visual merchandising

We are promoting the Australian Women’s Weekly at the front of the newsagency with a bold display. The Obama cover is sure to draw plenty of attention. The issue itself looks excellent. That said, I would have gone with just that and not the free cookbook as I think they are overdone as free gifts – but more on that another time.

To make the most this on-sale week for AWW we also have it in a full waterfall in its usual position and in a pocket with our newspapers. We know that is our newsagency AWW is a good impulse purchase product. We will know by the weekend if this space allocation is working for us.

We are promoting Girlfriend magazine at the counter (from yesterday) thanks to the skincare treatment pack included with this issue. I expect this to sell well to parents. This is why we have it at the counter. We also have a good display in the usual place for Girlfriend with teen magazines. We expect to run this co-location at the counter until Monday.

There is no connection between Prevention magazine and horse racing titles. It just so happens that our horse racing titles face our greeting card department.

Realising the importance of promoting impulse opportunities as shoppers move through the store and knowing the demographic of our card shoppers, we have placed Prevention magazine facing the card department. This is the only magazine offer between the card department and the counter.

Too often, I think we look at display opportunities from the one direction. Once you analyse traffic in a newsagency you can see many display opportunities, in multiple directions – like this place next to our racing titles.

Next time, we will be more careful in selecting a newspaper stand – to make sure that it provides display flexibility regardless of how it is positioned.

We are promoting New Idea next to our main newspaper display today since the cover story on Trishna and Krishna the formerly conjoined twins will be popular with our customers. The twins have dominated news stories and talkback radio since their separation four months ago. We also have the magazine available from our two busiest counters as well as its usual location with weekly magazines. We will pull this back on Wednesday morning to just two locations for the title.

We are promoting That’s Life Reader Recipes at our main counter this weekend. It’s a good looking title at a keen price. I expect it to sell very well for us. It takes over the prime impulse purchase space from 70 Family Meals. This did very well for us in two days, so much so that we are chasing extra stock.

The key with these titles connected with major brands is to promote them hard as soon as they are published as the decay curve is sharp. With That’s Life Reader Recipes for example I’d expect to achieve most sales in the first two weeks. We will leave the display up until Monday and then reassess.

As the display shows, we created our own very basic marketing collateral by copying the cover.  It works in this location.

We are giving the latest issue of delicious a run at the newspaper stand. It replaced the Grand Prix program which did not work for us in this location. delicious is one of those titles which works well in impulse locations – hence our positioning with newspapers. We also plan to position it at the counter – it has worked well there for us in the past.

In addition to this newspaper location, we have a pocket in the food column with our weeklies as well as several pockets in the food category.  Our tracking of sales shows that we sell more copies of delicious outside the food category.

We have given our prime counter space to the 70 Family Meals cookbook released yesterday under the Woman’s Day brand.  I expect this to be a hit with our customers, hence the prime counter location where it will be an easy impulse purchase.

We understand that at this location we have a few seconds to influence a customer so  we take care in choosing the titles we place at the counter.  Our choices are guided by what we think will work and not what publishers tell us.   Our hit rate is pretty good.  In just the last two weeks we have increased sales for Rolling Stone, Gardening Australia and Better Homes and Gardens.

As the photo shows, our displays are simple and, crucially, buying from them is easy.

We are promoting InStyle magazine out the front of our newsagency, into the mall.  We are using this display and the special offer with the title this month t attract shoppers.  We are selective about the titles we place in this location.  They need to appeal to our demographic and we need to have a good mix of collateral for creating the display.  The variety of collateral received with InStyle made the display a breeze to create.  We plan to leave this display up for a week.

We are promoting Cleo at the entrance to our women’s magazine aisle while maintaining the display from last week promoting Cosmopolitan on the rear of the display in the photo.  This display will be seen by around 60% of our shoppers.  It’s a location which works well for most titles.  We clipped some posters up (see the yellow strip) to create a display which we hope draws more attention.

We started promoting the latest issue of Gardening Australia at the counter between our two busiest registers on Wednesday. Sales have been excellent with most sold from the counter location and not the gardening location. The free DVD is a key factor in the excellent impulse business. Unfortunately, the publisher only provided a couple of posters so we created the rest of the collateral ourselves.

We will leave this display up for the weekend.

We are promoting Cosmopolitan magazine to shoppers as they leave our busiest magazine aisle. This location, on the back of an ACP magazines stand, has been a successful location for us. Toward the top of the display is an acrylic shelf off of which customers can purchase the title.

