My earlier post about the manipulation of Google results in a way which benefited Fairfax’s RSVP resulted in some aggressive comments. Especially by one seopro. They have been silent since I claimed they placing their comments from within Fairfax. Here’s what we know about the IP address from which the comments were posted:
Seems like from inside Fairfax to me. Maybe that’s why seopro has gone quiet.
Chicago Business reports that US newspapers are reporting single digit declines in real estate advertising. Publishers say the downturn is cyclical. Industry observers say the downturn reflects a long term change by vendors and real estate agents.
This space is hotter in Australia than ever with PBL now in the space pushing their MyHome offering, News Ltd strong with realestate.com.au and Fairfax pushing their strong Domain. Across at the independent end is zeroagents – for vendors who want to really change the way they sell their proiperty.
The New York Times is predicting online revenue growth of 30% in 2007 according to MediaPost. Their online revenue grew 41.2% in 2006.
Today’s Australian Financial Review has a red stuck on ad on the front page – covering part of the story about Australians who perished in the Garuda plane crash in Indonesia. As the photo shows it’s a bold ad which pulls focus above anything else on page one. The advertiser would be happy.
I’d be interested to hear from editors and journalists about this ad being placed in front of a page one story. I’m certain they would be unhappy, especially when they lift the ad off and it takes part of the paper with it as I have seen happen several times.
At least this ad is not across the masthead as Fairfax tends to do when running the ads on The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald.
Back in 2004, I was involved in informal discussions with News Ltd and Fairfax and whether newsagents could run ads on plastic bags used in the home delivery of newspapers. Their position at the time was an emphatic no. One argument put was that they could not have such advertising detracting from their product. Every time I see one of these intrusive litter causing post it note type ads I am reminded of their 2004 position.
Fairfax launched Brisbane Times today. This is a copy of other successful Fairfax sites connected with The Age and Sydney Morning Herald except and that it has no local newspaper driving traffic. The site design and navigation are excellent – typical Fairfax in terms of their online news offerings. Their launch video is particularly interesting in that it pitches hard on the theme of a “new perspective†– in a long term one paper town it’s message I’d expect to resonate.
This move makes for interesting times in Brisbane – a new daily website from Fairfax and the soon to launch mX from News Limited. The question is which cityn is next on both fronts?
Visit one of the Government owned Australia Post retail outlets and take a look at the Government’s small business policy in action.
The latest Australia Post brochure, Crowd Pleasing Prices is another example of Australia Post is encroaching further on territory which has been well served by independently owned small business. It does this with the benefit of a product and service monopoly and backed by national TV and radio advertising funded by the monopoly.
The Government is complicit in the actions of Australia Post. They know the harm being done to family businesses across the country yet they respond to complaints by writing irrelevant responses to questions which were not put in the first place.
The Australian Postal Corporation Act 1989 .defines what Australia Post’s permitted functions. Inaction by this government allows Australia Post to skirt around the Act. Here are the relevant clauses:
16 Functions—incidental businesses and activities
(1) The functions of Australia Post include the carrying on, within or outside Australia, of any business or activity that is incidental to:
(a) the supplying of postal services under section 14; or
(b) the carrying on of any business or activity under section 15.
(2) Without limiting subsection (1), the functions of Australia Post include the carrying on, within or outside Australia, of any business or activity that is capable of being conveniently carried
on:
(a) by the use of resources that are not immediately required in carrying out Australia Post’s principal or subsidiary function;
or
(b) in the course of:
(i) supplying postal services under section 14; or
(ii) carrying on any business or activity under section 15.
Government ownership, regulation and monopoly protection guarantees traffic to Australia Post stores for a fraction of what it costs newsagent. My newsagency does not have this monopoly advantage. Australia Post is abusing this advantage to encroach more and more into space previously the domain of newsagencies, some supermarkets and stationery stores.
I cannot land consumers to my store for the same low cost of Australia Post.
