Diaries

2022 is set to be a busy year if diary sales are anything to go off. We have had diaries out for a few weeks and sales are ahead of 2020 and the all important 2019 (given that last year was odd). Like, way ahead.

Like many newsagents, we have a good range, which we are pitching mid way into the store. We have done a bit on social media but not much. I mention this to note that diary sales are primarily to people seeking them out.

Even though our general stationery sales are way down, because we have ranged that department to be that way, diaries are a focus because they connect with other categories and because they make good gifts. We pitch them this way, too … as gifts and connected with other categories such as journals, notebooks and similar.

With trains continuing to be popular across generations in magazine, jigsaw, calendar, toy, card, gift and other product category formats of the business, it makes sense to pitch a train focussed diary for 2020.

This Great Trains of Australia 2020 diary from the Last Diary Co. is a perfect product for out of store marketing for us, to reinforce the business as a destination for train lovers and those who buy gifts for them.

Our ability to pitch specialisation begins with the product we source. In my own businesses,  key questions we ask when considering an individual product or a category are: does it reach a an easily understood and appreciated specialty niche and does it lend itself to o9ur of store marketing.

We are especially interested in fringe interests often ignored by major retailers for it is in this space where we can find valuable shoppers.

Placing the 2018 Australian Woman’s Diary not to newspapers saw a terrific uplift in sales in the last week. While sales elsewhere were okay, this placement worked much better for us over the last seven days. Simple moves can pay off!

Someone asked recently about why our diary sales were strong. We went out early with financial year diaries and then into 2016 diaries. What helps is that the display itself has to be walked around to get to the back end of the store where we have newspapers, magazines and stationery. Also, card shoppers come down their main aisle and pass diaries on the way to the counter.

Traffic direction is a key to sales being up 196% year on year off a good base.

The photo is from this morning. It shows one side of this diary display and does not show a secondary location.

While we have the Australian Women’s Diary 2016 edition in a couple of locations, this location above worm’s magazines is where it will work best based inputs experience.  I urge you to place at least one unit with women’s magazines ASAP to make the most of the opportunity. We achieve good sales early in the diary buying cycle.

Financial year diaries are important to newsagencies as we are the first place many shoppers shop. Compared to Back to School when people come to us last, I am finding that for financial year diaries plenty come to us first. They represent terrific business sin terms of destination traffic and basket-deepening impulse purchases.

For a modest inventory investment and space commitment the return is well worth it.

What do others think?

I was pleased to see the tweet from Collins Debden about diaries and had to respond to them to encourage their promotion of newsagencies as the go to retailers for diaries. We need to embrace every social media opportunity possible to promote our channel.

I love it when a customer comes in and asks specifically for an item, something that has driven them to us. This is happening regularly at the moment for the Women’s Weekly Health Diary. I appreciate the traffic for the product – generated in part by good and wide promotion of the product recently.

One customer shared a but much Saturday saying I get all my magazines at Coles now and I thought they’d have this there. I smiled, thanked them for their business and pointed out the discount voucher they now had from us for spending on magazines from us.

Our 2015 diary sales are up 160% compared to sales of 2014 diaries to the same time last year. This is off a good base.

The one change this year over last is the placement of some diaries in front of newspapers and magazines. We have the space for this placement following the removal of two magazine fixtures a few weeks ago.

While Collins diary sales are up it is our fashion diaries that are benefiting the most. They are located on the other side of the table – out of view in the photo.

We source diaries from several suppliers covering business and personal needs. Stock starts out on the floor in August and builds in September.

Our experience this year is that placement is key to driving diary sales.

We’re seeing excellent Australian Women’s Health Diary sales from our stand placed directly above our weekly magazines. This location is working the best for us – even better than stock placed with diaries. We chose the weekly magazine location to pitch the diary to people who are likely to purchase it on impulse.

Now is the time to include a reminder on a September or October page in the 2014 diaries on your shop floor telling shoppers to collect their next diary from you. This subtle reminder can generate excellent traffic for you. The small stickers are cheap to produce and only takes a few minutes to put in place – and they don’t damage the 2014 diary. Put the sticker on a weekend day.

I early returned our supply of 2014 Phantom diaries because of poor margin, poor payment terms, high cover price (high cost to us of theft), that Phantom sales are low for us and our diary offer is full with high margin product we selected for ourselves.

We should have been invited to order what we wanted.

We did not top the product as we could have – we sent back full copies.

I’m pleased we took the floor display unit of 2014 Astro Diaries from Universal Magazines that I blogged about recently. We have the unit on the shop floor between the magazines and newspapers and the sales counter. We also have stock placed with our other diaries. I like the product because it feels worth the $19.95 price, is a newsagency channel exclusive and should sell for us.