Tactical display

We sold two thirds of our Gardening Australia allocation with good placement at the front of gardening titles.  We are now chasing more stock.

We knew this issue would be a hit as soon as we saw the Maggie Beer cover.  Who doesn’t like Maggie Beer… she is an icon with broad appeal.

I’d urge newsagents to dig out their stock of this issue of Gardening Australia and get it to the front of the display or, better still, at the sales counter.  Customers will purchase this on impulse.  It is a great cover with which to drive incremental business.

The other plus about Gardening Australia is that they are promoting this issue on radio and mentioning newsagents as a retail outlet.  Great stuff!

We have increased space allocation for food titles to accommodate a broader range which we have sourced through Gordon & Gotch.  We are working closely on the food section as this is the section of most significant year on year growth – more than 20%.  The latest expansion, the second this year, gave us room for an additional seven facings in the regular food department and greater space in our impulse purchase display units.

As the photo shows, we are using key popular titles to act as a beacon to the food section: Master Chef, Donna Hay, Gourmet Traveller, Good Food, Better Homes and Gardens, Family Circle, BETTER basics … all can be easily seen from shoppers in this aisle.

The actual placement of the category is in the middle of the aisle.  It is never easy to know whether the start, the middle or the end of an aisle is best.  I have heard retail experts argue, especially about placement at the start versus the middle.   My feeling is that the middle is where you want to be, and at eye level – hence our considered placement of two pockets of popular titles in the top section of our magazine fixtures.

We placed the latest issue of Women’s Health & Fitness between New Idea and Woman’s Day earlier this week.  It was not selling in its usual location and this current issue should given the free Carman’s breakfast bar which comes with the magazine.

I selected the space between the two popular weeklies on this co-location magazine unit which caps our magazine department in an effort to support the title.  I also chose this location so that shoppers can see the value proposition with this issue of the magazine.  We will give it this additional space allocation for a week.

The challenge for this issue, I think, is that shoppers cannot see the free breakfast bar.  There is a card sticking out of the magazine promoting this but I doubt that shoppers read these cards when browsing a sea of colour and text in the usual newsagency magazine display.  That said, I do not have a better option for showing off the free bar.

We are promoting the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine at the counter.  We have Bob Dylan fans who would not venture down to the music maagazine section but who might just treat themselves to a impulse purchase – hence this counter placement.  We deliberately have it next to one of our EFTPOS terminals so that shoppers can;t miss the opportunity.

We have been promoting the latest issue of Australian Traveller magazine with this full face placement between food and travel.  We also have a couple of copies with women’s titles … so covering the locations people most likely interested in this title would be shopping.

Food is the fastest growing category in this newsagency so we figured that placement with food made sense for Australian Traveller.

We have been running with this collection of three display units at the front of the newsagents to attract shoppers from within the mall this week.

Without wanting to put down the two columns of titles on the left, the real hooks are Better Homes and Gardens and MasterChef – each new issues out this week and each good weekend titles in newsagencies.

Note to publishers: the BHG display unit is the best display unit I have ever seen in a newsagency for a volume title.  It is easy to assemble, easy to move, strong, a good height and holds a good stock weight.

We are promoting Collectors magazine in the usual back of the shop location plus this placement on our impulse purchase display stand.  While this is a special interest title, it is also a title which can be easily purchased on impulse by those who would not go looking for it.  I figured that this prime location placement was worth it since one of the stars of the TV show is on the cover.  I know that the cover will set some shoppers quivering and that’s good for sales.

A flat stack next to newspapers continues to be the best location for driving impulse purchases of magazines.  This is where we have the latest issue of Better Homes and Gardens.  We will leave it here until early next week.  While sales are strong for us right trough the month, the first weekend is the best.  In addition to this placement is the usual location, we also have BHG on show at the front of the newsagency, facing into the mall.

We are promoting A ROYAL SOUVENIR from ACP magazines at the counter between our two daily newspapers as well as at the front of the newsagency facing into the mall and with our weekly magazines.  We have The Australian Women’s Weekly next to this as the souvenir is a brand-extension of AWW making such placement logical.  Calling the publication a souvenier is smart as I think we are in that market now where people are more likely to buy a Royal Wedding product as a keepsake than for news.

We have been promoting New Idea and Woman’s Day with newspapers this week, as well as their usual in-store locations, to leverage strong interest in the all things royal in the lead up to the big wedding at the end of this week.  It will be interesting to see if their use of Diana on the cover drives sales.  Personally I would have preferred to see a different cover offering from each of the titles.

Our tactical placement of the counter unit for My Kitchen Rules The Cookbook worked a treat on the weekend.  While we had a display facing out into the mall, it was this unit placed between our two main newspapers which worked best for us.  A $12.95 impulse purchase with a newspaper purchase is very nice.  Thankfully, we have more stock coming in today.  Our plan for this week is to run a promotion behind the counter in the run up to Easter, replacing the Royal Wedding title which has had a good run in this prime location.  We will also have stock located with our women’s weeklies.

The reason we are committing so much space and time to the title is the promotional work by the Seven Network supporting the title.

We have been promoting the latest issue Better Homes and Gardens in three locations since its release last Wednesday.  On the weekend, we added this simple display next to newspapers.  With the impressive free cooking brush and spatula, it made sense of make the most of the opportunity – especially given that we were the only retail outlet in the shopping centre with the offer.  It has performed very well for us, especially this newspaper location.

I like how Pacific Magazines attached the free gift to the cover yet made the magazine itself browser friendly.  Very smart.  Whoever decided to not bag the whole issue is to be congratulated.

I know that some newsagents will complain that they were not given this offer.  Various publishers choose to engage with various groups and sizes of newsagencies and other business in return for shop floor engagement.  I think that we will see more of this engagement as publishers realise that not all newsagents are the same.

Here is how some of our  recent magazine displays and promotions we have run and about which I have blogged have worked:

• Better Homes and Gardens.  We placed a display unit next to the copier.  10 additional copies sold over two days this past weekend compared to average for the same days of the week for the same week of on-sale.
• Melbourne Home Design + Living.  Created a counter display to drive impulse purchases.  Sold out in just over a week.  Chasing more stock.
• New Idea.  Created a power end display promoting to greeting card shoppers.  15% sales uplift compared to average for the first three days of on-sale.
• Children’s Birthday Cake Book.  Various displays driving sales of 30+ copies.  We are planning to take this promotion to new heights as soon as we get more stock.

None of these promotions was requested or driven by publisher engagement.  We decided to promote the titles because we felt we could achieve incremental business by being proactive.  The results are excellent.  They demonstrate that by being engaged with magazines and tactical in promotion we can achieve sales growth.

Yes, magazines overall are challenged.  That does not mean we give up.  The results above and others I have written about here indicate that we can grab business in our newsagencies by leveraging our points of difference compared to supermarkets, convenience stores and petrol outlets.  They do the bare minimum and without thinking about.  We can be personal and genuinely engaged.  This is what drives incremental business.

We look at each magazine as an opportunity to do something more than the average.  The more we engage and measure results the more we learn and this makes our decisions better.

Yes, I think that many newsagents need to reduce their magazine range.  However, the more important need is for genuine engagement with the products pursuing the growth I am seeing for selected titles.