Our decision to break with magazine layout guidelines and consolidate health magazines from a couple of locations into this new space next to food is working well. Browsing of the category is up as are sales. This is one of an anticipated eight to ten category location changes we will undertake this year.
Home and furnishing magazines have lost 15% of their space allocation as a result – their sales support such a reduction.
We know that half the battle with magazines is the browsing experience. Our approach is to focus on faster moving categories, provide an easy to navigate layout and support the category with logical adjacencies.
I know I complain here about the magazine supply model, particularly the extraordinary oversupply of fringe titles. For all that doom and gloom, magazines do provide fulfilling experiences such as with health.