Yes, folks, there is such a thing. I found this title overseas in my travels recently. The newsagent I purchased it from said that it sold well to young girls. Of course it would. I know I could have sold this in one of my stores where the Bieber one-shot from pacific and the Bieber photo pack sold like hot cakes. What I like about this is that Bieber’s face could be used to introduce kids to their first crossword experience. Nice.
We are promoting what we would call (without disrespect) second tier crossword / puzzle titles with this display in our crossword section. This double pocket display is at shoulder level and is easily shopped. It looks stunning.
I chose to promote these titles as each serves a strong customer base already and represents a point of difference for us over nearby supermarket magazine outlets.
We all need to do more of this, promoting the difference in our our magazine range compared to other magazine retailers. My view is that displays like this are more valuable to our businesses than the national billboard displays publishers tend to prefer.
I am seeing double digit growth for crossword titles and this is in part due to unique promotions like this one.
We have a selection of titles from well known crossword brands (Lovatts, Woman’s Day, That’s Life, Mr Wisdom and Puzzler) in a stand which is facing shoppers as they leave our newsagency. This is in addition to our crossword section toward the read of the store, next to women’s magazines.
This co-location is part of what is helping is generate a 25% increase in units of crossword titles sold. Seriously, 25% year on year growth.
Thanks to our pocket counting we are certain that more than half the growth is coming from this display unit.
The success of this unit in driving incremental crossword sales for us goes to show that there are other locations in newsagencies which can work for products besides the best location facing shoppers as they enter the store.
Publishers who push newsagents for billboard displays and the very best locations could be losing sales by not taking a more tactical approach.
In one of my newsagencies we are benefiting from the temporary closure of a competitor due to a complete refit. Even though we are some distance and on a different level from the other newsagency we have seen magazine sales increase by 65%. What is most interesting is the breakdown in growth by MPA category. The top categories in terms of share of total magazine sales are:
The shift in what we are selling is most interesting. The crosswords growth is stellar. I still think this is one of the best magazine categories for newsagents given the low interest by our competitors in crossword titles. While the partworks growth is much bigger, it is off a very low base. The crossword growth of an additional 141 copies in three weeks is off a good base.
We are facilitating the growth in crosswords through a co-location strategy. They are located in their usual position as well as in a secondary display with a selection of weekly titles closer to the front of the newsagency.
Today’s economic climate is an opportunity for crossword sales in that they represent low cost entertainment while also helping to maintain brain health. Promoting these two points every so often can help boost sales.
I put the dip in motoring titles down to the surge in female shoppers. More of them have sought us out than male shoppers. Maybe male shoppers are lazy and give when they see their usual newsagency closed.
I get the numbers I am discussing here from the Monthly Sales Comparison Report which compares whatever period I select. By requesting a category breakdown I can compare magazine sales by MPA category across any two trading periods.
We are engaged in a campaign to retain the new customers who have sought us out during the closure of our competitor. This is built around the habit basis of magazine purchases.
Yesterday, we received two UK crossword titles with Christmas themed covers. It is five weeks since Christmas. The last thing a professional retailer wants right now is stock reflecting Christmas. If the importer thinks there is a market for these titles here they ought to ensure that they get here in time to tap into any seasonal promotion. I have early returned these two titles as I saw little prospect for them selling. It is a pity they were supplied on the last trading day of the month.
Someone (computer or real person) decided we deserved a 100% increase in supply for the latest Puzzler Sudoku One-A-Day title this morning. Rather than making newsagencies the warehouse and banker for Puzzler, why can’t sales based replenishment be used to transact more fairly with us? More than half the stock supplied is sitting in a drawer.
We are promoting the Valentine’s Day themed BIG crossword from Lovatts with our Valentine’s Day range. Regulars here will know that we do this every year. It’s a successful move! While most of the stock is split between our weeklies section and the crossword section, this small placement always drives incremental business. It is especially appealing to some of our older customers. I have seen them pick up the crossword book and then a card. Who knows, if the crossword book was not next to the display they may have never purchased a Valentine’s Day card.
