Music magazines are doing well for us in what is a tough magazine marketplace. Unit sales are up 13% year on year to October 31.
We have maintained range and co-location commitment to ensure the category is in front of people not browsing the music location.
I am surprised to see any growth because of the impact iTunes and other download facilities. We read reports almost daily about how over the counter sales have fallen. It would appear that a well stocked and displayed music section helps make your store a go to location for music fans.
Digging deeper I can see that the growth is being achieved across all segments in the category – not just the higher volume titles. NOTE: This is not an invitation for magazine distributors to send more. Nor am I claiming the same result will be found in all newsagencies.
Newsagents who energetically embrace special interest categories establish themselves as magazine specialists whereas those who treat special interest categories (music, hobbies, craft, crosswords, art etc) as second class citizens are magazine retailers. There is a difference. Given that magazines are in so many retail outlets, it is essential for newsagents to proudly embrace their point of difference – if they have the population and demographic to support this.
Mark I completely agree with you. My partner and I love to find unusual titles and buy them. theres nothing worse than a newsagency with lots of similar titles. Get rid of the overseas crap and bring in more australian titles and lots of different types. I always think of newsagencies as magazine specialists and larger retailer stores such as Coles etc as magazine outlets. I would rather see 2 or 3 garden titles than 15 of them. Sometimes less is best and variety is more.