We are promoting New Idea at the counter this week. The free Ribena drink with every copy is a compelling offer and warrants this high value space. I like that the Ribena is provided separate to New Idea – this keeps the magazine in-tact and helps us create a better display. I’d expect this promotion to work well for New Idea.
In the first six days of on-sale of the latest issue of Men’s Health, we sold five copies more than the two we usually sell in the first on-sale week for the magazine.
As I blogged on Monday, we created a small display next to our main newspaper stand. This is the location from which we have sold most of the copies, turning a newspaper sale into a newspaper plus Men’s Health sale.
While we cannot place every magazine next to the newspaper stand, it is great to find a title which works well in this location. The success this week tells us that at Forest Hill, we ought to place Men’s Health here for at least the first week of each new issue.
I’d encourage other newsagents to try this and share their feedback. There is no risk and only a small time cost. The potential gain is sales and who doesn’t want that? Imaging the value if we find that this works for Men’s Health across the board?
The team at our Sophie Randall store in Melbourne Central has used a lighting trick to wash the boxed window with orange for great effect for our small Halloween display. The photo shows the contrast of the display window and the general lighting in the shop. They placed a colour gel on front of the light for the window – a small and inexpensive trick which has delivered a high impact. The impact is evident in the number of customers who stop and look and the sales.
We are promoting the latest issue of Men’s Health magazine next to our main newspaper stand. We are using the side of a Duracell batteries stand and a small wire magazine stand to hold the stock. This ‘found’ space works well for the right title – one which appeals to the newspaper customer. I expect Men’s Health to work well here.
I like this display because it shows what can be done when space is limited. The proof, of course, will be shown in sales.
We are displaying the Official 2010 Michael Jackson Calendar in a display unit separate from our main calendar stands to drive early sales. While pre-sales have been exceptional, we want to drive equally good impulse purchases. The calendar is stunning – its bold red cover stands out in the sea of colour in the newsagency. We are using the display as a beacon to draw attention not only to this calendar but the broad range of calendars we have next to it.
We moved our main ACP Basket Builder stand from next to the counter to the side of the newspaper stand facing our stationery department and our copier yesterday. While not as busy as at the counter, it will be seen by a different mix of people. I’d expect this to make the stand work for us given that it had been in the old location for more than a year.
The move also opens up the view from the counter across to the broader magazine department. I’d expect flow-on benefits from this. The only obvious downside is the loss of the back of the unit for visual merchandising use.
We will monitor the impact of the move over the next few weeks. If the impact is negative we will take remedial action.
The key with this move is change. We need to pursue this relentlessly in our businesses for ourselves as well as our customers.
The Better Homes and Gardens Christmas edition (out today) looks stunning. We are supporting this with a power end display and a waterfall display behind this, next to Australian Women’s Weekly – where we usually have crossword titles.
The collateral provided was excellent. The full display is not shown – it reaches the ceiling.
We also have Better Homes and Gardens in its usual location as well as with our main newspaper stand.
We know from previous years that co-location works a treat for the Christmas issue.
Take 5 magazine gets our prime counter position – between our two businest register points – this week thanks to the free Biggest Loser branded shake.
Often, gifts with magazines don’t connect with the title, not this time. This shake should drive excellent sales of take 5 for us – off an excellent sales base.
We will leave this display in place until Friday, the weekend if we have enough stock.
This photo shows how we are using our main newspaper display today – just across from our main counter. Access to newspapers is easy for shoppers. We are using the space on either side to promote other titles professionally. This is made easy with the stands available from publishers for the selected titles.
The display does not look as cluttered as the photo suggests. There is space in front of the stand and plenty of space around.
We also have the Herald Sun, our top selling newspaper, located at our main lottery counter.
In addition to selling Halloween costumes and party items, we put out our range of Halloween candy last weekend. The chocolate is popular as singles and also when sold in small pumpkin buckets holding ten chocolates.
I like the approach taken by our team at Forest Hill because it connects with the Halloween tradition of trick or treat when kids visit neighbours looking for candy. Having the chocolates provides more of a context in the overall Halloween pitch.
