Chadstone is the super-regional shopping centre in Victoria. It is the biggest shopping centre in Australia. Claims to be the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere and the fashion capital of Australia. 

It has about 530 stores. It gets the highest turnover of all Australian shopping centres. Every year has more than 20 million visitors.

To get a shop there is very difficult and many want one even though the rent is a fortune.

This was some scenes inside centre under stage 4 lockdown. It gives a feel of the economic devastation of this lockdown. Generally, there is no matter what time you go, a crowd of people is there. When I took my daughter there just before the pandemic hit we were waiting to get a place to eat in its huge food court.

If you sell gift cards for your shop, you will find this relevant.

This week, JB Hi-Fi started taking preorders for the new gaming consoles. There is from the public much interest in these consoles. Sales for these consoles are expected to be huge. 

However, there was an exciting twist that took these preorders into the news.

JB Hi-Fi announced that to preorder you could not use your JB Hi-Fi gift card for payment. This started a stir on social media, as this was seen as unfair. The argument here was that no-one said anything about such a restriction when they got these gift cards. So began a media storm. Here are some samples here and here.

Soon JB Hi-Fi reversed its position and now will accept gift-cards for preorders.

The lesson here is that you cannot restrict people from using your gift cards as cash unless you write something in your terms and conditions. If you have some technical reason why you must only accept cash, then do what JB Hi-Fi did get people to pay in cash and then reimburse them from the credit card in cash.

Note: I our POS Software you can restrict customers from using their gift cards, but we do not recommend that you do. You can also do the reimbursement into cash.

So this is your chance to join the world's largest trade fair free with the click of a button! This is because of Covid-19, the Canton Fair is online and free to visit. If you paid to go, you would need a solid week and would cost quite a bit. 

Actually, according to Wikipedia, the Canton Fair is the .. largest... trade fair in China. But the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, states "it is the largest trade fair in the world" and "its a 'must go' trade exhibition for anyone that deals with China", and there are few shops today that do not buy or sell Chinese products today?  and its "An ideal place for people looking for new product ideas and opportunities."

If you are not used to trading with China, "on 13 October, the Victorian Chamber of Commerce & Industry is running a free information session to help. 

It is worth a visit for any retailer in Australia. Chinese fairs tend to show stuff you can use now. So you will see the latest products being released now. You will get some new ideas. Plus, see what is available. I can assure you that many of your suppliers will be there. 

Want to learn more, click here.

What you will notice is that successful companies focus on the long-term. If you think about it, there is often little you can do in the short-term. You can do more in the medium-term. You can even more in the long-term. Plus, it is the long-term where you can see the critical changes in your business environment.

I will show you here a quick and effortless way to look at your long-term trends in your shop. It will take you less than a minute to do, but I promise you that you will have many hours of thinking.

What started this off was a big discussion by newsagents on a report recently issued by Google on "Australian Media Landscape Trends" but concentrating on "What caused the decline in Australian newspaper revenues?" You can find the report here. It makes interesting reading as it is well researched. This is why everyone was so impressed with it. But, what caught most of the interest was the figure Google released on the fall of print circulation. It seems way off. In 2002, print circulation sales in this report were $1.3 billion. In 2018 it is listed as $0.8 billion. If the figure in 2002, is correct, then the figure in 2018 seems to be much too high. There may be many reasons for this apparent discrepancy. Although there is nothing in the report about it, many small businesses incurred much more significant losses due to this eg, the milk bar, newsagencies, etc. that made a living selling newspapers. A thousand newsagencies gone, and the rest have suffered significant losses in valuations. No-one is talking of compensation for them!

Anyway, what was wanted is a way of telling a small business what their figures would be. How do you get such a snap-shot of the long-term of a business?

To find out; a visual graph is the best.

Here is an example, this is a graph of newspaper sales in a newsagency from when the owners took over in 2005 to the end of this report in 31/12/2018

The green arrow is about when they first decided to give up newspapers. As you can see, they were large in newspapers, and their fall was much larger then what Google states. Looking at the graph, you can see that the trend down is accelerating after 2008. Soon they decided that it was not worth doing the work for sub-agencies or deliveries, so they dumped newspapers. Then they only took the newspapers back after many discussions.

It is a fascinating example, but you can do this for any dissection or product that applied to your shop. If you are doing this, I recommend working by month. It smooths out the daily sales variation but keeps the patterns. Plus, its the way most people think about their sales in monthly terms.

Go to Cash register reports> Sales > Sales dissection monthly sales trend.

Select a department, put in the dates. If you have it, look at 20 years and a few seconds to see the long-term.

See how you go and like always let me know as I am very interested in stuff like this.

