Coles has been running a discount on car magazines from ACP in its current catalogue in Melbourne. There on page 29 of the catalogue is the offer: shoppers can choose any two of Street machine, Wheels, TopGear Australia or Motor. It’s a good deal.
I can see that the deal is designed to drive sales of car magazines in Coles locations. I expect that ACP is funding the discount one way or another, but I could be wrong on that.
Maybe I am wrong but it feels to me that discounting, like in the Coles catalogue and the double packs, is on the increase. This will only serve to educate shoppers to expect to NOT pay full price for magazines. I don’t see that working for retailers unless there is sufficient incremental business or margin protection from suppliers.
Now some reading this might counter with the observation that the Magazine Club Card I have run since 2004 is the same thing. It is not. It is based on customers buying more magazines than they would usually purchase in a specified period – in my case it is 8 weeks. The reward for their loyalty is a discount, a free magazine.
Sure, the Coles offer is about getting people to purchase two titles. I feel that the barrier to getting the reward is too low.
Newsagents will need to find ways to compete with deals like this as I suspect that they will become more prevalent.
There is another coles promotion on at present with NSW Lotteries, “Win a $1,000 Coles Group & Myer Gift Card” Renew your Players Card or Join Players Club then you go in a draw for a $1,000 Coles/Myer Gift Card, drawn 8,15,22,29/6/2011.
As part of the deal with NSW Lotteries we are now forced to pomote Coles. Bloody Wonderful. The comments from an IGA with a lotto machine were unprintable. Does NSW Lotteries care about their own Agency Network or are they they goinin to get into bed with Coles and Woolies at their present Agents expense.
Peter
Heaven forbid the customer could win a $1000.00 to spend in thier local newsagency Peter.Pretty sure Golden Casket did the same promo here in QLD not that long ago……wasnt overly keen to promote that one.
I would be keen to see the data, what do we as a group sell vs what Coles and/or Woolies sell. I suspect we sell a lot more but we appear not to get access to the deals. One phone call from Coles and/or Woolies get things moving at the distributors/publishers. Its time we had that single point of contact, a Magazine channel executive, sorting issues on our behalf and arranging special deals and promotions as well as channel access and supply. Perhaps a small % of our fees could be used to pay this person, I for one would not mind at all.
Brett, don’t you already get the special deals being with newxpress ? i know ian the past i have called magazine companys up about different things and a number of times i have been told that it is newsxpress only . so how is this different ?