Gordon and Gotch have set up an online shop selling books, magazines, music, movies, TV DVDs and games.

I checked the magazine section. They have some well-known titles there, but nothing Australian. Some of these are at competitive prices.

[Website has been removed]

What I find fascinating is that with our program you are not restrained to just the reports that we provide as you can make your own reports.

I decided to create an example by checking how efficient different magazine suppliers are in their distributions.

So I decided to created a chart with several categories.

The first category was the number of deliveries by supplier. If for example, twenty magazines came at once that would be one delivery. If another ten of the same magazine came the next day that would be another delivery.

I then created another category which I called oversupply. Those were deliveries that had either more than 25% returns or one, whichever was the highest. So if say twenty arrived if the number returned was greater than 25% of 20 = 4 then that would be an oversupplied delivery.

I then created here a special category called NO Sale where a delivery came and nothing was sold.

Finally I created a category where there was not enough in the delivery. That was where the computer estimated that if it had received more in that delivery the newsagency would have sold more.
Then I decided to display them in excel. It makes an interesting report.

Then I graphed them here.

As you can see, there is little difference between magazine suppliers using these categories as they tend to keep place with the number of deliveries.

It is just an example and you can, of course, create your own categories and charts using our software.

The Caxton awards for excellence is given for the best newspaper advertisement in seventeen categories. This one, I thought was amazing and it won several awards.

[Link removed]

I think that newspaper companies and newsagents could do more with these winning advertisements then they are now doing.

I have just come out of a meeting with some newsagents where some of these gloom merchants, just got to us by telling us that newspapers were dead. There are some that just love to push themselves by spreading bad news.

I agree that now it is impossible to predict if, the current economic crisis has reached its nadir. In our industry, the figures are better than most. A key indicator would be Australian newspaper circulation is only slightly down in the past few years as you can see in this chart.

I wish these people would peddle their stories to someone else.

With the recent announcement that kindle is available in Australia, there has been a dramatic increase of interest on the net in Australia. As you can see from the graph of searches in the last 90 days.

It is clear the Australian consumer is interested. This trend will continue once the Australian newspapers and magazine companies decide what reader they will adopt. The favourite, I believe now is the Sony reader.

If this technology spreads there has to be an impact in the industry, for example, the kindle would be useful for those consumers that buy newspapers and magazines for use in public transport.

I was talking to a large magazine distributor and it was brought up that many newsagents still do not have systems. You can see the problem the newsagency industry faces if you look at this chart at the large number in red.

It is a shocker to see how many people still do not have any system in their shops. The lack of consistency in the industry is holding us all back.

Let me give you a personal example. We had a meeting at Telstra about introducing a new product into newsagencies. One of the senior executives in Telstra in the meeting said "Can you guarantee us that all newsagents can handle this product?"

I said, “no because of the nature of the industry.”

So he relied "How can we advertise it as available at newsagents if some cannot handle the product?"

I replied you could advertise that it is available at selected newsagents.

So he replied, "Yes we can get around it but it causes problems."

Then it came up that if Telstra goes with newsagents only, there will be areas where the product is not available.

Now consider what Australia Post representative, could have said at the meeting if asked these questions?

While there is a major difference in the newspaper model in the USA and Australia what happens in the USA often happens here. So I was hoping with the economy picking up that newspaper circulation there would go up. Well in the USA, it did not happen. The latest print circulation in the USA for the top 10 newspapers showed a drop of 10.62 per cent in March-September 2009 compared to the same six-month period in 2008.

{image removed]

In the last year, in the USA newspaper circulation fell 7% on a year on year basis.

This Wednesday, we are having two more excellent online training courses for our clients for magazine returns. These are designed for advanced users who wish to know more.

To book your place please contact us.

Our comprehensive supplier catalogue is proving very useful for our clients. As it is getting close to Christmas we are starting to update them for Christmas.

We have put together a 

GNS Christmas 2009 Catalogue
GNS Christmas 2009 Newspower Catalogue

Very soon, the major magazine companies have announced huge changes in the returns procedure for newsagents.

Although our clients are lucky that we have the best magazine control and return system as seen by a recent study that showed they were returning fewer unsold magazines. Still many just use the basics and do not know how to use our systems to their fullest potential.

Used properly the magazine returns section in our software can save our clients many tedious hours of monotonous work. It is also important in helping them manage cash flow. One comment make by a new client who I blogged about here was since he came to us, he saved in his first month several hundred dollars on his wages bill.

To help our clients we have released five new documents on XChangeIT.

Setting up Creditors for EDI Returns

Checking and Fixing Issue Codes

Sending Network EDI Returns

Verifying Network EDI Returns Before Sending

Verifying Network EDI Returns After Sending

These are available here.

To further help our clients we will next week on Thursday, 29 October 2009, have two more excellent free online training sessions

There are courses for both Windows and DOS users.

Please click here for details

Fairfax company is now preparing to rolling out its new tabloid-size for lift-outs.

From Monday although the main part of the Melbourne Age will remain the same, the Business Day section will go tabloid-size. It also will be expanded to have more content. This is similar to what happened to the business and sports sections of SMH.

This is good as it has makes these sections more accessible to commuters.

We have just had a brief email discussion with XchangeIT on support to newsagents.

Please if you call XchangeIT and they tell you that it is not their problem but your software provider, please get the name of the support person at XchangeIT. Then note their name together with the date and time. This is because we often need to contact the person at XchangeIT for clarification.

