At the Magazine Publishers of America Awards this week, retailer Wegmans received an Award for cross department promotion. Here’s what the MPA press release says:
In the promotion/cross-merchandising category, Wegmans was the Best Practices Award recipient, for implementing and supporting creative cross-merchandising opportunities across various departments, and for having a definitive cross-merchandising and promotion calendar
It’s essential that we promote magazines outside the traditional magazine retail space in our stores. Likewise it’s critical we promote other products and services within the magazine space.
Wegmans is a great business – a wonderful place to shop. Their website gives an indication of how ahead of their game they are.
I’ve talked here before about the importance of co-location. It is a very effective way for newsagents to drive sales of weekly titles. We know from sales data that these are affected by a steep decay in many newsagencies. I see some stores where 70% of sales for New Idea and Woman’s Day occur on a Monday – making what you do for the titles the other six days of minimal relevance.
It’s good to see the US publishers association reward in-store promotion in such a specific way.