While sales of Take 5 and That’s Life remain flat, Thursdays, their on-sale day, are more important than ever in newsagencies. It’s the busiest day of the week for magazine sales for many newsagencies I have seen sales data for. Indeed, magazine sales are up 20% and more on Thursdays in some newsagencies when comparing to before the magazine on-sale changes in 2013.
In one newsagency, Thursday magazine sales are up 35% while overall magazine sales are up only 1%. This data is providing the newsagent with opportunities for other changes in-store through which to leverage the Thursday opportunity.
On Take 5 and That’s Life, I see a greater difference between the titles today than a year ago. Whereas in the past you could put them next to each other and they would look like twins, today, they are noticeably different.
We newsagents need to engage more with these titles if we are to help them get out of the sales slump. We need to be especially proactive on Thursday and Friday as this is when more than 80% of sales in newsagencies are usually achieved. By proactive, I mean: co-locate on the counter or with newspapers. Engage your staff to talk about what’s in the titles. Ensure they are full-face displayed with weekly titles.
Take 5 and that’s life seem to have gone the way of the English weeklies like Chat, Best etc etc. Once upon a time Take 5 and That’s life used to have positive, happy stories now they have more of a sad tabloid feel. “Murdered by a stranger” & “I live with my husband & my lover” or “I’m not kinky, I’m perverted…..I use the whole chook not just the feather”.
Maybe that’s why sales of these titles are flat or declining. Just my two bobs worth.
Al
Talking about Thursday mags – it is just about impossible to run the shop, a jackpot lotto and do mags and returns at
the front counter (we do it but with enormous difficulty).
The two day delivery has impacted badly on our business and I suspect on many others. Wednesday has become a “nothing” day and Thursday has become an “everything” day.
Not good for servicing our customers either.
Obviously only happened because the distributors wanted to save money – it had nothing to do with good governance of the industry and our best selling days.
Allan I agree. Both Rita and I have expressed the opinion that these titles are frequently looking more like the poor selling British mags Chat, Love It etc. They’d do much better if they tried to emulate a quality British Mag such as Peoples Friend but aimed at an audience 20 years younger
If you take a closer look at the magazines, Take 5 is moving to more the british model whereas That’s Life is more Aussie. Both titles need considerable work.