Author: Mark

We are promoting the latest issue of Melbourne Wedding & Bride with this aisle end display in one of my stores.  Indeed, we have the title in prominent locations in all of my newsagencies.  My experience is that Melbourne Wedding & Bride responds well to promotion in high-traffic location.  While some sales are to customers seeking out the title, most purchases are on impulse.  We are driving the impulse opportunity by promoting the $6.95 price tag – this is particularly good value in the wedding magazine space.

How great is a monthly magazine which sells 90% of its allocation within a few days of the on-sale?  Great, of course!

The latest issue of Country Living magazine has done just that.  In four days.  Yes, we are chasing extra stock.  We were caught a bit off guard as this is the Christmas issue.  However, we should have known better as all country related titles are selling very well for us.

We have not done anything all that special for the title – except use it as our beacon brand for the country magazines section – meaning we started with a half waterfall and with the full cover of the copy at the top of the waterfall on display.

We are promoting the Wheels magazine Car of the Year issue with additional in-location space in the car section of our magazine display.

With the media coverage of this issue over the last couple of days we expect good weekend business for the title.  On the on-sale day we also had product located with newspapers.

The car segment is doing it tough so any opportunity to draw attention to not only a specific title but the whole segment has to be embraced by newsagents.

An article in the San Francisco Chronicle about a new partnership between a magazine publisher (Bonnier – Popular Science, Parenting and 53 other titles) and an advertising business (CP+B) highlights the pursuit of innovation by some publishers of new advertising experiences which leverage the differences of the iPad medium compared to the print experience.  Fascinating.  2011 is shaping up as a year of considerable change.

We are promoting the latest issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly with one of our in-location displays.  These work a treat for AWW in our stores.

We will leave the display as shown in the photo in place for two weeks.

AWW is also on display next to the Herald Sun newspaper and this will stay in place for the first week of the on-sale.  Typically, in the first week, we can see 25% or more sales come from stock located next to the newspaper.

The latest issue of MOJO magazine with a young Bob Dylan on the cover is another example off what I wrote about a couple of days ago … the value of special interest titles.  There are enough Dylan lovers out there to help drive sales of this special issue.  As I noted, we need good foot traffic for these special interest issues of music and other magazines to work.  When we see a title like this which we know will have special interest appeal we show off the full cover and place the title in a good location.

It is good to see Pacific Magazines go with a different look for New Idea with the alternative flood related cover on the back of the magazine.

Yesterday, we placed the flood special feature cover on display in the regular magazine fixturing and with newspapers.  We felt that the emotion of the image would work better than the more traditional cover – especially given the on-going flood challenges in Victoria and the coverage on the news.  Sales have been strong as a result.

The latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine is selling very well – ahead of average performance when compared to recent issues in my newsagencies.  The success with this issue is a reminder of the success we can enjoy with specialist magazines in the newsagency channel.  My view is that this issue is popular because of the John Lennon coverage.  We have leveraged this by ensuring that the full cover is on display. People who would not usually pick up Rolling Stone have noticed the cover and enough of them have converted into purchasers.

We are lucky to have enough good traffic to achieve the sales we have thus far. High traffic is vital to the health of magazine sales in newsagencies, especially special interest titles.

Magazine publishers and distributors need to understand that good base traffic is critical to the success of special interest titles – like this month’s issue of Rolling Stone magazine. Dilute traffic to newsagencies -by putting traffic generating and high volume titles elsewhere – and you put special interest sales at risk.

While newsagencies are busy places, each product department and category relies on the other to drive business.

I am concerned that key newsagency suppliers and some newsagents are not making the right decisions to ensure the traffic health of our channel.