retail

We decided to add Vogue India to our range of Vogue titles and received our first stock yesterday.  We have one left out of three copies of the current issue.  I’m happy with that and we still four weeks of the on-sale left.

We are working at carefully expanding our magazine range around the categories which we see working – hence the decision to take on Vogue India.   We see ourselves as a magazine specialist.,  If we are to be true to this self applied label we have to constantly expand our range.  I hope all our moves work as well as Vogue India.

FHM will work better out of this recycled magazine stand next to our main newspaper stand than if we created a power end display.  We know from the success of ZOO and Alpha on the other side of the newspaper stand than popular male titles near newspapers work.  Hence the placement of the stand.  In return for leeching off the newspapers like this we have a second at the front of the shop, near our lottery counter.

It is important that suppliers allow us to break their rules in pursuit of better sales.

House and Garden magazine takes pride of place at the counter this week thanks to the free photo album which comes with the title. The display is not as ‘clean’ this week thanks to the $50 million Powerball jackpot. Nevertheless, I expect it to do as well as other titles we promote in this space with a free giveaway. The giveaway is key – its value has to be quickly identifiable.

I’d expect to sell more House and Garden off this space than the power end we did last week as part of our ACP commitment.

Girlfriend last week did well in this space, proving its usefulness with a younger demographic to what we traditionally target here.

The Just In bookmarks we are using from newsXpress are working at drawing customer attention to titles just in. We find them especially useful for the low volume titles which can arrive on different days each month. While it’s a small activity on which to focus attention and invest in collateral, it is things like these bookmarks which separate a magazine specialist from others – arrogant as that may sound.

My view is that we make our own success in many things we do. This is why an investment in the bookmarks and other local in-store activities around several of our categories is a worthwhile investment. We are backing ourselves, creating IP and not relying on suppliers to do this work for us.

We are promoting food and wine related titles in our category based magazine feature this week. It makes sense because it is the Good Food and Wine Show in Melbourne this weekend.

Connecting with local events like this shows we’re connected with the community – beyond our shop. It provides a framework of relevance to the broad range of titles we carry.

Being situated next to a lottery counter and newspaper unit helps drive good impulse purchases. These moves, driving impulse purchases from honey pot products like lotteries and newspapers, are vitally important to us if we are to build a deeper basket.

Girlfriend with the free mascara has replaced our Men’s Health display between two register points at the counter. Thanks to extra posters from Pacific Magazines we have been able to create a good impression. The display has been up two days and is already working.

I know newsagents come here looking at photos for ideas – the key with this type of display is to feature magazines with valuable free gifts, to place it next to a busy register and to change the display at least weekly. By choosing the right title with a good gift like Girlfriend this month you ought to see a good kick in sales in a week.

Men’s Health is the title we feature at our counter this week. It has a good free gift and should sell out in a few days. Men’s Health is one of those titles which works well as an impulse offer – we think about the titles we put in this space carefully.

We really have the process down pst – a new display can be created in between five and ten minutes.

Last week we sold seven copies of Money magazine from this location – a good result given that the title had been out a while. In fact, it is getting so we can almost predice the sales we will achieve from this display space we have created.

We have replicated the strategy at our Frankston newsagency. The next few weeks will show how it travels in a completely different demographic.

The folks from Healthy Food wanted us to place the small footprint display on the counter. Unlike other publishers who ask, they offered a free gift – a nice cookbook. The gift worked and we have the display at one of our lottery counters.

This is a win win promotion from the publisher since the Healthy Food itself is a good impulse pitch to consumers.  We’re certainly proud to promote the title.

Money magazine is the title we are featuring at our counter this week.  With the free Taxstar on the cover and given that money as a topic is in the news (fuel costs, interest rates etc) the timing for a display is right.  That and the fact that Money appeals to a broad demographic and nt just those who actually browse the business and finance category.

While a display like this has a cost beyond space of the colour cover copies it’s worth the investment.   I do wish there was an easy way for us to advise a publisher that we were going to do a display like this and could order a dozen colour cover run ons or delivery is a few days.  This would help make the display look more professional.

Our last display, Good Health, led to a sell out in less than a week.

The photo shows the latest magazine category promotion at Forest Hill. 

This display is brilliant retail theatre.  The red and blue lights on top of the display of car magazines flash.  In the detail around the side are iconic images which connect with cars and those who love them. You notice it from the moment you enter the shop.

Jason and the team conceived and executed this display in-house.  There is some competition emerging between Forest Hill and Frankston on these in-house displays.

The only downside is the battery use of the lights – they’re not the most efficient in the world but at $2.95 a light what can you expect?

I saw plenty of these metal display stands in London.  They are provided by publishers for their title.  Less than half the time they had the right title in the right display.  Outside of this compliance issue, I do question the efficiency of breaking one title out of the pack long term as one has to for these stands.    While this serves the publisher, I question whether it serves the retailer.  The stands I saw weren’t that retail friendly.  None of the frills we see in Australia in single title magazine displays.