This is an excellent article in the Australian Financial Review about what the Big Retailers Coles, David Jones and Woolworths are now planning or have implemented their own premium cards.

These retailers have the scale to achieve by themselves a dramatic shift in the market. The big banks love it because by driving consumers into these corporate cards they get a premium fee. Who pays those higher premium fees? The answer is YOU the retailer. I blogged about it earlier.

Here is how it works. I as a consumer get a BP CITIBANK premium card because BP gives me 5% off. Not a bad deal for me, the consumer. However, when I use this card at a newsagency because it is a premium card, the credit rate charged to the newsagent is much higher.

In some newsagencies about 40% of their turnover now is in cards and with these premium cards growing at a rapid rate, these fees are going to become a major expense.

It does make the Tyro offer look better probably as they are not the issuer of these cards so they do not have this interest like the big banks, in pushing these cards. I can see that one of our rivals is now following us again on Tyro as well. Good for him too, as much of these big organisations loyalty programs are being funded now though premium cards by smaller retailers.

I was challenged yesterday by one newspaper supplier over my conclusion here that many of the problems with subagents relate to small orders.

To a newspaper publisher, a sellout means that a potential customer for a newspaper, may not get a paper.

So I ran posbrowser using our benchmarking data to compare the subagent order size with the sellout rate. The overall return rates were about the same.

Here is my results for newspapers

Number of Orders...Size of order...sellout rate%
----------------------------------------------
371...................1-2...............37.74%
202...................3-4...............25.74%
271...................5-10..............23.25%
196..................11-20..............28.06%
328..................21-50..............18.29%
359...................51+...............15.04%

Explanation: The first column is the number of orders considered. The next column is the number of papers on the order. The last column was the rate that no returns occurred - sellouts.

So in the first line, I compared 371 orders with one or two papers. Of these 37.74% had no returns. Similarly the second line out of 202 orders of three to four papers, 25.74% had no returns. And so on.

As you can see, it is the smaller orders that are more likely to sellout.

Just to update you on our Dialtime/Billexpress replacement.

I now use a combination of Tyro, E-pay and iinet internet Naked service to replace the whole set-up. The performance of Tyro is good and the new set up, can save some money too. The Naked service including all local / national call free and phone line charges. It starts with $49.95 plan (residential but iinet don't care even you use it inside business location). I am using the $79.95/month. I just transfer the line using by Dialtime to them and $79.95 including the line charges/30G+30G data on ADSL2+ (my lines are running at least 18mbps or above) and unlimited local/national phone calls free, 29 cents/min for phone calls to mobile.

Tyro give us over 10M plan and E-pay commission is the same as Dialtime.

We have saved some money and the performance is far better than before.

Thanks and best regards

Mr To
HORNSBY NEWSAGENCY
SHOP 3008, WESTFIELD SHOPPINGTOWN
HORNSBY NSW 2077
Tel (02) 9476 3208

Although Bill Express did not go to the conference, it is a hot topic for discussion here. I was annoyed that they did not come and I thought that they should have sent someone just to be there. That this did not happen says plenty.

From what I heard the three most likely scenarios are.

Bill Express continues.

Say the amount owing is not as large as some have said and the creditors give them a chance to work it out. For us in this scenario, it will be back to normal.

Bill Express is taken over

In this scenario, although the company is gone, the assets of the company still function. Why not? This company was producing six million dollars a year, if it seems like it can keep it up then it is worth a lot. The assets are still there for example in many newsagencies now, Bill Express (except for Optus) is doing well. Here another organization would run Bill Express. Furthermore, if say the ANZ took over Bill Express, then it might be better for newsagents.

Another possibility here is the creditors put in an administrator to run the company.

In this scenario, Bill Express for us would keep going the way they are now.

Bill Express disappears

This scenario is certainly possible. Although I doubt quickly. Creditors rarely move quickly, for example, MFS which was associated with VANA is now been given some more time. The other possibility here is that Bill Express imploded something that just does not seem to be happening. From what I can see most of the people are still there and their software development seems to be continuing as usual. These are hardly signs of a company about to go.

I do expect soon like a week, we will know the answer to what is happening. But my gut feeling is that Bill Express terminals, in the short-term will continue to work as they are now and probably for quite a while after that.

At the moment, all we can do is stay tuned for more details.

It is not complex just different adding bumper editions, so plenty of clients ring up just to make sure that they do it right. That I prefer to those that ring up after they get it wrong. Fortunately most of those are easy fixes but some can be bad. This work of fixing it is necessary but really frustrating as if we could only get all the suppliers to supply the information early we would automate the process.

At least we were ready for the Anzac bumper rush. We put on extra staff today as we knew it would happen. Still software support here got busy today.

