Month: January 2010

We are promoting Dolly magazine and the free beach towel in a display at the entrance to our main women’s magazine aisle and at the end of our dance floor (premium display space). I expect this location and display to work very well for us as most customers shopping with us will see the display and due to it being such a good offer.

What is not shown in the photo is the rear of the stand – it is also promoting Dolly. It’s the first time we have embraced both sides of the display stand to promote the one title.  We were able to do this thanks to the good range of collateral from ACP.

We plan to leave this display up for a week at this stage.

While displays like this are less likely to win best display awards, they are usually very successful because of location and ease of purchase.  Sales, after all, are what matter.

We are promoting Take 5 at the counter from today.  The free board game with each issue is a compelling offer and should drive good impulse business.  The Take 5 display replaced a Cleo display which worked well for us over the last two days.  Given the sales decay rate for Take 5 we will leave this display up until Friday.  We are not forgetting That’s Life since both magazines are most often purchased together – 65% of the time according to the basket data in our business.  We have a That’s Life counter unit near the Take 5 display.

We are promoting Men’s Health at the entrance to our men’s magazine aisle this week.

Our real promotion for the title will come later in the week when we pitch it with newspapers – it works very well there as I have noted here before. That space is committed for a few more days promoting The Phantom.

Juggling space is a challenge sometimes – hence our preparedness to move a display from one location to another when it becomes available – as weill do with Men’s Health.

Our display of health titles last week, while driving excellent browsing, did not generate the sales to justify the premium space. So, this week we have given the space at the front of the store back to weeklies and a couple of other titles. I expect we will see a good result from this move because it’s school holidays and more shoppers new to us are passing by than usual.  Weeklies always perform well in this space, especially early in the on-sale.  We will refresh the display on Wednesday to connect with That’s Life and Take 5.

This stand is passed by around 60% of our lottery customers.  It is also passed by everyone leaving the centre through the exit next to our shop.  hence the premium nature of the space.

We are promoting the latest issue of Cleo at the counter this week. The free dress packaged with the magazine is an excellent giveaway and certain to drive good business. We only received one poster so we created our own marketing collateral to help drive sales of this special deal. We will leave Cleo in the prime position and reassess on Wednesday.

We are promoting the latest issue of Time magazine in an acrylic unit which sits above The Age in our main newspaper stand. The image for the Haiti cover story is most compelling.  It is a good example of when we need to get the full cover of the magazine on show to drive sales – as awful as that sounds in this situation.

Check out how a retailer at Sydney airport yesterday was treating the collateral supplied by Pacific Magazines for the refreshed New Idea.  What is the point of displaying promotional material in a light box if you cover it with a spinner offering unrelated product?  New Idea was inside the store, away from the poster.

On the other side of the column is a light box with a poster for a novel.  It was not obstructed.   Novels were on a stand in front of the poster, not obstructing the view.

When we accept premium collateral we have an obligation to use it well and to ensure that shoppers can easily purchase the product being promoted.

Spinners are a pain in the neck in that they can be placed anywhere by people opening the business, they can be moved by customers, they can be knocked over and they can disrupt traffic flow.  But we like them because they make selecting a range easy and they are flexible in terms of where we can place them.

My own policy is that I’ll accept a small number of spinners with a view to removing them at the earliest opportunity.  Further, there are strict rules on where they are to be located.

What I saw at Sydney airport yesterday is not what I have seen from this retailer in the past.  Looking at the rest of the store, they appear to be cramming in more product.  Mthe spinner placement was part of a product density project.

We are promoting the 20th annual special of The Phantom (out today) next to our main newspaper stand.  While a true special interest title, I suspect that we will attract sales from people not shopping with us looking for The Phantom – hence the placement at the newspaper stand.  We will leave this in place for a week.

The Phantom is one of our most putaway titles so we know we have Phantom customers visiting us.