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

Magazine browsing made easy

madison-counter.JPGWe’ve taken the stand supplied to us by ACP to promote their 600 page COOK cookbook last year and turned it into a magazine browsing stand. It was a logical move – we noticed that COOK was browsed regularly so rather than trash the well designed and made cardboard stand we thought it could work with the right magazine titles.

We have started with Madison as shown in the photo and will move on to other titles which work with the red colour and lend themselves to the browsing experience. Also, with women more likely to browse at our counter than men, we will focus more on fashion and food titles. Oh, and we will only use the stand for monthlies – we don’t think it’s right for the weeklies and they are well promoted elsewhere. Also, promoting monthlies better reinforces out point of difference.

If this works for magazines and leads it a measurable increase in sales the next step will be to see if we can make a more permanent unit with a slightly smaller footprint.

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magazines

ACP and APN in online joint venture

Another day another old media company investing more in online business. Scoop NZ has the ACP Media release. Here are the highlights :

ACP Media Limited (‘ACP’) and APN News & Media Limited (‘APN’) have entered into a joint-venture to develop the free online general classified site http://www.sellmefree.co.nz.

ACP and APN believe that free, live and multi media rich trading environments will be an important part of the future of buying and selling general merchandise for the private individual.

The joint-venture brings immediate benefits to sellmefree.co.nz including: • accelerated development of the product offering including a free auction service and enhanced multi-media and live functionality; • a significant investment in marketing; and • a major increase in private listing content from print assets in key population centres.

“The proposition for private sellers expecting to sell general goods for free with photos and videos, and for buyers to be able to buy right now is clearly gaining ground. This trend is backed up by over 300,000 registered sellmefree.co.nz member accounts currently”, says Heith Mackay-Cruise, Chief Executive Officer of ACP Media.

Newsagents need to ask themselves what connection they have with online business models. Last year my company offered newsagents access to revenue from our Find It free online classifieds business. 800 ended up registering with us. 400 have signed contracts. Less than 100 have actually engaged with us in our beta release marketing activity. Unless newsagents act soon, online revenue will be lost to them and they will have to rely on print only.

What ACP and APN want to bring to sellmefree already exists in Find It. If you have something to sell or give away advertise it free at Find It. Help us provide competition for these big media companies.

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Online classifieds

Explode magazine still popular

Searching for Explode magazine on Google lands more people at this link on my blog than searches for any other magazine title. Huh! Explode magazine is the short lived magazine aimed at teen boys from Pacific Magazines. Every week or two I receive an email asking where old copies of explode can be obtained or whether there is a website. I’m surprised the website did not continue – now, www.explode.com.au takes you to the Total Girl website – further frustrating those interested.

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magazines

Loving customer service

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When Ben Kay, manager of my newsagency, sold “Zelda” a syndicate entry in the $33 million superdraw they got to talking about what they would buy if either won a major prize. Ben’s dream purchase is a fast boat. “Zelda” promised to buy it for him if she won. Similar conversations are shared across newsagency counters every day. It’s a level of personal and friendly contact which is rare in retail. It’s non existent at mass merchants.

“Zelda” didn’t anything in the superdraw but she wanted to encourage Ben to keep dreaming. She brought in this envelope to the shop with a couple of photos of boats and the message KEEP ON DREAMING “MAN”.

I’m glad we have people like “Zelda” as a customer. We enjoy her company.

I hope the Victorian State Government considers the personal service newsagents offer when they contemplate changes to lottery licencees this year. I can’t imagine “Zelda” being happy about having to buy her lottery and scratch tickets from the supermarket.

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Customer Service

Lottery counter integration

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I’ve had some great feedback here and offline about my post yesterday about integrating the sales counter. This photo shows part of the story at our counter – the placement of a point of sale register between two Tattersalls terminals. It means we can sell anything from the Tatts points. This helps us include products at the Tatts counters and be able to sell them from there. We’ve had success with magazines, pens and some gift items at seasons.

The register, along with the other two point of sale registers at the counter, allow us to track all Tattersalls sales and thereby measure the efficiency of Tattersalls product to the business overall. We can tell how many times people buy Tattersalls product and nothing else as well as what they do buy when they buy other items.

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Lotteries

Small business policy failure

ap_jan07.JPGThe Government owned 863 Post Offices have launched a stationery sale using this flyer. Nowhere is it promoting postal products. This flyer directly targets small business newsagents who rely on back to school / back to work promotions to kick start stationery sales for the year.