I cannot leverage a national brand like Australia Post to buy competitively.
I cannot control my opening and closing hours.
I cannot get the rent discount of an “essential serviceâ€.
I do not have a government protected postal service brand with which to leverage the sale of unrelated items.
Australia Post has, through its government owned stores, been targeting newsagencies. The government’s inaction on this is evidence of merely lip service being paid to small business.
It seems some petrol and convenience outlets are pulling back on the space they devote to magazines is what I and others have seen recently is anything to go off. I know of one outlet which has cut their magazine display space by 33% to 16 pockets. The duty manager says he’d be glad to see the category go altogether because “it’s nothing but trouble”. Back when the local newsagent managed the category for the outlet sales were higher and magazines were no trouble at all.
It seems the pursuit of margin by some petrol and convenience outlets is biting them at their bottom line. Maybe if they ask nicely newsagents will manage the category for them again and lift sales.
Before magazine company people call or email, I’m not claiming that all of these outlets you took off newsagents are selling less. I have spoken directly with several as have a couple of newsagent colleagues. These are outlets which initially did better and for the last six months have been in a slump – petrol outlet bosses don’t understand such slumps, they don’t understand the category.
Newsagents who had this business taken from them three years ago might get a good response if they pushed to win back the business.
David Grover, Department of Geography and Environment, London School of Economics wrote an excellent letter to the Financial Times about the hidden cost of free newspapers. Here’s part of what he wrote:
Free dailies externalise their production costs in at least three ways. They clutter and detract from the appearance of our streetscapes and public spaces (costs to all Londoners); they generate great volumes of rubbish which then become the disposal problem of boroughs (costs to borough residents); and they create extra cleaning costs for Transport for London when papers are left behind on trains and in stations (costs to TfL and therefore transport users).
In January, the Guardian newspaper reported that Westminster Council has approached publishers about the waste problem:
The council has warned News International and Associated Newspapers that they must help the council deal with the “mountain of waste” their newspapers produce, or face restrictions that could see them banned from its environs, including the West End.
The BBC has more on this story here. I first bloogged about free newspaper trash on July 29 last year, recording what I saw on a train just after rush hour – 50 copies of mX left on seats and the floor in on carriage!
All this is timely give the march of News Ltd’s free daily mX to Brisbane having conquered Melbourne and Sydney.
The boxed card market which is huge in Europe and the US is tiny here. Sure we have a good rang for Christmas but for the rest of the year boxed cards are almost non existent.
Overseas they have ranges of boxed birthday, baby, thank you, graduation and other cards. From retailers and wholesalers I talk with sales are strong.
Maybe its a cultural thing or maybe it’s that we don’t have the local range to drive interest. I’m curious because I have been chasing local all-year ranges of boxed cards without success and I’m having to purchase imported product.
My feeling is that in the right kind of store with the right display boxed cards would sell well here without detracting from single cards. US retailers tell me that single sales are not affected.
Many newsagents manage stationery today as it was managed by newsagents decades ago – before Officeworks, Australia Post, supermarkets and other mass merchants were in the stationery space. Newsagent suppliers also manage the channel as if time has stood still. This ignorance of today’s marketplace is both a problem and an opportunity for newsagents.
Take everyday pens and markers. Most newsagents have a good range of two brands. Many have three brands. Each is serviced by their own representative, calling on the newsagents and processing orders. These reps have one responsibility – to move stock out of their company warehouses. While most process the orders, these are ‘turned through’ newsagent warehouses with an additional cost for newsagents of between 5% and 10%.
So, we are buying badly because of a labour intensive sales process, deals add to the cost to support newsagent warehouses and newsagent time is taken dealing with reps. None of our competitors have these costs.
Smart newsagents a re tightly managing the time they give sales reps. They are also establishing direct accounts and negotiating better deals – so they can compete. This is where there is an opportunity – for entrepreneurial newsagents.