This year according to Commercial Economic Advisory Service of Australia, advertising revenue drop is the biggest ever.

The revenue drops from advertising in newspapers and magazines.

Metropolitan Newspapers (-20.9%)
Regional Dailies (-14.0%)
Regional Non-Dailies (-9.6%)
Suburban Newspapers (-16.9%)
Magazines (-9.3%)

It is a disturbing trend that appears will continue.

As I blogged earlier, the newspapers and magazine companies should look at increasing the cover price and reducing these crazy subscription deals which come extremely close to giving away product.

With all of the recent changes to returns processes, POS Solutions has put together a series of help documents to help you get the most out of XchangeIT Link and EDI returns.

These will be released next week

Regards

Garth

Now many people have been PCs in particular laptops to read ebooks for years. On my laptop that I am using now, I have about ten e-books to read. Using its built in Wi-Fi, I download e-books straight into the laptop. I also read newspapers and my technical journals on my laptop.

Here is the one I use is a Sony e-reader. It is small and lightweight.

This laptop technology is not new, I and probably a million Australians use it everyday.

I am not even that sure I am keen to get an e-reader. Although I have never used the kindle, I have used the sony e-reader and was not that impressed.

What I really like about using my laptop is that it is a computer. For example if I have a question, I can highlight a word and do a search on the web.

I doubt that most of us now will give this up for the kindle. Possibly the threat is more the technology which is here now rather then the kindle itself.

That is the good news as this should shelter us from the Amazon kindle for a short time.

This is only a delay as the race is on by Australian newspapers to decide on an e-reader. Their favourite now is the Sony e-reader.

It is an excellent choice for an e-reader. I know a friend who has one. It is a nice stylish unit. It is the size of a standard paperback. I find it well-thought-out. It is cheaper than the kindle. Most important is it open for venders to use. Which is a big plus as no Australian newspaper wants to share profits with Amazon.

I would not be surprised if the sony e-reader is what Australians adopt.

Today I was asked about setting a subagent's credit term, the client had seen a newsletter about it but could not find the video as he had deleted the newsletter.

What he wanted to do was know how to put a credit limit on this accounts.

He then suggested that since training videos are now popular and that we should create a special section for Garth's training videos.

So I sent him the link for a video, that Garth created last month. Then I thought that he maybe be right, so I decided to post this video immediately and possibly create a new section for training videos on our website.

How it works is once the credit terms and credit limits for a subagent are exceeded, the account will be automatically stopped.

An informative webinar will be held next week to discuss doing network returns using the latest XChangeIT. It will discuss how it works and some issues in the use, that we have found.

It is designed for people that actually do the network returns.

Before doing the course, I suggest that you check out the following two information sheets.

They are titled

EDI Returns via XchangeIT LINK - Quick Guide FINAL

Quick Reference Guide - Shipping Unsolds To Network Services All states FINAL Sept 09

We are holding a webinar, on this too

Yesterday I went to a newsagent near Cairns. While having a delightful chat with the newsagent, I happened to notice a giftcard stand sitting uselessly in the back. Where it came from no-one knew but I suspect it was from Bill Express. I was stunned and said why not use it? They replied that it was useless. I told them for no expense they can use it to sell an extensive range of giftcards. As I explained what giftcards were, they became excited about handling them but they did not have the software to do it. So clearly they need a software upgrade from us, then we can turn that stand from junk to an asset.

[Image removed]

It is amazing what just sits uselessly in the back.

If you cannot receive your XChangeIT invoices over the next few days please restart your computer and try again. If this does not work then contact us.

The following communication from XchangeIT explains why

XchangeIT Newsletter

REMINDER

IMPORTANT INFORMATION – NEW VERSION OF XCHANGEIT LINK – YOUR ACTION REQUIRED

Dear Newsagent,

On Wednesday 30th September after 4:30PM version 40 as a major upgrade to XchangeIT LINK will take place. After that date and time your current XIT LINK WILL NOT WORK, until you reset or reboot your PC.

This will require some action on your part, as follows:

To Reset:

1. At a convenient time shortly after 4:30PM on the 30th September, right click on the XchangeIT icon (its the blue triangle) in your bottom right task bar
2. Select the Exit option. This will close the XIT application and remove the icon from your task bar
3. Go to your Start menu and select All Programs.
4. Select the XchangeIT Link and the XchangeIT Newsagent Client option. This will launch the XIT application with the new version installed.
5. Check in your Newsagent client at the top right corner just below the round picture of the world and you should see v1.0.40.
6. Send us an email to let us know you have completed the upgrade [email protected]

To Reboot:

1. At a convenient time shortly after 4:30PM on the 30th September, simply shut down all programs you might have running, and save any work in process.
2. Shut down your PC
3. After 30 seconds turn your PC on again. Start your regular programs and start your XchangeIT LINK EDI program. The new version 40 with a new security key should automatically load. You should be able to continue receiving and sending files as normal.
4. Check in your Newsagent client at the top right corner just below the round picture of the world and you should see v1.0.40.
5. Send us an email to let us know you have completed the upgrade [email protected]

To check what version of XchangeIT LINK you are running:

1. In your Newsagent Client look at the top right corner just below the round picture of the world
2. There you should see v1.0.40 after you have upgraded.

Michael Wells