Author: Mark Fletcher

Newsagents receive all manner of display units for seasonal promotions as well as one off use to boost a title or some other product. Space limitations mean these units are trashed as soon as their intended use is over.

Sometimes we come across a display unit which is stroing enough to be used over and over. Such is the case with the unit we’re using for Good Health magazine at our Frankston store this week. Besides using this stand three times for the title for which it was supplied – Women’s Health – we have used it to promote five other titles. It’s strong and has a small footprint – enabling it to be placed anywhere without getting in the way.

If we kept it as a Women’s Health stand we’d have it out for a week and then rest it for three weeks – otherwise customers become blind to it. By recovering the stand we keep the unit productive and maintain the original printing to promote Women’s Health when the next issue comes out.

Linda Tresham really does love magazines as she proclaims at her I Luv Mags website. The site offers thousands of titles for sale going right back to the 1940s in some cases. I love Linda’s enthusiasm for magazines – you almost feel compelled to buy something.

The promotional material from the ACP magazines Connections folks is disappointing this week. Great Summer Reading is, at best, soft. It promotes several unrelated titles and the summer connection is weak at best – most of the titles are not strong on summer features.

It’s as if someone decided to promote a range of titles and need to promote a connection. If it were up to me, I’d have canned the idea.

Now, before the Connections people complain about what I’ve written, take a moment to understand that I want kick-arse promotional material which is relevant to my customers and respects the valuable real-estate I have set aside. Great Summer reading does not respect my investment. Some titles may even get a sales kick by being in this space – however, the marketing types ought to have come up with something better.

Newsagencies have an interesting collection of magazines appealing to people from other countries. Take Holland Focus it’s a unique title with limited appeal yet crucial to the point of difference newsagents offer. The challenge is where to locate the title – in travel, women’s interests (where we have British and French titles) or with foreign language titles?

Holland Focus is a title we gladly keep aside for regular customers. This put away service drives repeat business and differentiates newsagencies from many other magazine retailers.

The mix in any newsagency is dependent on the demographic and whether the newsagent has requested certain titles. In our case, we have a good range because it’s something we have fostered for years, along with foreign language newspapers. It’s a growth area for us and this is important because of fluctuating sales of the higher volume weeklies which all other retailers sell.

We are using the theme of Make Something Great for our new magazine feature near one of our register points. 

Each title has been chosen because it’s about making something things: quilts, cross stitch, scrapbooks, cards, dolls, bears, knitting and beads.  Since newsagents are the only retailers of many of titles covering these subjects it’s a blue ocean opportunity for us – no competition and therefore, to me, a no-brainer. 

This promotion backs onto last week’s theme of holiday activities.  As usual with this display at the counter, customers walking up to purchase one item are making an impulse purchase of another from this display.

Newsagencies have excellent traffic.  It takes little effort to leverage that to above-average basket size (average spend per customer).

We treated the latest issue of Woman’s Day Super Puzzler quite differently to past issues. We left more stock in the Women’s Weeklies section than in the crossword section. Sales for this issue are up 50% compared to the same period for previous issues. This is an excellent result. I’ve checked with several other stores and while some show growth, none as high as ours. I take this as even more support for placement of key branded crossword product permanently with the weeklies.

What we did with Woman’s day Super Puzzler is more important than an aisle end display or some other poster program publishers like yet it has bee more successful. If only they would reward that business success more so that a pretty display. Yep, treat me like a business person, please.

Cleo Click from ACP Magazines is a fascinating new magazine – launched today.

Extending the reach of the successful Cleo brand, the folks at ACP have created a title which claims, on the cover: everything inside is available online.  The ninemsn website has more of the pitch to girls who want become Web Queens.

I’m surprised that there is not a more significant online presence supporting the title – given the subject matter.  But, then, they are speaking to people currently offline and guiding them online so…

I like brand extensions in the magazine space and right now ACP are the masters if you look at what they are doing around Woman’s Day, Australian Women’s Weekly, Take 5 and, now, Cleo.

One challenge I see with Cleo Click is how we represent the proposition.  This is a title which has appeal beyond people who will browse women’s titles.

Costco, a giant in warehouse retailing in the US and rapidly growing in the UK reportedly plans five stores (according to a report in The Age) for its first year in Australia. It will be interesting to see if their Aussie stores include magazines – they are a small selection of top selling magazine titles in the UK and already sell them in the US stores.

With more majors playing in the magazine space, the trend I’d expect to see in newsagencies is a decline in weeklies and high volume monthlies and growth in special interest and other titles not carried by the majors. If I am right, more than ever it will be crucial for newsagents to achieve equitable terms on these titles.