visual merchandising

Krystal Forscutt has been a star on the pages of Zoo magazine for the last three to four years.  The cover of this week’s issue proclaims it’s her last time in the magazine.  We are promoting this issue, and its discounted cover price, at the exit of the men’s magazine aisle.  This display, the price cut and Krystal’s last appearance should generate incremental business.

I appreciate that Zoo does not take itself too seriously.   Not all of our customers share this appreciation – this is why we place it within the men’s aisle and not in a more public place.

We are taking a different approach with Top Gear Australia this month.  We have created the display in the photo at the entrance to our main women’s magazine aisle.  We would usually place this display at the exit to our men’s magazine aisle but the broad appeal of the Top Gear franchise encourages us to take a broad approach to promoting the title.

The relaunch of the Top Gear TV show and the broad appeal of the characters guided us to change tack with how we promote the title in store. As the photo shows, we have tried to connect the display with the popular Stig character.

If we see sales over the next couple of days we will leave this display in place for a week.  I think this location will work well for the title.

We are promoting Woman’s Day at the counter for the next few days.  It’s the last week of the free cookbook offer series so pitching this at the counter makes sense. We also have Woman’s Day on offer at our main lottery counter as well as the usual location with our weeklies.

It is great to see Men’s Health and Women’s Health now published on the same day.  This provides us a good opportunity to promote both titles together -as we have done this week at our Forest Hill store.

This display is located at the front of the store in a high traffic area.  We plan to leave this display up for a week.

We also have Women’s Health displayed with women’s magazines as well as in the health section.

We have Men’s Health displayed in our men’s sports section.  We will also place it with newspapers later in the sales cycle.

The magazine covers featuring Alice in Wonderland are providing us  a rare opportunity to promote titles together.  As the Empire and Lovatts Clue Words examples in my photos show, these covers need to be fully seen. Old magazine fixturing lets them down.

In addition to displaying these titles in their usual locations, we are placing them together.  Who knows, the Alice in Wonderland cover could attract someone to the title who would not usually purchase this. Once promotion for the film reaches full strength, I’d expect us to have five, maybe six, titles we could promote together.

We are promoting InStyle magazine at the prime promotional location between two busy counter locations.  The free gift makes it a true premium offer.  The can of free dry shampoo spray which comes with the issue makes displaying in regular magazine fixturing a challenge so this display also helps out on that front.

We have placed Women’s Health next to InStyle since we expect them to appeal to the same customer.

Both magazines will remain in this location until the weekend when we will review the numbers.

We have created the display promoting Unique Cars in the photo to face people leaving our men’s magazine aisle.  We also have a half waterfall display in the regular location for this title.

It is good to see Unique Cars getting some attention from the publisher.  I’d expect it to respond well.   It’s certainly a popular title with browsers.  The million dollar question is how do you turn a newsagency magazine browser into a customer?  We try with our magazine loyalty program and while this does have an impact, not enough convert.

This display for Unique Cars is trying for a second bite at the browsers, as they leave the aisle.   It’s a good location because there is little competition for visual attention at this point.

We are promoting Woman’s Day at two of our counter positions thanks to the free cookbook with the current issue.  We will leave this here for three days.  The free cookbooks usually drive good incremental sales.  Like othjer magazine promotions, we are doing this of our own accord and not because we are paid a premium for the space. The newsagency channel is valuable for publishers, more valuable than c-stores and supermarkets in this regard.

We are promoting the latest issue of Diabetic Living at the counter for the rest of this week.  This title has carved out a loyal following for us.

While we prefer to reserve this location for titles with a free gift, Diabetic Living works well here, especially early in the on-sale period.  It is one of those titles you need to promote in front of customers.

We are promoting the latest issue of Home Beautiful at the front of the shop in a single title display leading to our main lottery counter.  It  replaces our Woman’s Day display.  We are sticking with single title displays in this location for the next few weeks.

We expanded the space allocated to photography magazines yesterday, adding a column. This segment is performing very well and the extra column will enable us to do beacon branding and, hopefully, leverage the resurgence of interest further. We are always tweaking the magazine layout and space allocation. This obsession helps drive sales. We see it as what customers expect from a magazine specialist.

We are trying magazine fixturing in the photo in one of the stores I am connected with. It offers more full-face facings than traditional newsagency magazine fixturing. We have the units in the photo on the back wall and other (new but more traditional) fixturing in two aisles.

The lighting for the units in the photo makes the covers pop. It helps us get the most of the full face display.  Editors would like how their publications look.

The power of the display is crucial since this display is on the back walls. We are using this to draw people into the store. The pockets are deep – at least three times deeper than traditional newsagency pockets. This lets us store more product in less space.

We are using the back wall for our high volume women’s titles. While we co-locate a selection at the front of the shop, these are more to attract passers-by.

I first saw units like those we are using in high volume transit locations and have wanted to try them in a newsagency for some time. Space was always the issue – you display fewer titles per square metre.  Newsagents are used to focusing on range over visual merchandising.

While it is early days, I am very happy with their useability and the customer interaction of the new units.

Like all good fixtures, they can be easily changed – the days of purpose built set and forget newsagency fixtures are over.

The shopfit was designed and installed by Interfit.

We are promoting Better Homes and Gardens with a power end display for the next week.  The collateral mix from Pacific Magazines is excellent and will allow us to easily create another display elsewhere when we move the title on from this location.  We also have BHG in with our weeklies as well as its usual location.  Thanks to the TV show tie-in, we will promote the title heavily Friday through Sunday.

The latest issue of Take 5 is a challenge (in a good way).  It’s bagged with a free Mills and Boon book and does not fit in magazine shelves of flat-stack well.  We have addressed this by giving the magazine prime counter space for the next few days to move stock.  I’m sure it will sell well.

Surprisingly, we only received one poster to promote what is a good deal – we made do by copying the cover.

We are promoting the latest issue of Good Food at the entrance to our main women’s magazine aisle this week. This display replaces Dolly (with the free towel) which did not go well for us at all – I think the towel is the problem there. Hopefully, Good Food will be repeat the success we have had with the title in the past. We are using both sides of the display unit in the photo to promote this issue.

We have placed the latest issues of Melbourne Kitchen & Bathroom Design and Melbourne Pool & Outdoor Design next to each other to leverage thier shared branding.  Our hope is that this makes them more noticeable to shoppers than if they were placed away from each other.

We have replaced Burke’s Backyard at the counter with That’s Life this morning. That’s Life wins this prime impulse purchase position with the free pack of Celebrity Slim being given away with this issue.  We’ll leave this display in place until Friday depending on sales.

While feel bad about bumping the Burke’s Backyard display after two days, we have to be opportunistic and do what we feel is right for our business.  We will support Burkes elsewhere in-store.

We are promoting the new issue of Australian Women’s Weekly (out today) at the front of the store.  This display bumps our weekly magazine display.

We find that AWW responds well to a display like this out the front of the store in the first week of on-sale. We asked ACP for additional collateral with AWW and this helps create a good looking display. This issue looks particularly good – it’s an excellent cover.