Our craft magazine unit sales are up 52% year on year since July 1. More than half of this increase is due to the co-location of a small selection of titles on one of our impulse magazine stands which features weekly titles.
While I complain here about structural issues with the magazine distribution model, on the shop floor I and my teams pursue growth, leveraging existing good traffic for impulse purchases. That is exactly what is happening here. Shoppers browse the popular weeklies on the top section of the display and enough notice what is below and buy from this to deliver at least half of the exceptional growth we are seeing.
Not that it is needed but this is proof that newsagents can grow magazine sales – by being tactical and obsessively engaged with the magazine department. By using high traffic areas of the business: weekly magazines, very popular monthly titles, newspapers, lotteries, seasonal promotions and other ‘hot’ parts of the business we can leverage existing traffic for growth of magazines … as I have done for craft titles as well as other categories.
By having an impulse unit like this we have flexibility outside our usual magazine department.
In addition to the sales of craft titles, there is the benefit of reinforcing my business as the go to place for special interest titles. For many of the titles in the small display, newsagencies are the only outlet. This is why obsession about some of these niches is vital to our health.
So here is my challenge to newsagents: if you see your business as a specialist magazine retailer, ask yourself what you are doing, regularly and obsessively, to chase impulse purchase business, especially in the categories which are unique to your business? If the answer is nothing then you need to start, right away. No excuses about not having space. No complaints about slip margin or not having time.
If you want magazine sales growth you have to chase it, it will not hunt you down.
Yes, retail is tough. However, I do not subscribe to the view that because it is tough we do less or act in an average way. Acting average delivers average results and for magazines that is a decline.
I bet that every newsagency in Australia today has traffic it can leverage for incremental growth. The challenge is to be a professional newsagent and chase this.
Footnote: the stand off of which we are achieving this growth is located half way into the business, at the edge of the dance floor, but facing off to the side. We are not leveraging front of store traffic to achieve this growth.
I’d love newsagents to comment on what they do above and beyond … to show that we are a positive bunch and to counter the wave of negative comments on negative topics.
Above and beyond? We will suggest a magazine to a customer if we know it fits with their interests. I’ve been known to seek out new magazines for customers not happy with what is on offer or if their favorite mag has closed down (Notebook was loved by many, sad to see it go) We regularly co-locate slower titles with the weeklies and I never early return a title that I know I can sell more of. Any further ideas welcome
I try to display any mag worth over $20 full face at some point in its life-cycle. This week I have sold two out of three HOW IT WORKS TECHNOLOGY (gotch code 31365)mags by putting them above the sports papers.I also like to pair items like Wellbeing Organic Gardening and WB Health up near the womens weeklies, plan also to do the two Oprah titles next – the LIFE mag titles are good to display too – even sold the Pope one!!One sale at $20 feels better than 18 at $1.10 !!!
We encourage put aways and will place magazines that we know may interest a customer in their putaway file. So long as a customer is willing to wait, we check the distributors sites for magazines we don’t have on our system and order them on the spot for the customer with the offer of the put away service.
Almost every magazine gets time on the shelves, even if it is only a week or so, the exception being porn and the over the top American gun mags which we return immediately.
You’d be surprised what sells sometimes that you almost didn’t give a chance to grace the shelves.
Vicki, Notebook had a strong following with us and looking at it’s sales figures I still can’t understand its demise. Lady was the magazine we were advised to suggest to customers.
We are getting better at co-location and also found that kids magazines and comics that were floundering have made a strong impact since relocating the to one end of our counter.
Brendan,
I’ve never heard of Lady magazine, except as a UK mag. Is there an Aussie one?
All of the above are great ways to take advantage of Magazine sales. We do the above and also take pride in the way we look after our magazine stands. We had another lady comment this morning on how neat and well presented our mag department is, which is always nice to hear positive comments from customers. Previous generations of Newsagents made a lot of money from Magazines…..with a bit of ingenuity and hard work i think proactive Newsagents still can.
Vick, I advised the wrong magazine. My wife tells me it was Woman and Home, an English publication. We sell a few copies but not nearly as many as notebook.
Some great ideas here. Thanks for sharing.
Hello has been a huge boon for us. We started giving it good airplay prior to the royal wedding and I have increased it by 100%
from 20 to 40 per week. It is actually outselling some of my weekly women’s mags (dare I name them here?) and now that people have tried it I am having no trouble enthusing them or encouraging a regular putaway.
At %6.95 it beats NI and WD hands down. I waterfall it on Wednesdays and
front counter it for 3 days and I talk about it to customers.
I got calendars in this morning from Brown Trout and I whinged as I put them up in lovely new stands that are provided by Brown Trout (returnable).
I take back my whingeing because I have sold 6 myself
this morning. It just goes to show that we shouldn’t think we always know best because there is always someone who will disprove that theory. I thought August was obscene but apparently not