Meanwhile our programmer in DOS (me) is working on an unrun bumper issue update for DOS like our windows version. It should be out on Monday.

[Link removed]

I confess that I did not think it would make it to court but right now the West Australian Newspapers are in a Supreme Court hearing in dispute with its newsagents and delivery contractors. The newsagents and delivery contractors there want a higher delivery fees.

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Just yesterday I was happy about the Australian Financial Reviews. This paper is a problem every year. I was determined that this year it would not be. So I made everyone make a special effort. Once told by Fairfax of what was happening with the Australian Financial Review, we tested a procedure for handling it. We then wrote out documentation on how to handle it. We then sent it off to our clients. I even got people to ring up people who mucked it up last year just so they would not call this year. We talked them though. It was clear sailing.

Today Fairfax announced that they are sincerely sorry but they have changed their minds. The sudden lateness of the announcement is breathtakingly appalling. Now we are trying to figure out a procedure to clear out the damage done as it is not easy to reverse what is done. It is a shame that all of us will not be able to charge Fairfax for this.

Bishops News & Stationery

We have just launched our brand new website!

Be sure to have a look, for all our latest specials and what’s new!

We will be updating the site on a regular basis.

Thanks

Steve Bishop

This is not POS Solution's problem but a problem for people who use other systems.

Anyway what we are seeing is to quote Josh Billings “There are people so addicted to exaggeration they can't tell the truth without lying.” So therefore I have put together some FAQ type questions to answer questions on what the HWT latest compliance requirement means.

Q: If I do not have a contract with HWT in Victoria am I affected?
A: No.

Q: If I do not do HWT deliveries am I affected?
A: No.

Q: What exactly is the problem that HWT sees that caused this issue?
A: HWT has a project which involves collecting and overseeing its subscribers, to complete this project they need the newsagents subscription data weekly. Many newsagents despite frequent requests by HWT have not been sending this data. HWT now feels the solution is an automated method using broadband to process and send the data.

Q: Are only DOS users affected?
A: No. My understanding is that any newsagency that is not sending subscription data automatically is effected. The ruling now is that newsagents must be sending this information automatically by the end of June 2008.

Q: What is HWT terms for those people that are effected?
A: My understanding is that until March 2008, HWT will offer any affected newsagency up to $10,000 interest free loan for 12 months to pay for anything to fix this problem. After March 2008, if they do not comply it would be nearly impossible to sell a newsagency as HWT will not approve the software at transfer. Then after June 2008, HWT intends to take action against newsagency using clauses in the existing contracts.

Q: Are only POS Solutions clients affected?
A: No. Although most of newsagents on the HWT list are POS Solution's clients there are at least two other software vendors substantially affected as well.

If you use one of the vendors which has clients affected maybe you should ask yourselves where will my software be in a few years if say lynx takes off.

Q: What does POS Solutions intend to do about this problem?
A: We intend to upgrade our software so users will have the feature that HWT require.

Q: Will I need to upgrade any extras?
A: There maybe some equipment cost as HWT requirements include broadband. For this we would suggest a computer with at least Windows 2000. Although we have not done any tests we expect that for many Bill Expresses broadband should do. This is free.

For some old computers systems we may need to do a site inspection to see what is required.

Q: I am affected but I am not a POS Solutions client what will happen to me?
A: You need to get a new system. From what I have been told there will be no easy solution for you.

As I stated before this is not POS Solution's clients' problem but a problem for people on other systems.

Having said that I would like to invite you to look at our software and find out why I believe it is the best on the market.

An information sheet is available here.
/blogs/pictures/DOSTOBROWSERFREE1007.pdf

If you did not want to go windows then we could supply you with an approved DOS system too. One that is I believe the second only to posbrowser in power and speed. It can and does handle a newsagency with extremely fast response rates of ten cash registers, a 1000 home deliveries and 50 subagents, with more analysis and reports that you have ever seen.

Plus we are now the only ones that can provide you with an upgrade path from DOS to windows if in the future you were forced or just decided to upgrade to windows.

Recently performance has been improved with the loading and editing of subagent orders. The orders section has been changed to allow selection of what type of orders (i.e. you can view a breakdown) to speed up loading time considerably.

Here’s how it works.

From the side menu, select Subagents and then Subagent Maintenance. Call up a subby and then select the type of order under the Standing Orders tab.

Make a selection and then click the Get Orders button. You are then shown the paper orders for the conditions you have chosen. Note: you can change tabs now to view the other breakdowns.

Pos Browser is constantly being update to become faster and more useful.

Many of our clients have attended these Newsagent mastery conferences. They all seem very positive about it.