The preliminary retail trade figures have been released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). It shows that Australian retail turnover rose 3.3 per cent in July 2020, seasonally adjusted. Interestingly turnover rose 12.2 per cent when compared to July 2019.  This is true in all states and territories except of course Victoria.

In my experience, these figures are what our leaders will be using to base their decisions

You can get more details on their website.

Considering what sort of a year it has been with bushfires and COVID-19, we can be all very pleased with that figure. 

We are all used to scenes like this, at the trade shows!

Years ago, people meet at trade shows as they went from stand to stand. They introduced themselves and exchanged information about current products. They saw new trends, learnt about coming innovations. They were fun for both the public and the trade people to go too. 

The most critical aspects for a show was the location and the timing. The problem was that it often costs a ton on money to go. I had a client that wanted to go to the Chinese Gift show. He was adding up the costs of airfares, food, transport and lodging. His biggest problem was the timing of the show, which was not convenient for him. For the exhibitor, there was all this plus a lot more costs. 

Well even before this pandemic hit, many of these shows were going. This was even before COVID-19 hit. I blame much of this on the internet. If I want to research an industry, I go to google. Why do I have to go to a trade show? Now in business, if it does not pay, people stop coming. This is what has been happening for years now. Attendance in most trade shows has been dropping. 

So trade show organisers started experimenting with virtual shows. Results were very dubious. Part of the reason has been the organisers, have been asking for too much money from the exhibitors. Plus most exhibitors felt that Virtual Trade Shows were no substitute for the real thing. 

Now there is another problem, COVID-19. This is why we recently got notified of another trade show cancellation, the Reed Gift Fair in Melbourne. It is hardly the only one; exhibitions all over Australia are cancelled. 

So now people have to assess whether to make a virtual show or have no show. 

It has a lot of benefits. 

1. Reduced costs as a virtual show is much cheaper to hold. 

2. Much more accessible for people to attend. 

3, They can last longer, a suitable venue can only be booked for a short time, virtual shows can last as long as you want. 

I saw a recent report, that stated "by 2025 more than 65% of traditional trade shows would be virtual and by 2030 this number will have jumped to 85%. " 

So where are we going with this? Well, things are not going to back to normal. Face it, why would you want it to go back? I attended a virtual show recently on a new computer range with AI sensing. These computers promise to be much faster than current computers. I would never have attended as it was *held* in India, but with an internet connection, I could go. I asked questions and saw these computers in operations. I was sold and we intend to be selling them soon. 

This is the future of trade shows, virtual! 

In these troubled times, when everyone is getting lost on what to do. We are seeing the entire country is coming come under quarantine orders. Consumers are shunning human contact. Retailers are scrambling to adapt. What is reassuring is the work done by the various retail associations to me notably VANA, Pet Industry Association, VECCI and the Pharmacy Guild

I am in communication with them often. I know that they are in contact consistently with major decision-makers. I would say the advice and help that they are giving me and their members have been first class.

Who knows what to do now?

To find out I am reading all the information they are sending. Sometimes this helps me to know what to do. If I do not know, I am grateful that I can ring them up to get an explanation so explain to me the situation. What I do appreciate is if they do not know, I am getting the truth that they do not know. I also appreciate that they are explaining to me fully the situation.

I confess without these peoples help now. I would be lost.

I am happy, and almost all my clients would agree with me that when they need their local community, is working for them.

Yet there is a lot more work as it is clear that this situation will last months. The Spanish flu lasted from February 1918 to April 1920.

Where I disagree with many people, is I doubt after we are going back to what was. This virus will change the reality for us all. There is no going back. People are getting used to a new type of shopping. Shops are reporting to me that they are seeing customers that they have never seen before. Many of the people that you used to deal with are not coming back. Their customer base and so their needs have changed.

Google has created a new tool — Rising Retail Categories — to provide retailers with information on the fastest-growing product categories in their search results. The point Google makes is that since the outbreak of coronavirus, there has been a significant change in consumer interest, so to help retailers see the changes they have created this tool. I picked on the category "Greet & Note Cards" selected Australia and looked at the past week.

Not surprisingly Mother's Day was big, but interestingly birthdays and anniversary cards were on the increase.

Here is a video to explain it.

If you want to have a shot click here have a play and see what you think. I think it will give you some ideas.

These figures are what are leaders will be using to base their decisions, so like many people associated with retail, I was looking forward with great interest to see what these people produced. You will find their results here for the March month. 

Unfortunately, it is limited as it only breaks it down into these retail types

Food 
Household goods 
Clothing, footwear and personal accessory 
Department stores 
Other retailing  
Cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services ;

The spreadsheet, I think that you will find to be the most useful is: TABLE 3. Retail Turnover, By State 

Now select the retail type you find most useful and compare March 2019 to March 2020.