We are promoting Good Health magazine and the free pedometer gift at the entrance to our main women’s magazine aisle. Plenty of collateral made the display easy to create. I like this stand because it is easy for shoppers to browse and purchase off. I also like that it is compact yet with a good visual impact.
This is the third time we have promoted the relaunched Good Health here. It does well for us. We will leave the display up for a week. It should perform well, especially if they are supporting the issue with advertising.
We are pitching Zoo this week next to where the title is located – at the aisle end. The collateral received with the title yesterday morning was excellent. The placement of this display is ideal and more likely to drive sales than a display which is ‘off location’ – away from where the product is located.
Zoo qualifies for counter space – thanks to the free pack of playing cards. But this does not suit our customers. Hence the display at the end of the men’s aisle. It should work well here – the display is very noticeable. The display will stay up for a week.
The second issue of Prevention from Pacific Magazines went on sale today. We are repeating the promotion strategies which worked for us last month including this display with our main newspaper stand. We sold three times the initial allocation of the launch issue.
In addition to the display in the photo, we have the new issue of Prevention on display with our weekly magazines (Woman’s Day and New Idea)and in our health section.
It is good to see allocations have been increased based on sales of the first issue.
I have high hopes for Prevention because of the sales last month and the considerable marketing bidget which should drive traffic.
Our team at Forest Hill has created a terrific display in the window to promote our extensive Halloween range. Using some of the products we sell and collateral from newsXpress, the display draws excellent attention and, most important, sells product.
This first photo shows the display from inside the window looking out into the mall. This shows just over half the Halloween stock we have available for the season. Click on the image to see a larger version. It is a shopper-friendly display, easy to navigate.
This photo shows the Halloween window display looking from the mall into the newsagency. The reflection from the glass hides how good this really looks. It certainly draws passers-by in to see what we have on offer.
newsXpress has been promoting Halloween in newsagencies since 2005. It is good to see others getting in on this fun and retail friendly season. I know of newsagents who will sell in excess of $10,000 of Halloween product – at excellent margins.
Newsagents can own Halloween. While the majors play, we can do better thanks to easy access to suppliers with good product and our ability to embrace the season in a more practical way than you will see in a Coles or Big W. I have seen newsagency staff and customers dress up. It’s about fun after all. The newsXpress posters make that point: Scary can be fun.
Halloween is a good break in the lead up to the craziness of Christmas.
The creative team at Tower Systems has developed another poster for use by newsagents in promoting crosswords. I like this one more than the artwork I published here two weeks ago as I think it will stand out well against the sea of colour in a newsagency. I also like how it represents the health benefits of crosswords.
Once we make any adjustments, based on feedback from publishing this here, I will make a PDF available for anyone to download and print locally.
We plan to use this poster in a front-of-store crossword display as well as on visual merchandising space adjacent to our main crossword display. The poster being timeless allows us to use it when we choose.
I wish publishers would work together and fund unbranded collateral promoting newsagencies for key magazine segments such as crosswords, crafts, food, motoring and travel. While they only want to promote their titles, a healthy segment overall is good for all publishers involved.
Tower invests in this artwork and other promotional activities for newsagents to help build a healthier newsagency channel.
The merchandiser for Australian Traveller created a display next to our travel section for the latest issue of the magazine. The proximity of the collateral to the product should help sell the title. This is an important point- too often collateral is displayed away from the title being promoted.
I am happy to promote Australian Traveller because of the bonus commission being paid to newsagents for this issue of 50%. The subsequent issues are worth 30% to newsagents – more than the usual 25%. These better than usual commission arrangements are exclusive to newsagents.
The cover price of Australian Traveller increased $1.00 with the latest issue, meaning the bonus commission is worth even more to us.