It is offensive that this Government owned business so aggressively and relentlessly targets small businesses in this way. It is even more offensive that the Minister responsible, Senator Helen Coonan, refuses to even talk about the millions of dollars in sales Australia Post is ripping out of the newsagency channel. Instead, she responds to queries with letters way off topic. My last letter still awaits a response.

My newsagency is directly opposite a Government owned Australia Post shop. They are taking stationery sales from us. They do this by abusing their monopoly privilege around postal products and promoting traditional newsagent stationery lines. I do not have exclusive traffic to leverage off. I do not have their marketing budget. I do not have a government protecting me.

For all its bluster about deregulation and competition, when it comes to Australia Post the Government is looking after its mates.

Newsagents, their families and their employees are the losers as a result of Government failure on small business policy.

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Australia Post

Fairfax and News acquire online businesses

Courtesy of Andrew Pascoe’s under the rotunda Blog I found out that News and Fairfax have been buying another online business each:

News Digital Media has purchased Moshtix, the online ticketing business where patrons use their mobile phone as the ticket to enter events.

Fairfax Digital has bought Essential Baby, a parenting website.

While publishers have spent hundreds of millions acquiring online revenue streams, newsagents are yet to spend a cent. Am I alone in seeing a problem here for newsagents?

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Media disruption

Seller beware, maybe the buyer is not that interested

Several newsagents report being approached by business brokers looking to buy their newsagency. Upon suggesting they would be interested to talk further they are presented with a confidentiality agreement which is very skewed to the buyer.

If you are approached to discuss possibly selling your newsagency DO NOT sign any confidentiality agreement without getting independent legal advice first.

I have seen a situation where someone purporting to be interested in purchasing a business used this as a cover to find out more about the business so they could acquire the lease and pay nothing for the business.

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Newsagency challenges

Size does matter to the big American book store

A big book store put up a sign crowing about having 3,000 magazine titles in stock. The newsagent put up a sign saying they had more than 3,000 magazine titles in stock. The manager of the big book store complained to the newsagent saying the sign should come down. Hmmm, yes, it should come down. How dare a newsagent tell the truth that they have a better range of magazines than a US bookstore chasing after Australian small businesses?

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Newsagency challenges

Imported magazines out of date

import.JPGWe received stock of this issue of Crafts Beautiful on January 3, a week after Christmas.

Like many imported titles with a seasonal theme it can be out of date by the time it arrives in the shops.

While I like the point of difference stocking such titles offers newsagencies, it makes the shop look lazy to have such Christmas stock on the shelves.

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magazines

Integrating the newsagency sales counter

Newsagents need to take back control of their counter. The counter is the busiest part of any newsagency, the key profit generator, yet in many newsagencies it is suppliers who are in control. Lottery companies, magazine publishers, just about everyone, wants in on the action. They want their stands, display units and products at the counter. So much so that in an average newsagents the counter is mess of mixed messages.

Reclaiming the counter should start with the lotteries area. Lottery companies like a defined part of the counter where nothing but lottery product is sold. They tend to prefer the best counter location. It means customers wanting lottery product can make their purchase and leave – without being tempted to purchase other items. It also means that customers purchasing a newspaper, magazine or some other product are less likely to be tempted with a lottery product purchase.

I am all for integrating the counter, mixing lottery sales points and regular register points and merchandising the counter appropriately. A properly integrated counter, against the rules of some of the lottery organisations, should increase sales of lottery and non-lottery product.

In integrating the counter newsagents ought to focus on higher margin repeat business, thereby building the business so it can weather a downturn in newspaper and lottery sales – both categories of products are being impacted by online developments and are the top two traffic generators for newsagents. In other words, newsagents will be hit hard if/when traffic and sales from these two fall.

By leveraging existing lottery and counter traffic with an integrated counter, newsagents can start to reposition their business and re-educate customers about their offering. This is exactly what publishers are doing with their online and free models.

While some lottery companies will resist the integration I propose, newsagents need to put their business needs first.

Today we have great traffic, among the best in the country. By acting now and leveraging that more efficiently and across a broader range of better GP product at the counter we can weather generational change.

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Lotteries

Newsagents worried about free daily newspapers

The Sunday Herald in Scotland has a story about the possible impact of a recently announced free afternoon newspaper on newsagents. The UK newsagent association (NFRN) is holding meetings of members and with the publishers to discuss the lost of sales and customer traffic caused by free newspapers.

