A year ago I declared in this place that calendars are stuffed. Today I am writing to say that I was wrong. Well, sort of. Last year, we went big on calendars and encountered early discounting in our centre with a Calendar Club (from the Angus & Robertson group) outpost. This year, we have a more modest range and no Calendar Club outpost. Last year we had to discount from late October to be competitive. This year, we are still selling at full price. Revenue from calendars so far this year is up more than 25% on last year but with only 33% of the range. We will sell out and probably without discounting at all.
The calendar space we have not entered is the one taken by Australia Post from newsagents – the Steve Parish and similar scenery based calendars.
Learnings for us have been: choose your range carefully, don’t be greedy, display product with the consumer in mind and make an informed decision about whether to outpost or not. We have been fortunate to have access to Michelle Caia, the calendar category manager from newsXpress, who has guided us this season.
So, are calendars stuffed? Sort of. I know of some shopping centres where heavy discounting means no one is making any real money. This cannibalisation of what should be a strong category through Christmas is nuts.