At our stall in franchise expo, I met many people. As I talked to them, I thought these are the people who could buy newsagencies. They had the money, ambition and drive.

I know newsagents are not franchises but they are not exactly free businesses either. A newsagency is the type of business that people looking at franchises would find appealing. Newsagency figures would be very good compared to many of the other businesses on offer there.

I think the newsagency industry missed a golden opportunity to sell their industry.

This powerpoint report by Newspaper works just released was I thought was a good summary where you can see quickly how Australian newspapers are doing.

As you can see little has changed.

Note one point should be kept in mind was that during this period Australian population increased by 14% and newspaper sales were stable.

We were run off our feet yesterday with a constant stream of existing users stopping by to have a friendly chat and a barrage of new inquiries from sites with cash registers as well as sites with point of sale systems from various companies.

We were able to show some of our existing customers a glimpse of some new support initiatives that we are currently working on and will help to supplement our customer focus.

The staff at the hosting venue were excellent, very friendly and helpful. This years GNS fair has been a resounding success.

Regards
Adam

For the GNS show in Perth today, we put posters up of some of the awards that our clients have won recently. Because it just happened, we decided to emphasis the ACP newsagent of the year. Here they are.

I would like to congratulate our clients who won all the newsagencies awards, including first and second ACP Connections Newsagent of the Year 2010 Award.

The Lucky Charm Newsagency Townsville, was the 2010 winner.

It was really close as only a few points separated The Lucky Charm Townsville from another of our client's Cloisters Newsagency WA, Joanne and Henrico Smit who won last year. Who this year won the Outstanding Performer 2010

The Lucky Charm Townsville also took out the National Best Display Award for their sensational display efforts.

On our stand in Perth at the GNS Market Fair, we will be displaying our latest smart software. I am not sure that one day is enough as based on what happened in other states where we had so many people enquiring that we did not get sufficient time.

As well as meeting new clients, these GNS shows present us with an excellent opportunity for us to catch up with our existing users, and show them our newer features.

Today with the strong interest of the public on green plus the power of the green party what I do not understand is why the newsagency industry is not pushing that newspapers are GREEN?

Here is a youtube showing that.

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Green stickers should be on every newspaper and newsagency in Australia as Green today does sell.

Because of the problems on the XChangeIT board over the NDD equity issues we still cannot confirm a time when this will happen.

I think if Fairfax Media Publication could provide XChangeIT files for their products in the meantime without XChangeIT it would be a big step forward.

I was looking through this survey of UK iPad owners available here, [Page removed] people who own iPads are using them. What is very disturbing is that it is their preferred device for reading newspapers, magazines, and books. 43% of iPad owners use it, mainly at home more than 10 hours a week.

This is disturbing for the newspaper retailers with the growing usage of iPad and its brothers. Already over 300,000 apps for newspapers have been sold or distributed here. As the newspaper companies here are pointing it, it is already affecting circulation.

The spread of these devices will continue as people get more used to them, as they fall in price, with the generous tax concessions for educational use and state and federal government plans to distribute these devices in schools and libraries.

One positive point is that the main buyers of newspapers are over the 50s who are less likely to buy iPads. Still, newsagents need to plan for a faster decline in the circulation of newspapers and magazines as these devices spread.

John Sands use in XChangeIT files the following categories both our windows and DOS versions can give you reports based on this categories.

Category Description
A.......Anniversary
B1.......Special Birth
B2.......Female
B3.......Male
B4.......Juvenile
B5.......Birthday
BC.......Birth
C.......Convalescent or Get Well
DY.......Everyday
E.......Easter
EC.......Engagement
FD.......Father's Day
GB.......Gift Bags/Boxes
M.......Greeting Card
MD.......Mother's Day
RB.......Ribbon or Bow
S.......Sympathy
ST.......Stationery
V.......Valentines Day
VA.......Valentines Day
W.......Wedding
WR.......Wrapping Paper
XC.......Calendar
XG.......Christmas
XM.......Christmas
XS.......Christmas Special
O.......Others

Hallmark by the way have about 6 or 7 categories only, which I think is pretty useless.

These results have been publically released by B&T; today and are available here. Check out how well food, health and the renovation magazines have done.

Many of the magazines recorded a healthy increase, mainly I noticed those in food and the house.

Some actually surprised me like Alpha, I would have thought that with Ralph out that it would have done better this quarter but no, it went down 20%, not as bad as the last drop I recorded for them of 30.1% but still a very major fall for the publisher News Magazines. In comparison FHM, in the same category only went down 2.0%.

Overall it looks like Pacific Magazines have done well again and ACP dropped this quarter again.

Note I am not allowed to release the ABC figures today, so I will release the full set of figures tomorrow.