In line with our recent work reducing range so that we can have more magazines displayed full face, we have reconfigured three columns in our crossword department. We now have three popular Lovatts crossword titles receiving more prominent display. We will give this space to Puzzler titles when their next issues arrive. If you look at the cover of Clue Words you can see the value of this move. In regular magazine fixturing, customers cannot see the feature personality. In our display, they can see that it is Bono. Bono has been in the news this week because of his concerts and his upcoming appearance on Oprah’s show when she is here next week. Showing the cover provides an opportunity to appeal to his fans whereas the regular display appeals only to Clue Words fans.
The Age yesterday published an excellent report on brain fitness and how completing crosswords and other puzzles can help combat dementia or Alzheimer’s. This is an excellent report to cut out and display next to your crossword magazine section. It is also worth sharing with staff so that they have more information with which to help drive crossword sales.
The report also promoted the Brain Fitness Challenge bring run by Florey Neuroscience Institutes. This is a team based online competition involving cognitive challenges. It is part awareness on brain health and part fundraising for the Institute.
With brain experts advocating more attention to brain fitness, newsagencies could become as important in this area as gyms are to physical fitness and Jenny Craig, Lite n Easy etc. are to weight loss.
We received way more copies of Lovatts Holiday Crossword Collection than is warranted by recent sales. Going against my usual approach, I decided to early return some of the stock yesterday when it arrived. Early returning is frustrating though because we still have to pay for freight.
Given the quantity supplied and the three month on-sale period, we need to be supplied with a target sell through of at least 75%. Anything less supplied to a shopping centre newsagency and the title is probably loss making.
Maybe the folks at Lovatts need to look at their scale out model.
The small puzzle magazines which are published by Pacific and ACP under the That’s Life and Take 5 brands respectively are not performing as well as they need to in shopping centre newsagencies. Each magazine pocket needs to return $8.00 a month and above just to break even.
The minimum gross profit per pocket per month is higher this year than last since most newsagents in shopping centres face an annual rental increase of 5% or more and an annual labour cost increase of 4% and more.
The long shelf life and the volume of stock received brings these small puzzle titles into focus when assessing magazine performance based on a cash flow measure. They are cash flow negative in stores for which I have data. We cannot afford them to be cash flow negative.
I would prefer to see the publishers use a sales based replenishment process for supplying newsagents. Send the average sales volume for the last three issues and top up through the on-sale as required. This stops newsagency businesses being the bankers to the publishers.
While ACP has rolled our SBR for some of its titles, this initiative needs to be more widely adopted across the channel.
We are promoting crossword magazines to shoppers as they walk toward the car park. The simple display attracts sales we would otherwise not have achieved. We do this with crosswords two or three times a year and see a lift in sales as a result.
As the photo shows, we primarily support Lovatts and Puzzler. This is logical as they deliver most sales.
The display will remain up for a week.
While speaking about crosswords, they account for between 6% and 7% of all magazine sales in our Forest Hill store. It is important to us that we maintain this as we strive for a balance across magazine categories. There is a danger too much business coming from one or two categories.
While I am happy to achieve good sales for weeklies, it is important that they do not dominate magazine sales. The weekly magazine shopper is more fickle, in my view.
Last month, 80% of sales of Lovatts BIG Crossword were achieved from this one pocket next to the Australian Women’s Weekly. That’s close to 30 units sold from one pocket. In the first two days of on-sale of the new issue of BIG Crossword, all copies sold have come from this pocket. Newsagents who do not promote crossword titles next to AWW or their weekly magazines are not achieving their maximum potential.
The Herald Sun is giving away a crossword puzzle book with the newspaper today and sudoku puzzle book tomorrow. The books have been compiled by Lovatts. In each there is a full page ad promoting Lovatts products as being AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL NEWSAGENT.
No one ask Lovatts to do this. They used the page to promote us being they are committed to the newsagency channel.
We are taking the opportunity to promote Lovatts titles near newspapers to reinforce the brand behind the promotional product. This is in addition to the column of crossword titles (mainly Lovatts) we have next to the Australian Women’s Weekly – this location is out-performing the regular crossword section in terms of sales of the latest issue of Lovatts BIG two to one.
