would otherwise be dead space. It pitches products easily purchased by those close to the counter.

I think it is important the unit is curved. That makes it easier to navigate, easier to shop and less visually harsh in my view.

It is the type of unit that could be made and pushed up against the counter without being built-in, without costing too much money.

Many newsagency counters I see are old school, pitching a product mix that has not changed in years, achieving little in the way of impulse purchases at the counter, most likely not contributing appropriately for the premium space allocated.

The approach shown in the photo shows how one retailer has created new space to achieve a better financial return from expensive counter space. I think it is worth a try.

My advice to any newsagent considering something like this is – don;t use a shopfitter and their shares are likely to be considerably higher than if you purchased the item from a cheap furniture place or had a local hippie knock something up.

Spend as little as possible to trial this or any other similar future idea you have for your business.

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Newsagency management

Would you ‘sell’ The Freeman Journal?

Screen Shot 2016-02-03 at 7.48.18 pmI have been contacted by the publishers of a soon to launch publication, The Freeman Journal, seeking expressions of interest in receiving copies for free, which can be sold.

Click here to see a mock up. [I removed this because of the comments you can read below.] There is more information at their website.

While this title is not for me, I thought I would share it here for others to consider.

Here is the note from the publisher:

My name is Jack Freeman and I am the director of a luxury online and a soon to be released quarterly distributed print publication The Freeman Journal. With an elite and targeted audience of high net worth individuals, aspirational luxury consumers and frequent travellers.

Thus we were contacting you as we are in the coming months releasing our first quarterly edition and were looking to send free editions to Newsagents across Australia to which may be sold on behalf of agents entirely.

Let me know if interested to participate. I have attached our Media Kit and Mock Up First Edition.

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magazines

Newspaper front page headlines deemed useless

FullSizeRenderThis morning’s Daily Telegraph shows, once again, how irrelevant newspaper headlines are deemed y newspaper publishers in promoting their product.

It surprises me they treat promotion of I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here with more respect than they do what the editorial team considers to be the main news story of the day – our country’s treatment of babies held in the asylum system. Those making such decisions ought to be ashamed of themselves.

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newspaper masthead desecration

Cheap Valentine’s Day cards at Woolworths

IMG_5422The stand of $3 Valentine’s Day cards at Woolworths that I saw yesterday was in the high traffic ground floor entrance location of the Sydney CBD business while the higher priced Valentine’s Day cards were in the second floor card department. While I get that supermarkets are interested in what they say is a ‘value’ pitch, it is not, in my view, value in that the cards look and feel cheap compared to the regular priced cards.

Unfortunately, I suspect we will see more and more of these ‘value’ pitches the greeting card category this year and beyond. It is an overseas trend retailers here will not want to ignore.

There are too many ‘value’ models in the UK and US for Australia to not be confronted by this phenomenon. It is only a matter of time before it hits here. I have looked at two of the models in detail may have more to say about them soon.

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Competition

Large capacity printers set to impact ink sales

In Sydney yesterday it seemed to me that every second bus I passed was advertising large capacity printers from Epson. The signs promoted a two year life for the ink provided with the printer. Epson is not alone in pushing this model.

Newsagents with considerable ink sales need to be aware of the trend and to factor this into their business planning.

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Stationery

Timing on the closure of Network Services

Click here to download communication from Network services for newsagents on the timing of the closure of the business. I share it here with permission.

The processes outlined by the company are clear cut. Achieving a refund of any money owed requires newsagents to provide bank details. The way things go with this channel there will be newsagents who ignore this request and then complain they have not received a refund.

Please follow the advice in the Network document.

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magazine distribution

Hallmark at Melbourne Gift Fair

The Hallmark stand at the Melbourne Gift Fair at the weekend was designed to inspire retailers to consider alternative ways of displaying cards outside the usual card department approach. It was a stand unlike anything you would have seen from a mainstream card company in Australia previously.

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Greeting Cards

There are some nutters out there

I feel for Allan and Stella Wickham, the owners of newsXpress Eli Waters, the business where the winning ticket in the $70M Powerball jackpot was purchased. I feel for them because they are attracting nutters from around the country, people approaching them because they think they got a great payout as a percentage of the $70M . They are also being approached to get them to put people in touch with the winners.

People have requests for a share of the money for charities and all sorts of crazy plans.

It does not help when Allan and Stella say they did not get a percentage or they cannot connect with the winner for private reasons. People persist. Even today, weeks after the win.

While it would be easy to laugh off the interruptions, they are so considerable that they get in the way of everyday business.

So, I feel for Allan and Stella – and any other newsagent hit by similar circumstances. However, the $70M prize is a record for a single winner.

In 2007 by newsagency at Forest Hill sold a $11M winning ticket in Powerball. It was a house syndicate we created. There were plenty who were sure we had a share in the syndicate so there was that to deal with as well as the nuttiness of some of the syndicate members who wanted their share the next day even though we had to wait the two weeks and then pass the month through our account – yes that is the way Tatts did it then.

While I like the model I have seen in some overseas locations of the selling business getting a small percentage of a major jackpot, it would bring with it problems beyond the nutters newsagents selling winning tickets have to face today.

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Lotteries

The reach of newsagency brands on Facebook

With the Facebook user community continuing to grow – 1.5b monthly users in Q4 2015 – it is a vitally important place to promote your business and the brand under which you trade. Promoting on Facebook is an easy way to reach people outside your business to attract them in. It is also an easy marketing platform through which to track engagement results including demographic information.

Here are numbers from this morning of people who like or follow the corporate page of the newsagency banner groups:

  1. newsXpress – 12,060.
  2. Nextra – 8,545.
  3. The Lucky Charm – 2,086.
  4. Newspower – 4.

These numbers are important as they speak to the base community easily reached by each of the groups when promoting offers and opportunities available in member businesses.

The numbers themselves need to be considered a springboard as plenty of Facebook users share posts they like to friends who, in turn, can share to their friends. In one recent promotion for which I have data the ripple effect reached an additional 15,000 people.

Note: I could only find one Newspower national page and it had not been updated since August last year. If anyone is aware of another page please let me know.

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newsagency marketing

News Corp. promotion favours supermarkets over newsagents

The TV commercial from News Corp’s Herald Sun promoting the Dr Seuss book series lists three supermarkets by brand yet lists newsagents as, well, newsagents. The folks at News ought to respect brands newsagents trade under more than this. Their failure to list the brands demonstrates a preference for the supermarket brands in my view.

Here is a photo from the TVC – listing the supermarkets.

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Newspaper marketing

Slick looking stationery department

IMG_5275This photo shows part of the stationery department of a store I visited in Nuremberg last week. I am sharing it as it represents a different approach to stationery layout compared to what we see in newsagencies and other stationery retailers in Australia.

I like the consistent fixture colour and that it does not detract from the product itself. I also like the lower height units at the front and their use for uplifting products, to draw the shopper into the department.

I draw plenty of inspiration from this photo.

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Stationery
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