Month: August 2007

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Zoo Weekly might be in trouble for offering cosmetic surgery (breast enhancement) as a prize in a competition.

Maybe this competition is a tipping point. I suspect that the folks at Emap knew what they were doing – especially that the prize would be controversial.

My feeling – based on no hard evidence – is that Zoo has plateaued. There are only so many people wanting to buy magazines featuring former big breasted reality TV contestants. The formula is, well, a formula and without significant change becomes stale.

So, the contest is a success because the SMH and others are writing about the title. I’ll see what happens sales wise.

Sorry about the headline for this post, the temptation was too great.

Scott, commenting on my post about Jeff Webster’s Fitting Out for Bay & Coastal Fishing magazine included a link showing a “Jeff” selling copies of the magazine on eBay. It’s a fair shot to try and find customers for what is a niche title.

It made me wonder, however, how the publisher could better engage with newsagents. Being a niche publisher does present difficulties.

One option would be to get together with related titles which consumers could be expected to purchase with your title. Either create a double pack (which newsagents and consumers don’t like that much) or invest some money into point of purchase packaging to enable two or three titles to be displayed in a high traffic area. This is what the big publishers do with regularity to find new readers. Most newsagents receiving a display pack put it out as requested – the first step to compliance is providing the materials necessary to achieve this.

I bet that putting Bay and Coastal Fishing into a display unit with, three or four related titles would generate a good sales kick. By providing this material, Jeff Webster and other smaller publishers would make it easier for newsagents to drive sales – plus there would be the benefit of a consistent in store display message.

Some magazine categories are a real challenge to locate and so get pushed from pillar to post. Gay related magazines fall into this category. They are often, unfairly, placed in the adult section. I had a customer ask today – because he could not find them in the adult section. When I showed him our small range he congratulated us by not putting them in the adult area. he has just moved from Sydney and has a story about a fight with his local newsagent when he asked that the gay magazines get moved from being mixed in with Picture, People and Zoo.

It amazes me what some people share when looking for they products they want.

We have been experimenting with different titles in this tiny space next to one of our lottery registers. The best performing title in this impulse space so far is Super Food Ideas. We sold five copies on the weekend from this location alone. Not bad considering that each was an impulse purchase. We achieved usual sales from the regular location of this magazine.

Other titles which have done well here include That’s Life, Take 5 and People’s Friend – think demographic and the anchor product of the space, being lotteries.

Passive up selling using space like this is hard work because it is another task to check daily. However, it is essential in this competitive marketplace.

In response to people who have asked to track how we promote magazines at the front of the shop, here is today’s pitch.

I will try and remember to post a photo of the changes we make on Wednesday.

While there is a risk in grabbing sales without driving people into the shop, we decided there is more to be made from impulse purchases from people leaving the centre (we are at an exit) who would otherwise not have purchased.

Sales of The Bulletin this week may offer an indication of the popularity of Maxine McKew, the Labor candidate for the Prime Minister’s seat of Bennelong. In my newsagency we will sell out. This is rare for The Bulletin.

While our base is low, selling out is a surprise – it demonstrates that there is interest in the Bennelong contest. The news coverage of the Bennelong battle would be helping too.

Covers are critical to sales of The Bulletin. It is not a destination purchase in many newsagencies. We certainly take the opportunity to display the full cover and not just the masthead.

This month’s Vogue magazine is a good example of why newsagents need to look at the best approach tom magazine display. The photo above is how Vogue is represented in traditional magazine fixturing. The top third of the cover is shown. While you can see the masthead, there is no view of the beauty of the cover.

Here is the cover in all its glory. Now I can see that the cover girl is Alice Burdeu, winner of Australia’s Next Top Model. The whole cover will sell more copied of this magazine than the top third.

Newsagents carrying more than 500 titles and their retail designers need to look at their magazine fixtures. This has happened in Europe and now is the time for Australia.

We need to demonstrate that we are magazine specialists with best practice magazine fixturing.

Drift Battle is sent to newsagents as a one-shot. That is, recycled product with no apparent history and no apparent future. A few weeks ago we received a stack of these, each looking different but sold as the one product. In the bags are old copies on the magazine. On these old copies are their old price labels. This confuses customer. Including our price label, we have four price points showing to customers!

These recycled Drift Battle packs take our magazine offering down market – many of the copies in my shop are not of merchantable quality.

This product ought to have failed a quality assurance inspection and therefore have never been sent to newsagents. I have decided to early return all stock because it does not meet our standards.