Tactical display

We are promoting Take 5 and Annette Sym’s cookbooks next to each other since the latest issue of Take 5 has a mini cookbook of Annette’s guilt-free recipes free with the magazine. This is a perfect tactical opportunity – I’d encourage newsagents to check their shelves now.

We have ensured that we have the full cover on display – the free cookbook with Take 5 gets lost in traditional magazine fixturing otherwise.

With the I Love Magazines display unit promoting ACP titles in-store we needed to find another use for the ACP Basket Builder stand which would usually ccarry some of these titles.  Our team came up with this terrific idea of using the stand to promote the ACP cookbook range.

As the photo shows, in addition to displaying the product, a great poster has been designed to cap the display stand and draw attention to the range.

This display was setup a week ago and faces onto the dance floor.

The latest issue of Super Food Ideas comes with four chopping mats.  Since I bang on here about frustrating and inappropriate cover mounts, I should also acknowledge good congratulate good moves.  These chopping mats are a great gift for this title.  They are also a great gift from a retailer’s perspective – easy to display and well packaged.

I expect to see excellent sales for this issue as a result of the chopping mats gift.

We are making the most of the opportunity with tactical co-location outside the food section.  Gifts like this are designed to get irregular customers buying a title. Hence the importance of co-location.

We have been giving the latest issue of Limelight magazine the full face treatment.  We figured that the Anthony Warlow cover shot promoting Doctor Zhivago and the free CD are bound to resonate with some of our Melbourne customers.  We have the title in with our weeklies as well as in a feature display nearby – both showing the full cover.

We have placed the latest issue of Melbourne Kitchen + Bathroom Design next to the latest issue of Better Homes and Gardens. We want to use the excellent high sales of the second title to drive browsing and sales of the first.

Nothing smart in that when you think about it … except that not enough newsagents use the real-estate on either side of their top selling titles to drive sales of the lower selling titles.

If you are thoughtful about your placement, you can achieve some excellent incremental business as we are finding with the latest issue of Melbourne Kitchen + Bathroom Design.  It is a natural fit with Better Homes.

Newsagents who are growing magazine sales, yes there are some, are usually engaged in this type of thoughtful tactical placement.

Okay we have had a few days promoting the new Greek cookbook from ACP in several tactical ways.  I blogged last week that I expected this new cookbook to sell well.  It is.  The counter approach is working particularly well, generating some good impulse business.  You can see from the photo that one of my stores has it as their Magazine of the Week.  This counter placement follows the principles outlined in my blog post yesterday – an un-cluttered counter with feature items given appropriate space and placement to shine.  It’s nice weeing someone add this cookbook to their existing purchases when they reach the counter.  It certainly says something about the value of what can be sold on impulse at a newsagency sales counter.

I’d encourage newsagents to give this title a go in tactical locations, in addition to placement with the ACP cookbook range.

We are promoting the AFL Record Preview between our daily newspapers for a few days.  There’s no other place for it than this tactical location … to get the maximum impulse potential from the title.  Sales yesterday were good – as were all magazines sales.

It’s good that school holidays are over.  Now we can get down to the regular habit-based business which is so vital to newsagencies.

Oprah on the front cover of the latest issue of Mindfood magazine earns this low volume magazine prime position with our women’s monthlies.  Oprah’s in Australia in case you have been living under a rock.  Maybe she can help achieve some incremental business for us.  I’ll watch how the title performs – if we see movement by the weekend we will give it some more premium space time.

I am a big fan of newsagents putting out magazines when they arrive in-store.  This way tactical decisions can be made based on the cover or some other opportunity with this issue of a title.

We are promoting Christmas issue of Family Circle magazine at an aisle end as well as with our newspapers for the next week.

In our temporary 97 square metre location we have little space for displays and have to choose the titles we promote carefully. Our selection of Family Circle is based on good sales history and our theming of the store around getting ready for Christmas.

We have placed the latest issue of MasterChef magazine between our main newspapers.  We will leave it here for this week.  Sales last month slowed so we wanted to give the title a push through this tactical high traffic placement.  I have gone for newspaper placement because I think that there are people trying this title who would not usually purchase a food magazine.  We also have MasterChef located in our food section as well as in a couple of pocjets with weekly magazines – for this week.

Being the first weekend for the latest issue of Better Homes and Gardens, we have a stack placed between newspapers at each of my stores from Friday through Sunday.  This is in addition to stock on the display stand and the usual locations for the title with our women’s weeklies as well as in the home and living section.  This obsessive co-location drives good sales, especially Friday through Sunday.  Early indications for this Christmas themed issue are good.

Now if only magazine publishers would recognise this valuable support from newsagents. While supermarkets are reinventing their magazine offer, their charges and rebates make them a more expensive retail proposition than a newsagency.

Pacific Magazines continue to create excellent impulse purchase stands for their magazines.  They are strong. They carry plenty of stock and often multiple titles.  They look good too.

The stand we received yesterday for Better Homes and Gardens is no exception.

I appreciate these stands more now than ever – in our temporary 97 sq m newsagency at Forest Hill. This stand is flexible and helps us promote these titles in a way which would otherwise not have been possible or practical in our tiny space.

Now before people shoot off comments, I know that not everyone gets these stands – they go to high volume stores.  Those who did not get the stands could look at the slimline model and maybe have something made.  This way, you control the titles in this impulse unit.

Note to other publishers creating stands for newsagents. Check out the pocket holding Prevention.  Pacific even provided an insert to snugly hold this smaller format title.  That is good attention to detail.

We are promoting Good Health magazine to customers at our Frankston store as they exit the business into the shopping mall.  We chose this position for the title with the feeling that it works as an impulse purchase as customers head to the counter or leave the store.  Who knows?  Decisions about the best location for a display are a challenge.  In our case, we have two intrusive columns to cover and magazine displays dilute the intrusion.

We are promoting the latest issue of Take 5 magazine, which comes with a free charm and a small book of book of good fortune wishes, at – where else? – our lottery counter of course!  This issue of Take 5 is made for a lottery counter promotion.  We also have it in our impulse stand near the store entrance as well as in its usual location.

Maybe I missed but I am surprised ACP did not make a BIG DEAL about the lottery counter promotion opportunity.

Given the blitz of publicity since the announcement that Oprah is to bring her show to Australia in December, we have moved the O magazine to a more prominent location.  While we only sell two or three copies, I’d expect there to be a jump for the next few issues.