Now you will get a feel of what the government and ATO think is happening now.

From what I can see, based on these figures food and household goods are up. No surprise there as many people were sitting at home with little to do in March so they cook and fix up the house. Conversely, clothing and restaurants were taking a big beating although not as high as I expect. We will need to wait till April as lockdown only started in Australia in late March so most of that change here is the voluntary lockdown. which we can expect to continue after the official lockdown ends. People are not suddenly going to go shopping just because the government says they can.

One point that does appears based on our figures that it does not show here but I think you will find when you compare figures is that people are shopping less but buying more on each trip. 

We are now shortlisting candidates for the Department of Social Services Cashless debit cards in the trial which we are involved.

Now the Federal Government has decided to extend the trials, while I don’t have any inside knowledge of future government decisions, I believe that It is likely that within two years, these cards will be Australia Wide as these will be I expect the primary means of paying social security. 

I know that stores on the program are positive about it. 

Currently in some areas now, over 60% of the people have these new debit cards. For most of them, it is their only financial means. The situation now is if you are in these areas, if you cannot accept these cards, you cannot make much trade with these people. 

We are very pleased with the fierce competition out there that we picked to do the trials in our market space we were picked by software and computer experts. 

In the long term, by numbers, depending on how you count between 33% to about 50% of Australian households get social security payments and with our aging population, this is likely to increase in the future. Plus I can also see many people with drug and gambling problems volunteering to go on these cards and the courts enforcing these cards too on people with problems. 

If you want to look at it in dollar terms, we pay about $180 billion now in social security a year of which at least 80% plus will probably go through these cards. The adult population of Australia is around 18.2 million, so just with that, we are looking at about $9,000 a person a year.

For many retailers now these cards are significant and I am sure soon for many more.

As many of you know Bauer Media has been doing some intense cost-cutting including closing its entire New Zealand arm.

Now it looks like it is trying to amend the agreement for Seven’s magazine assets, however what is worrying is if you read this article about it here.

Mumbrella understands some parties are concerned that should Bauer Media choose to exit Australia, or be unable to

continue business here.

For magazine sellers this could be very serious as Bauer Media is the publisher of the Australian Women’s Weekly, Woman’s Day and Gourmet Traveller, among many other titles.

It appears that the Bauer may be reconsidering its proposed purchase of Pacific Magazines deal despite getting ACCC approval.

Everyone is sure it has to do with the uncertainly of coronavirus.

If I was Blauer,  I would be wondering about coronavirus firstly what it will do to circulation. Some think that with more people at home, reading magazine will grow in popularity.

Still, that is not the big revenue issue but the fact that that the outlook for advertising spending is down, the prime problem here is the postponement of significant events such as the Olympics.

If it does not go ahead, I think that it is unfortunate for many magazine resellers, as the commercial reality today means the acquisition it is necessary to produce cost cuts required by the industry.

Having said that despite what has been said the circulation declines in the last few years, I expect more magazine titles closing. What is important is that this acquisition may reduce this trend.

A competitor released a dubious statement which among claims is that they serve more newsagencies then anyone and that this is shown by evidence that is 

1) recent

2) independent

3) verified 

As such from what I gather their system

1) the industry standard - something that I doubt eg much in magazine processing and lotto they cannot do.  

2) Not expensive - something that would surprise many of its users and me too.

When I queried them about what the evidence, it appears that it comes from a series of court cases they were involved in going from 2004 to 2009, hardly what I would call recent.

If so it would not be what I would call independent.

They then claimed to me that the other side agreed with the facts. The problem here is that the case never was resolved in court so that the judge would not have assessed this. Still, then it gets puzzling as I went through the court records and the opposing barrister's book, which has the information they need in the case. I can find no record of such a document. When I queried my competitor about this, I am still waiting for a reply. Until then, it is hardly what I would call verified.

So I have great doubts about all this, but I am willing to keep an open mind if they want to show me the evidence. 

Note: We offered to have an 

1) recent

2) independent

3) verified 

report on this subject with them, when it mattered and they refused.

Many of you have contacted us to ask us what is happening as a result of the Afterpay Touch Group winding down their eService business. 

Please give us some more time.

To fill you in, if you are not following the story.

Touchcorp was in Dec 2016, was making a profit of 11.5 million dollars

Take a look at its revenue figures in yellow and its profit in blue from the report 

See what Afterpay are walking away from? It states much of the changes in the economy.

We do not consider the ePay terminal, which is not integrated as a satisfactory solution.

