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Cardplai, the only greeting card with the gift of music, is now available in an integrated form for POS Systems users.

To celebrate this Cardplai has a special offer exclusive to POS Systems users.

For one week only Cardplai are extending the introductory offer sign up security deposit for only $99.95, instead of the standard $199.95.

This offer also comes with a 7 day, full refund cooling off period.

Also the security deposit is counted as credit against your first card sales. After that, all cards are sold on consignment.

What is Cardplai?

Cardplai is the perfect gift for under $20.

The Cardplai range allows you to offer your customers a combine gift and card range that appeals to all age groups and incomes.

Each Cardplai greeting card allows you to go online to Cardplai and pick 10 digital tracks to make a mixed tape¹ from a catalogue of over 500 000 tracks.

For older or less technology savvy customers, they can simple buy the card and send it like any other card. The recipient then goes online and picks 10 tracks to download.

Cardplai allows to you carry a gift range of 38 000 albums in one small unit.

You make $5 from every card you sell and cards are sold on consignment.

If you feel that a gift range of under $200 that appeals to all age groups will help your business sign up today by calling 1300 651 252 or go online to fill in an application at cardplai.

Remembers, the $99.95 sign up offer is exclusive to Pos Systems users and finishes on Friday February 20.

Regards

Craig Harris
Tel 1300 651 252
Cardplai
Director

Online advertising is continuing its growth. You can see that in the newspaper advertising getting smaller.

Although the rate slowed, its growth is massive.

Much of that has to be from newspapers.

I am sure that it is worrying to some like Fairfax which had about 40 per cent of its newspaper revenue, I was told from advertising.

Well the Herald Sun have great hopes on their Monopoly promotion set for the 4th February. Previously it was one of the most successful newspaper promotions ever. Last year this promotion helped to sell about 300,000 extra copies.

So today Herald Sun are launching a massive TV, radio, press and online marketing activity to support its roll out. We hope it does well again.

I was reading this US study on the public for news sources. Although it is American, the same trend is occurring in Australia too.

To me, the most important conclusion from reading this article was this table.

Despite having an increasing variety of methods to get the news today, the proportion of people not getting the news has increased substantially over the past decade. Today’s public is less interested in the news!

This trend, I think we can expect to continue. The news industry not just our industry newspapers is in a downturn. It is ironic that newspapers are not the future in newsagencies.

The family flees Vietnam. The daughter died during the sea crossing. They set up a new life for themselves here. The son (Chinh Nguyen) has a dream to own his own business so he becomes a newsagent. Then there is a robbery for $195 in his shop during which Chinh Nguyen is killed.

A good man is killed for $195 and his murderer gets 7½ years nothing seems fair or right in this equation.

His Mum statement was so true. "Australia is a good country, so what happened to my son? He worked so hard, he did the right things and did not harm anyone. Why did this happen to my son?"

Terrible so sad, a tragedy!

John Sands have finally issued a complete stock file with categories for example anniversary, female relations, etc.

It is available here for downloading.

For this and other supplier files, please visit here

The NSW government will review whether to sell off the NSW lotteries.

So the Australian Newsagents Federation (ANF) announced that they want a "seat at the table" as part of the review. They are concerned about how these new owners would run NSW Lotteries.

But the ANF should be concerned about what the NSW government will do once it sells the lotteries.

Once sold, the NSW government to raise more revenue might allow new players like Intralot in. Then NSW newsagents like Victorian ones might have to pay extra to keep what they have now.

The Australian has an interesting article on the current situation with magazines from the distributors and publishers side as I stated, it is the weekly magazines that are in real trouble.

From my experience with Bill Express, I think newsagents have to move quickly to notify these distributors and publishers that they want to help with these efficiencies but it must not be at their expense.

Unlike Australia, US newspapers are continuing the slide down. A report states that

Combined weekday circulation of all 507 papers that reported circulation totals this year and last averaged 38,165,848 in the six months ending in September, 4.6 percent below 40,022,356 a year earlier.

To newspapers there it is a double blow as they have less circulation revenue and less advertising revenue. So to boost revenue, many papers there are increasing newspaper prices. This increase is causing only a small circulation drop. If so, a good case could be made in Australia for increasing newspaper prices.

There is an interesting article here on the start of the ACCC case against Bill Express and Mobius.

It is in the Federal Court. Unfortunately, the ACCC record in the Federal court is not brilliant and with $16.57 million a year in lease payments, I doubt the leasing company-Mobius will just go away.

I also doubt that this case will simply stop at the finance company now. Maybe that is right, that it should not stop there. Over $16 million dollars a year is a lot of money to lose for the industry! That is more than the entire IT budget for the industry. Surely the industry should not just forget about it and walk away. Maybe some should have to show that they did do the due diligence expected of them.

