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

We need a casual employee pool

I don’t know about other states but a flu-like virus is ripping through workplaces in Victoria and knocking out several people at once, for days at a time. Retail businesses with little spare capacity in their roster are finding it tough asnd often run grossly understaffed because they don’t have access to anyone who can cover at short notice.

I wonder if there is an opportunity here to create an agency which offers access to people prepared to work in a newsagency at short notice. I suspect there would be people at home willing to take on the odd day here or there.  One of our teamfirst suggested this six months ago when juggling a roster while many people were off.

If we could ensure a good understanding of newsagency products, answers to common questions and knowledge of common technology an agency service could work.

Sure, there would be a considerable premium cost for what would be an on-call service. However, it would be worth the premium if it meant customer service standards were maintained.

This is the kind of commercial service an Association could run for newsagents but since they haven’t a commercial venture could start up. It would make more sense than selling cheap stationery.

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Newsagency challenges

How animals have sex

animal_sex.JPGHow animals have sex is one of the books we had in our recent book sale. I thought it would cause complaints. Then I saw how a couple of older customers having a good laugh. The same is true with “dirty” cards. It is good seeing customers enjoying products on display.

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retail

Truth about mobile recharge

The 300 or so newsagents using the Pos Browser software may want to contact the company about their claim today that they print mobile phone recharge vouchers through their software.

Tower Systems is currently the only newsagent software supplier able to offer mobile phone and phonecard vouchers, including for Optus and Vodafone, from within newsagent point of sale software.

UPDATE: Bernard Zimmermann has subsequently edited his blog post yet the implication remains that they print vouchers from their software.

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Ethics

The magazine opportunity

fhn_mags_aug18.JPGWhile the January to June magazine circulation figures released late last week contain plenty of red ink, they also offer opportunities to newsagents. The first opportunity is with growing titles and categories and the second is with down on their luck high volume titles.

The growth opportunities relate to titles such as Better Homes and Gardens, Australian handyman, Men’s Health, Women’s Health – these and other titles in the top 20. Plus categories like health, food and gardening. It is in managing and promoting these categories around the growth titles where newsagents can do well.

I see some down on their luck titles as an opportunity because they still command a huge audience. Take Cosmopolitan and Cleo. They sell 165,000 and 149,000 copies each month respectively. While we can worry about their double digit drop, we are better off focusing on how we can make each of our businesses go against the trend.

At our Forest Hill store, looking at the 20 titles delivering the biggest circulation falls, in 75% of cases we achieved better than the total market. This encourages me to continue to obsess about magazines and that this obsession can help us swim against the tide.

I’d encourage newsagents to get a copy of the circulation figures and compare their store with key titles. Understand where you sit compared to the national figures. If you use the Tower Systems software, use the MPA Magazine Management report to get title by title year on year data.

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magazines

FNQ newsagents

I have been fortunate to participate in the Cairns and Townsville roadshows for newsagents and organised by the Queensland Newsagents’ Federation on Sunday and Tuesday of this week respectively. Attendance was excellent – showing that newsagents enjoy an opportunity to work on their businesses by learning and networking.

My sense is that the further from capital cities newsagents are located the more entrepreneurial they are.  In Townsville yesterday, I talked with newsagents keen to develop new categories in pursuit of new customers and new revenue.  They were open to try almost anything.

Maybe the difference is that the pioneer spirit which populated country areas is alive and well in newsagencies.  There is certainly a different attitude and it is energising.

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Newsagency challenges

Sharing the prize

prize_winner.JPGI love this winner notification card Hallmark provided for as a follow up to our big bear giveaway as part of Care and Friendship Month. The card is important transparency on our part. It also gives us a way to promote the giveaway after the prize has been won, further showing that winners shop at our newsagency. While these may seem small points, they are important in creating an aura around our business.

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Greeting Cards

Tatts vs. Intralot

lottcounter.JPGIt is interesting to see how Neil Mitchell at 3AW is handling Intralot, the new lottery entrant in Victoria. He had another crack today and while he can run whatever stories he wants, I would prefer to see balance.

Intralot is a start up business. It has built a network of 700 locations in a couple of months, trained the retail team and introduced the biggest product shake up in lottery products here in decades. The teething challenges have been minimal given the scope of the project.

Tattersalls, on the other hand, continues to harm small business, demanding we keep space vacant (see photo – we have two of these bays at our counters) for products they may get. They use a heavy legal stick if you challenge them. From a consumer perspective, Tattersalls forces us to be poor retailers.

The State Government created this problem. The Gaming Minister has been useless in resolving issues. Leaving Tattersalls to treat us in a less than fair way.

I wish Neil Mitchell would take a broader approach on these issues and not just bash Intralot. He is better than the job he has done so far.

