With our diary sales up 10% year on year in the twelve months to June 30 (off a good base), we are pushing hard to at least repeat that growth this financial year.
We have this display capping the entrance to the aisle with newspapers adjacent to our main stationery aisle. This is the same location that worked well for us for financial year diaries. The range will expand over the next few weeks. This Last Diary Co. range always works well to kick off the season.
We have placed the beautiful LIFE IS A GARDEN 2013 DIARY between our two daily newspapers. This is in addition to with our diaries and garden magazines.
This is a wonderful diary, a perfect gift for a gardener. I went for placement with newspapers as this will get the diary seen by more shoppers and now is the time diaries like this sell.
Universal magazines are to be congratulated for giving us a quality product at good margin and with control over supply.
We have put our initial range of 2013 diaries on the wall, next to stationery. This move to the wall has been driven by the demand for floor space and as part of our process of locating key product categories in permanent and well-signposted homes in-store. The wall placement of diaries also helps us present the diary range in a more structured and co-ordinated way – in keeping with the approach taken by our corporate competitors in the diary space.
The diary market is as strong as ever. Sales of 2012 diaries beat 2011 by more than 10% and sales of FY12/13 financial year diaries will easily beat FY11/12. This is a space newsagents own. Since Officeworks plays here but they do not maintain range like we do. Their prices are not great either – we are being them more than not and we are maintaining a good margin.
Our strategy for Financial Year diaries is the same as it is for most products in-store. We focus on brands. Shoppers tell us they trust brands. Brands support us by spending on marketing. It’s a win win. Generic products and cheap brands which are not recognised brands are not investing for our benefit.
We are promoting The Australian Women’s Health Diary with our diary range as well as with this simple display above our women’s magazines.
The idea of this second location is to capture purchases by people who did not enter the newsagency to purchase a diary. Diary shoppers will shop the diary department – stands to reason.
We use this space above magazines for a few related promotions like this. It works a treat, driving sales and shopper efficiency.
Diary sales have been such that we will need to order more stock. We had ordered for growth over last year but sales over the last six weeks have surpassed our growth expectation.
It’s not just us. Many newsagents I have spoken with over the last couple of weeks have advised that their diary sales are up on previous years as well.
Could it be that diary sales are our indicator of consumer optimism? It’s hard to know. What I do know is that 2012 diary sales look set to be the best in several years and that’s good news for newsagents with a strong diary offer.
We have our diaries at the front of the newsagency, facing into the shopping mall. They have been there for a month, easily paying their way.
What’s interesting and unexpected for this time of the year is that even the magazine diaries are selling well.
We are promoting the frankie diary for 2012 next to the current issue of the magazine. We ordered stock of the diary last week and are thrilled to have this available for our customers – given the continued growth in sales of the magazine. While the frankie diary is not an ideal fit in the magazine fixturing, it is the perfect placement if we are to reach the shopper most likely to purchase. We will maintain this placement as long as we have and can get stock. Newsagents wanting to order the frankie diary ought to contact Gordon and Gotch. Have your frankie magazine sales numbers handy to use as a guide in ordering.
Click on the image to see an excellent visual merchandising display of 2012 diaries created by the team at one of my newsagencies. This display is different to our usual diary display. Most newsagents prefer to stack diaries on the shelves. This display embraces the colour and shapes of the products. The result is a boost in browsing and this, of course, drives sales. It’s an excellent display in my view and will help us drive better diary sales than last year.
The challenge for newsagents is to go beyond the usual in displaying products like diaries and being creative. If you’re not sure what to do, ask someone – there are plenty of visual merchandising experts who can help. The photo itself offers excellent ideas.
Our range of diaries for 2012 from The Last Diary Company and other companies have been selling well over the last three weeks. There are plenty of shoppers who are keen to get in early and purchase their diary which this year is barely two thirds old. We’re not doing anything special to promote the range other than have a terrific display set up in the aisle which also carries our food magazines.
Newsagents can own diaries. With other retailers play in this space, it is easy for us to own it in terms of range.
Diary customers are loyal. They will return to the retailer who provided the diary they prefer.
We are promoting financial year diaries with this simple display facing onto the dance floor. There is nothing glamorous about this display. It is all about being seen, making sure that the majority of shoppers entering the store can see that we have financial year diaries.
Diaries overall are proving to be a hero category for us – double digit year on year growth for regular diaries. Even as recent as this month. We are planning on leveraging this with a bigger order for the 2012 season.