As data from Dr. Piet Bakker – published here just a few weeks ago – shows, free daily newspapers are growing. Even though Australia is behind Europe and the US, they are gaining traction. These free dailies provide publishers with an easy sell to advertisers and are being used in many situations to boost advertising sales for the paid for product. It makes sense. In Europe especially publishers have been very successful maintaining revenue through by launching free daily newspapers.

While it’s natural that newsagents will complain to publishers about the impact of these free newspapers, my view is that our energy is better spent expecting the move and adjusting our businesses today accordingly. Free newspapers are not new, we have seen them growing for the last five years. This is change we can prepare for today. Indeed, it is change we ought to have been preparing for long before now.

We need to rely less on newspapers for traffic and revenue. This means we need to build traffic from other categories. It also means we need to adjust the layout of our businesses and focus on higher margin traffic generating product toward the front of our shops. While publishers will resist such a fundamental change – given that newspapers have always had the best location in our shops – they need to allow us to respond to market trends just as they are through acquisition of online businesses, moving their product further outside the newsagent channel and by launching free newspapers.

The newsagent channel in Australia was created by publishers to serve their needs. In 2007, newsagents must put their needs ahead of publishers. Tough decisions face us and we must be businesslike and swift in making them.

For the record I am not advocating that newsagents get out of newspapers, rather that they invest real estate and labour in newspapers according to their anticipated return to the business.

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Media disruption

3loves free online dating passes 3,000

Our 3LOVES free online dating social media site has passed 3,000 profiles. We’re seeing over 500 messages shared between members each day and we’re receiving feedback from people who have been on dates as a result of the site.

The connection with newsagents is that media companies (News, PBL and Fairfax) are attracting eyeballs to their online offerings through dating sites. 3LOVES is a traffic generator for Find It – low cost classifieds we’re launching in partnership with newsagents.

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Online classifieds

Bill Express and bopo executives work with newsagents to mend bridges

I met with senior representatives of Bill Express and bopo (the Australian pre paid Visa card) for two hours on Thursday to discuss the charging of newsagents for training in selling bopo account top up. The meeting came about in part due to blogging here. It was a frank and fruitful discussion and, I’m pleased to report, not the only such consultation with newsagents on this matter. I am confident they will respond to newsagent concerns about the training and, at the same time, further guide newsagents as to the business opportunities of bopo.

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Bill Express

OK! weekly gaining traction

ok!-magazine.JPG

In the two and a half months since OK! moved from monthly to weekly sales have been growing from what I can see. This is due to its striking visual point of difference, consistent quality and, in my experience, consistent supply to newsagents – thus enabling us to better display the title. As the photo shows we have positioned OK! with New Idea, Woman’s Day, WHO and Famous. Being in such high traffic real estate, ensures browsing and, with OK!, browsing is key as it builds consumer recognition. We’re also achieving sales having OK! displayed toward the front of the shop near the lottery counter.

I’m not seeing any decline in sales of other weeklies in my newsagency and it is this growth of the category which is most welcome.

The challenge will come if the price moves, as it must. $2.95 for a weekly of this quality is not good for me. I also think it sends the worng message to the consumer once they see the production quality. Based on current sales I need to be making almost double what I am making at the moment to break even on my labour and real estate investment. That’s not a complaint as I’m happy, for the moment, to invest in extending the category.

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magazines

$2,000,000 in newsagent cash missing

Further my post earlier today – I’ve been contacted by enough newsagents to know that the slow down by Network (PBL) in handling magazine returns will cost the small business channel around $2 million in cash-flow. That is, a $2,000,000 cash liability to Network seems to have been shifted out by 30 days.

Nice work if you can get it.

The magazine returns process and cycle is well established. The change by Network, while permitted under their trading terms, is unexpected and unfair. It is hitting this small business channel at a time when many will not be in a position to carry the cost to their bank balance.

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Newsagency challenges

How NDD steals cashflow from newsagents

bargain.JPGLast year NDD sent us 64 copies of bargain shopper. We returned 34. Some weeks later they sent us another 40 of the same issue and we returned 30. Some weeks later they sent us 29 and we returned 18. In all, 133 supplied and 82 returned – a 38.3% sell through rate. Fast forward to this week, NDD, a company claiming to be magazine distribution experts, sent us 75 copies of the 2007 edition of Bargain Shopper.

This is unconscionable conduct by NDD. There is no support in our sales data, data they also have, to support such a scale out. In my store alone this title is costing me $559.68. Based on my sales history I can expect to return more than 60% of stock supplied. This means I will have $447.75 of my cash being held by NDD purely for their benefit. The cost of this cash, the real-estate taken and the cost of labour wipes out any profit from the title.