Last year one of our clients Terry and Shirley Howland of Emu Park News was their overall winners of the 12 month Newsagents' Challenge so as well of winning monthly prizes, they also won a 12-day adventure to China and Hong Kong. I have done that trip too and its a great trip. Click on the photo for details

This conference is in NSW and will be held this weekend Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 October 2007

Newsink is the lowest cost Newsagency promotion group,

Newsink is the original inkjet marketing group

Newsinks aim is to make your store the destination store for inkjet cartridges and associated IT products in your area

For just $250 a year Newsagents receives the following:

·Rebates from Newsink suppliers, currently 4% payable monthly,

-Tonnex for Original Equipment Manufactured (OEM) products,

-Keytek for compatible products

·A minimum 5 promotions a year with your stores personalized address header on your flyers. (cost of flyers and distribution at newsagents expense)

·100% Genuine OEM products

·Reliable service and delivery

·Ability to participate in consumer promotions provided by HP, Epson and Brother

·Reseller rewards program provided by Tonnex, choose from over 400 products LCD TV’s Holiday’s Homewares etc

·Competitive pricing to bring customers to your store

·Your personalized account manager to help you manage your account. Freecall 1800 number provided by Tonnex

·Ability to participate in Reseller promotions- By purchasing from Tonnex you are able to participate in reseller offers available from HP, Epson and Brother,

-I.E. Epson’s recent print, preview and project offer, whereby Resellers were able to redeem home theatre projector valued at $1699,

-HP free $300 fuel offer for just buying 60 HP inks in the 1st week of October.

·Access to P.O.S and merchandise provided by HP, Epson and Brother

·Access to exclusive products provided by HP, Epson and Brother; such as twin/tri packs and bundle packs which are always great value. Previously only available to major retailers, e.g Officeworks, Harvey Norman etc.

·Great trading terms 30 day account, FIS for orders over $250.00 from Newsink suppliers.

If you join Newsink now, for October you will receive the following

1. $300 free fuel voucher for every 60 HP inks on a single invoice from Tonnex between the 1st – 8th October, pay for inks 30th November!

AND Rebate of 4% on value of HP stock Approx $1500= $60 + 3000 reward points

2. 2 Free Greater Union movie tickets for every $500 Epson consumables ordered from Tonnex in October + rebate of 4% on value of Epson stock $500 = $20 + 1000 reward points

For the first week in October you can receive:

#$300 fuel + $60 rebate + 2 Movie tickets($30?) + $20 rebate = $410 APPROX + 4000 reseller reward points + 5000 bonus reseller reward points for filling out the Tonnex account form.

#Buy 2 lots 60 HP inks receive 2 x $300 free fuel!

The more you sell the more you get back in rewards.

October promotion will have products and consumer offers to bring more customers into your store.

REGARDS

Neil Chandler
NEWSink PTY LTD
M: 0417340817
P: +61 3 9879 4319
F: +61 3 9870 3552
 

I went today to a meeting to discuss getting the new smartcard tickets for Victoria’s Public Transport network into newsagencies. This will soon replace the current metropolitan ticketing system, Metcard, as well as V/Line tickets for trains and coaches, and ticketing on major bus lines in Traralgon, Moe, Morwell, Ballarat, Geelong and Bendigo.

I do confess that when I heard Bill Express dropped out because of the low margins offered, I thought what is the point of all of it? So I went in with low expectations. That was good. If I expect little I am rarely disappointed. The only reason I went is that I have to go as for many of our clients these transport tickets are important. So off I went.

When I came to the meeting the VANA representative was there together with the ANF representative who had sent their transport expert down from NSW were waiting. We started the meeting and as always my competitor came late again.

Now as explained to us these products are a bit different to the existing system. You don’t buy a ticket that the consumer gets is a smartcard. Instead of a consumer buying a ticket for $9 for the day, they put whatever they like on the smartcard say $50, and whatever trip they make, the transport authority takes off the fee owing for that trip. You see here one of the main advantages to the transport authority immediately is fewer consumer transactions. Here they are doing instead of five transactions, one transaction. Hold that thought!

Whether it will be used for other types of transactions is unclear but probably it will also work as a smartcard. If so it will be directly competing with the new Telstra and NAB system coming out early next year which works through VISA. That one much swisher as all the consumer does is wave their mobile phone over a merchant’s contactless reader. Yes soon our mobile phones will be a VISA card.

Once the meeting started we ran though the technology needs. They offered us several choices. The one that we preferred is the direct link into the P.O.S. software. All you do is call up a product in the cash register, put in a price and our software handles it just like any other product. The delay we were told would be somewhere between .3 to 1.5 second. I like the idea of having a hotkey that when you press on the register and $20 goes into the smart card.