Cobwebs, severed arms, spiders, black cats, chains, witches hats, broomsticks, masks, fake blood and make up are selling already from the Halloween display at one of our newsagencies. Halloween is a fun season and we have found the best way to make it work is to wholeheartedly embrace it with fun products. The display in the photo is the more practical retail display. Elsewhere in the store we have a scary, theatrical, display. This is key to driving early sales.
We have been embracing Halloween for several years with good commercial success. This is something newsagents can do for themselves, without being told what to do by traditional suppliers. I have seen Halloween work in newsagencies of all sizes as well as in shopping centre and high street situations.
We are promoting calendars and magazines together as shown in the photo. Our team is locating calendars near magazines relevant to the calendar title. The photo shows some of our train calendar titles above our train magazines. This co-promotion runs the length of our magazine department.
While this may seem like an obvious move, many newsagencies I visit do not make the link between special interest synergies across product categories. Many, too, do not even source calendars other than those they receive from magazine distributors.
What we are doing is a good example of us chasing business for ourselves and using magazine traffic to leverage sales in another, yet related, product category. This will work in newsagencies of all sizes. People travel to get the calendars they want.
We are promoting Men’s Health from Pacific Magazines on on the display end between our men’s and women’s magazine aisles. This is a good location since this magazine is bought by men and women. It is also close to the display for Women’s Health and the two titles go well together – they are sometimes purchased together. We will leave the display up until at least next Monday – by then it will have been a week.
We are promoting the latest issue of Australian Women’s Weekly (out today) and the free Pink magazine which comes with AWW in several locations. The stand in the photo is at the entrance to the women’s magazine aisle. We also have it located next to our main counter as well as in its usual location.
The stand in the photo has marketing collateral for AWW and Pink on the back as well as the front.
We wanted to give Pink good coverage since the issue of breast cancer speaks is important to so many. To display them as we have, we removed them from each copy on display and turned Pink around so that it could be displayed without crushing the free moisturiser.
I’d encourage newsagents displaying AWW to ensure that the full cover is on display. A waterfall in traditional magazine fixturing does not do the cover justice and is very old school.
It is good to see ACP come out with collateral on the on sale day of the magazine.
Wedding season has gone well for us this year in terms of magazine sales. Across the segment, sales are up on last year.
We support the wedding opportunity by refreshing our magazine offer at least weekly, moving titles around to introduce new magazines to regular browsers of the area.
Early in the season, we co-located a selection of wedding titles next to Australian Women’s Weekly and this worked well for us in showing people who only shop the first metre of our main magazine aisle that we have more on offer. RRegulars here will know that we use this space next to AWW for a range of promotional opportunities.
Wedding magazines are efficient for newsagent. More customers buy more than one title in a purchase. This is why it is crucial to make the display area as appealing and easy to shop as possible.
In previous years we have promoted wedding magazines next to a wedding themed display in our card and gift department. we did not have the room available this year.
We are promoting the Grand Final edition of the AFL Record at the counter (and several other lcoations) this week. With two local teams in the Grand Final I’d expect this issue to sell well.
The only downside is the lack of collateral with which to promote this one-shot. We made our own. Investing in good collateral would have been a smart move by the AFL to grow interest in their game.
We are promoting the magazine launched to coincide with UP the movie. This is at our main sales counter for the weekend. I expect it to work well as an impulse purchase. Already this morning, a few minutes after putting up the display, we had our first sale.
Since we did not receive any collateral, we created the backing material ourselves – this is easily done with a colour photocopier.
New Idea gets the best seat in the house today thanks to the free Club chocolate bar which comes with each issue of the magazine. We expect this to be a popular promotion. To supplement the collateral supplied, we copied the cover ourselves to complete the display.
We will leave this display up until Wednesday. the plan at this stage is to replace it with Women’s health which has a free booklet with the issue on sale today.
We have built a weekend magazine offer at the front of our newsagency around Money magazine. The new Money for Jam TV show is a good reason to feature the title at the front of the shop. As the photo shows we are using the opportunity to promote property related titles. The column on the far left is a long shot – crossword titles. We track sales by pocket to add to our knowledge of what works and what does not work.
The display will be changed Monday.