According to the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations the rate of decline in newspaper sales has slowed down slightly. Still the West Australian was the only metro or national newspaper to see a rise. Everything else is either static or down.

Monday to Sunday metropolitan titles are down 2.5% in the June quarter compared to the same period last year.

Looking though some of the major circulation titles, in NSW The Daily Telegraph went down 3.8%, the VIC Herald-Sun down 2.1%, the Qld Courier Mail was down 1.4%, the SA Advertiser down 4.1%, the WA The West Australian was as I noted above was the only exception with 3.3% up and the TAS Mercury is also down 1.6%

This seems to me the best solution for the transfer period.

We are in the process of finalising the process for titles & issues that where distributed by NDD that have a recall date beyond the last day of trade fro NDD. NDD’s Last recall will be sent in October all NDD distributed issues with a recall date after the last NDD recall form will be transferring to Network Services.

The process agreed with NDD is as follows:

* NDD to issue a full credit of net position (Stock on Hand) for each title as at the Transfer Date

* NSC to debit all agents for the Net position (Stock on Hand) for each title as at the Transfer Date

* NSC to generate a DD2 file for all titles debited.

* Issues will appear on Network Services returns forms when due for recall.

<..>
Any advice or ideas will be appreciated.

A list of titles and issues will be made available once the complete solution has been drafted. We intend to communicate the best practice process will all agents close to the dates.

Regards

Daniel Tisi
Network Supply Chain Project Manager

The Alliance of Australian Retailers has been receiving a lot of bad press mainly as many see it as a front organisation for the multi-national tobacco companies campaigning against the federal government's proposed plain packaging for retailing cigarettes.

The alliance on its website claims to be an organisation fed up with excessive regulation. It then quotes as an example the government's proposal to mandate plain packaging for cigarettes. Although I agree with them about excessive regulations, I do not feel that plain packaging for cigarettes, is a good way to present this case to the public. Nor do I see from the criticisms in the press that many others do either.

I suspect it was because of this bad press that the Australian Association of Convenience Stores (AACS) withdrew from the alliance with its members claiming that they had been misled.

I am sure that nothing good will come to the ANF if it remains in the alliance.

Here is a report by Macquarie bank that states Fairfax should do this. It is probably too early, but it is interesting that they are thinking about it.

Fairfax is expected to release their five-year strategic plan with its 2010 results. So we should soon have an idea of what Fairfax is planning.

GNS show images removed

Hi

I only got a chance to snap a couple of pictures today, we were so busy!! There were so many new customers inquiring about our window's software PosBrowser, and wanting demonstrations! We also had a chance to catch up with many existing users, and show them a lot of the newer features. Our customer display screen was particularly popular, as well as the Ipad! We are preparing for an even busier day tomorrow, as Sunday is traditionally the busier day for us! I will try and take some more pictures tomorrow.

As you can see from the picture, we had all the interest!! There was no room to move most of the day at our stand!!

Cheers,

Garth

When I saw publicity photos from Thurgoona newsagency,

I remember a discussion in our shop with my sister as to whether we should use a waterfall layout. I felt it was a waste of space, which reduced the amount of stock we could display. She felt as most of the stock supplied was rubbish, we would be better putting stock that sells in a second and even third pocket. You can tell us what you think in the end.

Many people who normally would come did not come to the show as unfortunately, someone has made a blunder and made a date so close to the ACP Connections Conference that kicks off next Wednesday in Fiji to this show. I suspect that both GNS and ACP connections have lost people as a result. I hope this does not happen again.

Because of the venue change from Mooney Valley, the fair looks quite different. Instead of stands in small corridors which are much more private, this is more open and cold particularly as it does not have clowns walking around.

However maybe because it look much more professional, the quality of the people manning the stands is much higher this year as almost all the suppliers have brought their top people out, something you rarely saw in previous GNS fairs. If you want to talk to the top people, the GNS fair tomorrow is clearly the place to go.

Two products that I thought worth a look were photo albums, which seems very competitive in price and watches. I am not sure how watches will go in newsagencies, but they go well in some pharmacies, and I cannot see why they could not move in some newsagencies too.

We were pleased with the result. Our stand was busy. In particular we meet some people with five shops who want to link them together using our point of sale system. So Zac, my business partner left on cloud nine.

The Melbourne GNS Fair is going to be held this weekend on Saturday July 31st and Sunday August 1st at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre (Jeff's Shed). So don't bother going out to Mooney Valley like you have in the past!

It is a chance for many people, whether they have a big newsagency or just a small one, to see our smart newsagency software. If you already have our software, we have some exciting new technology to show you.

We also will have both members of our sales and experts from our support department!