Soon however the meeting drifted to the financial issue! Note this is all early days and it could all change tomorrow but at the meeting they stated they wanted daily sweeps of the merchant’s bank account. Also, the proposed margins were going to drop for Met tickets from about 4.8% a transaction to 12 cents. I think it is a much higher drop than that! To quote my example above merchants now make 5 commissions at 0.44 for a $9 transaction =$2.20 now they make 12 cents.

I was thinking to myself, is it any wonder Bill Express pulled out? However, this question is not for me but my clients individually to decide.

Anyway if you want to know more details check out their site.
http://www.myki.com.au/

For us what works the best is direct mail.

So we get people to sit a little room, work through the weekend to print thousands of brochures and pack them up into letters send them off to newsagents all over the country. So to start our launch of a new marketing campaign for our Newsagency software we sent out this brochure for posbrowser which is the best Newsagency system out. I am not prejudiced!!!!

It has some brilliant features all designed for a newsagent by an organisation that knows, lives and is focused on that market. It is a major business management and time-saving tool that enables you to be more competitive in your business. Some of it features would be

1) Fully integrated multi-shop capabilities. The ability to run multiple stores from a central location with added features like stock transfers, centralised reporting and transferable customer rewards.

2) Touchscreen registers that support integrated EFTPOS

3) Stock on hand control using electronic order generation based on Replenish, Focus (sales trends and Min/Max methods (Dynamic & Fixed)

4) Automatic electronic ordering/invoicing for most major wholesalers and simple tools to help others get started

5) The power to add new stock items to your database automatically when receiving goods

6) Customer membership loyalty features including automatic redemption vouchers, gift vouchers, discount vouchers, automatic emailing, register lucky numbers and birthday alerts

7) Automatic Group Sell features calculated at the register (Buy 2 get third one free etc)

8) Notes and alerts for stock that prompt at the point of sale. (Free gifts etc)

9) Built-in register cashup process

10) Statements that support BPay and credit card payments that can be emailed directly from Pos Browser

11) Wireless PDA support for stocktaking, order generation, label printing and stock enquiries

12) Stocktaking that works while your trading

13) Automated backups and program updates – just leave Pos Browser to do it

14) Limitless combinations of automatic discount structures for customers and business groups

15) Complete remote management so you can spend more time away from the store without losing control of your business. Check out page two to see how this all comes together.

16) Complete tracking and recall of every transaction

Regards

Bernard

If your interested in going to the next level and getting on-line communication between you the booksellers and book publishers. Please let me know AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Note this service is not a free service and there are charges. I believe that ECN currently charge $40 a month plus 30 cents an invoice to a user. This makes it roughly compatible to XchangeIT.

If we get enough people showing interest in this service now we can use our existing system to communicate with them. Then there will be no charge to you for that from us. The ECN will wear the extra charges. However if not, the ECN will charge and we will have to do a major development in which case there will added charges.

So we do need more users for the ECN Group for our users to subscribe now.

If you’re interested let me know now.

Our software manager is a keen but not good golfer. Every year he is off to the VANA & Industry Partners Golf Day. Which we are one of the sponsors.

We tell him, don't let us down on the course. Just beat someone, anyone.

So I am pleased to say that this year one of our clients, Gary Lovell, representing Lovell's Shepparton Newsagency, came back with the NAGA and not him.

Apparently, it was a great day.

PETER J BEARDSLEY,

From: Beardsley's Swan Hill Newsagency, Tattersall's, OfficeSmart & Cartridge World
Sent: Tuesday, 13 March 2007 2:48 PM
To: Bernard Zimmermann
Subject: MAGAZINE CONTROL

Swan Hill Region - "Heart of the Murray"

Hello Bernard,

Only a few days ago, I emailed pos about the best way to find out certain data on non selling magazines.

Then today in the mail – el presto ! I’m sure NOT as a result of my request, but who cares !

The “New Features for Controlling Magazines is a big HIT”

Wow ! Sensational ! Well Done !!

The feature of it is its simplicity, a couple of fields to enter – that’s it. The search is very quick and the end result / outcome is exactly what is required and perfectly presented.

One could ask for no more on this topic !

Thank you.

-------------------------------------------------------
From: Bernard Zimmermann
Sent: Tuesday, 13 March 2007 5:03 PM
To: Beardsley's Swan Hill Newsagency, Tattersall's, OfficeSmart & Cartridge World
Subject: RE: MAGAZINE CONTROL

Now you have done it, I will put this in our company blog. Thank you.

-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Beardsley's Swan Hill Newsagency, Tattersall's, OfficeSmart & Cartridge World
Sent: Tuesday, 13 March 2007 5:18 PM
To: Bernard Zimmermann
Subject: RE: MAGAZINE CONTROL

FEEL FREE TO.

YOU KNOW WHAT I’M LIKE – IF ITS GOOD I’LL SAY SO. IF IT’S BAD I’LL SAY SO AS WELL!

WELL DONE