Ugh!

We sold half of the double back of The Australian Women’s Weekly and Good Health.  A chuck of the margin we made from the sales was lost as we had to pay $8.00 to ship back the returns – yes, these double packs have to go back as full copy returns.  This is a problem with packs which are experimental in newsagencies.

I’m not given a choice on participation and therefore not given a choice on the costs associated with the promotion.  I am happy to consider participation if agreement can be reached on performance and the cost of a pack not meeting reasonable KPIs. I’d expect that supermarkets would have similar requirements.

There in the photo, just peaking out above Bridal Showcase, is a small format wedding magazine which has not been designed for traditional newsagency fixturing.  You can barely see 1cm of the cover. While I am sure that the publisher has their reasons for the small format, maybe newsagencies are not the appropriate retail outlet given what the majority of us have in terms of display fixtures.

I have heard from a newsagent that one landlord is reportedly to impose an additional charge for handling the recycling of unsold magazines.  For years, this landlord has allowed paper waste to be dumped in the recyclind dumpster.  Now, in the era of imposing charges for every possible thing, the landlord has said that the newsagent needs to pay a premium fee because of their recycle volume compared to other stores.

This issue is not yet resolved. Hopefully, commonsense will prevail once the landlord understands where control really lies on the volume of materials to be recycled.

I thought Ralph magazine ceased publication dur to poor sales. This morning we received another Ralph related title which is apparently recycling Ralph content including photos of girls.  While it may sell in some newsagencies, I don’t see it working in most.  Call me a cynic but the girls of Ralph did not save Ralph so why roll them out now?

Now, more than ever, every magazine on our shelves need to pay its way. In a shopping centre newsagency this means 60% sell through or better. I am not expecting a 60% sell through for the Girls of Ralph.

Newsagents, have you every collected all of the advertising inserts from magazines you receive on any given day?

I have heard from a newsagent who did just that recently.  The stack was 25cm high and weighed close to ten kilograms.  The newsagents dumped the lot, prefering to fit more magazines per pocket than give the expensive retail space over to advertising from which newsagents receive no share.

Thinking about this, imagine how much we spend paying to return full copies of unsold stock with these advertising inserts.  What a waste.

The printing on the packaging for this week’s issue of That’s Life magazine covers the barcode and slows down the sale process slightly.  While a minor point it is important in high volume retail and in a channel where so much emphasis is placed on accurate sales data.

WARNING: The last time I wrote about this topic a merchandiser responsible for the placement of a backing card unfairly got into trouble. This blog post is not about merchandisers. It is about deals magazine distributors do selling access to my space without compensating me.

The distributor for M2 magazine arranged Iand probably paid) for this header card to be placed behind the stock for M2. I doubt that the magazine distributors are organising this for free. If I am right then I ought to be paid a fee for allowing this to be done in my store.

Publishers need to realise that while they pay distributors a fee to place header cards, create displays and use newsagent space in a range of ways, newsagents are not compensated.

While some will say that our compensation comes in the form of sales, this is not always the case.

The bag with this month’s Vogue magazine is a good cut through promotion.  It stands out on the shelves.  The problem is the plastic bag the magazine and the free bag gift and packaged in.  It is thin.  More than a third of our stock was damaged.  Some of the gift bags were damaged or dirtied as a result.  Size is also a problem – This requires a double width pocket and you can only fit one magazine in the double width.  While we have half a waterfall of stock displayed this way, we have more stock displayed in the dump bin in the photo on the dance floor.

Attention to execution is key for a successful premium promotion.  This latest promotion damages the Vogue brand in my eyes – I say that after having to try and repair packaging for many of the units we received yesterday morning.

Here is another example where bagging a magazine with an old issue has not delivered the growth publishers talk of for bagged product.  The new issue of Golf Magazine went on sale yesterday so I checked sales for the old issue (pictured) which was bagged with a previous issue … no sales lift for us.  I doubt publisher claims that bagging a magazine with an old issue lifts sales – show me sales data and I may change my mind but in my store I am not seeing it.

I love it when merchandisers visit and make a change without getting permission which impacts another publisher, a change for which they are probably paid a fee.  Look at the photo and the hearder card inserted for Monument magazine.

The folks at ACP should check the photo carefully – maybe a call to the merchandising company is in order.  They may listen to you.