We have been experimenting with different titles in this tiny space next to one of our lottery registers. The best performing title in this impulse space so far is Super Food Ideas. We sold five copies on the weekend from this location alone. Not bad considering that each was an impulse purchase. We achieved usual sales from the regular location of this magazine.

Other titles which have done well here include That’s Life, Take 5 and People’s Friend – think demographic and the anchor product of the space, being lotteries.

Passive up selling using space like this is hard work because it is another task to check daily. However, it is essential in this competitive marketplace.

In response to people who have asked to track how we promote magazines at the front of the shop, here is today’s pitch.

I will try and remember to post a photo of the changes we make on Wednesday.

While there is a risk in grabbing sales without driving people into the shop, we decided there is more to be made from impulse purchases from people leaving the centre (we are at an exit) who would otherwise not have purchased.

Sales of The Bulletin this week may offer an indication of the popularity of Maxine McKew, the Labor candidate for the Prime Minister’s seat of Bennelong. In my newsagency we will sell out. This is rare for The Bulletin.

While our base is low, selling out is a surprise – it demonstrates that there is interest in the Bennelong contest. The news coverage of the Bennelong battle would be helping too.

Covers are critical to sales of The Bulletin. It is not a destination purchase in many newsagencies. We certainly take the opportunity to display the full cover and not just the masthead.

This month’s Vogue magazine is a good example of why newsagents need to look at the best approach tom magazine display. The photo above is how Vogue is represented in traditional magazine fixturing. The top third of the cover is shown. While you can see the masthead, there is no view of the beauty of the cover.

Here is the cover in all its glory. Now I can see that the cover girl is Alice Burdeu, winner of Australia’s Next Top Model. The whole cover will sell more copied of this magazine than the top third.

Newsagents carrying more than 500 titles and their retail designers need to look at their magazine fixtures. This has happened in Europe and now is the time for Australia.

We need to demonstrate that we are magazine specialists with best practice magazine fixturing.

Drift Battle is sent to newsagents as a one-shot. That is, recycled product with no apparent history and no apparent future. A few weeks ago we received a stack of these, each looking different but sold as the one product. In the bags are old copies on the magazine. On these old copies are their old price labels. This confuses customer. Including our price label, we have four price points showing to customers!

These recycled Drift Battle packs take our magazine offering down market – many of the copies in my shop are not of merchantable quality.

This product ought to have failed a quality assurance inspection and therefore have never been sent to newsagents. I have decided to early return all stock because it does not meet our standards.

Jeff Webster is probably a nice bloke. His Fitting Out for Bay & Coastal Fishing magazine demonstrates his passion for fishing. So, this post is not a crack at Jeff of his magazine as such.

I am losing money from Fitting Out for Bay & Coastal Fishing and cannot justify carrying it. My sales data proves that yet NDD sent me 3 copies yesterday and expect me to keep it on the shelves for six months. I might sell 1 copy and if I do and adhere to NDD’s request, I will have lost $18.52 supporting Jeff Webster’s business. This loss takes into account the cost of real-estate and labour for the title. It does not factor in the cost of cash given that I will have paid for the copies sitting on my shelf for months.

I’d expect that more than half the newsagents receiving this title are losing money by carrying it. While small publishers want newsagents to carry their niche titles, newsagents cannot afford to provide free billboard space. It is uneconomic.

An alternative model would be a marketing payment to newsagents for their billboard space coupled with delayed payment for the stock.

My newsagency is well satisfied with fishing related titles. I can afford to cut this one and have returned the stock to NDD with a request to not supply again. I should not have to ask this since the sales data held by NDD shows that supply of the title would lose money for my business. They have an obligation to not put me in this position.

The problem for newsagents is that there are hundreds of titles like Fitting Out for Bay & Coastal Fishing. The continues supply on such uneconomic terms is unconscionable.

Issue #2 of Emporium magazine – the house magazine promoting Myer stores – arrived today and it appears that the sales data we have provided the distributor, NDD, has counted for naught. We sold 3 copies of Issue #1. NDD gets sales data from us daily and while they have cut us from 25, the 17 supplied is way too many.

I would accept 8 copies and this is what we will ask for next time – but my question is why should I have to ask when state-of-the-art technology as designed by NDD ensures that know that 17 is gross oversupply. I’d call it unconscionable conduct as it continues serial abuse of the newsagent channel.