It never ceases to amaze me how sales come in waves. This week it has been pocket diaries. Excellent sales. Especially of this Letts range. Our customers (women 40 and over) love them. The post Christmas sale is pulling new people into the store and they are buying other items, like these diaries. Of course, we are getting asked in the diaries are on sale. When we say no and that we never discount diaries they buy anyway – no harm in asking I guess.
We are continuing our environmental push with the active promotion of the Kyoto carbon neutral range fof 2011 diaries from Collins Debden. Our push last year has paid off with customers coming in specifically to purchase a Kyoto diary from us. It is good to see shoppers making such a conscious choice. This year, we have the Kyoto diaries on our dance floor in a high traffic location.
With NDD no longer distributing diaries, publishers have moved distributors and newsagents now receive a lower margin for diary product. This will push more of us to source diaries directly.
A fair margin for diaries in a newsagency is 50% or more. Anything less is probably loss making given the long on-sale and somewhat flat sales curve.
Newsagencies continue to be the best retail store in which to find a diary. Many have stock for 2011 now and the range will grow over the next few weeks. In one of my stores we are using flexible magazine fixturing on the dance floor to announce the arrival of the 2011 diary range. The impact has been immediate with good early sales.
For success with diaries, range and product quality are the keys. Get this right and you can usually sell for a higher margin.
Regardless of what other retailers do around us, our diaries will remain at full price until well into 2011.
We are offering diaries at 25% off in one of our newsagencies to move stock and free space. Plenty of what is shown in the photo was purchased at a substantial discount off wholesale for this move so the margin is excellent. We have had an excellent diary season so far and indications are that this will continue for some time. The 25% off will kick that up – attracting traffic and building basket efficiency. Our current plan is to run this sale for a couple of weeks before moving back to full price.
We have ordered more diaries to cope with demand. The Collins Enviro and Kyoto ranges are particularly popular. Being the only outlet in a shopping centre with diaries results in good destination purchase traffic for us.
We developed a sales projection for February – March diary sales based on October – January sales. This is what tells me that there is an excellent opportunity for us. The bonus is the better margin we can achieve thanks to the current buy price.
Having a good range of diaries in stock right now is a financially rewarding point of difference for newsagents.
We use this end of season approach with boxed Christmas cards and calendars for equally rewarding customer traffic and margin success. While it won’t work for everyone, it is worth trying. The keys we find are range, good promotion on the dance floor and daily attention to the display.
We have been playing with calendar and diary prices in several locations to see how much we can make this time of the year.
With the majors now well out of the calendar space and most other retailers offering 75%, we have calendars at 50% off in my newsagencies and 25% off in my Sophie Randall gift shops.
As for diaries, we are at 25% off in my newsagencies and at full price in my newsagencies and gift shops.
The majority of the stock we are selling was purchased for post-Christmas sales – meaning an excellent margin.
Sales are strong in both types of businesses. For the overall season, calendar sales ar up 18% and diary sales are up 22%.
UPDATE: I edited the post because I’d made a mistake. we’re not discounting yet.
When ordering calendars this year we sought our brand extension opportunities. This Top Gear 2010 pocket diary is a good example. We have this, the calendar as well as the magazine itself – a perfect gift package for a Top Gear fan. We have a good selection of pocket diaries and calendars which are brand extensions of popular brands – beyond what the magazine publishers provide. Diary sales are showing double digit growth on last year.
The Kyoto range of diaries from Collins Debden is selling well in this week of the Copenhagen climate talks. We have them well displayed to connect with the extensive news coverage of the climate talks.
Given the carbon offset message on the cover, this range also connects with the Emissions Trading Scheme news which has dominated news here in Australia in recent weeks.
The Kyoto range is an excellent opportunity for newsagents to do something different with this range of diaries. By embracing the opportunity, we can drive extra business.
I often hear newsagents talking about deals – they want great deals, as if price is all that matters in the equation. Sometimes, the best ‘deals’ are sitting on the floors of our shops and waiting for us to see the opportunity and engage. The Kyoto diary range is one such opportunity. We have purchased the stock at a good price – not a brilliant price but a good price. Moving them faster creates the ‘deal’ many are chasing.
Treating the Kyoto range as any other diary right now is blocking access to better sales.
We have changed the offer around our photocopier with space tight this time of the year. As the photo shows, we are using this space for a secondary display of diaries and some office products. Our main diary display is a metre away. This secondary display is designed to attract copying service customers as well as newspaper customers. Nothing fancy about the display, this is more about location. We can tell it works based on watching customers engaging with the display.
The Vintage Vogue covers on calendars and diaries from German publisher teNeues should work well in newsagencies with good Vogue sales. I like the range because it strengthens our point of difference in calendars and diaries as well as connecting between product categories around a successful brand – we need to do more of this.
