There is no magazine category more attuned to fashion than crafts. For ages it was quilting and then scrapbooking took over as the popular segment in the category. Now it is beads magazines. Sales are very strong thanks to new titles and the phenomenal growth of beads at retail – Kleins, Diva and others. Smart newsagents will use the bead magazines to anchor the craft area to make it more appealing as well as co-locating the titles at the counter. We’ve been doing this in my newsagency in recent weeks with excellent success.
This is where newsagents can excel – driving what other retailers would consider ‘fringe’ titles to underscore newsagents as having the depth of range to satisfy interests in areas such as beading.
Craft magazine customers are more likely to buy more than one title compared to most other category customers.
Scrapbook titles did well for two years and is still reasonably strong. Let’s hope beading stays popular just as long.