In the days leading up to Christmas several times I heard customers in my shop comment to each other that they should hold off buying calendars because they’ll be half price after Christmas. The same comments were being made in stores around the country. Early discounters marked calendars down by 25% to 25% from November. That is what newsagents would usually mark them down to right after Christmas. The damage done to consumer perception about the price of calendars by discounters like Big W (Woolworths) and others we have to come out of Christmas Day at 50% off and then go to 60% from New Years Day.
Calendar publishers and retailers who rely on calendar revenue will need to take a very different approach to the 2006/07 season. We need strategies which take us out of the discount marketplace, strategies which result in a product/service mix which allows a premium price and which the discounters are less likely to follow.
Something must be done because left as is, there is no point in my newsagency and thousands like mine being =in the calendar space.
The only comfort I have is that Calendar Club and other similar specialist offerings are, anecdotally and off the record, making similar negative mutterings.