We are seeing a healthy start to the calendar season. Around two thirds of our range has been out (the photo shows only part of this) for a week and sales each day have been strong. Calendar shoppers at this time of the year and those who want to get calendars as gifts for themselves on specific subjects. Early calendar shoppers are wonderful, they happily pay full price.
My experience is that close to 35% of shoppers buying 2011 calendars at the moment are buying more than one calendar in a sale.
There is a direct correlation between calendar titles and the magazines sold in a newsagency. Using magazine data to order calendars is the best approach to achieve the best possible calendar sales.
Newsagents who have not ordered in calendars for this year have left it too late.
20% discount alraedy
by end of nov will be 50 % off
Eric, we don’t discount until January 1.
need them to move fast, space is $$$
It is not necessary to discount calendars before December 26th We have already sold 400 calendars this season at full price. A good offering equates to good sales. Magazine calendars this year are also very strong representing about 20% of sales,
with 20% discount, people buy 10 at least at a time 🙂
Eric, I agree space is $$$. However, selling at full price with close to 60% margin I am doing very well.
Eric, Do as you please. It’s your business but the general view is that discounting this early is counterproductive to the channel, creates greater expectation that prices will fall even further later and generally devalues the product in the consumers eyes. As I said, do what you wish but it is this sort of early discounting that only leads to greater discounting and less profitability. Geez, people buying “at least 10 at a time”. Incredible!
i discount 20% on all bartel calendars this year and found alittle success over last year, now i have people buying 10+ at a time for sending overseas and the envelope i charge them 80cents each. for hallmark calendars sell abit more than last year, but not as many as bartel calendars. i don’t really like selling calendars due to the space issue close to xmas period . anyway paddy’s markets selling 50% off already.
Eric, we discounted some years ago in response to Cardeaux discounting. Then I realised that their business attracted different customers to ours.
If your approach to discounting works that that’s great.
In the years since I stopped discounting unit sales have improved and margin banked has rocketed up.
OUR CALENDAR AND DIARY DISPLAY IS UP AND THERE HAS BEEN LITTLE RESPONSE FROM PEOPLE EXCEPT TO ASK WHERE WE HAVE PUT THE 2010 CALENDARS??
Mandy, Interest can vary from area to area. It is important to make sure that it is in a good traffic location, browser friendly and organised by subject.
The competition in our area discounted Bartel calendars a few years back.
Two things happened, 1/ we still sold out any way at full price so didn’t suffer, 2/ we changed to another supplier and now of thier product and more of it at twice the retail without discounting. This year I expect to increase sales by 50% over last year and will not discount until after Christmas.
As others have stated why on earth would you devalue your products by discounting them early. If I have tro discount it from day 1 I obviously have the wrong stock for my area.
Last year we discounted from boxing day, however we had so many people coming in to buy calendars throughout January who would have paid full price we are not going to discount until the end of January this season.