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Lotteries

GNS Sydney Market Fair this weekend

Tower Systems will have a stand at the GNS Market Fair in Sydney this weekend.  We will have support and sales people on hand to answer questions and help you move to the software twice as many newsagents use as any other.  We will be demonstrating our new mobile software as well as answering questions on our ePay integration which delivers Optus, Vodafone, Telstra and other mobile product recharge direct to your point of sale softwasre.  We are the only software company offering this to newsagents.

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Bill Express

The basket builder from behind

frank_mensstyle.JPGThe photo on the left is the back of the ACP basket builder stand which I wrote about in my previous blog post this morning. Once we moved this stand yesterday, we realised we have to make good use of the back otherwise it would be dead space in a high traffic area. The result is this display for Men’s Style magazine. While it is nothing too special, we have made it easy for people to buy off the stand – something too often forgotten in retail displays. Once we created the display we realised that we only ever looked at this ACP stand from the front and for too long had missed the opportunity of using the back.

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magazines

Moving the basket builder stand

frank_basil.JPGWe are fortunate to have a basket builder stand from ACP Magazines. This is a stand in which we place popular ACP titles as part of a co-location strategy. The stand is usually at the front of our Frankston store, to attract passers-by. The risk in using the same location is that customers get store blind. Yesterday, we moved the stand to next to the main newspaper display. (Excuse the photo, it’s not the best.) While it partially blocks the entrance to an aisle, we figured this was worth the opportunity of more customers browsing the stand. Change in a business like ours is crucial. We have great traffic but most of it is for a single purpose each visit. Anything we can to to break that and get an extra sale is money in the bank.

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magazines

Promoting Cleo with gifts

fhn_cleo.JPGCleo gets front counter promotion with the exclusive music CD and two eye pencils which come with the latest issue. While we could wait for the publisher promotional push which usually comes in the second week, I’d rather go early. We did this last week with Notebook and sold three times our usual week one number in just three days. This counter position works well for us. We can create a display in less than ten minutes and bank the results.

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magazines

Optus mobile recharge for eziPass

Click here to see the announcement being sent to all newsagents this afternoon about important developments which will bring Optus mobile recharge to the eziPass platform.  This announcement is the culmination of a considerable amount of work involving e-pay Australia, Optus and Tower Systems.  It delivers an operational outcome for newsagents which is better than was available through the Bill Express / DialTime terminal.  eziPass is available free to all newsagents.

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Bill Express

Good Food launches

frank_gf.JPGThe Australian edition of BBC Good Food was launched today. The marketing collateral supporting the launch is excellent.  It is a good publication, keenly priced and features Gordon Ramsay so it’s bound to do well. I have high expectations that Good Food will shake up the food category as Top Gear has the motoring category. Like with Top Gear, we are chasing more product so we can do the launch justice and run an aggressive co-location strategy and not just at the aisle end.

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magazines

7-Eleven asks newsagents to stand still

7-Eleven has sent a fax to newsagents today suggesting that they do not commit to any long-term contracts with alternative suppliers should they wish to have the option of resuming the Bill Express service.  The letter advises that they expect to know if it is possible for them to take on the business and resume operations within weeks and that they would try and get the network operating shortly thereafter.

I suspect that this communication is reaching newsagents and other merchants too late.

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Bill Express

Personal development magazines

em_power.JPGThe personal development segment of magazines is growing. em power is the latest title to be sent to some newsagents. These are challenging titles to locate. I have seen them in women’s titles and in with business titles in other newsagencies. The supply model is a mystery to me. Lack of range makes it hard to break the various personal development titles out into their own display.

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magazine distribution

Last call for photos of newsagents

tvc_stations1.JPGIf you want your newsagency represented in the TV commercial I am producing to promote the channel, please send in a high res digital photo ASAP. One daily newspaper has offered to run a full page print version of the ad in several issues free as has a major magazine publisher. This supplier support for the advertising initiative is most welcome.

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newsagency marketing

Foreign newspapers the hero category

foreign.JPGNewspapers delivered poor results in the latest sales benchmark study which I published here Friday. The results for the department would have been worse had I extracted foreign newspapers. In more than 60% of newsagencies I have data for they delivered growth. In our Forest Hill store, where we offer more than 30 titles, foreign newspapers delivered a 10% increase in unit sales year on year – excellent growth by any measure. Foreign newspapers are too often regarded as the poor cousins to the capital city dailies. The sales data suggests their readers are more loyal. Foreign newspapers is a category newsagents could do well to research and grow.

