Our weekly magazine sales fell by 35 units in January through March 2010 compared with the same period in 2009. This is half a percent fall. The average I saw in the recent newsagent sales benchmark study is a fall of 7% for this segment.
I put our better than average performance down to active promotion outside the usual location for the titles, leveraging other high traffic areas (lotteries and newspapers) and being consistent in our women’s weeklies display and management.
The photo shows our weeklies section from yesterday (Saturday) afternoon. This is what it would look like most Saturdays. We adjust the layout daily based on stock availability and time in the week.
The actual location of titles is fixed except that we occasionally flip the column used by New Idea and Woman’s Day.
There are a some points about our women’s weeklies magazine display I’d note which work very well for us:
- The crossword column on the far left drives excellent sales. Our main crossword section is in another aisle.
- The food column on the far right of the photo also drives excellent sales. Our main food section is further down in the women’s magazine aisle.
- The double pockets above the weeklies: Real Living. Better Homes & Gardens work well for us. We change the titles in these top two pockets at least weekly but only place titles which will appeal to the weekly magazine shopper.
- As the week progresses and weeklies sell down we fill the space pockets with more titles which will appeal to the weekly magazine shopper.
- We start the week with Famous and NW on the flat and moving part way up the columns. We flip this on Friday when OK! and Who come in.
These are all processes which we follow like clockwork. We found early on that having structure for magazines, especially the high volume titles which account for 20% and often more in sales saves time and helps drive sales. The weeklies section in the photo including the crosswords and food column accounts for 23.5% of our sales.
Consistency is key for women’s weeklies and indeed all magazine segments. That does not mean that you should ignore change. Rather, once you set a location in place, use it consistently through the week, chasing the different shopper you see as the week unfolds.