In terms of the promotion itself, I like it. This is a good giveaway for the newspaper as it connects with products we sell in our business. I’d like to see them use crossword giveaways later in the year to promote the health benefits and to promote school holiday activities.
I asked the creative team at my software company, Tower Systems, to create a poster to promote crossword titles as a New Year gift for newsagents. I was looking for something to connect with crosswords as a holiday activity, something with which I could promote the category in the front of my own newsagencies. The version we have gone with is the second option they developed.
Click here to download a PDF for local printing. Use it anywhere you feel it will help you sell crosswords.
I am happy to continue to leverage the resources I have at Tower to create marketing collateral for newsagents to use. It’s another way of putting something practical back into the channel.
With the additional space requirements for Christmas crosswords, we moved them out of our women’s weeklies area a few weeks ago. Late last week made room deeper into our women’s magazine area, between our British titles and women’s fashion. In two days we sold four magazines from this display. We will see how this space performs – we do this by regulating the number of copies we place in each pocket.
Newsagents who have crosswords online in a dedicated area, I’d encourage you to co-locate a selection of top selling titles in the women’s weeklies area. Many who have tried this have experienced double digit growth for these titles.
The creative team at Tower Systems has developed another poster for use by newsagents in promoting crosswords. I like this one more than the artwork I published here two weeks ago as I think it will stand out well against the sea of colour in a newsagency. I also like how it represents the health benefits of crosswords.
Once we make any adjustments, based on feedback from publishing this here, I will make a PDF available for anyone to download and print locally.
We plan to use this poster in a front-of-store crossword display as well as on visual merchandising space adjacent to our main crossword display. The poster being timeless allows us to use it when we choose.
I wish publishers would work together and fund unbranded collateral promoting newsagencies for key magazine segments such as crosswords, crafts, food, motoring and travel. While they only want to promote their titles, a healthy segment overall is good for all publishers involved.
Tower invests in this artwork and other promotional activities for newsagents to help build a healthier newsagency channel.
This is a draft of a crossword promotion poster we are developing to promote the category and share with other newsagents. While not yet completed, I thought I would post it here for feedback.
What I am not sure of is the hyphenation of crosswords – it does not look right to me. Fitting crosswords is a challenge though.
Once done, I will post a link to the art on this blog so people can download it and print locally – A4 or A3.
It is important for us to promote categories of magazines and not just single titles as we do today, especially categories in which newsagents specialise like crosswords.
The latest issue of Lovatts Colossus Crosswords magazine makes the reason for placing crosswords nest to women’s magazines even clearer.
As seen in Women’s Weekly is printed on the cover because they know this will appeal.
For around two years we have had a column of Lovatts and Puzzler crossword titles next to Australian Women’s Weekly and our weekly womens magazines. This is in addition to our regular crossword section. I have sales data evidence from my newsagency and others that thisco-location drives sales growth in crossowrds.
The latest pitch on the cover of Colossus is a great reason to start co-locating key crossword titles.
We have placed the latest issue of Lovatts Clue Words title above The Age newspaper thanks to the use of Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton (from ABC1’s At the Movies) on the cover. I am certain that Margaret and David will appeal to our customers and hopefully drive sales of Clue Words to people new to the title. It is small moves like this which can lift sales for an issue and show us off as the magazine specialists we consider ourselves to be. Hopefully, David and Margaret will work their magic for us.
With more newspapers getting out of printing puzzles, there is an opportunity for newsagents to better promote the crossword range.
We are promoting a selected range of Crossword magazines in the lead-in to our main lottery counter at the front of our newsagency. Crossword magazines sell well to lottery customers. This display presents range and well known brands. We have sought to make it visually appealing to passers-by.
We have timed this to fit with the extra traffic from the Powerball $50 million jackpot.
This is a first draft of a poster to promote crossword magazines which we are developing in-house at Tower Systems to provide to newsagents through this blog without cost. I’d apprecaite feedback either here or direct by email. Ignore the actual titles – we will drop in current titles representing several publishers before we are done.
In developing the brief, I wanted to pick up on the health benefits of crosswords without being too in-your-face – we miss this opportunity too often
