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A tiny & efficient magazine store (part 1)

Check out the tiny magazine store I spent time in yesterday on the upper west side of Manhattan.  Just over a metre wide, the walls, left and right, are lined with acrylic pockets holding magazines.  Most have only part of the cover displayed.

This shop holds close to 400 magazine titles. Seriously. Plus a reasonable range of tobacco products, bongs (!!), convenience items and allied lines. Every square inch of retail space is used and more.

The owner was happy to talk so we compared notes. I asked about the display and the challenge of not displaying the full customer. he said it did not hurt sales as most of his customers came in seeking out specific titles. While he carried high volume titles, he did not carry them in great numbers … just as supermarkets and convenience stores do not have the range this guy has.

He runs the business as a destination business and is doing okay.  Some purchase each issue of a title whole others shop based on available time for reading magazines on topics of their interest.

He stocks the business to meet his cost base and situation.  This is interesting as most newsagents do not reverse engineer their cost base to drive inventory range. In shopping centre situations this is more vital than ever.

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  1. Derek

    “He stocks the business to meet his cost base and situation. This is interesting as most newsagents do not reverse engineer their cost base to drive inventory range. In shopping centre situations this is more vital than ever.”

    Brilliant!

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