By trimming our magazine range in a couple of my newsagencies we are now able to better display full covers of top selling magazines. They react well (in terms of sales) to this attention – the covers are designed to sell the titles after all! We trim the space allocation for weekly titles as the week unfolds.
For monthly magazines we tend to allocate a full face line at the top of waterfalls and half waterfalls for a category, for a couple of weeks of the month – to give the category a boost. This also works well with a noticeable boost to sales.
Newsagents are often so crammed with stock that there is no hope of these displays being created. I am sure that this must stunt sales of top selling titles.
Mark- I agree that you actually lose sales when one tries to accomodate the distribution model.
In ACP & Pacific titles money can be made as you said when you give them breathing space. I like the way your thinking is on this subject.
We are doing the exactly the same thing here. It works for us.
This week we got a triple pack ($9.95)
of WD,NW,& OK. They were all current issues and I decided to try to sell them so everyone who came to the counter with any of the abovenamed mags I held the triple pack out and offered it. There was a considerable saving involved and I only got 9 copies but I sold them all (myself) while trying to show my staff how to do it.
I know how much I hate packaged goods but it worked and I don’t think I have sold any less of the single product so I have changed my mind about the double issues (like Wine/Gourmet etc) so long as they are both (or all) the current issues and I am going to push them from now on.
The trouble is when I leave the counter the staff don’t continue with the selling opportunity.
I find it the same with Lotto – I upsell at every opportunity but the second that I leave the counter I don’t hear the upsell happening. How do we motivate staff to do this – any help would be most appreciated. (I even make the morning tea myself for them and bring cakes and bikkies from home (homemade) so I am not a mean employer.
June,
How about a prompt from the POS screen. Whenever someone scans one of the relevant mags they would be prompted to ask the customer.
Its difficult when using a hard-selling upsell technique. Many employees are not comfortable with it and its not widely used amongst Australian retailers.
June,
It is essential that employees understand that when they get up in the morning and pull on their uniform, they are making a choice to come work for you. if they are not up for the opportunity of that then they should go work somewhere else.
I have a couple of team members who are great at up selling lottery syndicates, another who is fantastic up selling greeting cards and another who could sell a magazine to a blind person (sorry if that offends).
The up selling is not overt. they do it because they see the benefits for themselves. each employee is paid above award.
These are people who like their job, want to earn the money and want to look good among their peers at work. I aim for a collegiate environment where they work together but also compete.