For our channel to compete in today’s marketplace it has to rid itself of practices which disadvantage us. While that will be unpalatable to longer term newsagents, suppliers and possibly industry owned warehouses, the reality is that unless we cut costs out of the supply chain we will not be able to hold our own in the stationery place.
There is a case to be made for carrying the whole range of one brand opf everyday pens and markers. This increases negotiating strength and enhances the in store story. It also cuts time with reps. So, with more time, more capital and unlocked retail space the newsagent can evolve their business to be more competitive.
Peter Dunn, a newsagent from Tamworth, blogs at Newsagency News. It’s a good, grass roots read, about newsagency life in rural Australia. We need more blogs like this.
Google in the US is about to get 500,000 real estate listings thanks to a deal with Realogy Corp., owner of the Century 21 and some other real-estate brokers. The BusinessWeek report says 58% of all searches for “real estate” are done on Google. Trulia is also to benefit from these listings. See the press release here.
Specialty paper is another ‘habit’ based product which newsagents could do well with. It fits with our demographic and lifts the look and feel of the shop. Once people have made an invitation to a party or some other event they are hooked and come back for more specialty papers and the bits and pieces needed to do the job.
This fashion related product sits well near the greeting card space – they serve customers chasing similar outcomes.
The keys with this category are to partner with a good supplier; refresh the stock regularly; display it well; and, locate it near your card space – it’s not a stationery item. Each of these ‘keys’ requires the newsagent managing, indeed driving, this part of the business. The rewards for such entrepreneurship are good.
To those who note such things, and there are plenty, for all the difficulties faced by newsagents there are opportunities which, if seized, deliver handsome rewards. This specialty paper area is one.
A great thing about card sales in newsagencies is the regularity of seasons. Easter is generating good interest as is, surprisingly, St Patrick’s Day. Based on a couple of customers I spoke with on the weekend newsagents seem to be top of mind with these seasons.
These seasonal promotions fit in with habit based products that I have discussed here before. It’s why I like them. The more newsagents embrace and promote even small seasons like St Patrick’s Day the more they are known as the place for these. It worked for us last month with Chinese New Year.
The best move we ever made was moving our greeting card space to the front of our newsagency.
The rumor put to me today is that Australia will have its first suburban free daily newspaper by the end of this year. I’ve been told to expect a newspaper which is mX like but for an older demographic, something which takes a statewide or national view of issues as opposed to what we see in suburban newspapers today.
I’m suspicious of the rumor as it would go against the trend of newspapers – but then there is the US model seeing hundreds of thousands of newspapers delivered daily to ‘subscribers’.
Whether the rumor is true or not, new newspaper models need to be discussed and debated by newsagents.
Across at our Find It online classifieds business we have introduced fast ads – advertisers can create an ad in seconds. We’ve done this based on feedbck from newsagents and others using the site.
Here are eight of the seventeen aviation, flying titles I receive at my newsagency. The average supply quantity is 2 copies. The titles are suppliers by each of the three magazine distributors.
While there is no doubt that I am overloaded in this category, the magazine distributors would not see that. They only look at what they supply. In fact, no one looks at the whole category, all titles supplied, when determining supply and this is where newsagents are significantly disadvantaged.
Magazine distributors will look at their sales data in this category for my store and say it’s gong okay. To them, selling one copy where they have supplied two or three is a success. One copy of each of the titles supplied is not a success for me. If I ask to cancel a title some will initially refuse because of this one copy sold.
The reality is that the category could be far more efficient for my business by cutting at least one third and maybe more of the titles. For example, I don’t need three titles about modern airliners. I suspect that consumer interest would be satisfied by one title. This is the kind of category management which is crucial if my newsagency is to achieve a reasonable return on retail space.
This discussion could be about almost any other category in my newsagency – or any newsagency for that matter. Magazine distributors know about the problem yet they do nothing to help newsagents resolve it.
