At the risk of upsetting publishers we have taken the two two pockets of waterfalls from three busy magazine titles permanently to display six other titles. We place the six titles based on colour and appropriateness for the women who mainly shop in this part of our newsagency.
Sales of Australian Women’s Weekly, New Idea and Women’s Day have not been affected. Sales of Money, Your Mortgage, Better Homes, Women’s Health, Burkes Backyard and Good Health are up thanks to more eyeballs seeing them.  We refresh the mix of titles weekly and often make decisions based on title covers – we want covers which draw attention of those looking at the main display.
For years newsagents have been told to full waterfall high volume weekly and monthly titles. By taking back the two two pockets we can lift other titles while not hurting the feature title. This is a win win isn’t it? certainly the basket data we’re looking at suggests our efforts are rewarded.
Newsagents are too regulated by some publishers and distributors and this stifles those of us who want to be entrepreneurial in chasing magazine sales. I appreciate it’s easy to call for freedom and harder to implement. I wish publishers would be more encouraging rather than chasing a common, lower, goal.