One of our clients won the award at the Shepparton Business Hall of Fame 2008.

Lucky Lovell's is one of the largest newsagencies in Australia and an institution in Shepparton. Also one of the most progressive.

Kerryanne and Renee from Lovell's Newsagency were awarded an award at the Shepparton Business Hall of Fame 2008 for Business and Service Excellence.

A newsagent asked that I look at Lovatts publications. He felt what the industry was saying, he was not getting. Was he doing something wrong?

According to the Wikipedia article here. {link removed}

Lovatts Publications… has developed into Australia's leading crossword and puzzle publishing company, with a range of 20 crossword and puzzle titles, 12 in the top 10% of magazines sales.

The problem I have in doing a benchmark on this section is that it is difficult for me to know which are Lovatts magazines. So I use a simple rule, if in the title it has Lovatt in it, it is one.

I then took a benchmark of all the magazines sold in newsagents from the three major suppliers YTD. Weeded out a few and got 4617 publications. So my top 10% would be 462 publications. In that list, Lovatts got 15.

So they are selling better in newsagencies, than elsewhere or they are underestimated in the industry. This maybe as this organisation is active in the newsagency industry. I know I have spoken to them a few times and it has always been positive. They run good promotions. They have their own newsagency ordering system which has bought their returns down so saving newsagents’ cash flow dramatically. Because of this, newsagents do promote Lovatts.

Looking at the percentage clearly they are in total, a minor section with 1% of the total. My concerns started when I looked at the comparison with last year YTD figure when they were 1.4% of the total. That is a huge drop in such a small section.

The trend on my observations for Lovatts does not look good

YTD...............8.40% of NDD DISTRIBUTION products and 1.03% overall.
Last YTD.....10.74% of NDD DISTRIBUTION products and 1.44% overall

Quarter..................7.41% of NDD DISTRIBUTION
Last Quarter...........8.54%

My first thought was maybe this shift from NDD doing the orders has not proved effective. Maybe we are seeing the effect of undersupply. NDD have after all access to more information than Lovatts do. Sometimes it is better to piggy back on someone else rather then do it yourself. Or maybe the internet and publications expanding their puzzle section is having a long-term affect. I cannot say. All I can report what our own benchmark figures are saying.

Still I suggest that newsagents look into their magazine sales reports and make their own conclusions how it is going.

The top three sellers in this section are

LOVATTS COLOSSUS CROSSWORDS
LOVATTS CLUEWORDS
LOVATTS MEGA!

I was speaking yesterday to a person who is trying to get newsagents to sell magazine subscriptions. What he offers the newsagent is a commission that is good for a virtual product. I then mentioned that newsagents are concerned, that this commission is much less than the profit that a newsagent would earn if a client buys the copies of a magazine in the shop. He replied that magazines bought on subscriptions are not really the same as those that sell in the newsagencies; so many newsagents could open themselves up to a new type of customers by selling magazine subscriptions.

After he left, I decided to investigate on the magshop

I looked around and saw their top ten listing. I then compared it to our benchmarking project for network products.

I then made this table.

Description---------------------Mag No------Newsagents
TOP GEAR-------------------------------1-------------64
AUST WOMENS WKLY-----------------2--------------9
WHEELS---------------------------------3-------------32
GOURMET TRAVELLR-------------------4------------142
SHOP TIL YOU DROP------------------5-------------36
COSMOPOLITAN-----------------------6-------------15
MONEY MAGAZINE---------------------7-------------43
CLEO-----------------------------------8-------------16
Australian GoodFood-------------------9--------------?
AUST PC USER-------------------------10-------------27

To explain the table

The top selling magazine in MAGshop.com.au is TOP GEAR; to newsagents from network it is the 64th best seller.

WHEELS ranks 3 in the MAGshop.com.au but in a newsagency it ranks 32.

MONEY MAGAZINE ranks 7 in the MAGshop.com.au but in a newsagency it ranks 43.

Australian GoodFood has a ? because it is new.

Overall these magazines make up about 6.3% of the newsagencies network magazine account. Of course there are many more magazines in MAGshop.com.au than just these, so you could probably double it.

But he is right when he said the typical subscriber is not buying the same magazines as the customers in the shop.

I looked in the newsagency-benchmarking project to see British Tobacco products. They have been falling dramatically. I then checked a tobacconist shop just to confirm and they are down 40% more then the average. Clearly, the public are reducing smoking. It must be a worry to many of our clients who need tobacco for example in Tasmania.

In addition, sales are falling in dramatic steps as newsagencies are moving out of cigarettes. In this publicity photo of a site at recent posbrowser, install in Victoria. Look at the background, behind the happy newsagents. You can see the space dedicated to tobacco products is tiny. The inkjets have taken over that space.