It is appalling that my newsagency and thousands of other newsagencies are being abused by NDD in this way. It is this behaviour which is killing our channel. I will lodge a complaint with the ACCC about this conduct. Hopefully other newsagents will as well.

While I will also early return the half of what I have been supplied and make a case to NOT pay for this excess stock, it is appalling that my time is wasted with this activity.

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magazines

PBL shifts magazine cash from newsagents

It’s January and time to process the return of unsold magazines from last month. I am hearing from newsagents that Network, the PBL magazine distribution business, is not wanting all last month’s unsold titles back yet. For example, in several cases, stores have been asked to return one week’s returns for Woman’s Day from December 2006 but no the others. This means the stores carry the cost of unsold product an extra month.

If the reports I have received are accurate and if it applies nationally, the bottom line benefit to Network could be over $2 million. That’s money sucked out of newsagencies, small businesses which cannot afford such a cost.

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magazines

US TV Guide digital edition 61% cheaper

TV Guide sells over the counter for US$2.49 and, as of this week, is available online for US$1.76 per issue through digital magazine vendor Zinio. It’s logical that TV Guide titles move online but, hey, as a retail newsagent I don’t want to lose these sales. Ah, change…

The Zinio TV Guide offer could be better – truly interactive. It could use the program guide as a navigation aid to drill into stories one would usually expect to find in other titles. Now, that would be disruptive.

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Media disruption

Telstra and Australia Post to take on eBay?

Fleur Layden at the Courier Mail has the story claiming that the Trading Post division of Telstra owned Sensis is in discussion with Australia Post about an escrow arrangement to offer buyer protection for expensive items.

While I don’t see this move as them taking on eBay, it would have been courteous if Trading Post had talked with newsagents, their more natural partners. While sales of the Trading Post have tanked, we all still carry it in our stores. Partnering with Australia Post is flawed because the 863 or so Government owned outlets are open 25 hours a week less than newsagencies.

To take on eBay, Trading Post needs to be more competitive on price, provide tools for better quality ads and address eBay’ weaknesses such as ticket scalping.

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Newsagency challenges

Newspaper home delivery woes

The theft of home delivered newspapers is a worldwide problem as this blog post by New York resident/writer/journalist Dimitry Kiper shows. No matter whether you’re in rural Australia or high rise New York, there are tight ar*se people who prefer to steal a newspaper than buy one. In our small newspaper distribution round it used to cost us at least two or three newspapers a day – newspapers our distribution people were certain they delivered.

I wish there was a way we could humiliate these petty criminals. Two hundred years ago people were transported from England to Australia and a life of hard labour for stealing less.

I found Dimity’s blog post courtesy of Jeff Jarvis’ BuzzMahcine.

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Newsagency challenges

Free WiFi trial at newsXpress Forest Hill

We will offer free WiFi access from our newsagency in Forest Hill Victoria on a trial basis from Monday next week. We’re working up promotional material which provides context for the trial. Part of our pitch will be that we’re helping our customers go beyond the pages. It will be interesting to see how it goes.

Forest Hill is way out in the suburbs of Melbourne. It is not a commuter heavy area so I’m not expecting huge numbers. This trial is more about seeing whether such a trial has any value in the ‘burbs.

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Media disruption

Marie Claire hides its brand

marieclaire.JPGOops. I reckon that’s what execs connected with Marie Claire will be saying when they see their product on in newsagencies this month. Check out the photo to the left. It’s a waterfall display of Marie Claire product in traditional newsagent magazine fixturing.

These free sunglasses hide the brand. They also require considerably more real-estate to display the product.

While the offer is good, the execution is poor. The publisher would have been better served providing newsagents sunglasses to hand out from the counter. In fact, this is what some newsagents are doing – it protects the giveaway product from damage and almost certain theft. While this initiative by newsagents takes time, it’s an example of them protecting the product and better serving their customers.

Suppliers complain about lack of compliance from newsagents on a range of fronts. Here’s an example of lack of compliance by a supplier.

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magazines

Next generation birth notices

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Emma Riley Welsh is the first born of Simon and Julie Welsh. Simon is one of the software developers at Tower Systems. Click on Emma’s name and you’ll be taken to the birth notice Simon placed at our Find It our new online classifieds business. Birth Notices at Find It are free. This includes photos, video and sound. Newspapers ask the family welcoming a new born to fork out $50 to $70 for an old style birth notice. The guestbook also allows well wishers to make the Birth Notice living. This birth notice is another example of Web 2.0 at Find It.

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Online classifieds
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