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Newspapers

Finding gold in magazines

pokermag.JPGI missed The Ultimate Guide to Poker when it came in last month. While we have it located with sports titles, it will not find its market if just left there. We are promoting it as part of our Father’s Day pitch – next to our Poker gift packs. We will also include the title into our displays with newspapers. We are also thinking of how we might co-promote this and other poker titles with the Intralot poker scratch game. All this may seem like hard work for a small category. Our view is that it is worth it because it promotes range.

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magazines

How to win from high petrol prices

As I wrote six weeks ago, the 50% increase in the price of petrol over the last year is an opportunity for newsagents. We are the quintessential local business. We sell national brands locally. People don’t have to drive. We can help them sale fuel costs. Here is a more extended list of ideas on how we can seize the opportunity:

  • Promote local shopping. With with nearby retailers and produce a flyer promoting how shopping locally saves on petrol, time and money. Prepare a follow-up flyer to promote how your prices re as good as bigger businesses further away – reinforce the petrol saving pitch again.
  • Get together with local traders. Create a website to promote your local shopping. Promote the businesses, easy parking and how they can save on petrol by shopping locally.
  • Study the numbers. Work out what an average shopper could save on petrol by shopping locally compared to driving to the nearest largest centre.
  • Improve convenience. Look at how you can make shopping at your newsagency even more convenient and appealing.
  • Delivering value. Offer a free delivery service for purchases above a certain value. Promote this around a theme save on petrol!
  • Offer deals for volume. In some areas people will shop less frequently. Drive a deeper shopping basket by offering deals for a bigger spend.
  • Local Marketing. Reconnect with households and businesses around your newsagency and remind them that you have locally what they might otherwise drive for – or that you can get it in for them.
  • Comparative pricing. Make it your business to beat a major competitor on some popular items. For example, at our shop, our printer ink prices are better than Big W, Australia Post and Officeworks. While customers discover this and are thrilled, a small sign near the category could people not in the market for ink to trust us for other categories and shop locally more often.
  • Save money. Do deal with a local independent petrol outlet. Offer coupons for discount petrol which they provide in return for them handing out discount coupons for use in your newsagency.
  • Talk it up. At your next team meeting share some ways they can let customers know that shopping locally reduces what they spend on petrol.

While rising petrol prices present serious challenges for newsagents, they also present opportunities worth exploiting.

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newsagency marketing

Promoting Home Beautiful

homeb_frankston.JPGWe have created a counter display for Home Beautiful at our Frankston newsagency. The free shopper guide with the magazine qualifies it for a premium display. Frankston does not have the slatwall behind the display – this will, be in our new shopfit.

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magazines

Promoting the new look Notebook

notebook_sep.JPGWe have placed the new look Notebook magazine at the counter at Forest Hill. It also qualified for this spot given the free mascara with this issue. For those new here, this space is between our two main registers. Behind the display is slatwall – crucial so customers can buy off a display

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magazines

N-Stock a con for newsagents

UPDATE: N-Stock has been reviewed by VANA and efforts are being made to work with traditional newsagent suppliers to develop online opportunities further.  It is good to see it move from the offer of three years ago.

I have a few issues with N-Stock, the VANA initiative now endorsed by the ANF through which stationery and other items are offered.  It is on my mind today because of another three pages fax from them – this time offering Global Star Diaries.

  • VANA and the ANF failed to serve newsagents on the Bill Express matter.  It is wrong for them to charge off into other areas when they continue to fail on basic association service.
  • My VANA association member funds helped create N-Stock. That should be enough for me to gain full benefit.
  • There is double commission for accredited newsagents. I am not about to give up two days to do training telling me to do things which I already do.  While the accreditation training may teach me one or two things, using rebates as a carrot for me to pay for training is wrong.  Their approach to accreditation is like the supplier approach to compliance – there is little basis in business performance.
  • Associations have no business acting like a marketing group or a stationery wholesaler.  If they do, maybe marketing groups should act like associations and offer HR and other services.
  • The deals rarely have overall retail context – seasonal or whole of line.

I label N-Stock a con because it is not the straightforward off it makes out to be.  We have no visibility of the commission being made by the ANF and VANA on the deals.  Newsagents are required to spend money on accreditation training to access the best deal.  They often promote products which compete with brand name suppliers we see at trade shows, in the national magazine and supported on TV (teaching us to be poor retailers) and there is no comparative pricing to justify the claims of incredible deals.

I am a director of newsXpress, a marketing group for newsagents.  We offer deals like those offered through N-Stock.  It is important readers know this and therefore my conflict in discussing my concerns.  However, the association playing in this space conflicts them on many fronts and I am sure their Directors have not thought this through.

Given the relentless promotion of N-Stock, placing VANA and the ANF in the marketing group / supplier space, it would be appropriate for groups like Nextra, newsXpress and Newspower to consider offering association services which, if acted upon could bring the Associations to an end.

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Newsagency challenges
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