I was in a newsagency this week where a magazine relay resulted in this four square metres of retail space was reclaimed from magazines delivering 25% GP for gifts delivering 50%+ GP. No titles were cut. Rather, a more efficient allocation of space was achieved through smarter space management. This is smart newsagency management – respecting a core low margin category in a way that lowers the overhead cost of the category on the business.
Magazine publishers should look at this as newsagents have to make moves like this given the margin dollars being achieved from magazines continue to fall in a marketplace where rent and labour costs are increasing. Are you listening?
Are they listening indeed!!
Yesterday I came across 2 newsagencies that have completely got rid of magazines altogether. These are big newsagencies in large centres.
Is the ultimate move from being a newsagency to a specialist retailer?
Get rid of papers before magazines!
well I guess its an option to rename the business and forget about papers and magazines!!
Mark
This is a fairly significant saving in space without the need to cut title. Would you care to elaborate further on what was actually done to achieve this outcome?
Regards
Mark Fa
Mark this was a deliberate move to not cut titles but to achieve more efficient use of space. It’s something I have written abut here often and provided examples of from my own business.
The key elements are a relay followed by no longer full facing titles people will look for. I think an average newsagency can cut around a third of floorspace allocated to magazines without cutting titles. Given the usual space allocated to magazines, this could free up around 10% of total retail space. That is a real cost to any business if they have more valuable products to place in that space.