But rest assured that we have been on to it. We have spoken to Touch management, ePay, Telstra, I think all major gift card distributors in Australia, the fisheries departments, NewsCorp, WA news, etc. I have also communicated to a whole lot more, e.g. Optus, VANA (who by the way have not responded for some reason), etc.   I can report all of these are in a state of shock about it too.

This is partly as who wants an extra box on the counter and partly as there is so little margin to be made out of these products that to make it work, it must be integrated. Besides our integrated solution gives I believe the best margins to retailers, why should they drop margin on a terminal?

I told these suppliers straight out that we consider this a significant product to our clients who are doing in the high teens millions of dollars trade a year with these products. Okay I told them, it does not produce a high income because your margins are so low, but it does bring many people into the shop. As a first-level approximation as even a small shop is getting about two trades a day. Assuming a client acquisition cost in retail in Australia at about $15 and about a third of the trade is new customers, we are looking at (2 a day x $15 x 300 days a year x 3 years x 33%) = a goodwill value of about $10,000 lost if no alternative comes forward.

Okay, we hope to have something soon to tell you, but please give us a little more time as we are reluctant to discuss what is being proposed until we have confirmation about where our users and we stand. The last thing we want to do is to say something which does not happen. 

At the start of February, we were notified that the eServices from Touch Afterpay confidentially advised us that they were closing down. Apparently it does not fit into their strategic priorities and as such their long-term growth. This was a shock as we have been using this service for almost twenty years. It is a very good service.

Presently we are discussing the situation with Afterpay and with some of their suppliers all that appear to be quite in shock about this announcement. Everyone is saying that they did not get enough warning to make plans although several like the NSW Fishing licence sales, told me that they do not have an alternative in place so if you want to sell their products after the closure then you need to contact them directly and they will if you are approved they will put you on a manual system. 

Some suppliers, however now, are looking at options, as they know that many of their sellers will drop their products if they need to go to a terminal and/or manual system. When we have some answers, we will get back to you.

Now, all we can say is that we are talking to people, we are looking for options and we may be about to do something.

If someone wants to discuss it with me further or they have some information that they think they should share with us about it, please let me know.

Looking at the new distribution fees, they vary but as a first-level approximation, I would say its average of just less than 1.5%

Surely they should be more if only because the Australian inflation rate in 2019 was 1.90% but almost certainly NewsCorp views are that this is all the market could afford. They may be right.

Two interesting reports are now available for retailers interested in print. The Magazine where the key findings here are that overall on Year on Year figures (YOY) printed magazines are about 8% down in readership, they are not releasing sales here, and digital readership is not just a touch bigger than print and Newspaper where print is listed as being about 15% down, and today digital readership is almost three (3) times bigger then print.  

For those that sell newspapers, some history, once they printed newspapers, they discovered that they needed a runner to deliver it, so the paperboy was invented. For hundreds of years boys like this guy pictured in 1961, got up early to sell newspapers on the street and deliver them to people houses. 

To honour these boys and some females, although they tended to be older, today we have #NewspaperCarrierDay 

PS For those like me, that used to be paperboys, your in good company both Albert Einstein and Martin Luther King Jr were paperboys too.

This surprised me as its been a while, is that many in the lotto industry have not been following the news about Lottoland.

The matter went to the  NSW Supreme Court, and Lottoland successfully overturned a government ruling that threatened to end its business in Australia by declaring its gambling products illegal.

Lottoland remains in Australia.

I do believe that several people have much explaining to do with their claims they made to lotto franchisees about precisely what they would and did accomplish. Maybe that is why no-one is saying anything about it to them?

My view has not changed.

Lotto franchisers missed a golden chance to get something while the politicians, supposedly with their interests in mind last year, were talking of their concern for their small businesses.

I go every year to the franchise expo. 

I find it useful as I meet people, get ideas and see what is out there. This year I saw it was bigger than ever. Looking around, you always see something that seems interesting; you also often get a good idea of where the market thinks it is going. 

If there was any theme at the show, it is about having a theme product. A product that it has that stands out.Once you have that you can build on it.

I have always been dubious on franchises. What you are doing is introducing a new level. The problem here is that few SMB businesses have the margins to afford an extra level. Also if you want to be your own boss, why give yourself another level? Still, I have seen many do well in a franchise. Again, I had a chuckle when I saw at the show many stalls of lawyers, far too often franchisees need their services. The small business minister at the expo spoke a lot about this in her talk. You may want to check out this facebook group that I am a member of there are some excellent write-ups there.

Still franchises are growing, just about everything now is being offered on a franchise model, and this expo showed that they are growing bigger every year. 

One point I have made in the past, and I make it again. Many of these people going to the show are the sort of people that would be interested in buying many businesses in our market space. Many there have the money, ambition, will and are looking. So many in our market space missed here a golden opportunity to sell their industry.