Australian Newsagency Blog

We are promoting The Classic Australian Movie Collection partwork at the counter position usually reserved for magazines with a free gift. With this new partwork in its second on-sale week we wanted to attract as much interest into the weekend as possible. Also, we currently have no other title in-store with a giveaway which […]

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I am grateful to the Comag Marketing Group for publishing this memo from Wal-Mart which calls for magazine supply quantities to be based on store level sales in the interests of the environment. Wal-Mart is reinventing itself around a strong position on environmental and sustainability questions.
To: All National Distributors and Publishers
From Christy Jenkins
Subject: Magazine Bottom […]

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One challenge with the launch of Grazia this week is finding space in the tightly packed women’s weeklies magazine display. We have created a new column by trimming the top two pockets of full waterfall displays. While some publishers may not be happy, it will not affect the sale of their products.

We will […]

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The photo shows the current issue of Xbox360 magazine on the left and the previous issue on the right. Covering up the masthead in this way makes browsing harder. Magazine customers like consistency. An easily identifiable masthead is key to that.

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At our Frankston newsagency, Simon and the team have gone all out to launch Grazia.  They hired red carpet and created ssveral great displays.  Yesterday, all team members dressed formally.  Simon also created a fashion parade video which plays on a loop above the main Grazia display.  There is a small clip from the Grazia […]

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We have created a second display to promote the launch of Grazia at Forest Hill at our counter.  Unlike the display in my previous post, this display uses the colour materials provided by the publisher.  This counter position is the most successful and valuable magazine display space in our shop.  Last week, we increased sales […]

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We are promoting the launch of ACP Magazines’ Grazia in several locations at our newsXpress Forest Hill store today.  The feature is the main aisle end display:

While we received an excellent selection of posters and other materials, we went for a monochrome backrgound in an effort to make the product itself the hero.  We have […]

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For years the Australian Women’s Weekly cookbooks owned the cookbook segment in newsagencies.  Now, they account for half the sales thanks to other titles and magazines which satisfy the interest through special themed issues.  With retail space, especially in shopping centres, costing so much, we need to allocate space carefully.  We have not reviewed our […]

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Now that we have the local edition of Top Gear, the question is what do we do with the UK edition which is being airfreighted out? In my newsagencies we will carry both. Top Gear is a strong franchise and the UK magazine has a good following which will not be significantly hurt […]

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Take 5 and That’s Life look very similar this month. One customer I talked to yesterday was confused. Why do they make them look the same she said. I agree. The change in the That’s Life masthead to pink is odd. The customer I spoke with thought it was Take […]

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Our display for Gardening Australia at the counter is two days old and sales achieved from this point are four times what we would usually achieve in the first two on-sale days for this title.  I put the success down to a great cover and feature (on Peter Cundall) promoted in the right place for […]

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The latest issue of Vogue India is out today and I took the opportunity to check sales. While our allocation is small, Vogue India is a sell out - perfect in magazine performance. I see special interest tiles like this which leverage a strong masthead franchise as an excellent business opportunity for us. […]

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Computer magazines are morphing into entertainment equipment magazines, just as computers are becoming the hub of home entertainment content reception and management.
The current issues of PC User and APC would look more at home next to home entertainment titles - especially with headlines like Big Screen Bliss and Best HD TVs. I think this […]

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We are breaking with tradition in promoting the latest issue of Gardening Australia at our counter display space this week. Coverage of Peter Cundall’s farewell from the TV show behind the magazine is enough of a reason to give over this premium space we usually reserve for titles with a good free gift. […]

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It is great to receive additional stock of the launch issue of Top Gear Australia. Given that our main display space is now being used by other titles, we have situated the Top Gear stand next to the Herald Sun - ideal for the demographic.
I thought sales would be soft given that we have […]

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I walked past ACP Magazines’ Park Street office in Sydney and say the stunning display of LCD screens. All connected with content co-ordinated.  It reminded me how out of date we are in newsagencies with our paper magazine posters. Installing LCD screens is expensive once you factor in the appropriate software to manage content. […]

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The folks at Network Services played a joke on Victorian newsagents Friday sending out boxes of the NRL 2008 select album and card packs. Not only is the NRL season more than half over but this is Victoria! NRL products don’t sell down here. Yet we still received four boxes. My […]

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Douglas McIntyre, writing at 24/7 Wall St calls for BusinessWeek to ditch print for digital. Here are two key paragraphs from McIntyre’s article:
BusinessWeek has the opportunity to move completely to the internet and take out all of its circulation acquisition costs along with printing and distribution expenses. The publication would give up a […]

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The choice for our weekend counter promotion was easy yesterday – the Dolly beanie and scarf make for an ideal impulse offer.
Even though this issue of Dolly has been out for a couple of days, we are expecting the weekend to be very good for this counter promotion – especially since this is […]

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The geeks were out in force across Australia yesterday chasing down iPhones. I saw one line of at least 100 outside the Optus shop in Elsternwick at 7am.
We sought to tap into the heightened interest and placed the Macworld magazine in the pocket above the Herald Sun. The iPhone on the […]

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It’s great to see that Gordon and Gotch has switched to paperless magazine returns for newsagents who are EDI complaint. The time saving is welcome. Even better is the rapid confirmation of credit amount following receipt of the EDI returns paperwork. The Gotch process for verifying that a EDI newsagent is compliant is […]

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Gordon Ramsay is the brand of the moment and nowhere is this better illustrated than on the cover of the latest issue of the I.P.A. Review magazine.  I picked up the magazine curious as to why they would run recipes from Ramsay.  I should have known better.  The article the cover promotes takes a whack […]

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We are promoting Marie Claire at the counter this week. Even though the latest issue has been out a week and has sold well, the free Prevage anti-aging formula gift is the most compelling gift with a magazine this week.  We have enough stock to support the offer so using our premium counter position […]

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MediaPost reports that Auto magazines are struggling in the US with many reporting double digit declines. Year on year to June 30 2008, motoring title unit sales are down 4% at our Forest Hill location. I’d expect to see growth this financial year based in part of renewed interest in the category because […]

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Newsagents must take action on overseas crossword titles.  All three magazine distributors, Gotch, Network and NDD are supplying us with these titles.  Collectively, overseas crossword titles perform appallingly.   This performance is driven by having too many titles on offer.
Given that the distributors seem unable to resolve this problem, the only option is to tell […]

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