The top three sellers now in British tobacco in newsagencies are

HORIZON 50 BLUE
WINFIELD 25 S BLUE
WINFIELD 25 S GOLD

For many of my clients in Victoria, Tasmania, Northern Territory, ACT and though Golden Casket in Queensland Tattersall is very important.

What is good about following a public company is that they have to release their information. Clearly, Tattersall has not had a good year. I am glad I did not own any shares in them.

Unfortunately, like so many companies in the ASX, these report seems to be incomplete. For example, no mention of the growing competition from online gaming is barely mentioned. Now in the Northern Territory bookies, are turning over billions of dollars much of it I am sure is at their expense.

Also, they have so many interests that what we want in the report is buried in other figures. Considering Tattersall's importance to the industry, it is strange that an organisation like the ANF does not hire an analysist to go over these figures for us. I can assure you that Tattersall's do studies of newsagents. Like many large newsagent suppliers, they know more about newsagents than newsagents know about them. That is a big no in business.

From the report, you can see that Tattersall has suffered a huge loss to their business in Victoria and clearly they could lose more there. The move to Queensland looks like it has worked for them. I am not surprised as I know from my meetings with them, that they are good operators.

What also helped them this year was an amazing series of luck that gave them many jackpots!

Although we have no breakdown by state in the report, newsagency products have increased by 5%. Which in today's retail market is a good result? Unfortunately for us, it is unclear whether this increase was because of the large growth in Tattersall's outlets this year or because of an increase in existing shop sales.

It shows our benchmarking project importance because without it, no-one will tell you how products are moving in newsagencies. I will do an analysis of how scratchies tickets have gone in different states over the last few quarters.

If you want to join the benchmarking project and get a regular analysis of your shop please contact Nextra or our benchmarking officer Andrew Lloyd on Ph:(03) 9597-7222

As we stated at the recent Nextra conference where we displayed our benchmarking data, how limited the ABC-audited magazines' figures are to newsagents.

In the ABC list for the period from January to March 2008.

From this, here is their list of the top ten magazines

Rank...........Description
1..............Australian Women's Weekly
2.............*Woman's Day
3............ *New Idea
4............. Reader's Digest
5..............Better Homes & Gardens
6..............That's Life!
7...............Super Food Ideas
8...............*Take
9...............*TV Week
10..............Cosmopolitan

Yet from our benchmark studies, these are the top ten magazines selling in newsagencies from January to March 2008.

Rank.........Description
1............WOMAN'S DAY
2.............NEW IDEA
3.............THAT'S LIFE(N)
4.............TAKE 5
5..............NW
6..............OK WEEKLY(N/A)
7.............TV WEEK METRO
8.............SELECT NRL CARDS
9.............WHO
10...........ZOO WEEKLY N/A

As you can see, it looks different. It does not even start the same and the further you go down the list, the more different they look.

Also, note how number 8 SELECT NRL CARDS shows that this analysis for magazines in a newsagency should be by state and how items can be missed. SELECT NRL CARDS is a major seller in newsagencies for Network Services, yet if you depended on the ABC list you would miss it as it is not a magazine.

Newsagents now can get better figures then the ABC figures.

Here is an interesting article on the status of the “hell or high water” contracts that newsagents though Bill Express have with Mobius Financial Services. Apparently the potential value of these totals about $15 million.

I noticed that Allco, the owners of Mobius have not released an ASX announcement about it probably as it does not affect them, as this potential loss will be worn by many of the bond holders of Mobius not them.

There are some interesting points in this article here.

Despite what some people said, the rumours of the debt owing were accurate. The administrator said that Bill Express owes ANZ $53 million and the biggest telcos another $110 million. Overall he states the total is over $250 million without the newsagents' claim. Clearly the administrator is not accepting the newsagents’ claim yet, only that it exists.

Not that it matters as there is nothing in the Bill Express's kitty to pay the $250 million much less the newsagents. Now there is a new debt, the administrator who charges $580 an hour! Since they are paid in full first, I guarantee that they will be clocking up many hours.

Readers here will know of Corie and Tammy Schwarzl of the newsagency at Tuggerah. What happened is they took a franchise with Supanews and it did not work out! So now there is a massive court case in progress.

Corie just emailed me that they have added some comments.

It seems to be getting some comments now.

You can read their notes and people's comments 

Supanews is the largest newsagency in Australia. They have 41 goods shops or which they own all but 18 which are franchised. You can read about them online

What do you do when an armed robber comes into the shop? Do you stand up or just give him what he wants? It is probably a question you will not know the answer till it happens.

Well one of client's Beechboro newsagency decided to stand up. When a gunman came in with a sawn off rifle into this newsagency, the employees wrestled the gunman to the ground in the process gave him a blood nose and held him till the police came. Details are here.