We have created an additional display to promote Better Homes and Gardens this weekend at our main counter.  With 60% of our copies of Better Homes and Gardens sold on the weekend this move makes sense.  The free DVD on the cover and the promotion of this should make this issue really pop.  We’ll take the counter display down Monday.

We have left our BHG displays up elsewehere because on weekends we have a higher percentage of customers shopping only the front third of the shop.  This counter display is more for them.

Our sales of this issue of BHG are ahead of previous issues.

Our team at Frankston created an excellent display promotion the latest issue of Prevention magazine – in a high profile location facing the dance floor.  While each side of the column promotes a different title, this side in an excellent location.  Prevention is performing well for us so it makes sense to promote the title as success breeds success.  As the photo shows (click on it for a larger image) we are using the display unit from Pacific Magazines to make it easy for customers to purchase the title.

We are promoting Rolling Stone in front of our main newspaper display for the next few days thanks to the AC/DC cover and feature content.  Given the excellent press coverage from their concrts in Melbourne a week or so ago I expect this issue to sell well – hence our decision to promote it outside the magazine aisles.

As the display shows, we have the magazine posters in the usual newspaper poster holders.  We also dressed up an air display to hold the stock – do people can buy it with their newspaper.

Our recent Rolling Stone sales have not been as good as we would like.  Hopefully, this timely promotion will put the title back on the radar and drive sales.

It is often not the pretty displays which sell but the strategic location and easy of shopping from the displays which drive sales.

We are promoting the latest issue of Better Homes & Gardens on an aisle end between out two busiest magzine aisles. The free home-design DVD is bound to be a hit – it went off last time it was offered with the title.  We also have the title in a display unit at the front of the newsagency and in its usual place in our women’s magazine aisle.  We will kick this up for weekends, when sales for the title peak.

Better Homes & Gardens goes from strength to strength.  It’s appeal is broad and this works well for us.

We are pitching the latest issue of Good Health magazine at the entrance to our woman’s magazine aisle.  The free gift makes this a good offer and well worth pitching in this prime position.  We are using the front, side and rear of the stand to promote the title.  We also have a pocket of Good Health mixed with our weeklies as well as in the health section of the magazine department.

Harper’s Bazaar is a challenge to display this month thanks to the hair care product in a sealed pocket to the side of the magazine. This requires more than the usual width of shelf space but now two widths as is often the case with premium gifts. In the latter case we can flow them out and take a double pocket. With the latest Bazaar gift we had to cramp the pockets on either side. The other challenge for some stores in the side of the pair product. It does not fit into magazine pockets meaning fewer facings for this month.

The merchandising challenges aside, the package itself looks compelling and should sell well.

We are promoting Famous magazine at our main newspaper stand.   Twilight fans buy anything connected with the franchise so we figured the poster could drive extra business for us. We will change the display on Wednesday.

The display unit we received for Real Living from ACP Magazines is improving our sales of the magazine. The title was struggling (declining) for us.  Since we started displaying it here and not in higher in the traditional magazine fixture pockets, sales have improved. We are now requesting an increase in supply given that the last issue sold out and this issue is set to sell out.

I was sceptical when I first the Real Living display unit as it challenged the approach of giving a title prominent space at eye level in maxing mixtures.  Indeed, I was thinking about not using the unit at all because of the footprint required on the flat space.

Different magazines respond to different tactics in different retail businesses. Clearly, in our situation, Real Living responds well to the display unit. We plan to keep this in place – we have made sure we have the space available and there is no point in messing with something which is working so well against a poor 2009.

I’d note that House & Garden us usually in this display unit.  It, too, is responding well to the consistent placement.

We have gone out with a front-of-store promotion for the latest issue of the Australian Women’s Weekly from this morning.  It’s a nice looking cover and certain to drive good early sales.  More than 50% of our AWW sales are achieved in the first week.  This is why we prefer to go out strong on the morning of the on-sale rather than waiting for additional publisher collateral in the second week.

The display in the photo is out the front of our newsagency, in the mall.  we plan to leave it here for a week before locating it in a prominent position in-store next week.

We are promoting Girlfriend magazine at the counter for the next few along with a free cacharel perfume and mobile phone case.  We are part of a small trial participating in this offer.  Counter offers can be a challenge.  We feel good about this one as it offers good value gifts which appeal to the target consumer.