Author: Mark Fletcher

It is good to see Family Circle back on the shelves today even it only for a Christmas special edition.

We have placed stock at the counter, next to New Idea and Woman’s Day as well as among our food titles. It’s a good impulse opportunity – hence our co-location strategy.

Our approach with titles like this with solid brand loyalty is to push hard early and try and sell out in week one. This is ideal for cash-flow.

I was surprised when I saw TV Week this morning, I thought there had been a printing problem. The traditional red in the masthead has been replaced with an orange. It looks off to my eye – but I’m not in their demographic. I reckon customers will ask where TV Week is because of the colour change.

Today’s design change does not do enough to help pull focus to the title in the wash of colour in a packed magazine stand in newsagencies.

‘Charles’, a magazine publisher, wrote these comments at this blog yesterday:

On 17 November 2007 we will be allocating newsagent numbers for our December 2007 issue.

We will be doing so based on final sales figures for our September 2007 issue.

That’s correct, sales figures 2 months out of date.

Charles says much more than what I have reproduced here so be sure to read Charles’ full comments, my original post and comments from others here.

I have lifted these sentences from Charles’ comments because they deserve special attention. They highlight a problem for publishers and newsagents – we are being deliberately kept in the dark. I have been contacted by at least eight independent publishers this year with the same complaint – lack of timely sales data from their distributor.

Magazine distributors have sales data from hundreds of IT compliant newsagents and this is enough for publishers to set print runs rather than using data which is two months old. Why this daily sales data is not provided to publishers daily is beyond me.

I’d be glad to help independent publishers with this. There may be ways around magazine distributors not releasing sales data until two months later. Contact me here.

I reckon we have enough magazines to create a grey nomads / retiree section. Besides the two specific magazine titles in the middle of the photo, there are many on the road type magazines which woule be of interest to this niche.

By bringing the various titles together and providing it a regular home we should be able to boost sales. As it is, one title is in the business / money section as it deals with finance, several more in travel, another in caravans, and so on. Careful title selection and placement could attract the grey nomads and retirees in for the magazines specifically targeted to their needs.

What I like about this approach is that it would be exclusive to newsagents. I don’t see 7-Eleven, Coles, Safeway or the others creating such a specialised category.

Where is our Martha Stewart or our Oprah Winfrey? Lost in our cultural cringe I suspect.

While newsagencies across Australia have two or three magazine titles connected with Oprah Winfrey and Martha Stewart, we don’t have any for an Australian. It seems we crave more of these iconic US celebrities and their stories, opinions and supporters than we do our own.

Ita is the closest I can recall and that had a short life.

So what is it with Oprah and Martha? Leafing through the titles, I don’t get it. The content is aspirational on the one hand and adding weight to the iconic status of the two ladies on the other. As I said, I don’t get it – but, then, I am not the target demographic.

As with movies and TV shows, I wonder about the Australian voice and whether is is becoming lost. Magazines play a smaller yet important part in telling our stories, considering world events from an Australian perspective and creating local icons over whom we can fawn.

I was surprised to see Greenpages on the shelves of our Frankston store but not at Forest Hill – maybe we missed the offer. Greenpages and the recently released G magazine could form the basis of a new green feature category in newsagencies. We could add to that a promotion of magazines printed on recycled material – as they do in the US – and pitch the environmental credentials of newsagencies and our suppliers.

Caravan Motorhome is so this this month that we can only fit one copy per pocket. This significantly increases the real-estate investment required by newsagents to support the title. The pub lisher thinks that they add value by putting two old issues with the current issue. I suspect market research would show that customers are as frustrated as retailers with such a useless triple pack.

I reckon That’s Life sales will slip this week because of the free clutch purse they are giving away. The purse floats in a sealed bag with the magazine and invariably covers the masthead. In half an hour I was asked three times if we had sold out of That’s Life by customers standing in front of a stack. The top magazine on the stack looked like the copy in the photo. While some customers will ask and others will pick up the title in the regular That’s Life space, some will walk out not purchasing the title.

The team behind Beer and Brewer magazine invited me to celebration of their first three issues next Wednesday night at the Belle Hotel in South Melbourne. I can’t make it because I’ll be on the Gold Coast that night. I checked with David Lippman, the Publisher of Beer & Brewer and he said he’d be glad to welcome any newsagents who support the magazine. Please email David if you’d like to attend.

Beer & Brewer appears to b a fringe title, something you’d put in the food and wine section. It also sells in cars section. Makes sense if you think about it. This is a title which lends itself to the co-location I bang on here about. For example, I think it would work on the lottery counter at the weekend.

It is good to see issue #2 of Little Ears magazine out. Little Ears is the kind of niche publication which needs to succeed. It provides an important community service – encouraging children to read – and it reinforces the role newsagents can play in niche publishing.

I’ve been in Sydney today for several meetings and to help a newsagent in need. I am shocked at the gross oversupply being experienced by this newsagent – magazine distributors have the data to stop such criminal behaviour – it goes to shop that while noisy folk, like me, may be (overall) satisfied with supply, less vocal newsagents are at risk of poor treatment.

For all the talk of standards, today’s visit reminded me of how one sided the standards issue is. How can any magazine distributor justify increasing supply on a title achieving 50% sell through or less? They cannot. No wonder this operator, new to the industry, wants to get out.

I wonder what it will take for magazine distributors, publishers and other stakeholders to understand the gravity of what they are doing? Blood on their hands? The anguish I see and hear about make that a possibility – alarmist as that sounds. Magazine distributor management ought to visit newsagents, regular newsagents, and ask if there is a supply problem. If they have the guts to do this they should wear protective clothing.

Magazine Week in the UK in September appears to have been a success in raising awareness of magazines in major population centres if their website is anything to go by. The photo shows how one WH Smith store embraced the promotion. While some magazine retailers would have been more resourced than others to embrace the week, that there was national focus on the category had to be good not only for the titles but also the retailers. I’d liv to see a Magazine Week run here by newsagents.

Music magazines are doing well for us in what is a tough magazine marketplace. Unit sales are up 13% year on year to October 31.

We have maintained range and co-location commitment to ensure the category is in front of people not browsing the music location.

I am surprised to see any growth because of the impact iTunes and other download facilities. We read reports almost daily about how over the counter sales have fallen. It would appear that a well stocked and displayed music section helps make your store a go to location for music fans.

Digging deeper I can see that the growth is being achieved across all segments in the category – not just the higher volume titles. NOTE: This is not an invitation for magazine distributors to send more. Nor am I claiming the same result will be found in all newsagencies.

Newsagents who energetically embrace special interest categories establish themselves as magazine specialists whereas those who treat special interest categories (music, hobbies, craft, crosswords, art etc) as second class citizens are magazine retailers. There is a difference. Given that magazines are in so many retail outlets, it is essential for newsagents to proudly embrace their point of difference – if they have the population and demographic to support this.

Woman’s Day’s Everyday Food is taking off. We are having considerable success with this title at the lottery counter and next to Woman’s day – as well as in the food section of our magazine display. It’s a title we’re happy to give prime display real-estate to since it is fresh and speaks to the traditional newsagency customer.

Analysis for data from our Forest Hill store shows that this title is rarely sold alone – suggesting that it is the add-on purchase to one of the weeklies. This is why we co-locate it, to grad the impulse purchase. Even though it is an odd size and therefore difficult to display conveniently alongside other food titles, I am overall happy with Everyday Food.