My blogging this weekend has theme – the impact of online and mobile technology on the newsagent model and the lack of interest newsagents have in that impact. My purpose is to try and draw attention to decisions which need to be made by newsagents today so they have relevant business models for years to come. From what I see, newsagents are in denial. This is in part fuelled by poor coverage in industry journals on such matters.
This post is about lotteries. The image (top left) is from the Tattersalls website. Tattersalls offers tickets for sale to anyone anywhere – if there are location restrictions they are not obvious. Golden Casket also offers tickets online but to Queensland residents only. Golden Casket offers a small trail commission to retail lottery agents who support this initiative. Tattersalls offers nothing. NSW Lotteries, SA Lotteries and Lottery West do not offer tickets for sale online.
Selling lottery products online is efficient and easy. This business will grow and while lottery retailers will not see an impact for a year or two, the impact will come.
Given the importance of lotteries in driving traffic to newsagencies, this is another area of our businesses which needs consideration today – especially given the considerable investment in the required lottery specific sales counters.
I missed the launch last year of G24, PDF versions of the Guardian newspaper by section. What I like about G24 is that it is always up to date since it is compiled automatically as news is published, layout is good and I can select the sections which interest me and therefore manage the download size. As a consumer I also like that it is free.
New Journalism Review, courtesy of Media Guardian, reports some fascinating stats for newsagents who want to understand the implications for their businesses the more of readers online:
– Monkey digital magazine is said to have 275,000 subscribers. Monkey is said to have cost £150,000 to set up compared to the £7m and £5m respectively for print titles Nuts and Zoo in the UK.
– National Magazine Company in the UK, publisher of Cosmopolitan, Good Hosuekeeping and Men’s Health attracts over 4 million visitors a month to their websites.
The newsagent channel cannot deny that publishers are building new models online. Publishers won’t tell us because they need us to remain committed to print and to give their brands strong retail support. Once a tipping point is reached, and this could be many years in the future, print will not be viable and then we will realise the role we have played in facilitating a smooth transition.
I’m not upset with publishers. If I were them I would do the same. However, I would like more transparency from them about their medium to long term plans so that newsagents are more informed as they make capital investment decisions.
I am upset with newsagents and those who lead them for not being more proactive on the disruption to their businesses as a result of online and mobile technology.
Given the anecdotal yet important evidence emerging from London about the impact of their free newspapers on paid circulation in that city, it would be appropriate for a study to be undertaken in Melbourne and Sydney to determine the impact of MX on paid sales – especially if rumors of extensions to the circulation reach in these cities are true.
There is less adult magazine trash to clean up today compared to two or three years ago. By trash I mean plastic bags left from sealed magazines opened are read or stolen. While this could be due to browsers who open sealed adult magazines cleaning up their trash, It is more likely that there is less interest in these magazines. Sales in the category are down so it stands to reason that browsing is down. Theft too. The adult category is one where online is impacting sales, and trash. I know in my shop this category is browsed less frequently than I can recall in my last 11 years here.
MeadiaPost has the story. Up for grabs is around US$1 billion in advertising. Microsoft says the bulk of that will move online by 2010. This is the hot story of the moment bouncing around marketing and media news sites this morning. As the MediaPost story says, Microsoft is following its consumers.
This is further evidence of the challenge to the traditional newsagency, a challenge which can be met through strategic and entrepreneurial business management.
Oliver Luft writing at journalism.co.uk seems to think so. He writes about colour e-paper Fujitsu previewed at a conference in London a couple of weeks ago.
Here we (newsagents) are fighting about who should sell newspapers, home delivery fees and all manner of print product issues and on the other side of the world attention is on the technology which could ultimately replace the print product.
If you’re coming late to the discussion on e-paper then check out the Wikipedia entry for homework.
I’ve heard that a women’s version of Monkey is being developed in the UK. Regulars here will recall my earlier report about Monkey, a UK digital magazine available free. It’s targeted at the young male demographic. The weekly women’s magazine would be targeted at the young female demographic and is expected to be free.