With the sale and distribution of newspapers and magazines deregulated consumers can find these products in all manner of stores across Australia. However, newsagents, the original retailers and distributors of these products, continue to be the only outlets actively promoting the product in store.
Here’s a list of current promotions in my own newsagency today:
TV Week 20th anniversary Neighbours display (aisle end) Maidson promotion (aisle end) Three new part works products (each a separate feature display) Herald Sun Monopoly display (separate in store display) Alpha promotion (separate in store display) Investigate magazine promotion (in situ display) Computer magazine feature (promotions areas display – a promotion we have created for ourselves to push computer magazine sales) Crossword magazine feature (in store display – a promotion we have created to push the segment) Care and Friendship Week – a card company promotion to boost card sales and encourage acknowledgement
This is all part of retail. We like it. It’s great to have the excitement of promotions. The challenge is to fulfill promotional obligations, maintain our own identity and create an integrated solution which leverages the whole rather than the parts.
Standing in my newsagency you’d be hard pressed to believe that magazine and newspaper publishing is challenged at present. But then all this activity is about keeping consumers interested.
It’s in stores like mine where the battle is really waged. Battles actually. For time. For money. Customers come in for a paper, a lottery ticket or a phone recharge and the challenge is to get them browsing so that they make the additional purchases. Hence the bright and bold in store promotional displays.
This is why newsagencies are important to newspaper and magazine publishers. We provide a retail presence second to none in Australia. And we do it for little cost.